Gm limiting necromancy

[Nemoricus]

Originally Posted by Andreas

I don't think having to take undead such as standard mindless zombies as Allies is appropriate.

Among other things Allies grow in power as the PC gets more character points and that is usually not appropriate for such undead.

There's many ways to justify a necromancer's undead growing in power with them. Perhaps they've improved the spells powering their undead, perhaps they've raised more powerful undead, perhaps their undead are of a type that can improve, et cetera.

Alternatively, as the PC's power grows, the number of undead they have increases as well. I think one or both of Kromm's suggestions covers that.

[Railstar]

What are the new spell restrictions he’s thinking of?

What kind of campaign are you in? Is it Dungeon Fantasy? Is it modern day? Is it Banestorm-style fantasy with at least token nods to realism?

What does the GM think is a problem with having an undead army? Because it is very difficult to suggest solutions without knowing what they see as the problem.

Personally I don’t see zombie armies as particularly powerful – bringing them into town means fighting the town, and any town you can conquer with zombies is not going to offer you much of value if conquered, bringing them into dungeons means lots of extra bodies in a confined space, which can hinder your party more than the enemy. In the wilderness they can maybe function, but they’re a large group of stinky monsters too dumb to understand stealth, so will give your enemies plenty of warning as to your approach.

Essentially in most situations they are more trouble than they are worth.

The main issues I see from zombie hordes in gameplay are they can get in the way of the rest of the party, and commanding lots of minions gives you lots of extra turns in combat, which will slow down combat for the rest of the group (or if the GM decides their actions, it’s more work for the GM).

Others have recommended Ally Group, as a contract between you and the GM saying it’s fine to have this many zombies as permanently serving you. Other zombies might wander off if left unsupervised, or get discovered by travellers/predators and attacked while you’re gone, or so on. You could lock them up somewhere to keep them in storage for when you need them, but it will be a chore to go back and fetch your zombies if the campaign does any significant travelling.

Which might be another issue, that the logistics could simply be one more hassle for the other PCs to deal with.

But your Ally Group is your reliable bodyguard of undead troops who you can count on to have. Use the Improved Zombies from Pyramid 3/01 if at all possible – they have normal IQ, mental skills and can learn. They are fantastic. And go for a small group, 6-10 should be enough for most purposes. You shouldn’t need more than that at once.

On multiple turns, have some default behaviours for your zombies, for some examples:

“Attack the enemy” = attacks the nearest enemy with their most convenient weapon.
“Defend me” = stays between you and the enemy, ready to attack foes who approach.
“Focus on that one!” = the group of zombies all attempts to attack that enemy.

The point being there’s not too much tactical flexibility in the heat of the moment, so not having to choose their actions every turn can make their turns much quicker.

Those are my thoughts off the top of my head, but you’ll really need to see what your GM is worried about. I prefer to think of necromancy and undead as a plot hook than as a problem, and design situations where the undead horde becomes significant. Maybe hideout defence? If you have zombies guarding your hideout, and the hideout gives you some useful resource, having attacks on your base be fought off by the undead garrison off-screen would be a way to inflict casualties on your undead horde and highlight that your undead army is serving a valuable purpose at the same time. Maybe the necromantic cabal you have Guild Rank with will give you a discount on spell book you want in exchange for that troll zombie you managed to raise, and essentially make the corpses into a form of loot. Maybe, the necromancer guild wants a corpse to make an Improved Zombie from… and therefore it needs to be both preserved and unanimated when it gets to them?

Those sorts of things are how I’d handle the situation, because it gives the necromancer some screen-time or the feeling that their undead are contributing something useful to the party. But it depends on the type of game.

I’ll throw in another question… What does your character want an undead army for? What purpose would it serve? Note “my character hasn’t really thought it through” is a valid answer, and the Hoarder quirk might apply, which can even be a nod to the idea that this zombie army is not really going to make that much difference.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Stinky Pete

Hi all,

My character is a necromancer and I tend to reanimate all corpses I come across but the gm is worried that I will create an undead army.

That could be because you're creating an undead army.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

There's many ways to justify a necromancer's undead growing in power with them. Perhaps they've improved the spells powering their undead, perhaps they've raised more powerful undead, perhaps their undead are of a type that can improve, et cetera.

Alternatively, as the PC's power grows, the number of undead they have increases as well. I think one or both of Kromm's suggestions covers that.

Those justifications aren't appropriate for many settings. Often improving the spell used does nothing for already animated undead (this if for example the case with the standard GURPS magic system). Them raising more powerful undead later also does nothing for already raised undead. Standard mindless fantasy zombies and skeletons usually can't improve like that.

The number of allies increasing when you get more character points isn't what the Allies advantage does and it also doesn't make much sense for the necromancer to get better at that when spending character points on something entirely unrelated.

[AlexanderHowl]

Most human cultures revere the dead to some degree, so a necromancer who blatantly violates the sanctity of the dead should suffer from a combination of Odious Personal Habits, negative Reputation, and Social Stigma. If such a character was in my game, he would quickly gain the Odious Personal Habit (Corpse Defiler) [-15], Reputation-4 (Necrophilia; everyone; all of the time) [-20], and Social Stigma (Monster) [-15]. With a -10 to Reactions, everyone would turn against him pretty quickly.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Stinky Pete

My character is a necromancer and I tend to reanimate all corpses I come across but the gm is worried that I will create an undead army. I thought it would be cool to be a necromancer to see how the other players and npcs reacted to me.

If I was your GM, I'd be worried that if you carried on animating lots of corpses, I'd have to start sending expeditions to wipe out a menace to civilisation. Most people in-setting are likely to assume that a necromancer animating lots of undead is a megalomaniac who wants to kill everyone and rule the world. They have a reputation problem.

Since as a GM I don't want to have to try to wipe out the PCs, I'd have rejected the character. Maybe your GM wishes that he'd done that?

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Most human cultures revere the dead to some degree, so a necromancer who blatantly violates the sanctity of the dead should suffer from a combination of Odious Personal Habits, negative Reputation, and Social Stigma. If such a character was in my game, he would quickly gain the Odious Personal Habit (Corpse Defiler) [-15], Reputation-4 (Necrophilia; everyone; all of the time) [-20], and Social Stigma (Monster) [-15]. With a -10 to Reactions, everyone would turn against him pretty quickly.

Odious Personal Habit is probably not appropriate for that. The trait representing people thinking bad of you because you have been doing such things is the Reputation. What Odious Personal Habit means is that your character have to engage in the odious behaviour rather than the player having a choice in the matter. Even without Odious Personal Habit, you can get bad reactions for engaging in odious behaviour, you are just not forced to do so.

Sure, it is usually a good idea to pick such a Disadvantage if your character is going to behave like that (since that gives you points), but you can still choose not to if you want to reserve the right to stop at any time.

[mr beer]

I wouldn't want an army of undead run by a player in my game either. If you want a continuous supply of minions, buy Ally Group.

The GM is reasonably concerned. The method to limit your power is not to change the way spells work though.

Instead, you can't walk around with large groups of undead without being known as The Evil Necromancer That Walks Around With Large Groups Of Undead. That means that the weak shun you and the strong try to destroy you. This directly impacts your non-dungeoneering activities, since merchants don't want to deal with you, you can't get into town, your party is assumed to be stooges for the Evil One. Evil power groups will try to ally with you or use you as catspaws or destroy you as rivals. Probably the most dangerous thing that will happen is that other adventuring parties will end up hunting you down.

EDIT

If you design a necromancer and then raise enemies killed in the dungeon to use as mobile trap detection devices and combat meatshields, that will work just fine. If it becomes unbalanced, well OK you may find more foes which are unsuitable for undead or obstacles that prevent you bringing your zombies with you, but whatever. It's OK by me. However if you want to habitually wander around the countryside with a bunch of zombies or even any obviously undead companions at all, then that's not OK because it's highly evil and disturbing to most people.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Stinky Pete

My character is a necromancer and I tend to reanimate all corpses I come across but the gm is worried that I will create an undead army.... Any views?

Like many others have pointed out, I think the GM has a valid concern, though it need not be oppositional. I suspect it is less about nerfing your character than preserving the integrity of the campaign world. It's a lot of work for a GM to have the world react to a party that is entirely out of the ordinary for the setting. Some GMs (and groups) might love diving into that. Others might prefer a game world that feels more internally consistent. And if they don't want the campaign to constantly revolve around screaming villagers and heroes trying to slay you, then they're within their rights to call for a conversation.

I recommend thinking about the following questions before talking to the GM:

1. How do you envision the campaign world reacting to your character once he (or she) has a sizable number of undead?
2. How do you envision this working with the other PCs? Will your character's entourage take up too much spotlight time?

It may be worth touching base with some of the other players, too. Does the whole group think this is a cool idea? If so, see if you can pitch a constructive way that it might work in the game. Is there already a location in the game where views on undeath might be less traditional (a la GURPS Banestorm: Abydos)? Perhaps the campaign can be set there. Or you could be travelers from this land, even ambassadors to a neighboring kingdom. Your GM may be entirely open to this sort of idea. (But, it may not fit with his or her vision, which is also reasonable.)

Alternately, if you are already embedded in a more traditional fantasy context where running around with hordes of zombies would raise alarm, perhaps you can think of a way that you manage this. Perhaps you are a traveling performance troupe and the zombies are typically in costume. Or you dress them as monks of the copper mask who are famous for never bathing (thus the rank smell). Depending, again, on the aesthetics of the setting and the preferences of the GM and players, this could be tons of fun.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I would suspect that most necromancers probably want to get paid for talking to dead relatives. "Raise an army and rule the world" is a much less reliable business model.

Note that if you're using Gurps Magic animating the dead has nothing to do with this. You'd be using Summon Spirit rather than Zombie.