Necromancy without undead

[weckar]

So, in one of the complete books it discusses every school of magic (I forget whether it is Mage or Arcane because...). For Necromancy it amounts to being the magic that controls the flow of life and death. Sweet, right? Forgetting for a moment that healing is a subschool of conjuration, and not apparently more appropriately necromancy, is there as far as the playground knows any way to play a necromancer (ofeither the Wizard or Dread variety) without raising the dead as undead (let's say it gives the Death Penalty to do so :smalltongue:) and still be effective?

[bahamut920]

There's a bunch of necromancy spells that have nothing to do with the undead, though most have to do with death or negative energy. Enervation, vampiric touch, ghoul touch, false life, bestow curse, etc. You could definitely effectively play a necromancer as a debuffer without ever having anything to do with the undead. Necromancers are powerful minionmancers, which is why you hear so much about undead in any high-op discussion of necromancy, but there's so much more to it than animate dead and create undead.

As with an enchanter or an illusionist, you'll suffer against constructs or undead, but you're not the only guy having problems against them, anyways. Of course, like any other intelligent specialist wizard, be sure to explore at least some options outside your school of specialization.

[DrMotives]

Necromancy also has all the fear-based spells that otherwise would probably be enchantment with the rest of the mind-affecting and moral effecting spells. So a fear-based caster (Dread Witch? Nightmare Spinner?) are necromancers too.

[KillingAScarab]

I never played spellcasters in AD&D 2nd edition, but through the Baldur's Gate series I was aware of the skull trap spell (http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Skull_Trap). Did anyone ever port that to 3.X? If not, that seems like perfect material for necromancy research. I could see it as a delayed blast fireball which requires a corpse and deals negative energy damage.

[Necroticplague]

Yes, it's entirely possible to do this. Necromancers are undead creaters and debuffers. Take away to undead creation, and your left with debuffing. Necromancery can apply pretty much every standard status condition under the sun, and then some. You're also left with native access to the most Save-or-die effects (since most are [death], they tend to end up in Necromancery).

[Kelb_Panthera]

There are also a number of... interesting buffs and some fun attack spells. I will never stop thinking avascular mass is hilarious and heart of stone is neat.

[Necroticplague]

There are also a number of... interesting buffs and some fun attack spells. I will never stop thinking avascular mass is hilarious and heart of stone is neat.

On a similar note to heart of stoke, Necromancy is also where Hide Life and Astral Projection lie, two different ways for the high-op gamer to go "nope, not dying."

[Jack_Simth]

Forgetting for a moment that healing is a subschool of conjuration, and not apparently more appropriately necromancyOddly enough, it used to be necromancy. The switch happened between 2nd and 3rd, if I recall correctly.

[Telonius]

There are a couple of good anti-undead spells in the Necromancy school. Detect Undead, Disrupt Undead, Halt Undead, Undeath to Death. Even Command or Control Undead could be used tactically against them. You could even be a Wizard (or Sorcerer, for a couple of levels)/Sacred Exorcist with Necromancy specialization (as long as you know Dismissal).