Talk:Necromancy

Introduction

Necromancy will be the first of the new spell systems to be implemented. The other four are Evocation, Influxtion, Druidry, and Mysticism. The primary drive for each spell system will be to fill a specific combat style while having a role-play flavor. The five systems are intended to be taken in combinations of 2, 3, or even 4. They are not intended to be "solo skills". The support skills for the new spell systems will be Evaluate Intelligence for all damage spells and Spirit Speak for all beneficial spells.

The normal UO magic system involves casting the spell, often with a long cast time, and then targeting. The new systems will have significantly shorter cast times but longer cool-downs. Most of the combat spells will be designed to eliminate the need for targeting after casting. Instead, spell-casters will determine their target either via use of the .nexttarget command or by pulling up the mob's bar and double-clicking it to change target. This should seriously reduce the "click factor" of the current UO game system but does slightly increase the possible threat.

Necromancy will be renamed to Vahonomancy to better represent its role as a summoning system. The skill will have three skins which will determine the type of summons; shamanic, demonic, and necrotic. Vahonomancy uses Evaluate Intelligence as its support skill and a basic Vahonomancer build is Vahonomancy, Evaluate Intelligence, Meditation, and Spirit Speak. Spirit speak is included because it has a magical personal heal and will replace anatomy as the support skill for beneficial spells, however it is not required for the effectiveness of Vahonomancy.

This build should be as reasonably effective as a four skill Tamer build. It is assumed that a full build will include one or more of the other magic skills.

Concept

Vahonomancy uses 4 summons which each have their own special ability. The summons all behave slightly different and are used differently to manage a combat scenario. Summons will use their special ability on their own, but the caster can expend mana to force the summon to use the special ability on command via a spell.

All the summons, except the horde, take one of 5 pet slots.

Spells

Spell	Mana	Minimum Skill	Duration	Cool Down	Target
Summon Familiar		55		30 sec	Current Target
	This summons either a wolf, a vampire bat, or imp depending on the skin selected. When the mob is summoned it will automatically attack either the caster's current target if they have one, the first mob to target them or the weakest mob nearby. If familiar loses its target it will retarget on the next "weak" mob.
Familiar Bite	Special	55	Continual	Special	the familiar
	This spell forces the familiar to bite its target. The caster can change the familiar's target by changing their own target and hitting the spell again. This spell will continue indefinitely until; the familiar is killed or expires. If the caster casts any other spell it will temporarily interrupt this spell's auto-cast cycle. (The mana cost and cooldown of this spell are directly equal to the passive mana regeneration rate of GM Mediation in 6 pieces of normal leather armor. The damage of the bite should be about half that of an equivalent sword.)
Summon Guardian		65		60 sec	Ben. Target
	This summons either a {tbd} depending on the skin selected. The guardian requires a beneficial target to be activated. If no beneficial target is active the summon will guard the caster. This summon will attack any mobs on its assigned beneficial target, strongest first. This mob can not have its beneficial target changed, it will need to be resummoned. This mob can not be redirected to attack another mob, it always attacks the "strongest" current attacking its beneficial target.
Guardian Poison		65		5 sec	the guardian
	This spell forces the guardian to poison its target.
Summon Spirit		75		90 sec	Current Target
	This summons either a {tbd} depending on the skin selected. Like the familiar, the spirit can have its target changed by casting its special ability. If the spirit loses its target it will attack anything attacking it or the closest mob. It will chase and may runoff.
Life Leech		75		10 sec	the spirit
	This spell causes the Spirit to perform a ranged life leech upon its target it will gain back some hitpoints each time it does its special ability.
Raise Horde		85	4-9 sec	15 sec	AOE from caster
	This spell will raise a horde of undead, spirits, or demons out of the corpses of surrounding mobs. The range of the spell increases at GM. The more corpses in the range the more mobs that will be raised. This horde will spring up and attack everything in sight until it expires. This will use up the corpses making them unusable for spirit speak.
Summon Behemoth		100		120 sec	Ground Target
	This summons either a {tbd} depending on the skin selected. The Behemoth never strays from where it is placed. It neither chases nor runs, nor can it be moved without resummoning. The Behemoth is the tank of the set.
Behemoth Taunt		100		20 sec	the behemoth
	This spell causes the Behemoth to taunt all mobs off the caster and on to him. It will always taunt one, but additional ones have a chance to fail.