Dark Wizard....without Necromancy...is this posible?

[Maho-Tsukai]

When people think of an evil mage in D&D, the first idea to come to mind is Necromancy. However, despite this Wizards suck at Necromancy, Clerics and Dread Necromancers are just better at it. However, despite this, I LOVE the "evil mage" type characters who dress in a black cloak wardrobe and use powers that look and feel evil....and as far as necromancy gose, well...it's better to just be an evil cloistered cleric and take the divine gestures flaw and some feat to switch your casting stat to int or charisma and call it a day.

However, what I am wondering is, how a person can make a "cliche'" evil mage, you know, the kind with the evil laugh, black cloak fashion, sense and who uses powers that are "evil" appearance, looks and flavor wise rather then just using spells that don't look/feel evil for evil purposes.....without Necromancy as a major focus of the character.(Which means the character can still use it but can't have it as his main specialty and can't take PrCs based on Necromancy.)

So, any ideas for such a Dark mage that still feels, both morally AND aesthetically JUST AS EVIL(If not more) as a Necromancer?(not just wizard but any necro class, including clerics and DNs)

[JeminiZero]

Its not that wizards do necromancy badly. Its more of they do army of the dead badly. A dedicated necromancer focused on debuffs, and SoDs is stll quite potent.

Besides that, the other dark school, is of course Enchantment: Dominate poor sods, abuse them till they are nearly dead, then kill them for fun.

[Flickerdart]

Transmutation can also be given a pretty Evil spin, and Conjuration works wonders here (see the Malconvoker).

[Psyren]

Its not that wizards do necromancy badly. Its more of they do army of the dead badly. A dedicated necromancer focused on debuffs, and SoDs is stll quite potent.

This. Some of the most powerful necromancy spells (e.g. Enervation, Shivering Touch, Avasculate) are Wizard spells, and Clerics can only get them through domains. The problem doesn't lie with a wizard's ability at necromancy, the problem lies with your definition of "necromancy."

[Maho-Tsukai]

The former is true. Wizards can be good necromancers in that sense, but a cleric can do that AND be good at animating which means compaired to a cleric a Wizard is an inferior Necromancer. Also, being a cliche' evil overlord requires having lots of disposable minions, and I don't know any better way for a non Cha-focused character(Sans a thrallheard) to get lots of disposable minions then through Necromancy. Leadership is better with a big charisma and wizards, who usually dumb that stat, are not going to get lots and lots of minions out of it unless they specificly optimize themselves to get lots of minons via leadership. Sorcerers are a different story, however, and an Enchantment focused Sorc/Nightmare Spinner(enchantment-based addaptation clause version that allows him to bypass immunity to mind effecting) could get quite a few flunkies if he chained leadership and dominated a king/emperor/leader of a big empire or something similar.

Likewise the wiz could just use 3rd party/homebrew to make his stat charisma and do the same thing. However, I am almost positive that a necromancer cleric can get more minions then a high cha character with leadership can and on villains I like having lots and lots of disposable minions as appose to one or a small number of big guys which is the main reason I love playing necromancers so much.

[bbugg]

Of course you can make a stereotypical evil wizard without necromancy: make a wizard, set the alignment at E and do nasty things. Done.

Control people's minds to do your bidding. Burn down the orphanage. Poison the town's well.

This is the main reason I'm starting to really dislike the path that D&D is taking. All of the options available in character creation make us forget that it's a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Play the role - you don't need a mechanical difference.

[Leon]

With Shadow magic and Illusion in general you can make anything look dark and dangerous.

Add a dash of Enchantment and you can have a lot of minions - maybe more than just magically dominated ones. What were once charmed maybe very loyal after long service and rewards.

[Coidzor]

Indeed, Necromancy can create ravening horrors, but then, conjuration can just unleash ravening horrors that already existed on the world anyway. And so can transmutation but it has a lot less spell support for doing so for various reasons.

Enchantment is, by its very nature, the violation of volition. And Transmutation is the body-horror school, whereby abominations like owlbears, duckbunnies, and monkeybees! monkeybees! monkeybees! are made.

I mean, it's hard to remove the association of dark wizards with black robes, due to cultural-psychological and cultural-interial reasons, but I can picture a dark wizard who isn't a necromancer.

This is the main reason I'm starting to really dislike the path that D&D is taking. All of the options available in character creation make us forget that it's a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Play the role - you don't need a mechanical difference.

Well, the issue is that you can't play the role unless you can do so. Unless you're powered by plot, in which case that's usually an NPC under the DM's control anyway.

Players generally just don't have that luxury, not even an inch compared to the mile of the DM, when they make their dark wizards.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Yeah. True...but where are you going to get an army of mooks? Killing stuff is good for chaotic evil destruction-loving types, but the guys who want to rule the world will be left out, there. Enchantment can KINDA get you minions but not lots and lots and lots of disposable mooks unless you decide to be Uchiha Madara and dominate the ruler of a massive empire which, unlike having your own army, is a very fragile way to gain a massive army that requires a lot of work to both hide the fact your the shadow leader and make sure people don't realize the king is dominated. It's still dooable, but takes a lot more work then necromancy....though RP wise it's just as, if not more evil.

[Coidzor]

and a wizard can't have an army of the undead or the living which he can control directly that will match the size of a necro cleric's army(as leadership without leadership chaining will, as far as I remember, give you less mooks then a Necro cleric with the deathbound domain, desecrate ect..will have.)

You know what having minions with initiative and ambition gives you, other than Starscreams if you don't smooth out their meat properly?

Besides, barring the obvious cheese which just disintegrates the system rather than bending it over one's knee, massive hordes are speedbumps at best.

[Maho-Tsukai]

But I prefer quanity to quality when it comes to having lots of minions. Simply put, and evil overlord should have a giant army, period. A wizard can never have a giant army except by hijacking it from somebody else/playing Uchiha Madara and dominating emperors, kings ect and such...

The only exception I could see to that is if the character is either A) High enough level where he can take out armies with a single spell and thus conquer an empire without ever having to do mass combat. or B) The wizard happens to be an heir to the throne and is able to eliminate the sitting king/emperor and other(if any) heirs that inherit before him. Could be the dark horse/exiled heir as well, which is why he's adventuring and his goal could be to one day eliminate all the other heirs and the sitting king/emperor/whatever and thus claim the throne himself..

Also, I suppose that if a wizard REALLY wanted to play Uchiha Madara he could just get to epic levels and make an epic spell that's basically Charm Person, Global which would make everybody love him and name him emperor of the planet for life and call it a day.

Oh, and I also forgot one more way. If there happens to be a big, strong, powerful society that's also a democracy, he can just charm everybody and have himself elected president and pull a Palpatine-esc move to make himself dictator. The main issue with this is that in normal D&D settings your not going to find that many democracies.

[gbprime]

Point is, "evil" isn't tied to a school of magic, it's all in how you use what you have. For example, Blood Snow isn't an evil spell, but combine it with web or entangle, and it's a particularly nasty way to kill people. Throw in a cackle and you're "good" to go.

[Yuki Akuma]

Where do you get an army of mooks?

Enchantment. Leadership. Thrallherd.

[Maho-Tsukai]

True, but I prefer the "take over the world" style villains to the "kill, kill kilk destruction!" types who love to slaughter people as appose to obtain power. While there are ways for a wizard to get an army they all involve being high level or hijacking it from somebody else(which also usually requires being high level or at the least high level enough to cast dominate person.) since leadership dose NOT give you an empire/conquering-scale army without serious cheese.(chaining leadership.)

Thats not a big deal though since at lower levels a cleric dose not have a massive undead legion either.

[Amnestic]

unless you decide to be Uchiha Madara and dominate the ruler of a massive empire which, unlike having your own army

I think Lulu deserves a mention if we're talking about ruling stuff with awesome mind control. You don't need a huge army to be a big bad evil guy. Just maxed out Int and a crapload of skillpoints in Craft (Evil Laugh) ;D

[Maho-Tsukai]

Yeah, but minions are awesome. I like having tons of minions to boss around. Also, Lelouch is not evil hence why I did not mention him. He's, at worst, neutral, in my eyes, but the arguments over Lelouch's alignment are endless and I don't want to turn this thread into a "Is Lelouch good or evil" debate.

Anyway, as stated earlier a Cleric won't have enough undead to be a conquer until higher levels either and despite leadership giving you less minions then a the lord of some tiny as all **** manor in the middle of nowhere it DOSE give you a cohort that can be a necro cleric.

[gbprime]

since leadership dose NOT give you an empire/conquering-scale army without serious cheese.

No, but Alter Self and Suggestion/Charm Monster do. You just have to have some ranks in disguise and commit Regicide. Then you use HIS army.

[true_shinken]

Personally, I think an enchanter can be very devious. A necromancer defiles your body, but an enchanter defiles your mind.
Check the Purple Man in Alias. That's just... sick.

[Thrawn183]

You want to be a dark wizard? Throw around some fire and ice. It doesn't have to be negative energy to be "dark"

[Maho-Tsukai]

That's actually not enough. In that situation you would have to kill or otherwise do away with the court mage, high priest and anybody else in the whole empire who is close to the king and has access to detect magic and dispell magic. You would also have to strictly control the education of all young wizards to make sure they don't learn spells that can end your ruse, check the bloodlines of all residents of the empire to make sure non of them have magical bloodlines(and if any do quietly do away with them.) and somehow take control of, alter and/or replace any major faiths in the empire to make sure clerics can't stripe your guise. If the empire is atheist, even better as then you never have to worry about clerics at all and thus can just control the wizarding education system and take out magical bloodline people in the way mentioned above.

[gbprime]

Thats actually, not enough. In that situation you would have to kill the court mage, high priest and anybody else in the whole empire who is close to the king and has access to detect magic and dispell magic.

No, you just have to accuse them of treason, or engineer it so they accuse EACH OTHER of treason. Then while they're busy fighting each other, you can dismiss the whole lot of them over concerns of security. Remember, you're charming and suggesting this whole time. Court opinion will eventually be on your side.

Once you're on the throne for a while, you can rewrite history so people care less that you can wield magic. It's keeping everyone in line until then.

Nobody said it's EASY... just FUN.

[Coidzor]

Hell, why does Dark Wizard have to mean he's illegitimate? Rule a kingdom for long enough and the Might makes Right of the world grandfathers you in.

Come to think of it, do the Shades from FR have much necromantic focus?

[gbprime]

Hell, why does Dark Wizard have to mean he's illegitimate? Rule a kingdom for long enough and the Might makes Right of the world grandfathers you in.

"But the king got assassinated 5 years ago and replaced by a dark wizard who assumed his form!"

"The last 5 years have been pretty good for business. How about you?"

"Eh, not that bad, actually. And with the larger army and fortifications, there's a lot more work available than there used to be. More coin flowing."

"So... revolt?"

"Nah, no point."

[Maho-Tsukai]

I edited my post to include "or otherwise take out" to include non-killing ways to take out enemies but you ninja'ed me before I finished the edit. As for might makes right that's only true in some societies, most of which are savage in nature. I mean, just look at the real world for an example of how might makes right means **** in most societies. A soldier could easily kill any politician yet the politician leads the country while the soldier fights on the country's behalf. Likewise, there is a VERY small population of wealthy people globally and yet despite having the greater numbers and thus greater might(in the traditional sense. If you look at resources/money as might then this is not the case.) it's hard to deny that the rich rule the world.

Now I know that in a world with magic that "might makes right" is a bit different but a monarchy, steeped in years of tradition and such won't just let somebody on the throne because he knows magic. The only way for a wizard to take over a kingdom without having to play puppetmaster/shadow leader is to be very high level since if he can't destroy an army he's not taking that kingdom, period.

[Coidzor]

Actually, come to think of it, isn't that supposed to be part of why the Thayan populace is content with the Red Wizards despite individuals' excesses? That they're good for the economy?

[Leon]

But I prefer quanity to quality when it comes to having lots of minions. Simply put, and evil overlord should have a giant army, period. A wizard can never have a giant army except by hijacking it from somebody else/playing Uchiha Madara and dominating emperors, kings ect and such...

Eh....

What is there to stop a Wizard from forming a Army?
All he needs is money, time and creatures.

[Yuki Akuma]

You could... marry into the royal family.

And I would like to reiterate that raising an army is incredibly easy.

Leadership.

Thrallherd.

Enchantment.

And mix in some undead for spice.

[The Big Dice]

Yeah, but minions are awesome. I like having tons of minions to boss around.

Find a suitable humanoid race. Orcs are the classic. Vapourise the leaders of the biggest, baddedst tribe on the block. Tell the survivors they now work for you. Instant minions. Call this the Quick Way.

Or, find those humanoids. Charm the leaders, then give them juicy targets to attack. Targets that both push your agenda forwards and give the tribe lots of loot. Use the loot to attract more humanoids to your army. Call this one the Slow Way.

Take one evil wizard, add orcs, goblins and so on. Burn a few cities down and there you go. New kingdom on the block.

[Toliudar]

Indeed. Once your 'army' needs are of sufficient size, you're never going to be doing all of that with your own personal power, but through some kind of hierarchy. Doesn't matter what class or level you are.

Throw in a dose of Spell Thematics (and/or a generous re-fluffing) and just about any school of magic is scary. I'm thinking of the Palantir from LotR. Divination magic that scared the pants off of Gandalf.

[Psyren]

But I prefer quanity to quality when it comes to having lots of minions. Simply put, and evil overlord should have a giant army, period. A wizard can never have a giant army except by hijacking it from somebody else/playing Uchiha Madara and dominating emperors, kings ect and such...

And what's wrong with that?

The problem with an undead army (besides the smell) is the amount of micromanagement they need to be effective. Sure you can control them, but that just means you have to command them too. And to really get a throng going they generally have to be mindless, making them easy to fool and requiring pretty detailed instructions from you. (e.g. "guard this door" - they won't protect the window etc.)

And from a metagame standpoint, huge armies are a pain. Whether PnP or CRPG, "Army of the Dead"-style necromancers slow the game to a crawl.