Wed Apr 21 13:35:44 2004


At 8 o'clock AM, Day of the Bull, 22nd of the Month of the Shadows
on the Theran calendar Ufhram perished, never to return.

Race:	human
Class:	necromancer
Level:	37
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	None, None
Age:	29
Hours:	80

We had one interesting fight once in which I was resting underwater and having a weak mind while you came along with an assassin. The odds were well in your favor, and while I only had enough mind power to blind you at first, several heroes came along and lent a hand to me staying alive. Tough luck about that. I knew I was lucky. However, I was looking forward to future fights we might have had. Too bad.

Its nice to see necromancers without orderly intent wandering around. That shows guts. Good luck with your next.

"Its nice to see necromancers without orderly intent wandering around. That shows guts."

Are you refering to tribunal necromancers being an "easy option"? If so, please say so.

an easy option. Detect hidden, empire wont hunt you. The detect hidden is a big plus. You know whos around and who isnt, and what to expect. So yeah, easy option.

nt

Is it possible you are a bit biased, having chosen a druid supplication for your handle?

I accept that I might be a bit biased, as I am currently playing a tribunal, but I have played a scion necromancer and it was easier to pk with the scion than with a tribunal.

If you want a single example of what made life potentially very dangerous for me, it is this.

There is/was a necromancer scion who would walk into town, whilst not wanted. I'd know that he was probably going to attack me, which leaves me with two options. Either I let him get the first attack off (which will be sleep), or I leave town, which rp prevents me from doing. If he sleeps me, I will not be able to use any tribunal powers on him until well after the fight. Once slept by a necromancer in galadon, you are guaranteed to die unless help comes or unless you've had the sense to stand in one of two rooms when he attacks you. Please explain to me how you'd handle this when you are the only tribunal on. In practice, I was able to handle this, but I'm interested in how you would do it. Then try to tell me that a scion necromancer, if not currently wanted, doesn't have an advantage over a tribunal in town (assuming the tribunal doesn't leave town in fear of the attack that is coming). And out of town, there is no question whose powers are more useful.

Without going into specifics, lets define 'easier' first. Easier, as I define it, means that you can survive -easier- as a Tribunal Necromancer, and you can kill -easier- as a Tribunal Necromancer. If you were going to list 'easy combinations' to play, Tribunal Necromancer would probably not be towards the difficult edge of that list. It's doubtless that you will have your problems, but you have many less problems than many other class/race/cabal combos out there.

That's all I'm saying, I'm not trying make your work with your character seem less important, I'm just saying that trying to defend the difficulty of playing a Tribunal Necromancer in terms of PK is not an argument you are likely to win. :)

All classes have their problems. Tribunal Necromancers have many less problems than other classes.

Thornheart has been my nickname for years, if you'd rather identify me as someone else you can call me Nimuweh or Rhowyn :)

A good necro, from what I remember. Nice rp, and I remember he was a scion. I'll take back my suggestion of potential bias.

Instead, I'll explain why I think scion powers are better.

For getting the fights you want. Relevant power very limited in some circumstances but very useful in others (on grounds of what affects success rate).

For preventing flee/teleport (there is a way for a spectre scion to do this where other spectres cannot, though it may fail).

For flushing out concealed characters anywhere (unless this has changed), if you plan to be there long. Tribs on the other hand are as vulnerable as any if they stay still long outside of the city, and limited to seeing in civilised surroundings last I checked (i.e. can't see assassins in the wilds).

Nightwalker. Allows you to summon people back to you and have the nightwalker engage them. Special guards don't attack right away. Nightwalker comes anywhere.

Manacles. The trump card of a tribunal against a scion necro, but only if the scion necro is wanted. Otherwise useless, unless trib necro weathers a sleep spell first.

One of the things I think is best about a tribunal is that if criminals come for you, lots of mobs will warn you. However, that only works if they are criminals before they decide to attack you. In all honesty, I think the main power of the tribunal is the long term impact of killing one on duty. If you do, you are going to get an exp pen sub hero and likely find your hunting hampered if you don't die quickly. The danger isn't so much that the tribunal you attack kills you, it is more that you are likely to die to someone else from being wanted or be hampered in your attacks.

Volley. Admittedly, no scion has ever volleyed my sleep, and my scion necro didn't fight many other necromancers, but presumably volley can work against the sleep spell.

Dspl. Nice, particularly if you know of dam reducing preps.

Where a tribunal does hold the edge is that a tribunal can expect to have their powers almost all the time, whilst a scion can expect not to for substantial periods. A tribunal also has limited access to gear from those outside his or her pk.

Tribunal powers on the other hand don't always help a necromancer. For example, the use of guards against criminals means you put them to sleep.

I'm not saying trib powers are useless or weak by any means, because they aren't. However, mechanics-wise, if I could play a tribunal who was allowed to use scion powers instead of my own, I would. Tribunal powers are more raw force oriented. Scion powers are more tactically oriented. I've always seen necromancers as a class that doesn't benefit from raw force as much as flexibility of tactics. You can take the raw force approach, but in many ways, it limits you more than it empowers you.

I also agree that tribunal is strong right now. However, it only matters who is logged on at any point. You don't get the benefit of having many cabalmates if they don't play when you play. I've just been playing for some time and no others were on at any point.

I don't remember if Rhowyn had new scion powers. I didn't think he did, but they are better than the old ones in my view. Anyway, no point in me arguing it further. I imagine everyone has their opinion on this already. That's why I have mine though.

But we weren't discussing Tribunal vs. Scion necromancers. We were discussing the arguable difficulty of playing a Tribunal Necromancer. I would argue that for PK, a necromancer is incredibly good, no matter what race/cabal. The only way we can measure the difficulty of a class to play is by comparing it to others. I've played a lot of necromancers, and in my humble opinion, they were -easy- to pk and survive with. (relatively) Try something different and see which one was easier.

Rhowyn

This thread was STARTED by saying (basically) choosing Tribunal necro was an easy choice over choosing a chaotic necro.


So your assertion in this post that this discussion isn't about "tribunal vs. scion necromancers" is utterly, Completely, incorrect.

That is exactly what this thread was started out as.

It was not started as a thread discussing the difficulty of playing a tribby necro as weighed against ALL other race-class-cabal choices. It was started as a direct comparrison of Orderly vs Chaotic necromancers.


"Death awaits ya all, wit nasteh big pointeh teeth!"

I admit to not having read the first post. My mistake, thanks for correcting me.

The original post also implied that choosing an imperial necro is an easier choice than a scion necro. I also disagree with that, but I didn't feel like arguing that point.

I do agree with Thornheart that necro is a tough to kill and lethal class whatever the affiliation though. I just don't see that a scion necromancer is disadvantaged overall relative to other necromancers.

if you think he is going to get first attack and there is nothing you can do about it. Let him try to attack the guild guard first if he wants to get to you. That way, you are in town and he cant get first shot at you which can be fatal. This first shot thing is a minor drawback compared to the benefits.

It helps a lot to detect hidden even from town.

You can't go into another guild unless you are doing so to catch a criminal or investigate a crime.

and you can do that if you know you will be attacked, and if the potential criminal might get a lethal first shot at you ie, sleep, pwk etc. If i was a spectre (ie evil) and some imm booted me cuz i entered another guild to prevent something like that from taking place, i'd probably give him the finger and tell him/her to go find another suicidal servant. Period.

I was under the impression that being allowed to go into other guilds was banned precisely to stop tribunals going into different ones to avoid their enemies.

Why else would tribunals be banned in any way from going into other guilds, if not to prevent them hiding from enemies?

You used to be able to do what you suggested, but not for a long time now. Either that or I misunderstood the rule.

The main reason, to my knowledge, is to prevent evil tribs from going into the paladin guild, or any other guild for that matter, to get all the gear from the floor and use it.

To run into a guild other than the paladin one and grab gear probably won't be spotted unless someone is in the guild. To avoid a pk means sitting in the guild.

Overall I think the rule as a measure to avoid grabbing of gear would be difficult to enforce, whilst as a measure of avoiding pk it should be easier.

Either way, would you agree that we wouldn't be allowed to go into a guild to avoid pk?

(Sorry Ulfrahm for carrying this on here. Hope you don't mind.)

I can't speak to today's Tribunal setup, but that was definitely the original intent of that rule.

Tribunals were allowed to enter other guilds to investigate and pursue criminals, but in practice 95% of them only used it to hide. The difficulties of killing an on-duty Tribunal already seemed fair without adding the need to continually bust past guild guards to re-engage.

I found scion powers to be more useful. There are two scion powers that can allow you to prevent thiefs and assassins bothering you, even if you can't see them. When it comes to a tribunal necro, it is more than some necro powers are useful for tribunal business than it is the other way around. Also, scion powers lend themselves better to a necromancer's style of pk than tribunal ones (given that only a small proportion of necromancer tribunal kills will be in the cities or on manacles enemies just outside the city.

Imperials are not all friendly with all evil tribunals. This is a common misconception and I can't count the number of times people ask me if we are still allied with the Empire, and don't believe me when I say that there is no alliance.

Detect hidden is something you only get when you are on duty in the city, assuming you are not the vindicator. Rather than go back on duty to see who is around, I'm more likely to ask a mage to locate gear that I know my enemies carry. On top of that, Tribunals can still be assassinated whilst on duty with vigilance up. Because of that, if I want to know if someone is around, I ask someone to locate their gear, or I ask a sympathetic thief and/or assassin. I don't rely on vigilance. As a tribunal, I get targetted by outlanders in particular, and they tend to use skills other than hiding in civilised areas. When I want to know if they are around, I ask a mage (or sometimes a visible thief or assassin).

Detect hidden doesn't help you when you go to find criminals who, as you would expect, rarely come back to town when you are on duty.

Have you played a scion necromancer? For solo-killing potential, I'd take a scion over other cabals any day when it comes to a necromancer.

On top of that, Tribunals can still be assassinated whilst on duty with vigilance up

This is solely dependant on how often you type where. Ofcourse you should know that though, that the assassin has to walk to key rooms to be able to stalk you, and no one uses those rooms within the city to log in/out. So its easy to see them heading into said rooms, etc.

I agree with Xaanix, tribunal is an easy option if you worried about Empire, or getting assassinated.

There are two scion powers that can allow you to prevent thiefs and assassins bothering you, even if you can't see them

Um...I wouldn't use the word "preventing" because its not quite accuracte. A smart assassin can get around them rather easily actually. Vigilance is a LOT harder to get around than these powers. Not to mention Scion has THREE ENEMIES, two of which often raid for the scepter. How often do the Tribs have their Item? Almost all of the time, Outlander is too piss-weak and without enough muscle to take it.

That happened to me like five times. I'd get someone slept and then all of a sudden eight hero's would show up and ruin it for me. But all in all I had a blast only wish I coulda found more time to play. In actuality it was only one hero but still it felt like eight at times.