Goblin Squad Member
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I'm sure there will e bappropriate skills for raising the dead and getting undead minions to defend you. Also perfectly reasonable that you train your herbalist/alchemy skills to make and sell potions.
Are you aware of the 'heinous' flag? Raising the dead is considered evil and heinous in PFO, and will flag you as such. Best make sure the people around you are trustworthy, lest they slip a dagger between your ribs one dark night :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is also the point to consider that PFO/GW will favor economic interaction over self-sufficiency: they want players to contract with other players to be guards rather than keeping all the money to yourself by allowing you to raise an army of undead as your guards. Not sure how that will work. It is completely understandable to wish to be independent and self-sufficient, but...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, be aware that undead minions are classified as "pets". There have been many many pages of discussion on pets, druids, and necromancers, but the gist is that Ryan is against pets with a significant combat presence except maybe for druids, and the chances are very good that the pet system will not be in place until well after early enrollment begins.
That said, there is such a huge demand for undead raising necromancers that I think they will be in the game eventually. But don't expect them to allow you to function as a one-man army the way they can in the PnP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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well from the original description in the post, it sounds like he took into account the objections
the undead would be quite weak (old bone not so strong) but it would be a nicety as a "psychological" defense against groups of bandit PCs or raiders. just my little idea i have as a character for when the game comes out.
Personally I myself am not entirely opposed to the concept of undeads having notable combat capabilities, IF and only IF,
1. It takes significant time and cost to develop, and produce noteworthy undeads.2. The undead themselves when destroyed, take the full work/time to recreate and get back into the mix.
IE hiding behind undead is a very costly, laberous task filled with lots of risk, when it pays off the payout could be great, or a pack of paladins could discover what you are up to, and slaughter your horde before you get off the ground, but the important thing is, it is not a permanent "OK I spent 2 years to have an undead horde that can go toe to toe with the average party, I have permanently earned my right to be a 1 man party.
In my opinion there are 2 things that are quite often wrongly equated.
1. Reaching a point in power which puts you on a separate league from anyone without said ability permanently.
2. Having a tentative hold on something which puts you into a seperate league to those who do not have access to such, and in a form that any time you actually intend on using such power, you must risk losing said capabilities which will drop you right back onto the same page as everyone else (possibly lower considering the time you lost working towards the temporary advantage).
In my opinion equating the 2 is like in D&D 3.5 terms, the difference between the 2 things.
1. The cleric's divine power spell, which essentially gives a cleric the base attack, HP and stregnth of a fighter, assuming he uses his first round of the match casting the spell, and only has the spell slots to likely use this 2 fights a day if he doesn't want to also waste many of his other good spells.
2. The clerics divine power spell, using the cheese that is the divine metamagic, + nightsticks + persistent spell, to allow the cleric to use a single casting of Divine power, first thing in the morning, and have all those bonuses for the entire day.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A system was proposed for necromancy & pets that would have satisfied the concerns previously raised by GW about OP characters but people were far more interested in b$$$&ing and whining about the Heinous flag then actually discussion anything that might have been of real benefit to the future of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A system was proposed for necromancy & pets that would have satisfied the concerns previously raised by GW about OP characters but people were far more interested in b~#*+ing and whining about the Heinous flag then actually discussion anything that might have been of real benefit to the future of the game.
If so then may I recommend presenting your thoughts while avoiding the known causes of conversational inflammation? Possibly the community might be able to focus on the issues you see as important.
I have not mulled it over adequately to offer anything else constructive, but perhaps you have?
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Goblin Squad Member
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A system was proposed for necromancy & pets that would have satisfied the concerns previously raised by GW about OP characters but people were far more interested in b~#*+ing and whining about the Heinous flag then actually discussion anything that might have been of real benefit to the future of the game.If so then may I recommend presenting your thoughts while avoiding the known causes of conversational inflammation? Possibly the community might be able to focus on the issues you see as important.
I have not mulled it over adequately to offer anything else constructive, but perhaps you have?
Good point Sir Being. This board could definately be better served if discussion were not approached in an angry manner. I am new here but I see it everywhere. Heck, some of my first posts where agressive too, but I came to see that it is counter-productive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Heck, some of my first posts where agressive too...
I was quite guilty of that myself, and am probably not completely above it even now. It's a tempting trap. I'm glad we have plenty of examples of better ways to model our own behavior on. That post from Being is a stellar example.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So if we are able to make undead, I feel that is should be limited to a ritual instead on the fly casting, with this stated I would like to have the druid and ranger animal companions take time to train and get on a friendship level of some sort. I would like it it more than just feeding it meat every few hours and then a week later it being in love with you. but anyways back to the undead, what would the limit be for how many a person would be able to control or have raised at one time? Maybe having it equal to your charater lvl? Could you store them somewhere like people would store horse? Thoughts?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not to divert the conversation, but in the matter of druid and ranger pets the text MUD Dragonrealms had a very nice system for Ranger pets (initially limited to raccoons that began as cubs that had to be coaxed into accepting an ear of corn in the wild). If the ranger did not play with his cub and feed it regularly it would leave him, and he would have to start over again. As it was usually a fairly long and quite perilous journey to reach the site where racoon cubs could be found and coaxed it certainly did become a meaningful part of the Ranger's day to care for his raccoon pet.
Now how that might parlay into the care and, uh, whatever for moldering skellies and rotted zombies I haven't the first clue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In order to be balanced, I think "Raise Dead" (and Summon spells) should not exist as spells, but as a trainable ability to go in a class slot that would allow you to have one undead companion that improves with level similar to a druid animal companion.
This isn't a half bad idea.
Edit: Also, I think you meant Animate Dead. =P
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Goblin Squad Member
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In order to be balanced, I think "Raise Dead" (and Summon spells) should not exist as spells, but as a trainable ability to go in a class slot that would allow you to have one undead companion that improves with level similar to a druid animal companion.
That gave me kinda of a good idea, I'm not sure if any game or person has thought of this but when you make the undead if you could modify it with different bones or scraps of different creatures to it give it bonus or raised stats of course keeping to power tied to your level. It could kinda of be like a subcrafting thing, I feel like it would make people want to go out and kill different monster to experment and find out what would work best for you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is "heal undead" or somesuch in PFRPG isn't there? I do like Zosex's idea but even before that I like the idea of "craft undead" and also a system for maintenace to repair undead. Especially if an undead "pet" were to scale in power as the player did.
Any source of negative energy damage heals undead. Inflict X spells, Harm, and a cleric's negative energy channeling all heal undead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In order to be balanced, I think "Raise Dead" (and Summon spells) should not exist as spells, but as a trainable ability to go in a class slot that would allow you to have one undead companion that improves with level similar to a druid animal companion.
I understand why this is the "industry standard" because it is more balanced. However, I find it extremely lacking when compared to the the core idea of a Necromancer in fantasy literature.
I would like to see a Necromancer be able to build an entire Army of Undead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In order to be balanced, I think "Raise Dead" (and Summon spells) should not exist as spells, but as a trainable ability to go in a class slot that would allow you to have one undead companion that improves with level similar to a druid animal companion.I understand why this is the "industry standard" because it is more balanced. However, I find it extremely lacking when compared to the the core idea of a Necromancer in fantasy literature.
I would like to see a Necromancer be able to build an entire Army of Undead.
If this were a single player game, I would agree. But for a multiplayer game where social interaction is key, having one player able to create their own personal army is against the design goals. Druids are actually worse than Necros in this regard, because they have a permanent companion in addition to being able to summon an army of beasts, treants, and massive swarms of bugs to engulf enemies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In order to be balanced, I think "Raise Dead" (and Summon spells) should not exist as spells, but as a trainable ability to go in a class slot that would allow you to have one undead companion that improves with level similar to a druid animal companion.I understand why this is the "industry standard" because it is more balanced. However, I find it extremely lacking when compared to the the core idea of a Necromancer in fantasy literature.
I would like to see a Necromancer be able to build an entire Army of Undead.
I like the idea of being able to use a large group of undead to run some kinds of harvesting operations, or maybe as the NPC guards in a settlement. Effectively, replace the normal NPCs with undead for a reduced upkeep, at the cost of carrying the heinous flag. I'm not really a fan of the idea of a single PC being able to field an army by himself.
Basically, the heinous flag is a voluntary PVP flag for necromancers (among other things). Any bonuses you get from the activities that earn the heinous flag should be comparable to the bonuses from the other PVP flags.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If this were a single player game, I would agree. But for a multiplayer game where social interaction is key, having one player able to create their own personal army is against the design goals. Druids are actually worse than Necros in this regard, because they have a permanent companion in addition to being able to summon an army of beasts, treants, and massive swarms of bugs to engulf enemies.
I agree in the simplest form, but there are ways that I could see such working. The necromancer does not have to do such a concept alone. Ryan has mentioned ideas that are not off the table of similar vein.
There has been talk of befriending enemy encampment monsters etc... and using them to attack your enemies, there is also statements like
We want to enable characters in armies to devastate characters not in armies - but only when the soldiers comply with some very stringent conditions.
And most importantly we want groups of characters acting in a coordinated fashion to be superior to individual characters who do not.
In that context, let's talk about the dragon thing.
Getting a dragon into a combat should be heck of a lot of work, and not something that a single character could likely accomplish. One path might be finding a dragon's lair, capturing a dragon egg, building a dragon egg hatching structure, bringing the egg through to hatching, keeping a baby dragon alive, learning how to train that dragon, bonding that dragon with one or more characters, keeping a juvenile dragon alive, learning how to train the dragon with combat-useful abilities, keeping an adult dragon alive, getting the dragon into a combat zone, and directing it successfully amidst the chaos and confusion of a battlefield.
That might represent months or years of effort by dozens of people. Having exerted that effort, the reward would be a pretty damn effective weapon system. The reward is that you're using a dragon to fight your foes, who may not be able to defend themselves against such a threat - in which case the proper response is likely die (to delay and advance or cover a retreat) or flee.
If your opponents are fielding dragons, you better be prepared to respond in kind or to have developed similarly powerful tactics.
In this context it's totally OK for one side to just utterly dominate the other, regardless of the size of the forces.
This is the kind of resource, time, and knowledge intensive stuff that makes sandbox games so much more interesting than theme parks.
Pretty much everything on dragons, could apply to an army of the damned. Assuming you are talking a rather significant group busting their tail for a long time, for a temporary advantage (I would greatly oppose this idea if the dragon, or army of the damned, were a permanent advantage for the group that creates it, IMO they must be kill-able.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree in the simplest form, but there are ways that I could see such working. The necromancer does not have to do such a concept alone. Ryan has mentioned ideas that are not off the table of similar vein.
There has been talk of befriending enemy encampment monsters etc... and using them to attack your enemies, there is also statements like ...
I am all for that, but Befriending undead in a monster hex is a very different concept than being able to create undead. If you can create an undead army, then you can just go an create another one you you do get killed bay a group binding together to end your menace. A undead horde in a monster hex though, once it's gone, it's gone. But all of those things are not the standard method of using simple spells and class features to create undead.. Those are what need to be balanced since they are part of your character instead of an npc that you have trained.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am all for that, but Befriending undead in a monster hex is a very different concept than being able to create undead. If you can create an undead army, then you can just go an create another one you you do get killed bay a group binding together to end your menace. A undead horde in a monster hex though, once it's gone, it's gone. But all of those things are not the standard method of using simple spells and class features to create undead.. Those are what need to be balanced since they are part of your character instead of an npc that you have trained.
I agree in the simplest form, but there are ways that I could see such working. The necromancer does not have to do such a concept alone. Ryan has mentioned ideas that are not off the table of similar vein.
There has been talk of befriending enemy encampment monsters etc... and using them to attack your enemies, there is also statements like ...
Well yes, if done as a poof I have an army of undead, that is very wrong. Just as if crafting in PFO is I have the gold Poof here's the item, is wrong. Even in pathfinder tabletop rules, create undead while a class feature, you need an onyx gem worth 50*CreationsHD. My PFO expectations do not begin with the assumption that the material components will be limited to these and they will be available at your local jewelry store. It could take a full crafting chain involving rare materials from uncommon beasts to obtain an onyx, and additional components could be added etc...
Yes with the preconcieved notion that it is, "OK I sit in my lair for a day, casting create undead as often as my refreshes will allow me to, I'll have an army tomorrow, if the army happens to lose, I return to my lair for another day and repeat the process", then undead armies are a horrible idea.
If it takes hundreds of man hours, needs lots of assistance, some luck to find the right things, as well as difficulty in obtaining those things (IE they aren't going to be on the open market because you cannot risk people discovering what you are buying), then there is all kinds of potential
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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I'd be happy (very happy) with an undead army as analagous to a dragon in Ryan's example above.
I'd also be happy with high level necromancers being able to increase their settlement's Development Indexes by summoning skeletal field-hands and zombie blacksmiths. In fact, I think this, alongside slavery, is an important reason why chaotic evil settlements need some balancing drawbacks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Can pets be sold? How much would a skellie go for on the open market?
And if so, would I get the Heinous flag for purchasing one?
For undead, it's likely to just be the time it takes to summon the undead (maybe plus a little bit if the summoning time is really quick). By the time you can be like, "What? THESE undead, Mr. Paladin? I got these as a bequest from my grandfather. A terrible act, of course, but it seems like wasting them would be an even greater crime!" then the opponent is on shakier moral ground.
The "bequest from my grandfather" line sounds like some undead at least may be transferable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In my mind? Ideally, raising the Undead requires that the Necromancer/Dark Cleric in question first A) Has a body to Raise and B) has the necessar components, which should not be a quick hops-step-jump from the market.
Such elements should be available for purchase from certain NPCs, of course, but if you see one or two people buying up all the items necessary to raise the dead, obviously the Powers-That-Be in that Hex are going to get somewhat twitchy.
You can only control X-amount of Undead per level, and stronger forms of Undead require more magical resources to not only animate/raise, but most importantly, to keep under your control!
Let's say there's a Necromancy Badge. First badge allows you to control 1 or 2 Skeletons or a single Zombie, so long as A) they are 'lower level' than you and don't have higher hit-points than you.
Eventually, though running around with your Skeletons/Zombie at your back, clawing/slamming things for you, you get the 2nd Necromancy badge, which doubles the number of Skeletons/Zombies you can raise, allows you to raise equal-level creatures and hand-waves the hit-point rule. Now, with this badge, you can keep fielding a force of individually weak Undead, or you can go Quality over Quantity and seek out powerful opponents to raise into something truly deadly, and most importantly, under your control!
Third Badge comes along, you keep your 4 skeletons limit (purely for game-play mechanics, but the Skeletons also get even more deadly as a trade-off), get a 4 zombie limit, You can now 'Raise' creatures higher level than you and grants them additional health and defensive/offensive options, such as tougher bones/hardened skin, etc etc. You've gone from a couple of disease-ridden Bandits to a team of Skeletons to now a Hydra or maybe even a powerful NPC that you've slain and raised.
The badges keep increasing the power and versatility of the Undead, and we'll leave that there for now.
What I'm looking at in 'cost' area is that it will require specific components that are rarely, if ever, used by other spell-casting schools or crafting professions. So if you're buying this stuff ... somebody is gonna twig that the grave-robber is you!
Also, the Zombie/Skeleton never 'fades' away so long as you're keeping them in your 'stable' of Undead minions. So unless they are physically destroyed, you've got your pets forever. So it could be entirely possible for the Necromancer to just pile her unwanted Undead into a room, lock the door and when she needs new corpses, rather than having to go out and hunt down/make corpses, she's got a vault full of uncontrolled Deaders to pick from.
And there's no rule that the Necromancer 'has' to keep control of their minions.
Need to distract the Village Heroes while the rest of Team Dark sneaks in from the other side to recover your Blackguard Commander? Have the Necromancers cast 'Hide from Undead' on themselves and start their rituals, raising peasants and wild animals and you-name-it, the villagers will freak out, the 'heroes' go charging out, chop up the fodder while the Necromancers high-tail it outta there, and bang, you've got your distraction to sneak into the prison, kill the guards, recover your commander and get the hell out of dodge.
Skeletons should be fragile but high-damage minions, able to move and make full attacks with no problem, while Zombies should be incredibly durable but slow, able to move or attack, not both, and possess some of the more important traits that their living versions do.
So a Necromancer comes across a Young Red Dragon corpse, and after recovering from her joy-gasm, orders her current minions to drag the remains ack to her lair and stores them until she can get the number of components required to cast the ritual.
She will have to let her existing Undead go to be able to raise and control said dragon, so she takes them to a distance part of the Hex, runs away and 'releases' her control on them. Bam, instant mobs for other Players to have fun with.
Upon returning to the lair with the right number of components and reagents, she decides to raise the Dragon as a Skeleton. With all those natural attacks, the Dragon Skeleton will be a hard-hitting whirlwind on the battlefield, able to strike multiple opponents at once, but it's armor-class will go down and it's not going to be the toughest thing on the battlefield.
Alternatively, if she felt the need to protect herself, raising the Dragon as a Zombie would mean it can only move or attack, not both, but it's easily as durable as it was alive, retains it's armor class plus whatever perks her Necromancy Badges give it, and also retains any elemental immunities or resistances it might have had in life.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see a Necromancer be able to build an entire Army of Undead.
You may get your wish - but with a lot of conditions. The key thing being that necros should have variant game options (replacing living NPCs with undead) but not have totally unique options (raising armies if others cannot raise npc armies).
My reasoning why I still expect to see undead armies:
1- (fact) settlements have alignments.
2- (fact) skill training -including necromancy- will generally happen in player-buildt buildings
3- (fact) settlements will have NPC defenders
4- (assumption) it was hinted that high level buildings like temples would come with powerful guardians.
-> (hypothesis). Building higher-tier necromancy buildings should allow the settlement to have undead NPC guardians, and could even allow "upgrading" standard NPC defenders to undead. Summoning the undead guardians to defend may still be regarded heinous, but you're at war anyway.
viola, undead armies. But very likely only for settlement defense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(cleverly breaking wall of text into two posts)
IMO the governing principle for undead (and slaves) should be that undead (and slaves) provide alternative ways of doing npc jobs.
ie. if you can hire npc guards, you can summon undead guards
ie. since mines and lumber mills are powered by npc workers, they can be powered by undead (or slaves).
ie. since settlements are protected and patrolled by npc guards, they could be protected by undead.
Using undead/slaves will have different costs and rules. A tiny necromancer settlement might run unlimted farms and mines without manpower or food constraints - but may require a specific (evil) building [so that assassinating the 'Chief Operating Necromancer' may cripple the whole settlement].
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMO the governing principle for undead (and slaves) should be that undead (and slaves) provide alternative ways of doing npc jobs.
This seems to be in line with Ryan's assertion that "If Players can do it, then only Players should be able to do it", which I took to mean that he didn't ever want NPCs replacing Players in any parts of the game. I think that's probably a good principle.
In order to be balanced, I think "Raise Dead" (and Summon spells) should not exist as spells, but as a trainable ability to go in a class slot that would allow you to have one undead companion that improves with level similar to a druid animal companion.
One of the major problems of combat-capable pets is that it provides the owner several advantages over anyone without one -- unless the pet is so weak that it's a waste of resources to use one.
For starters, action economy. A pet that whips wands is strictly better than not having one. For example.
For seconds, hit points. If the pet is easily ignored, then opponents can simply target the owner and kill him more easily than a non-pet user who didn't allocate resources to have a pet out. If the pet is dangerous, then an opponent is faced with the decision of whether to kill the pet first while being beat on by the owner. If the two are roughly equally dangerous, you still have an advantage because opponents' crowd control and countermeasures still have limited targetting. This is related to the action economy argument but from "the other" viewpoint.
So pets increase the owner's effective HP if the pet is dangerous, and provide little in exchange for their cost if they aren't. Except for the last case, pets are overpowering for the owners relative to anyone who doesn't have one, and in the last remaining case, they're a trap option for the owner.
I.e., there are no good outcomes for giving some players combat-capable pets no matter which point of view you're using.
For thirds, the opportunity costs involved in using a pet. You have to equip it, and this cost complicates the balance of your character even more. This is strategic opportunity cost. You also have to issue it separate commands or else take into account the whims of an AI. This would be the tactical opportunity cost.
For the same reasons Leadership is a horrible game design option at the tabletop, combat pets are toxic in multiplayer games, especially competition-driven MMOs. The Leadership Feat does have a purpose at the tabletop where your particular table may happen to have too few players to really work well; and DMs are encouraged to think creatively to enable a party of two (or one...) players. In an MMO, there is no such excuse.
For fourths, how do you allocate the abilities and powers of the duo between owner and pet? If you strictly add abilities on top of the owner's baseline, then you result in a combination of entities with more power than any non-pet'd player. If you divide a total character's abilities between the two in some manner, then the owner -- the player -- feels as though he is much less invested in his character and is instead, in some sense, more of a "general". It breaks immersion, I guess you could say, by making the player feel as though both pet and owner entities are merely parts of an avatar which only exists in his head.
Pets are bad for MMOs. Why not just give the Necromancer the same number and power of abilities as anyone else, and skip the unnecessary complication? It's a matter of cost vs. benefit as far as everyone is concerned. The devs. The other players. Only those who are emotionally invested into the concept of raising undead minions are annoyed -- and that's a price that the devs would be fools to not pay because such people are 1. a minority and 2. seeking a purely subjective experience. It's not worth pissing off every other player to please the few.
So if the subjective experience is so important to such people, they are well advised to seek elsewhere.
Good point Sir Being. This board could definately be better served if discussion were not approached in an angry manner. I am new here but I see it everywhere. Heck, some of my first posts where agressive too, but I came to see that it is counter-productive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... there are no good outcomes for giving some players combat-capable pets no matter which point of view you're using.
I remain convinced that this is only an issue in games that aim to have perfect balance between the classes. I hold out hope that PFO doesn't bother trying to balance 1v1 PvP, and allows players to do things like specialize in Divination :)
... there are no good outcomes for giving some players combat-capable pets no matter which point of view you're using.I remain convinced that this is only an issue in games that aim to have perfect balance between the classes. I hold out hope that PFO doesn't bother trying to balance 1v1 PvP, and allows players to do things like specialize in Divination :)
I would be with you if I knew I wouldn't ever be forced to defend myself against some random min-maxed assassin every day.
But then again, I remember the decade-long screeching of anti-caster hate we all have had to suffer with because the poor defenseless little Fighters suddenly had to contend with Wizards they couldn't one-shot in 3.5 anymore...
Class balance is still probably for the best overall even if it does lead to stale, boring gameplay.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dunno, having classes with pets sounds fun to me, but the very presence of the 'Pet' also should come with a cost, and not just in that having a pet means you have fewer and/or weaker abilities than a 'solo' character.
Animal pets require food, care, stabling or kennels, and the more exotic pets might not be allowed within a town, or even within a hundred meters of it. So you have to leave it somewhere safe, and that in itself might be dangerous, random players might see the Golden Dire-Wolf you've hand-raised for the past eleven months and think "Wow, I'd love a gold wolf-fur coat!" and not even realise that it's another player's pride and joy.
Magical 'Pets', such as Summons, Charmed/Dominated NPCs and Undead have a plethora of their own challenges.
Undead, at this stage, not only flag you with the 'Heinous' flag, which means every man and his dog is free to shank you without consequences, but if your control slips just once ... you're on the menu. And you're exceedingly vulnerable to those pesky Clerics and Paladins and general folks with access to a lot of fire!
Charmed/Dominated NPCs have the benefit of being relatively cheap and free, but a Charmed NPC is your 'friend', and is not likely to go on a suicide run just so you can pick that rare herb right next to the Goblin Fortress's main gate.
Dominated NPCs tend to be somewhat slower and addled, so while utterly loyal, also tend to be slow to react and adapt to changing tactics.
And of course, one Dispel or Break Charm ... you now have additional enemies wanting to rip you open!
Summoned Demons/Celestials/Fiends/Elementals/ETC tend to be rather useful in that even if they 'die', they can just be replaced later, or in the case of the more caring Summoner, dismissed just before the final blow.
Of course, there's the old Dismissal Spell to watch out for, the Demons/Celestials/Fiends all have their own agendas which might not mesh well with your own, and there's got to be some kind of magical overhead to casting the spell.
And of course, costly research to learn how to summon those specific entities, plus expensive ritual components required to summon them each and every time, plus that if you keep losing Summons, the relevant 'Race' you're calling upon might turn around and deny each and every attempt to call more of them until you make amends.
Well, if there is a limit to city/wilderness population and a necromancer can only create undead minions from the deceased, then I wouldn't say it's overpowered. A necromancer has to gather enough remains to form an undead army, so it will take time and some luck (or risk). It'll take more developing resource though to create undead counterpart of the living creatures.