Necromancy in Advanced Sorcery clarification please!

[tooley1chris]

So I'm introducing a vile necromancer into my campaign soon.

I found a bit of confusion when it comes to animating a skeleton.

The books reads, on P.70, that MPs are spent to enhance the skeletons characteristics and skills as per Demon rules.

The demon rules, on P.37, reads that 1 MP must be sacrificed per 1d8 of characteristics.

Since skeletons only have STR, DEX, SIZ characteristics (and SIZ would be based on the corpse animated)

for say 10 MPs the skeleton would be animated with 5d8 STR and 5d8 DEX!

My questions are as follows:

1. Should I require the necromancer to spend points equivalent to the SIZ of the corpse to be animated?

Perhaps 1MP per 1d8 or species SIZ?

2. Should the skeleton be restricted to the original species max STR & DEX?

3. Should I require at least a 1d8 in INT for the skeleton to be able to understand and follow commands?

Without INT the skeleton can ONLY be controlled via sorcerer concentration.

Appreciate your advice!

[cjbowser]

So I'm introducing a vile necromancer into my campaign soon.

I found a bit of confusion when it comes to animating a skeleton.

The books reads, on P.70, that MPs are spent to enhance the skeletons characteristics and skills as per Demon rules.

The demon rules, on P.37, reads that 1 MP must be sacrificed per 1d8 of characteristics.

Since skeletons only have STR, DEX, SIZ characteristics (and SIZ would be based on the corpse animated)

for say 10 MPs the skeleton would be animated with 5d8 STR and 5d8 DEX!

My questions are as follows:

1. Should I require the necromancer to spend points equivalent to the SIZ of the corpse to be animated?

Perhaps 1MP per 1d8 or species SIZ?

2. Should the skeleton be restricted to the original species max STR & DEX?

3. Should I require at least a 1d8 in INT for the skeleton to be able to understand and follow commands?

Without INT the skeleton can ONLY be controlled via sorcerer concentration.

Appreciate your advice!

 

1. I would. I'd consider that the basic cost of doing business.

2. Not in my opinion. This is magic, after all. And the results could be quite surprising for the unwary or arrogant.

3. I wouldn't make it a requirement. Maybe a really strongly worded encouragement, but not a requirement.

[BMonroe]

I guess you could animate it with enormous stats if you wanted to. But, I guess I figured that's why foul necromancers would conjure up -armies- of skeletons, but maybe only one or two demons.

 

Instead of getting one or two really big tough skellies (like, giant skeletons, or t-rex skeletons), conjure up 50 regular human skeletons, and overwhelm with numbers.

[seneschal]

If the vile necromancer is an NPC, I'd let him do whatever is cool and scary and forget about trying to rationalize his powers.  When was the last time you saw Sauron, Maleficent, or Skeletor agonizing over Magic Points?  Being the Big Bad means never having to explain or justify how you did it. 

 

The exception to this is if you want your heroic adventures to be able to defeat the villain by forcing him to run out of juice; he's helpless after casting one or two really flashy spells.