Creeping undead featurism

[Darth Fool]

All right, how about this for a merging of proposals:
level 1. Dark adept left the same, they are still neophytes (or should that be necrophytes) and haven't been taught the arcane art of raising the dead.
level 2. same as current necromancer, but with melee attack geting plague(walking corpse).
level 3A. strictily improved version of necromancer. This includes getting a second plague attack to raise skeletons. It would remain human.
level 3B. Lich, same as current unit. (ie loses plague attack and humanity, but that's ok 'cause there is already a unit that is strictly better)

I don't care about the names and would prefer delaying discussion of such until after the gameplay elements are fixed.

[Elvish_Pillager]

*: BTW, what is RIPLIB? I know what it means, but not what it stands for...

Reducing In Power Levelling Is Bad.

[Eponymous-Archon]

level 3A. strictily improved version of necromancer. This includes getting a second plague attack to raise skeletons. It would remain human.

"The Summoner - Well skilled in the dark arts, Summoners have moved beyond merely communicating with the deceased and are able to summon undead warriors at will."

How's that for a start?

[Elvish_Pillager]

"The Summoner - Well skilled in the dark arts, Summoners have moved beyond merely communicating with the deceased and are able to summon undead warriors at will."

How's that for a start?

Good start.

However... At will? Plague is 'raising up corpses', not 'summoning them out of thin air'.

[Eponymous-Archon]

However... At will? Plague is 'raising up corpses', not 'summoning them out of thin air'.

I was going by the description above. I thought "raising skeletons" was different.

[Disto]

Summoning is where you bring it from somewhere else and make it do what you want, stuff like elementals and demons, Raising is where you take the corpse and bind it to your will, graveyards are a good place for this

[Eponymous-Archon]

Summoning is where you bring it from somewhere else and make it do what you want, stuff like elementals and demons, Raising is where you take the corpse and bind it to your will, graveyards are a good place for this

As with most of these sorts of fantasy/sci-fi/mythical activities, I don't think "summoning" is so well defined. "Summoning the dead" is a pretty standard phrase. Likewise "raising" doesn't require "binding to one's will", though we might like that idea here.

[Disto]

Summoning is where you bring it from somewhere else and make it do what you want, stuff like elementals and demons, Raising is where you take the corpse and bind it to your will, graveyards are a good place for this

As with most of these sorts of fantasy/sci-fi/mythical activities, I don't think "summoning" is so well defined. "Summoning the dead" is a pretty standard phrase. Likewise "raising" doesn't require "binding to one's will", though we might like that idea here.

Yeah i suppose you can raise stuff and not bind it but... It would be kind of annoying to have your brains eaten every time you raised your horde. Summoning the dead is just summoning the spirit into something, so basically raising i suppose.

[Eponymous-Archon]

Summoning the dead is just summoning the spirit into something, so basically raising i suppose.

You're missing my point. These words don't have to mean what you keep saying they mean.

[Disto]

They have a meaning just some people don't use them.

[scott]

All right, how about this for a merging of proposals:
level 1. Dark adept left the same, they are still neophytes (or should that be necrophytes) and haven't been taught the arcane art of raising the dead.
level 2. same as current necromancer, but with melee attack geting plague(walking corpse).
level 3A. strictily improved version of necromancer. This includes getting a second plague attack to raise skeletons. It would remain human.
level 3B. Lich, same as current unit. (ie loses plague attack and humanity, but that's ok 'cause there is already a unit that is strictly better)

I don't care about the names and would prefer delaying discussion of such until after the gameplay elements are fixed.

This sounds fine. Here is an alternative: L2 is exactly the same as now and L3a gets plague (walking corpse) on all attacks.

[elanthis]

Arguing about the meaning of necromancer is absolutely pointless. Whether you like it or not, the meaning has become, "raiser and controller of the undead," in addition to its classical meaning. That is what almost every single person will define necromancer as. At one point in time, you might have been able to say that they are "wrong" but that isn't the case anymore. Language is dynamic. Many words no longer mean what they did 500, 100, 50, 20, or even 5 years ago. Words change.

Heck, just as a bit of proof, the word "necromancy" is only loosely based on "divination through corpses or the dead." Nekros is greek for corpse. Niger (there's another example of a word that's had a VERY big change in meaning) means black. Necromancy was recently (~400 years) spelled nygromancy, because it was a "black art," and only recently changed to necromancy as an attempt as correcting the word.

Seriously, it's silly to try to argue about word meanings like this. In the end, what the people want a word to mean is what it means, and the vast majority of people don't think of coroners as necromancers. Peace and be gay. (Oops, another word that's had a huge change in meaning recently...)

Isn't the internet (look, a word that didn't even exist 15 years ago and is now a part of every new dictionary made) great?

OK, I think my point has come across now, hopefully.

[turin]

actually, necromancy and nigromancy are two different, but related, things...

[Eponymous-Archon]

Actually, we had moved on to the meanings of "summon" and "raise". I was in effect arguing what you are, that summon and raise don't have to mean what Disto says they do, they can mean other things.

(As for necromancy and nigromancy, that involves a confusion over the origin of the word. Feel free to use necromancy as you like, but in non-fastasy-world discussions, you'll be wrong to say it involves raising the dead. And let's not get into a discussion of historical linguistics here. Obviously the meaning of words changes over time. Necromancy though is a bit of a dead word, except in fantasy literature/gaming, where, as it seems, it has come to have a new meaning.)

[dtw]

if only we all could keep the semantics arguements for another day....