Necromancy Suggestions!

[illuminaughty]

I had a few suggestions for a few necromancy spells/abilities

Animate dead: It seems like the corpse I can summon is pretty good, except that it has weapon focus longsword, and well.. no sword. To make matters worse, I'm not sure it has a creature weapon at all, because it always draws attacks of opportunity when it attacks (getting it killed pretty quick). I would suggest maybe allowing the player to give it a weapon some how, having it spawn with a weapon (creature weapon, or some other sort, i.e a sword) or giving it improved unarmed strike.

I did notice the animate dead I used today, seemed a lot better than the one I was using yesterday, so there might have been a change over that addressed the issue of the zombie sucking really bad, but this might have been overlooked.

Contagion: This is a 4th level wizard spell and it is absolutely worthless. After casting the spell, which includes a touch attack, the victim gets a save vs incubation. After that, another hour IG is required before a save is called for. That's 27 minutes at least, with no effect. Once the save is called for, the subject must pass a ridiculously low fortitude DC that is as low as 12 and as high as 16 or take minuscule stat damage. Usually 1d4 to a particular stat depending on what disease the victim was afflicted with. With the abundance of disease resistance items and the ease with which these diseases are removed, having this spell rely on long term effects seems to make it completely ineffectual. I would suggest something more along the lines of instant incubation and maybe 1d10 stat damage, like str or con (or str and con). Keep in mind, diseases only affect a limited number of creatures and 4th level spells do other things like, oh .. instantly kill people. I think also making the disease incurable without magical means would also be acceptable.

Create Undead: I found an item that cast this at 11th level, it spat out a ghoul. A fairly weak ghoul. Perhaps these summons could also be looked at, although it will be a fair while before anyone is capable of casting this or even containing the creature that it summons.

[Hammerfist0]

Well, Contagion should maybe get a boost for clerics of Talona, and I would recommend palemasters and wizards getting some customization options on their undead.

But the brute spells alone are already powerful enough.

(Create undead has some cool features to it, RP wise, Just need some checking)

[illuminaughty]

Hammerfist, the problem is that no one under any circumstances would bother casting the spell, ever. It's horribly ineffectual. In that case, which has been the case with other spells that have been modified, it should be made as a viable choice for a 4th level spell for anyone, which it currently is not.

[Hammerfist0]

Casting animate dead on a corpse animates it.

But anyway, my issue with buffing it is that Palemasters and Clerics are the only ones who will likely be casting it at this point (See many, many of my previous, outspoken rants), and neither of them need any further power.

[illuminaughty]

I was talking about Contagion, and actually no, currently animate dead does not animate corpses. It is disabled.

[Howlando]

Contagion definitely could use a change. More specific suggestions for implementation would be great.

[Relinquish]

Contagion
On casting fort save for d4 str and d2 con damage.

One round later -2 ab and skills

Third round another fort save, if saved the -2 ab and skill go away, but the stat damage stays. If failed d4 dex damage.

Fourth round fort save, if saved consecutively with the last save the str damage goes away, if second consecutive fail 20% speed decrease, if first save the -2 ab and skills are removed.

[Hammerfist0]

Contagion would defiantly be cool boosted, as long as animate dead remains the same.

A few ideas:
-Flies effect on person (Make it obvious they are sick)
-Unusually high DC for Salutary Tonics.

... Yeah. Thats all my ideas.

[lovethesuit]

I know about a few custom diseases that could be contracted in various places in the Underdark. Ooze Sickness or Corpse Rot or whatever they were called. If Contagion caused those, and immediately, that would be fine I think. It's just that the spell is A, too slow and B, too weak.

[I can has fun?]

As someone who plays a cleric of Talona, I would love to see one or more of the following changes to Contagion:

• A variety of disease effects - Ebola will eat your flesh, masturbation will make you go blind, etc, etc. Having Contagion slap an effect on someone, such as blindness, silence, or wounding would be good for RP if nothing else.
• Instant fever - The Contagion spell should have an instant stat effect, at least a -1, preferably to STR or CON. You're already going through so much to make the spell work, if it hits you should get something immediate for it.
• Actual contagion - All the trouble it takes to actually get the spell off would be worth it if you could infect one person with a specific disease and let them spread it to others.
• Items which can be activated with the spell - Rather than actually changing the spell, it could be altered to be useful with buckets of guts, rotting meat, or other similarly filthy objects in the way Animate Dead is used with corpses to create undead summons. You could use this to create ammunition (dung balls), infectious placeables, catapult ammunition, or whatever you can come up with.

[Garem]

It's called CONTAGION.

It absolutely MUST be contagious. If someone has it, they should be spreading it.

[Johannes]

Perhaps making contagion more customizable, increasing the selection and allowing access to more deadly diseases as one climbs in caster levels?

[MrGrendel]

As long as it's contagious, so I can run up and give the caster a great big hug, I don't care what you do with it.

[Cake_Or_Death]

Undead animals would be awesome. But is it possible?

[Nightshadow]

Yes, I've been playing NwN now for a few years now, and aside from the occasional NPC/Monster that casts it, I have never seen it casted, on me or anyone else. I think that making it contageous, having instantaneous effects, and having customizable effects, like changing the disease/type of stat damage, so on and so forth would be AWESOME.

So, my little suggestion on the topics of Animate Dead/Contagion:

Contagion:
Contagious Contagion: The contagious thing would be good, I think that every few seconds your character should *coughs* or *sneezes*, and anyone within a few feet then has to make a reflex save at say... DC 10... To avoid being infected.

ZOMBIE CONTAGION: Yes, I know, sounds like resident evil, but I think that upon reaching caster level... 12 or so, you may choose a form of Contagion that has no effect until an opponent dies, when they become a zombie after 1 minute (Caster level x 5% chance of this happening), and are hostile to all non-zombies. This of course, would be contagious, and until cured of the contagion you would run the risk of spreading it to others (so, technically, you could carry the zombie contagion, still be alive, infect someone, kill them, and they turn into a zombie).

Animate Dead:
You can cast animate dead ONLY upon a corpse, after all, you are animating, not creating undead (see Create Undead spell if you want to create undead, get it?), the creature animated retains previous HD and Racial Type, but gains the Undead Subtype (hence, an Undead Elf would gain +2 Spot/Listen/Search and have Keen Sense and Hardiness vs Enchantment, Proficiency with Longsword, Rapier, Shortbow and Longbow), but would lose pre-existing levels, and simply level up as a fighter with Con 3, Dex 10, and the same strength it had in life, Int is 3, Cha is 3, Wis is 10.