I don't like the retroactive peacekeeper. I think that it makes i more of a magical ability that way. It seemed to me that someone with peacekeeper would be waching thei body signs and paying attention to little things. They don't just know. If somebody walked up beind you and said that wyrms ate your party when you were barely paying attention to the person you wuoldn't be able to tell if they were lying.

I hate the crap zombie method. I don't think you should have to get an out skill, spend your words on reanimate and body (instead of something creative and custom to your charachter), try a couple rituals until you get a good spell, and spend alot of mana each time to be able to do something a necro should be able to do.
Bury shouldn't have a time limit. If a soul is in a body you should be able to bury it. If you can only bury them within their ROR their is no reason for them to leave their body right away. You only leave your body as soon as you drop if you think you might get buried. If by the time your soul is our you can't get buried anyway, why would you leave?
I think that you shoudln't be able to carry unwilling bodies, animate dead is out of combat and takes as long as it does for the necro to explain it to the player, and amount of undead the necro can keep and for how long is up to gm descretion depending on how many badies are needed (just like how the gm can limit party size).

Nell:

Great points but I have to disagree on a few.
The retroactive Peacekeeper is less like a magical ability if you ask me. Before you had to say "Peacekeeper lvl 32: Where were you last night." This tells the player they are being questioned under Peacekeeper and they then know they can't lie. WHY! It isn't a spell. You don't have to Incant. While I agree that you should have to be paying attention, I think it is more likely to be actually useful if it can be used in response to a statement. However, I do think that you are right that it should only work on the last thing they said, and only if you are looking at them, or the statement was directed at you.
I understand the fact that Trash Undead means that Necros are not as cool, but consider that Animate Dead is an In Combat Skill, not an OUT. If it was an OUT I could agree with you. What I am talking about is more about Permanent Undead. Already, if you want to be a free willed Undead, or an undead with all your class abilities that levels up etc. you can't do that simply by using Animate Dead or Necrosavant. You have to use Elder Sorcery. So, why should a Necromancer be able to make a horde of undead for no mana and keep them forever! Yes I know that until you get Necrosavant, your undead are all weak anyway. But what is really stopping players right now from making tons of Skeletons once they are a Necrosavant and then taking them with them on every quest. Me! That's the only thing. And that isn't fair. I want Necros to be able to do everything it says they can, not always be saying "well yeah you COULD do that, but I need some baddies so, uh no!" Where is the realism in that. Doesn't it make sense that since Animate Dead is In Combat and so is Necrosavant that I am using these bodies as weapons in combat, creating a skull warrior and then sending it after the baddies! But the idea that I then get to keep that Skull Warrior indefinitely and can power it up with a bunch of respawns and also make a couple Skeletons and as many Zombies as I want... we just can't role play that, not with our numbers. It isn't as if you can't get a horde out of every battle. You just have to build it every time. Since Animate Dead costs nothing at that level, and you have Combat Discipline, you can make hordes at no cost. Thus, shouldn't you have to start from scratch from each battle. I already do this by saying "Uh, no you can't take your undead into the next fight, I need the baddies." but wouldn't it make more sense if that was in the rules.
Regarding Bury and the time limit. The reason I thought of this was to keep Necros from getting too much mana and HP (consider if they Bury every Respawn in ever encounter...). Yes, I know, they could have left their bodies. But that means the party then gets all the times from every respawn from every encounter. Either way it messes up game ballance. I often choose to let the Necro get the mana/hp because that is the lesser of two evils, but some recourse would be nice. A time limit would give people a chance to be safe and not loose all their stuff and help keep the game balance. That way, I don't have to worry about the equipment that might be taken by the level 2 Necro who acts as a lvl 9 Thief. It doesn't upset things too much because if you really want something, you can just carry the body back as usual. But that is one body, not every body from every party. I think it would help people to feel like they have a chance against Bury.
Also, I agree with you that you should only be able to carry willing spirits, as that is another way to make players feel like they have a chance against Bury. If they feel safe in the spirit world, at least then they might not mind loosing their stuff and if only Etherial undead could attack you, then you feel even more safe. However, a Necromancer could still use Etherial Travel to go Etherial and then trash you. But it would take 10 minutes and by that time, you might be too far away. Still, they can run, use all their abilities and have all their stuff. You can only walk, have no abilities, and have nothing. You asked, "If you can only get Buried in the time it takes your soul to leave your body, why would you leave." To go get Resurrected, which was the original reason, not to avoid Bury.

As a last note, you never mentioned what you thought about the Host Idea. I think it has great potential for keeping the ratio of baddies to goodies even. I think it would be especially cool if it could be done instantly, and thus would make Animate Dead really an In Combat skill. You could kill something, Tag it and Call "Animate Dead, I make you into a Zombie (Host)." You then send that player back to the GM to be a Respawn and take their place as the Zombie. You already know all the stats for it, because you are the necro. You don't have to explain anything to anybody (just like Polymorph). You can simply start fighting, using that body like a suit of armor. If it dies, oh well, you can come out and make another one. The logistics would need to be carefully worded, but right now I am just talking about the potential here. Unless you Animate a veteran player, they usually can't jump into it right away. Furthermore, they are the ones I need as baddies to keep it fair. Thus, having the Necro play his own undead, make it easier on the GM, easier on the Necro and easier on the other players as well. The trick would be how to keep it fair, which I think is an easy one to solve.

Christopher

Hey, I've got a couple really simple fixes for Necro. I don't think we really need to do much.

Spirit Guide should definitely not let you carry unwilling spirits. That way, as soon as you're out of your body you're safe. Only Necrosavants can create undead that can go ethereal, so unless you're facing a guild master Necromancer, leaving your body becomes an entirely safe option with the only drawback being the loss of some wealth. This seems entirely fair.

Animate Dead should end at the end of the encounter.
While the undead are just as powerful as their permanent counterparts, it's a hastily cast spell, not a serious ritual you've spent days on. The zombie or ghost is more of a speed bump than a real threat. It should discorporate at the end of the encounter leaving behind a disintegrated mess that cannot be reanimated nor buried. This solves the problem of being trapped as a zombie indefinitely and gives the GM his baddies back for every encounter.

This means that Necromancers can't trap players in any way other than bury, which is fine. They'll either be left for someone to find, or be animated and discorporate in a few minutes anyway, freeing their soul. There should be no time limit for bury. That leaves it next to useless and encourages unrealistic play.

Actually, I think Bury is pretty underpowered already. HP from bury should not go away at the end of the encounter. Once everyone's down and you get to bury them, the encounter is over and the HP just disappears immediately anyway! Why bother? Life Mages, Nature Mages, Knights, etc. all get to use their buffs before and in combat (usually for free too with combat discipline!) and they can do it every time, so it may as well carry over for them. Necro's already have to earn their HP by killing someone for every single point, not waiting 20 seconds. Why should it go away immediately? Honestly, that sucks.

Bravo, Tyson:

I like almost all of your ideas, and they are exactly along the lines of what I was thinking. A few questions I need to clarify.

I like what you had to say about Animate Dead ending at the end of the encounter and leaving a mess that cannot be reanimated or buried, thus freeing the spirit. One question. Can it be resurrected? If so, then that is great, because players can then wait to be rescued, safe in the knowledge that they won't loose their stuff. However, if all it does is let you leave your body, then it is less important, because you would just leave your body before you got buried (if possible). Which were you thinking of? Otherwise, you recognized exactly what I was getting at about Animate Dead and the use of baddies, thanks!

The second question I have is about your Bury solutions. I don't know if you are really considering the ramifications of Bury because it is one of those skills I constantly keep from getting out of hand. Because we use the respawn system, you have no idea how many bodies are lying all over the ground during a battle. 10-30 is not unusual for Ork and Urukai battles, and Goblins cannot be counted. That is a ton of mana/HP. Now, even if we say that it is fair for the Necro to have access to all that Mana/HP in a combat, since it doesn't carry over (though you can heal yourself back to full, or restore lost mana which DOES carry over), consider what is likely to happen if the Necro starts Burying everybody. They will either have to submit to the fact that their soul is now trapped and they can be dumped in a river never to be seen from again (might as well be PDed) or they can leave their body. If they do leave their body, which they are like to do, you get all their stuff (weapons, armor, magic items, wealth, potions, scrolls, etc. etc.). You get the stuff from every critter on the field. Now, usually I say that the monsters just let you bury them, but that is not very realistic, since, if given the choice I don't know that that is what I would do. Sometimes I day the spirits have left, but because their are respawns we often forget to give players all that loot. This is a problem I see with Bury because it makes Theif moot. Why go up to lvl 9 Theif to get Unglued Loot when you can just intimidate the items off every encounter at lvl 2 Necro for free. Now, if you implement your "cannot reanimate or bury after animate dead" system, then players might have an out if the Necro uses them as an Undead, which is good I think. I don't think that Knights or Nature Mages or Life Mages can compare with Bury really, when you consider that the Knight doesn't get a free HP boost until lvl 9 and then the have to Combat Discipline for it. Nature Mage gets the Instant Transmute, but it is only HP and still isn't free until lvl 8. Life Mage gets Transcend, which is very powerful, but it does damage them and it takes time BC. Bury is IC and unlike Healing Touch actualy adds to your HP meaning a Urukai can put himself up at 8 HP in a combat. So, long story short, I think that Bury is very powerful, especially considering what it does. I think I wouldn't mind so much that it is powerful if the only defense against it is to give the necro all of your items....

Okay, I just had a crazy idea, but I checked it against the rule book and it actually does not contradict anything specifically stated in the rule book. Okay, go with me for a minute here. Currently, if you leave your body, all your items become unglued. Actually, it doesn't specifically say that in the rules, it says you must "take them off and leave them for anyone to pick up." What if they weren't unglued. What if they were still considered glued to your body and even when you go get summoned, players still can't just take them, they need a thief to unglue them. This might solve a lot of huge problems we are talking about. If that were true, then players would still loose all their stuff when they leave their body, but the party doesn't get all their stuff. They would have to pick and choose which bodies to carry etc. which makes it more fair. Also, monsters could leave their bodies in combat, safe in the knowledge that they will return later to recover lost equipment (all the stuff you didn't unglue or carry with a body back to town). If this were the case, I think we don't need to do anything to bury because it would equalize perfectly. Comments?

Tyson, you still didn't mention anything about the Host undead idea. Does no one like it? I like the fact that it saves me baddies, and I think Necros would like it because they would be relatively safe in there and could have full control of their baddy. Thoughts?

Christopher

A couple things:
1: I thought that the reason that your stuff became unglued when you left your body is because glue attaches the items to you as long as your spirit is present. Maybe i am wrong though.

2: I really like the Host idea, i think it is very economical for baddies and to have he necro that knows every ability that the wraith they just animated has is much more effective than having to explain it all to someone on the spot in the middle of battle. But then what happens if you have multiple undead? One of the fun things about being a necro is that you build yourself a small disposable army of undead to fight for you so you can sit back and enjoy the carnage.

3: I have a question, how are the necromancers making undead armies for free? Animate dead costs a mana, and to make cool undead with animate dead costs a ton, to make a rarity 8 undead costs 16 mana!

in regards to Jame's #2 statement- that is the very problem we are trying to address. How often IS a necromancer able to make his "Undead army and sit back in saftey watching the carnage"??? Say we have 10 people at a fanwar event. Roughly 5 ppl go on an adventure at once, leaving chris and 5 baddies for a total of 6. So who is going to sit out to play the undead? Should Chris limit the party size to the Necro and one or two others- that hardly seems fair! And its not fair to have a skill in the rulebook that necro's don't get to use. With the numbers of players at an event it is simply not possible to have your small undead army of goblins following you from encounter to encounter- because if the Necro's were played as they should be EVERY SINGLE CORPSE becomes another member in their army- respawns and all to the limit they can control.

As for the Host thing, one thing I theorize would happen is that if you can Posses your undead, it would probably be made somewhat cooler to make up for the fact that you can really only have the one! And if you consider it that is a WAY COOL ability for necromancers, they are COMPLETLY SAFE inside their disposable lilttle suit of armor, not only are they safe to watch the carnage but suddenly Necro's become a much more capable Melee class!

As for the time limit I agree that something needs to be done to nerf Bury a bit, and the time limit is the best that I have heard. The main point that Chris has brought up is the loot aspect, but we also need to remember the fact that once a character is dead, and the necro or whathave you has all the time in combat and afterwards to use a In Combat skill to completly dispose of you, getting that at lvl 2 is overpowering! Would you think it fair to give a 2nd in a class player acces to say a Morganti weapon that worked 90 percent of the time.!?!? Yeah sure you will sometimes leave your body or think to in time ( thus the 10 percent chance it doesn't work)- but particularly when its your own party- you think someone is going to come rebirth you, and instead they practically cause you to PD which sucks when a 2nd in a class character can do this to a guild master or higher! And as for the Baddie Necro's having this thats just scary! " Oh look, its ( insert hero's name) again, we're sick of dealing with him, just send a bunch of necro's that are at least 2nd after him, he'll never trouble us again! " We would all start lossing our characters like flies! The only reson we don't is because Chris doesn't necesarilly always play the baddies that way because he has a instinct of sorts to try to protect the characters we've all put so much time into!

By the way Tyson- I really like the idea that if the Necro does animate someone they are dust afterwards and can't be permanently locked in as zombies, buried or reanimated.

And just as a side note, I belive that their are currently upwards of 10 characters that are currently either locked into their bodies due to being buried or turned into Zombies at present. Just food for thought.

lady rose I don't get how being Buried leads to PDing. Could you explain how you came to that? If it is through being an undead minion you don't gain deaths anymore for being animated by a Necro. If that isn't it please explain.

As to it being uber cool I was refering to at higher lvls when you can make better undead.
And yes I can name 5 ppls. For one there are several characters that role " dead and burried" comming out of retirement, for example my Hobbit- Glitter that I made last season when we didn't know many people and eveyone was really cliquish. And as a result the only person that really knows or cares that shes gone is Br's mutant Tesla- who he can't bring out of retirement this year beacuse he has too many chars. So thats it for Glitter, she may as well be PD'd because I can't get her back. Also there was a group of young adventure's from the tuesday group that went to explore a old tomb, I belive Dwarven. And several of them are still stuck out there as Undead...one of them is Rob's character- I know that the party that went out was 7-10 strong, an I belive 2 made it back to town.

As for messing with Necro's who have friends that can kill you- heard of Dark Hero's? Or how about some stupid orc/ uraki mages..... Oh, they'll be an easy kill for a group of three lvl 14 characters, none of them are higher than 3rd in a class.....Opps, there were 7 of them and one was a necro, the healer went down, he burried him, and then we all wiped and got burried too.

And Chris BR and I discussed the leaving the body, that was my big problem- why would they leave their body undefended, but Chris said that you first enter the etherial plane, then posses them, so that your body and items are safe. The Skelli or whathave you dies, you go back into the etherial relm and posses another. Thus the host idea= cool suit of armor for Undead. And because its a PC doing it, they care more and fight better, rather than having a bored noobie playing ur allied mob.

the bury equals pd is a common tactics among pc's, assasins, or general ruthless evil types. since bury is currently a permanent effect , if you bury something and then make the body difficult or impossible to find, the player wont be back anytime soon, if ever. since the spirit is trapped there is no way short of possibly elder sorcery to get them back. although im not sure what happens if the body is utterly destroyed, disintegrated, burnt to ash, shredded to insanely tiny bits. you could find them, if you can, or you could pathfinder their location, or elder sorcery retrieve them, most of which are difficult to nigh impossible to do or get the resources to accomplish. all to counteract the effects of being killed once and having a necro around and the fact is that anyone can die, in any fight, the ability to make any person permanently gone is way out ofthe scope of what a second level in class should be able to accomplish, even creatively used. also, the reason the host idea makes u more capable is that while you inhabit your undead first off it may lose things like dense or stupid, and it can fight as well as you can, ( do you want to fight clay's skeleton dual wielding short swords?) and if it dies, oh well, your popped back and can make another, or if u allrady had another u can just jump into it. , and when necro's go etherial they dont leave their body behind , they bring it with them, they actually just enter the etherial plane, so there is no vulnerable meat body left behind.

The Necro, Bury Debate:

Ah, now this is more like it! What a lively conversation. Thanks for everybody putting in your opinions and thoughts, it is really great to hear this from all these different sides.

A few clarifications: Brandon and Jeanine are right, your body is not vulnerable when you are Etherial- in fact you take all your glued items with you too. So this is a cool way for Necros to function. Even being a Zombie that is Stupid is cool if you have total control of it. You can only walk and think simply, but you can't die, so you can take insane risks.

Second clarification: Jeanine is right that the main goal of fixing Animate Dead is so what it says. If there is a Necro in the party, I have to have a ton of baddies, and then the hero get mobbed. If they can't drop someone quick, they get trashed. I would like to have a rule that makes this constant adjustment for the possibility of animated undead fair. True, I only really have to worry about it with a Guild Master Necro, since they are the only ones who can Animate more than one thing. But unless you can really get the benefit of the skill at 10th in a class, why go up it. All the other mages are self sufficient. The necro has to hope their are enough players that day. That doesn't seem fair. Doesn't it seem better to give the Necro an option to play one awesome undead instead of an army, so that when we have few players, they are still cool?

To Clarify the Bury Debate: Jeanine is wrong is that my goal is not to make players safer from being Buried for good. Anyone who has played a long time with me knows that I personally feel the game is too safe (see Kill Zone, Dead Bag adjustments, etc.). I think players should die a lot more often, for good. I has to laugh when I was listening to the arguments we all had about how unrealistic it is for a 2nd in a class to be able to kill you for good. Wait a minute, I said, in real life, everybody can kill you for good! You just get killed. Yes, this is a fantasy world, and we like being able to come back to life, but it shouldn't be like taking out the trash, it should be a serious business, and very dangerous. So, my goal here is NOT to make Bury less potent. It has been the tool of every Assassin since the beginning of the game. Furthermore, what keep people from using it is not me, but the law. Just as that keeps players from using Morganti weapons. The punishment for a crime is usually higher than the crime itself (because if you didn't get caught there would have been no punishment). Thus the punishment for Burying someone and disposing of the body in a location like to never see it again is Morganti. In the case of Necro's who use people as their undead minions, it is assumed that they are using them for the time being, and will leave them once they are done with them. Lawful Good necros have been known to take the bodies to the Life Mages guild afterwards, or even resurrect them themselves. So, to be clear, my goal is no to make Bury less permanent, but to keep Necros from gaining an unfair advantage from it. The only way to avoid bury is to give the Necro all your stuff. That was never the intention of the spell. That is the problem, not that once you are buried you are pretty much stuck. I like that players get stuck. That is what makes for good rescue missions. (see Katonka, Clays Ranger, and a miraige of other Litch battles).

Regarding Undead for Free: Currently, Rarity 1 and lower become free very quickly because of Bury (which give a mana, and if you can Animate, you can Bury first, thus the loop), and Combat Discipline for Animate Dead. If you do both, then you can cast it for one less AND use the mana from Bury you can make anything Rarity 2 for 2 mana. Yes the cost goes up, but it is hardly a problem. Anyone who does Elder Sorcery can tell you that having access to something like 36 mana for a Ritual is quite common. So all I really have to do it Bury some poor fool, and then AFTER the battle, set up a Ritual and a couple of Alters of Power back in town in necessary and I have a Demon! Even then, I don't really mind, because you have to have studies the undead first, so you can't just get anything, but the fact that in NEVER goes away, now that is a problem. This is an In Combat Skill. Even with Charm we allow people some control of themselves and you have to renew the charm for a mana every day (still cheap, but for a Warrior, it is at least something, and you can only have that one charmed person, so if you keep them, you have lost the use of one of your best skills). Animate Dead is cumulative, and I can just keep building them up. This becomes a major problem because I can then just keep that cool undead and then eventually just keep growing...

more later....