The State of Undeath

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Skeletor
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The State of Undeath

Post by Skeletor » Sat Oct 09, 2021 5:02 pm

I've been playing necromancers for a while, and I thought to share some feedback about the undead in game.

Undead MOBS:
The undead at the starting areas are pretty much a source of XP for lower-level characters. Their draining abilities can be tough but can be easily countered with some planning. The only exception is the worms at a certain Underdark low-level area... those things aren't really undead but are brutal, one-touch and their on-hit will send you to the grave or leave you totally crippled.

Mid-tier undead is more of a challenge, be it on their ghostly, mummified, or vampirical forms. Although their on-hit abilities can be off-putting, they can be overcome with protection from negative energy. Still, they tend to keep many classes away due to their immunity to critical hits and sneak attacks, something that negates many classes kits.
They are, however, a straight-up XP farm point for classes that deal in high elemental damage, or that have summons that can wreck them apart, or with weapons that deal extra damage to undead. A special mention to rogues that use holy grenades... they can make their party mop entire swarms of them with one grenade and move on to the next, making them basically a joke.

High-tier undead...
Well, the constant threat of level drain is insidious and not nice at all, high hitpoints and dozen of different debuffs can be a mess, and they generally have mages who live (or unlive) to dispel wards. They sometimes have spell resistance added and a good mix of abilities. Undead that has sneak attacks can be a nightmare to many classes, so these areas are often left abandoned except by those who can prepare for any eventuality. Abilities that shut casters or breach them, extra damage against undead, party-friendly elemental damage, and epic turn undead are god-send.

Additionally, all of these areas are easier for people with summons... they make the undead on-hit abilities much tamer because if it's the expendable guys who are getting hit it doesn't matter. Not to mention they are completely negated if you have undead of your own.
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Undead in the social setting:
On the surface, you'll have people question you or even straight out attack you if you have undead out, and quickly become a pariah with a whole bunch of individuals for it, although that is offset if you use it to gain the respect of the opposed groups. Still, you will often be found out if you use undead, because people will see you leveling with them. Disguises are a good method to keep this hidden, saving the occasional rumor of someone seeing through it.

On the Underdark it's undead-galore, they're often left standing near shopkeepers or doors, or sent to lurk in corners of the hub while their master's shop.
It's unspoken good etiquette to dispel them when you come in, but you don't always remember to do that, do you?

I'm not sure how to feel about it, I mean, yeah Andunor is a place for everyone, but aren't people bothered that you shove your undead in their face while they're wanting to have drinks at the Hub's bar? Of course, if you set out to tell people off for their undead you'd probably get them to cast finger-of-death on you, so better keep your mouth shut and keep walking.
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Summoned undead:

I like the summons a lot. One thing you have to understand, they're not a top-tier summons, they will not win you top pvp by themselves if your enemy is prepared (and there are ultra-cheap tricks to deal with them) but they are an extra tool, just like an Isaac's GMS is. On PVE they are golden, with some preparation and maintenance they can mop most dungeons for you. Cost-effectiveness-wise, they are one of the top utility spells in the game. They're also disposable. Use a third level slot to summon a mummy with reasonable hitpoints that can lure enemies away, break a door or mine gems. Use the final tier of the spell to summon 3 of them and they can do anything, from blocking a bottleneck to tearing someone apart. You can even send wave after wave of them if you want.

The mummies stream is basically able to deal with anything you may find except too high-tier enemies that will laugh at their resistances. Still, with buffs or spells to keep said enemies occupied? The trick is to know how to turn the tables and set the battleground to your advantage. Ultravision on your mummies plus darkness will confuse enemies so they can be stomped to death. Cloudkill and stinking cloud give them the advantage since they don't breathe... and so on.
One con is that the mummies spread disease... which is useless. Even though it's nice to see the disease cloud come out of enemies because of how evil it looks, it's useless. I'm sorry, but combat won't last long enough for an enemy to die of the bubonic plague. I wish the mummies would be armed with the new primitive weapons! THose Macas would look good on them!

The Vampire stream is useful for PVP, often being summoned and re-summoned to harass an enemy. They are fast and are golden against mid-tier enemies while leveling, then fall behind critically against high-end content. They will hit hard, but their cost-effectiveness is questionable when every mob is going to deal equal damage to them and their defenses are no good. The thing I don't like about them, they use swords ... If I'm a necromancer, I want them to go out and make the most out of their level-drain touch so my next necromancy spell will hit lowered fortitude saves... Also, if they don't touch their victims, they can't vampirically regain lost hitpoints :cry: :cry: :cry:

There was going to be a ghost stream but it got canceled at some point.
With all the new sea content, it'd be nice to see it at some point, maybe ghost pirates, hybrid of mummy stream resistance, and vampire stream aggressiveness but changing it to concealment and pirate weapons? Dunno, whatever they'd do I'd love to see.
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That's all I have for now!

EDIT: Didn't go into the dracolich because a lot of what can be said about it can be said of other summoned dragons. Still, It's though as bones!

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In Sorrow We Trust
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Re: The State of Undeath

Post by In Sorrow We Trust » Sat Oct 09, 2021 9:19 pm

Ghost stream? Cancelled, hmm?

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xanrael
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Re: The State of Undeath

Post by xanrael » Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:23 pm

Just a bit of trivia, the ghost stream was pseudo-implemented at one point (this was pre-EE) but not accessible to PCs. You could Dominate/Control NPCs while they were casting Create Undead and they would default to that stream so you'd have them under indirect control. The undead casters in the Slaver's Tower being the ones I remember specifically. It wasn't the NWN stock option either as you'd have more than one summoned at a time.

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Re: The State of Undeath

Post by Skibbles » Sun Oct 10, 2021 12:06 am

Undead are in a pretty great spot overall. I kind of find it fun that some extra precautions need to be taken to do undead areas, how challenging they can be, and it really makes some often overlooked classes and abilities shine or even be sought.

After the dread mummy lost WoF its really hard to imagine a third stream because the pvp/pve dichotomy will only accept one optimal stream for each and basically leave one considered 'useless' once the math and theory is done. May as well just keep the two at that point.
Irongron wrote: [...] the super-secret Arelith development roadmap is a post apocalyptic wasteland populated with competing tribes of hand-bombard wielding techno-giants, and strewn with the bones of long dead elves.

So we're very much on track.

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Re: The State of Undeath

Post by Duchess Says » Sun Oct 10, 2021 12:16 am

Maybe but a ghost stream for shamans would be pretty fantastic. It's not just about pve vs pvp, there's rp considerations too.

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Re: The State of Undeath

Post by VibeKings » Sun Oct 10, 2021 12:19 am

I don't like that undead are forced between vampires and mummies. I really wish the choice was more laid-back, like a choice between zombies and ghouls, but the stats were the same. A lot of things in Arelith, especially from the old days, feel as though they're the way they are because that's what we had models for in the hak-less game.

These days we have haks, so we can use special models for the summons. Balors/Pit fiends already had this treatment. Plus every time I see a trio of vampires running around in broad daylight, some little part of my soul withers up and dies.

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Scylon
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Re: The State of Undeath

Post by Scylon » Mon Oct 11, 2021 1:34 am

needs a skeleton stream. Summons 4 mobs over 3. 2 melee, 1 archer and 1 bolt type caster (basically spams an elemental attack ranged attack) :D.

I have dreams of a true necromancer class that can host as many undead critters as a shammy/tribal barb.

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Re: The State of Undeath

Post by xanrael » Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:10 pm

Scylon wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 1:34 am
needs a skeleton stream. Summons 4 mobs over 3. 2 melee, 1 archer and 1 bolt type caster (basically spams an elemental attack ranged attack) :D.

I have dreams of a true necromancer class that can host as many undead critters as a shammy/tribal barb.
I guess max right now would be what, Undeath cleric with 3 mummies/vampires, 1 dominated (control undead), and 2 henchmen from Turn Undead (Command) that are at max half cleric HD? Last two are probably more for flavor than effectiveness though there could be some exceptions. Technically could get a few more by dominating a necromancer mob but even without that seems like a solid number of minions to represent the concept.

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