Goblin Squad Member
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GW has said that they will not allow characters to accumulate permanent undead minions. Even one static pet is questionable since, unlike druids and rangers, the wizard and priest classes will not be balanced assuming a pet. Things do look positive for undead as settlement staff, as harvesters, and as temporary in-combat summons that only last for a few rounds.
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Goblin Squad Member
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GW has said that they will not allow characters to accumulate permanent undead minions. Even one static pet is questionable since, unlike druids and rangers, the wizard and priest classes will not be balanced assuming a pet. Things do look positive for undead as settlement staff, as harvesters, and as temporary in-combat summons that only last for a few rounds.
So what about some Necromancy skills to simulate the raising/creating of these "undead" as units for settlement labors? No graphics are required, just like they will not be there for the living "workers" of a settlement or the "slaves".
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I gotta say, it'd be awesome to go by Golgotha's land and see zombies harvesting corn. All kindsa creepy.
EDIT: That is to say, if Goblinworks gets to the point that it's possible to show the undead, it'd be awesome.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I gotta say, it'd be awesome to go by Golgotha's land and see zombies harvesting corn. All kindsa creepy.
I'd rather they used skeletons for that sort of thing. Besides being disgusting, corpses rot because they're full of flesh-eating bacteria. Well-cleaned bones are also less likely to attract carrion-eating wildlife.
Hmm... as reptilians, are kobolds likely to eat carrion?
I will remind everyone that we did have a similar debate before. Perceived morals aside, there is definitive "good" and definitive "bad" (unlike real life) which is decided upon by the Gods (both as stated in the books and GW's interpretations/needs). Necromancy is "bad" and no matter what task it is used for, it will cause slide to "evil" simply because it is inherently "bad". Now you might be using them to save an orphanage, or growing needed crops after a large-scale devestating war, but the result is the same.
In those cases, considering you will be affecting "good" towards npcs and players it is possible that some of the direct results of what your undead do are mechanically-supported "good" in which case you will regain some "good". But whether you do or not, undead = evil so you will always drop some alignment.
Necromancy is not inherently bad in the pathfinder universe. The followers of Pharasma are Usually Neutral. Only Necromancers that force resurrect or enslave the dead should be considered evil. There are white necromancers who do no such thing. To quote a source on white necromancers:
" Most necromancers are foul, twisted individuals obsessed with corruption and death. A few, however, embrace the knowledge that true necromancy involves tapping the powers of life as well as those of death and unlife. These enlightened few are known as white necromancers.
Role: White necromancers are arcane spellcasters who study the mysterious connection between life and death. They do not walk the same evil path as traditional necromancers, or dark necromancers, as white necromancers call them. Instead, white necromancers honor the dead and seek to aid the living. They have a deep and profound understanding of life’s eternal cycle—the necromantic triad—which makes them potent healers as well as powerful spellcasters."
These necromancers ASK the dead for help and must pass a diplomacy check. Their EVIL necromancer spells lose the precursor EVIL. Alos they can channel neative and positive energy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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While I agree that's how it should be, with the evil going to the user and their actions rather than the tool they use, I think he's correct about spells with an alignment-descriptor like [Evil]. You didn't say where you pulled that quote from, but if it's relevant to Pathfinder, i'd like to see it.
Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are objective facts of reality within the cosmology of Golarion's universe. I think he's only half right on the reason why, though. The devs, as a sort of collective GM, do indeed hold a sort of meta-divine position in the sense that they create the world and define how it operates, including how it responds to one's actions. However, the in-world deities may exemplify alignments, but they don't define them. If Sarenrae starts commanding the torture of baby unicorns in her name, the act doesn't suddenly become Good, she starts to shift toward Evil.
While I agree that's how it should be, with the evil going to the user and their actions rather than the tool they use, I think he's correct about spells with an alignment-descriptor like [Evil]. You didn't say where you pulled that quote from, but if it's relevant to Pathfinder, i'd like to see it.
Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are objective facts of reality within the cosmology of Golarion's universe. I think he's only half right on the reason why, though. The devs, as a sort of collective GM, do indeed hold a sort of meta-divine position in the sense that they create the world and define how it operates, including how it responds to one's actions. However, the in-world deities may exemplify alignments, but they don't define them. If Sarenrae starts commanding the torture of baby unicorns in her name, the act doesn't suddenly become Good, she starts to shift toward Evil.
To Keovar:
You are right about that source as it is possibly player made around the concept of a white necromancer. However, followers and priests of pharasma are in essence "white" necromancers as they use all sorts of death oriented spells but do not summon the dead as it is seen as an abomination. This does hint that there is good necromancy and death magic and I feel it would be narrow minded to deem all necromancy and necromancers evil.
Here is an excerpt about pharasma's priests from the faiths of balance player companion.
"Phrasma's priests are clerics, spellcasters who specialize in divination, or "white necromancers" who study the magic of life and death but do not summon or control undead."
So there is your official pathfinder source on white necromancers who use death magic but do not summon or control undead.
On the whole objective alignment thing. I don't really care what developers, gods, or others say. I will always act in my own "moral" way. My highest moral authority in any world is me. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are just words.
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Goblin Squad Member
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When talking about necromancy in this thread, I think the general idea is the "animating dead bodies to fight for me" variety of necromancy; they're just using the word necromancy as shorthand because in most games it means the same thing.
You can act how you want, that doesn't mean your alignment will stay the same. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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On the whole objective alignment thing. I don't really care what developers, gods, or others say. I will always act in my own "moral" way. My highest moral authority in any world is me. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are just words.
They're just words that describe real patterns of behavior. If your actual behavior matches the patterns that we call Lawful then using that word to describe you is an accurate and useful description of important reality. If your actions match the pattern that we call Evil, then there will be real consequences- not because of the word, but because of the acts that made the word applicable.
On the whole objective alignment thing. I don't really care what developers, gods, or others say. I will always act in my own "moral" way. My highest moral authority in any world is me. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are just words.They're just words that describe real patterns of behavior. If your actual behavior matches the patterns that we call Lawful then using that word to describe you is an accurate and useful description of important reality. If your actions match the pattern that we call Evil, then there will be real consequences- not because of the word, but because of the acts that made the word applicable.
Yes I agree, but out of game I may disagree with their classifications of good and evil just like in game my character may disagree as well. That is all I am saying. I will hold to my subjective morality in and out of character and in and out of game. I will also deal with whatever consequences whatever forces force on me as well as losing access to whatever skills/abilities. I am just arguing for a less black and white definition of abilities so that characters aren't as limited. I would like to see some low fantasy elements as far as morality is concerned.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've been very vocal in the past, regarding my belief that non-sentient undead should be Neutrally aligned, just as if they were animated objects; and that creation of such should not always be an [Evil] act*, but that position has been repeatedly shot down by the rules designers and campaign developers.
They want there to be a reasonable expectation by PCs, that all undead are evil, and for there to be viable low-CR targets for abilities such as paladins' Smite.
There is a White Necromancer PC class, which acts as Bartuc proposes, but it's third-party material, by Kobold Press, and not canon for Golarion.
*the two being not necessarily the same thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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White Necromancers weren't the concern for mechanics. Who here is going to need to comune with the spirits? To what aim? GW would have to add entire content to support it, as there is no need. nobody dies, and if you need to talk to an NPC spirit for a quest, there are plenty of ways to get around it than making an entire class for it.
Again, undead are not the problem. it is the necromancy, as keovar says, the spells, that are the problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Again, There will be No undead in the Residential District or Plaza, they are an eyesore, keep them to the labor yards and back alleys, we of the Keepers do not have the resources set aside to decontaminate the entire area after your rot jockies take to the streets.
also a public service announcement
Have your Skeletons Bleached, or acid washed,
~Keeper Staff~
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Goblin Squad Member
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Glad to see the Keepers of Golgotha injecting some sanity into proceedings.
Keep it up.
(out of character, I don't know that GW will want any PC to be acting as a Minion Master, for the simple reason it would give that player effectively multiple characters for one account, or they would need to be run via AI, which could clog up the server. Non-persistent undead, which last as a spell effect for one or two encounters, seems much more likely.
This is nothing personal against necromancers; I don't think they'll want a druid herding 1000 giant gophers into town, either.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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If druids and other classes get a constant companion, the I think there should be a necromantic equivalent, as well as other 'pets' for other spellcasters. If they were to add feats which allow specialization, and one could be a conjurer, then elementals would work. A diviner might get some sort of invisible mental entity which provides boosts to some Int, Wis, & Cha skills and could be used for short range scouting, but wouldn't be a combatant.
A series of animate dead spells could be patterned after the summon monster series, but powered up a bit to make up for the fact that they're more vulnerable to cleric & paladin powers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most MMOs I have seen limit each character to one 'pet' at a time... presumably due to the game balance and server load issues which have been discussed. In TT, necromancers often have a crowd of low level undead (e.g. skeletons or zombies) to throw at enemies. That isn't going to work in an MMO.
The form of necromancy, and 'pet' use in general, we are most likely to see is a 'summoning' approach. Necromancer casts a spell... poof, an undead minion of power suitable to their 'level' appears. Druid uses a class power to call their animal companion... poof it appears. Paladin mount... same deal. All of these could likely be dismissable or would automatically disappear if the same characer used any other sort of 'summons'. Maybe they have a time limit on how long they stay around before needing to be re-summoned.
One trick I have seen some games do is to make the 'pet' only active during combat. When you are running around the map the 'pet' is 'off somewhere nearby doing its thing', but the moment combat starts the pet appears and can take part. This saves server load because you don't have thousands of extra animations running full time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's what I was saying. You'd have a single pet which is more powerful in strength rather than numbers, and it could remain available. Then as an in-combat spell you could use things like animate dead, summon monster, or summon nature's ally to get creatures which only stay for a few rounds (or until killed, since they're only cannon fodder).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do not agree with the premise that "if these roles get persistent pets, we should also add persistent pets for these other roles" (paraphrased from Keovar). Then it's just weird that the fighter or rogue doesn't get one, and they end up with some kind of sidekick/companion, and then there's nothing special about having a pet because every single character has one.
Ryan has stated that it isn't their goal to make all the classes "balanced" against one another perfectly. I believe this is because each class will have its specialized uses and situations where it shines. Just because (as an example, this might not be the case in game) a fighter will win a one-on-one duel with any other class doesn't mean everyone will play fighter, because characters that excel at one-on-one duels aren't really needed when you're looking for grunts in an army, or someone to scout, or for any other number of roles.
With that in mind, I don't think it's necessary to stretch other roles such as conjurer to give them a viable persistent companion. Having an undead minion or an animal companion is what people will play the necromancer or druid for, and as long as they are filling some specific niche the other roles don't need an equivalent.
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This is a little off-topic, but the Wizard class in Tabletop covers an awful lot of archetypes. I wonder whether Wizard as a whole in PfO is going to stay basically one role with small trees for the different specializations, or if the different schools of magic will eventually be made distinct from each other with their own skill progression trees and such (moreso than, say, different weapon trees for fighter). I'd really like to see unique abilities for the different schools of magic; structural repair for transmuters and tracking for diviners come to mind as examples.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan has stated that it isn't their goal to make all the classes "balanced" against one another perfectly. I believe this is because each class will have its specialized uses and situations where it shines.
As I understand it, there won't be 'classes', as the tabletop game currently understands it. Every PC will have the option to train in all specific skills.
There may still be some restrictions on skill use, such as arcane magic being disrupted by armour, which will tend to steer players toward building common 'robed wizard' archetypes, but we've already been told that some classes will need to be emulated via your choice of skills.