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Verosce
2010-05-27, 02:32 AM
I know I'm probably missing something obvious, but where might I find a good, comprehensive list of 4th edition necromantic rituals? I'm making an NPC wizard who might someday become a PC, and I would love for her to be building up an army of various zombified minions--I know I could just say "she does magic to them," but I'd like to have the rules for it laid out. Call me crazy.

Night Monkey
2010-05-27, 03:59 AM
Open Grave has several Necromancy rituals on top of the ones in the PHB (which are very sparse).

Meta
2010-05-27, 01:51 PM
There is very little in the way of necromancy in 4e. The back of the MM has a little bit of info on vampires, liches, etc. You may be better off making your own. My friend home brewed the lich as a shadow power source controller and is playing it in his campaign. I can get it off of him, if you would like some unofficial references.

Thajocoth
2010-05-27, 02:01 PM
There's also a Dragon article with spells like "Animate Dead". Animate Dead specifically is a Daily that raises a dead enemy as a minion ally until the end of the encounter.

PCs don't get hordes. They get summoned creatures for the duration of the encounter (most with a single Daily I believe is 3, but you can spend multiple Dailies in 1 fight), familiars (max 1), spirit companion (Shaman only) and a beast (Beastmaster Ranger only). And I guess Unseen Servant (ritual), though I've never seen use for one. And they always share your pool of actions.

Since Wizards don't get a lot of healing surges though, having homebrew allies (that use the Wizard's actions) that count as summoned creatures (and therefore eat the Wizard's surges as they die, have half the Wizard's hp, and have the Wizard's defenses.), would only be a little broken. Not insanely broken.

Swordgleam
2010-05-27, 02:07 PM
If you're open to 3rd party stuff, Azeroth's Book of Rituals by Goodman Games has some very nice evil rituals in it, at least some of which are necromantic.

Meta
2010-05-27, 03:23 PM
There's also a Dragon article with spells like "Animate Dead". Animate Dead specifically is a Daily that raises a dead enemy as a minion ally until the end of the encounter.

PCs don't get hordes. They get summoned creatures for the duration of the encounter (most with a single Daily I believe is 3, but you can spend multiple Dailies in 1 fight), familiars (max 1), spirit companion (Shaman only) and a beast (Beastmaster Ranger only). And I guess Unseen Servant (ritual), though I've never seen use for one. And they always share your pool of actions.

Since Wizards don't get a lot of healing surges though, having homebrew allies (that use the Wizard's actions) that count as summoned creatures (and therefore eat the Wizard's surges as they die, have half the Wizard's hp, and have the Wizard's defenses.), would only be a little broken. Not insanely broken.


Your very own druid class actually has the most 'creatures' summoned with one spell. It's also an absurdly damaging spell that makes a level 30 ranger with Blade Cascade look like a gnome child with a pointy walking stick

Verosce
2010-05-28, 02:41 AM
Hmm, some of those homebrews do sound interesting, I would like to see 'em. Thanks for responses, all!

Wow, I've been playing 4e for a little while at least, and while it is definitely far different for 3.5, this is the first thing that I find truly disappointing. There are a lot of things to nitpick about, of course, but no real source of zombie-makin'? Dang.

Reverent-One
2010-05-28, 02:48 AM
Hmm, some of those homebrews do sound interesting, I would like to see 'em. Thanks for responses, all!

Wow, I've been playing 4e for a little while at least, and while it is definitely far different for 3.5, this is the first thing that I find truly disappointing. There are a lot of things to nitpick about, of course, but no real source of zombie-makin'? Dang.

If you are willing to accept just one or two permanent minions that can be refluffed as undead, along with the possibility of other, temporary ones, there are options within the standard rules. What exactly you want the necromancer him/herself to do other than control minions is the question, given an answer to that and I could give some you advice.