Druidic Healing Interacting With Death Knights?

You are all idiots.

Revel in my glorious rays of intelligent posting and lore fascism.

Braiden wrote:I was more referring to being resurrected by what is described as dark magic by the tooltip ought to leave some kind of impact on the character just like a soul stone would on one using that as "backup", it also leaves a debuff called "Void-Touched" that implies there's something going on if I remember it correctly. Warlock soul stone has the exact same mechanical effect save for the debuff yet I don't think people would play it out as something you pull out of your pocket to resurrect someone else on a whim with 3 seconds cast time.

Ah yes, that I agree on.

Also, if we are to consider changes to game mechanics canon then rune tap has been retconned and while necromancy is shadow magic not all shadow magic is necromancy leaving your argument that necromancy can heal other living then the actual user not confirmed by game mechanics or lore. Now I suppose I'm just being an ass arguing my opinion anyway since I don't mind you playing it out that way but I personally wouldn't interpertate it as the nature of necromancy to be very beneficial to anyone but the user and undead in terms of healing, just seems like the lights and natures turf to me.

The nature of necromancy is to focus on death. So it's never fully beneficial. For it to give, it first has to take. Healing is not always good. It can be 'evil', and selfish, when you're sucking life from one person in order to feed it into another. In both cases where Dru has used necromantic healing in-game, it has been at the cost of the people around her. She stole years of life from Valten when healing Zailynia, and stole years of life from Skarain when healing Jarric. I really don't see how that is 'not the nature of necromancy', when the core of necromancy is often the pursuit of means to escape death. Even if a necromancer took from their own life, it doesn't change the fact that it is causing death in order to restore life.

Necromancy is a school of magic that focuses on studying anatomy and the forces of life and death. And I'd say that it is confirmed to be able to heal in-game. Even if you decide to ignore spells like Void Shift and Vampiric Embrace, we do still have Raise Ally. It resurrects the dead to life, not just undeath, and that would require an element of healing. Not only are you reuniting body and soul, you also have to cure the mortal wounds that were inflicted on the victim. They are brought from 0% health to 30% health, afterall. I'd also consider healthstones and soulstones to be necromancy, and both can be given to other people.

Feral / Blackfall wrote:I quite disagree. For one thing, many, many game mechanics contradict the lore. Consider how many game mechanics were changed from following lore, to contradicting it, for the convenience of game mechanics. If there's a game mechanic that addresses something that has -no- lore background, and the game mechanic solution seems logical, then fair enough.

But how do you explain that Forsaken and Death Knights, for example, are considered humanoid in game mechanics, but undead (and USED to be undead in game mechanics) in lore?

Or why have the Forsaken--via game mechanics--forgotten Common? Or human thugs forgotten Gutterspeak?

Because, as I have said several times now... these things have been directly clarified by Blizzard. This is not a case of the playerbase going "well the mechanics are bad so we just ignore it," and ignoring it on their own opinion. This is a case of Blizzard outright stating, themselves, "Yeah guys, we had to do this because of X reason, so it's not canon."

The same has not been done about druidic healing. No dev has ever said, "Hey, we had to allow druids to heal undead because of game balance so it's not canon." That means, ergo, we should be considering it to be canon. In-game lore and mechanics should be treated as canon unless Blizzard says otherwise or it clearly contradicts another, more valid source.

To again repeat myself, so many people tried making the exact same argument about priests using both holy and shadow. "Oh this is silly. Clearly this is just for game mechanics, so we aren't going to acknowledge it as canon." Then several years later we see a quest showing clearly that priests do, in fact, use both. Opinion on what is and is not a proper mechanic is not canon.

Saying that druidic healing heals undead because in-game mechanics dictate so is kinda nonsensical. It heals undead because if it didn't, undead tanks (forsaken/dks) and druid healers would be useless in a raid setting.

Which is exactly the reasoning why holy energy was retconned to heal the undead instead of burn them alive. Because the mechanics said they could, so the lore changed to acknowledge it.

When you look at in-game mechanics, I think it should -only- be looked at in cases where it (a) clearly doesn't contradict with any lore, and (b) makes sense. In this case it -might- make sense with some backup lore (hence this entire thread), but it -would- contradict lore in a sense.

Post the lore it contradicts, please. All the people who keep asking for sources have yet to post any of their own.

Lore shows that Forsaken and Death Knights react in a different way than normal mortals to Light healing. It only makes sense that nature healing would affect them differently too; the question is how. Saying "it heals them fullstop because game mechanics dictate so" just makes no sense to me. Not saying "druid healing doesn't heal undead," just that "game mechanics" isn't a good reasoning to go by.

No one here has said it 'heals them fullstop'. Only that it does heal them. Several of us have already posted possible methods in which it would heal. But the fact that it does heal undead is established, because there no source contradicting the mechanics.

If the whole issue is that a druid cannot mend tissue which has no life, because it's dead, looks like, again, that Drustai is right. From Tides of War

The Lion of the Waves was rattled by the sound of all its cannons
exploding, disgorging their contents upon the enemy. Some cannonballs
splashed harmlessly into the water, but most struck their target—
the lead ship—dead on. Cheers went up as the side of the Horde
vessel was nearly completely caved in.
And then the wood began mending itself. It would seem that in addition
to experienced shaman, the crew of this ship also had skillful
druids.

These Horde druids are capable to mend the dead wood of which the Horde ships are made, to the point the vessels can stay afloat. So, they can mend dead tissues. Death Knights are probably the same, and probably work as ertwen and Drustai said: the tissue is 'relived', and then brought to heal. Afer the spell, it comes back dead. Would it be painful? On a side, I agree about the life-engorging thing, to the other though, I'm trying to think about wounds when they are touched with dead tissue or foreign elements. In this case, the relived tissue is surrounded by dead tissue, so I guess it could hurt much, like a gangrenous wound.

Drustai wrote:

Also, if we are to consider changes to game mechanics canon then rune tap has been retconned and while necromancy is shadow magic not all shadow magic is necromancy leaving your argument that necromancy can heal other living then the actual user not confirmed by game mechanics or lore. Now I suppose I'm just being an ass arguing my opinion anyway since I don't mind you playing it out that way but I personally wouldn't interpertate it as the nature of necromancy to be very beneficial to anyone but the user and undead in terms of healing, just seems like the lights and natures turf to me.

The nature of necromancy is to focus on death. So it's never fully beneficial. For it to give, it first has to take. Healing is not always good. It can be 'evil', and selfish, when you're sucking life from one person in order to feed it into another. In both cases where Dru has used necromantic healing in-game, it has been at the cost of the people around her. She stole years of life from Valten when healing Zailynia, and stole years of life from Skarain when healing Jarric. I really don't see how that is 'not the nature of necromancy', when the core of necromancy is often the pursuit of means to escape death. Even if a necromancer took from their own life, it doesn't change the fact that it is causing death in order to restore life.

Necromancy is a school of magic that focuses on studying anatomy and the forces of life and death. And I'd say that it is confirmed to be able to heal in-game. Even if you decide to ignore spells like Void Shift and Vampiric Embrace, we do still have Raise Ally. It resurrects the dead to life, not just undeath, and that would require an element of healing. Not only are you reuniting body and soul, you also have to cure the mortal wounds that were inflicted on the victim. They are brought from 0% health to 30% health, afterall. I'd also consider healthstones and soulstones to be necromancy, and both can be given to other people.

Healthstones and soulstones could be shadow magic that doesn't classify as necromancy, health stones could even be fel fueled in theory (which is a fun possibility to me in a sense). Never the less the core of my idea is that necromancy is that the life given to the undead is twisted life energy (meaning not the exact same thing as a standard healing spell), I can buy the fact that you take life from one person in order to give to another... I still firmly believe that the experience should have an impact the character receiving it, the one that's doing it and the one that it's taken from on many planes since you in essence fuck around with their souls/life energy/whatever you want to call it, the experience of having your soul and body being touched by dark forces (feel free to make jokes about darkness touching you in your special place, I can see them coming) can surely never leave you the same. Again the Void shift debuff implies that a touch of the spirit realm lingers on you for example, seems like an excellent indication that it somehow fucks you up.

My personal opinion is that necromantic healing is treated very lightly and that resurrections are used without much of an impact, turning it from the dramatic event it should be for the characters involved to a "meh"-moment where it's just glorified "regular" healing where the repercussions seen in rp at most is the necromancer being hunted by the authorities (forgive me if I'm wrong, it's just the way it looks trough my eyes. The healing I actually witnessed was quite tame).

Longknife/Decurius wrote:If the whole issue is that a druid cannot mend tissue which has no life, because it's dead, looks like, again, that Drustai is right. From Tides of War

The Lion of the Waves was rattled by the sound of all its cannons
exploding, disgorging their contents upon the enemy. Some cannonballs
splashed harmlessly into the water, but most struck their target—
the lead ship—dead on. Cheers went up as the side of the Horde
vessel was nearly completely caved in.
And then the wood began mending itself. It would seem that in addition
to experienced shaman, the crew of this ship also had skillful
druids.

These Horde druids are capable to mend the dead wood of which the Horde ships are made, to the point the vessels can stay afloat. So, they can mend dead tissues. Death Knights are probably the same, and probably work as ertwen and Drustai said: the tissue is 'relived', and then brought to heal. Afer the spell, it comes back dead. Would it be painful? On a side, I agree about the life-engorging thing, to the other though, I'm trying to think about wounds when they are touched with dead tissue or foreign elements. In this case, the relived tissue is surrounded by dead tissue, so I guess it could hurt much, like a gangrenous wound.

Except wood isn't filled with necromantic energies in order to keep walking after it's supposedly dead. Death knights and undead is a very different thing then wood planks.

Braiden wrote:My personal opinion is that necromantic healing is treated very lightly and that resurrections are used without much of an impact, turning it from the dramatic event it should be for the characters involved to a "meh"-moment where it's just glorified "regular" healing where the repercussions seen in rp at most is the necromancer being hunted by the authorities (forgive me if I'm wrong, it's just the way it looks trough my eyes. The healing I actually witnessed was quite tame).

This is an issue with specific players, though. Everyone has the right to role-play the consequences as they see fit.

When I have my witch doctor pull someone from the realm of the dead, I roll a d10 from a table to determine the permanent effect. These include things like "slight hearing loss" to "infertility". Some people don't want to deal with those consequences and have them stuck on their character for ever; And that's fine, it's their choice, after all.

It seems you're turning something that is very personal to the players involved into a general issue. Even if it is what most players do, it's still personal.

Other Players not interpretating certain actions as having severe consequences, and you interpretating them as having such, is not a lore problem.

Braiden wrote:Except wood isn't filled with necromantic energies in order to keep walking after it's supposedly dead. Death knights and undead is a very different thing then wood planks.

It's a stretch, but it's something.

I would use this "boatomancy" to support a different argument; Blizzard isn't shy to be randomly creative with what their characters can do. "Ships are made of wood right? Don't druids like, totally do things with wood? Let's have them mend some ships!" without wondering too much about the technicalities. This is a wonderful world of fantasy, anything is possible if you're just willing to let it happen.

erwtenpeller wrote:This is an issue with specific players, though. Everyone has the right to role-play the consequences as they see fit.

When I have my witch doctor pull someone from the realm of the dead, I roll a d10 from a table to determine the permanent effect. These include things like "slight hearing loss" to "infertility". Some people don't want to deal with those consequences and have them stuck on their character for ever; And that's fine, it's their choice, after all.

It seems you're turning something that is very personal to the players involved into a general issue. Even if it is what most players do, it's still personal.

Other Players not interpretating certain actions as having severe consequences, and you interpretating them as having such, is not a lore problem.

Admittedly I went for a concrete example from my own experience as we can argue what lore dictates forever without agreeing. I'm intrested in knowing the reasoning behind how people play things out and as such I might come off as provoking. I have not anywhere said that I dont accept the way people play it out or that it's outright wrong despite disagreeing. I'm just explaining my view just like Drustai does when she writes a "guide" or answers a questions like this one (because lets face it, there's no official guides and player made ones are based on opinion and interpretation). I just don't see the harm in discussing something that I obviously roll with when I play my character anyways (since I didnt just blanked that Drustai healed a person first time around when coming across it IC ).

Basicly: I don't say your opinion and the way you choose to play things out is invalid, I'm just saying that opinions and interpretation of lore differ on the matter. I'm also interested in hearing the reasoning behind it. Also, I think I'm heading a bit off topic so I'll stop this specific bit now.

Drustai wrote:

When you look at in-game mechanics, I think it should -only- be looked at in cases where it (a) clearly doesn't contradict with any lore, and (b) makes sense. In this case it -might- make sense with some backup lore (hence this entire thread), but it -would- contradict lore in a sense.

Post the lore it contradicts, please. All the people who keep asking for sources have yet to post any of their own.

Lore shows that Forsaken and Death Knights react in a different way than normal mortals to Light healing. It only makes sense that nature healing would affect them differently too; the question is how. Saying "it heals them fullstop because game mechanics dictate so" just makes no sense to me. Not saying "druid healing doesn't heal undead," just that "game mechanics" isn't a good reasoning to go by.

No one here has said it 'heals them fullstop'. Only that it does heal them. Several of us have already posted possible methods in which it would heal. But the fact that it does heal undead is established, because there no source contradicting the mechanics.

In reference to the first bit--it was continued in the next paragraph, I said it contradicts lore "in a sense" and explained my reasoning just after. The "fullstop" means, accepting the fact that it definitely, 100% DOES heal, as opposed to, say, not healing, or causing damage, based on mechanics.

Based on game mechanics? Mechanical monsters used to not be able to bleed; now they can. Sure, maybe they're "bleeding" oil, but my entire point is that mechanics change, and are tailored toward simplicity and ease in playing an MMO--not RP--and I'd prefer to rarely look to game mechanics as a source (or, well, to quote them as one).

Edit--That is NOT to say that someone can't use this basis for their own RP!! In case I'm being unclear here, I just mean that when we have discussions like this, we could well be setting precedents for server lore, rather than personal RP, so we should be careful about accepting things without really looking into all angles, and game mechanics is just something I think shouldn't really factor in in this case, if we're winding up to a sort of serverlore consensus. Reason being, if someone moves to RP a druid who claims to be unable to heal undead flesh, they may then be told "yes it can" based on game mechanics and server lore we established here, and eww.

Drustai wrote:Which is exactly the reasoning why holy energy was retconned to heal the undead instead of burn them alive. Because the mechanics said they could, so the lore changed to acknowledge it.

That was never retconned.

Ask CDev - Round 1 wrote:"Forsaken healed by the Light (whether the healer is Forsaken or not) are effectively cauterized by the effect: sure, the wound is healed, but the healing effect is cripplingly painful."

Cauterisation is the act of burning a wound.

Just because certain narrative decisions where made to make game mechanics work, does not mean those narrative decisions are less real. They still matter.

(My quote messed up, was to erwtenpeller)

While I'll agree to a certain extent, I believe its once again about preference, otherwise by all rights Death Knights could summon forth armies of flies, heal themselves by hitting you with their weapon, summon armies of ghouls from anywhere they wanted, and summon a floating copy of their weapon to hit people. While of course you could say its all about common sense and preference, I personally think that Druid magic would not effect a Death Knight, but don't agree that a Death Knight should be able to do any of the above. Others might think they can. As said its all down to opinion.

Belserden / Anivitas wrote:While I'll agree to a certain extent, I believe its once again about preference, otherwise by all rights Death Knights could summon forth armies of flies, heal themselves by hitting you with their weapon, summon armies of ghouls from anywhere they wanted, and summon a floating copy of their weapon to hit people. While of course you could say its all about common sense and preference, I personally think that Druid magic would not effect a Death Knight, but don't agree that a Death Knight should be able to do any of the above. Others might think they can. As said its all down to opinion.

Other then the summoning armies of ghouls from anywhere*, I don't see any foul in using any of the mentioned abilities in role-play.

* There are ways around this. You could say they come from a death gate, they could be summoned from corpse dust, the DK in question could be role-played to always carry a bag of bones around, etc.

erwtenpeller wrote:

Belserden / Anivitas wrote:While I'll agree to a certain extent, I believe its once again about preference, otherwise by all rights Death Knights could summon forth armies of flies, heal themselves by hitting you with their weapon, summon armies of ghouls from anywhere they wanted, and summon a floating copy of their weapon to hit people. While of course you could say its all about common sense and preference, I personally think that Druid magic would not effect a Death Knight, but don't agree that a Death Knight should be able to do any of the above. Others might think they can. As said its all down to opinion.

Other then the summoning armies of ghouls from anywhere*, I don't see any foul in using any of the mentioned abilities in role-play.

* There are ways around this. You could say they come from a death gate, they could be summoned from corpse dust, the DK in question could be role-played to always carry a bag of bones around, etc.

Agreed. If you're actually RPing your class (surprisingly many don't seem to be doing this) then by default you're able to do whatever your class is said to be able to do.

Agreed!

...Though admittedly, being a Monk, my abilities are fairly harmless.

Braiden wrote:

Drustai wrote:

Also, if we are to consider changes to game mechanics canon then rune tap has been retconned and while necromancy is shadow magic not all shadow magic is necromancy leaving your argument that necromancy can heal other living then the actual user not confirmed by game mechanics or lore. Now I suppose I'm just being an ass arguing my opinion anyway since I don't mind you playing it out that way but I personally wouldn't interpertate it as the nature of necromancy to be very beneficial to anyone but the user and undead in terms of healing, just seems like the lights and natures turf to me.

The nature of necromancy is to focus on death. So it's never fully beneficial. For it to give, it first has to take. Healing is not always good. It can be 'evil', and selfish, when you're sucking life from one person in order to feed it into another. In both cases where Dru has used necromantic healing in-game, it has been at the cost of the people around her. She stole years of life from Valten when healing Zailynia, and stole years of life from Skarain when healing Jarric. I really don't see how that is 'not the nature of necromancy', when the core of necromancy is often the pursuit of means to escape death. Even if a necromancer took from their own life, it doesn't change the fact that it is causing death in order to restore life.

Necromancy is a school of magic that focuses on studying anatomy and the forces of life and death. And I'd say that it is confirmed to be able to heal in-game. Even if you decide to ignore spells like Void Shift and Vampiric Embrace, we do still have Raise Ally. It resurrects the dead to life, not just undeath, and that would require an element of healing. Not only are you reuniting body and soul, you also have to cure the mortal wounds that were inflicted on the victim. They are brought from 0% health to 30% health, afterall. I'd also consider healthstones and soulstones to be necromancy, and both can be given to other people.

Healthstones and soulstones could be shadow magic that doesn't classify as necromancy, health stones could even be fel fueled in theory (which is a fun possibility to me in a sense). Never the less the core of my idea is that necromancy is that the life given to the undead is twisted life energy (meaning not the exact same thing as a standard healing spell), I can buy the fact that you take life from one person in order to give to another... I still firmly believe that the experience should have an impact the character receiving it, the one that's doing it and the one that it's taken from on many planes since you in essence fuck around with their souls/life energy/whatever you want to call it, the experience of having your soul and body being touched by dark forces (feel free to make jokes about darkness touching you in your special place, I can see them coming) can surely never leave you the same. Again the Void shift debuff implies that a touch of the spirit realm lingers on you for example, seems like an excellent indication that it somehow fucks you up.

My personal opinion is that necromantic healing is treated very lightly and that resurrections are used without much of an impact, turning it from the dramatic event it should be for the characters involved to a "meh"-moment where it's just glorified "regular" healing where the repercussions seen in rp at most is the necromancer being hunted by the authorities (forgive me if I'm wrong, it's just the way it looks trough my eyes. The healing I actually witnessed was quite tame).

On healthstones/soulstones: We have established schools of magic, Braiden. If not necromancy, which school would you put it in? For that matter, where would you put abilities like Void Shift and Vampiric Embrace? Vampiric Embrace is already a necromancy spell in the WoWRPG (where it is known as Vampiric Aura).

It should be noted that neither of the 'resurrections' were true resurrections. They were done immediately after death, while the body was still warm, rather than, say days later. I treat necromantic resurrection as only being able to restore true life if it's done immediately. Everytime I've raised someone after a longer period of time, it's been to undeath only (like Thelos). Likewise, I view resurrections as being incredibly draining for the target, and only able to be used a limited number of times, for the sake of dramatic impact. Each time Dru has soulstoned herself, the 'reviving' has been more and more painful, and more and more draining, since I treat each revival as essentially tearing the spirit apart. Eventually it will become too damaged for it to work again.

As for the incident you mention. I don't know if you've ever RPed healing people, Braiden, but it is very stressful from an OOC perspective. It's often you RPing with some stranger you've never met, trying to figure out wtf is going on, how to appropriately heal the type of wound they have, while trying to also keep it quick enough that neither of you get bored with it. I personally don't ever just "lolol infuses magic into wound, healing it immediately! Hrrng". I look into what type of wound the person has, then quickly alt-tab to Wikipedia to research the wound and the various methods of repairing it. Then I apply those methods in my RP. When I do use magic, it's only as a supplement to the surgery.

That instance you saw was actually the first time I ever actually used necromantic healing, and I had only done it after spending about an hour or so attempting to use normal surgery. It's something I avoid using, both for legal reasons and because I despise instant rejuvenatory healing magic. So at the time, I wasn't really thinking about the sideeffects of recovery, especially once you showed up and started screaming for guards.

But yeah. I typically let people determine for themselves how they recover from their wounds once the surgery is over. I'll answer questions if they ask, but I usually don't go out of my way to demand they act a certain way. All that being said, if you feel it'd be better for me to attach more of a negative effect to it, then I will. My RP isn't perfect, and I'm quite willing to re-evaluate things I do if people have issues. However, I still view most of the damage being done to the "supplier" of life energy, not the receiver. Since you said you often play necromancers in tabletop, Braiden, essentially the spell I typically use is Healing Touch, except through using other people as the supplier instead of the caster. Dru is essentially a Necromancer with the Life focused school according to the Pathfinder system.

Belserden/Anivitas wrote: otherwise by all rights Death Knights could summon forth armies of flies, heal themselves by hitting you with their weapon, summon armies of ghouls from anywhere they wanted, and summon a floating copy of their weapon to hit people.

Why shouldn't they be able to do these things? What do you think DKs should be, just an undead warrior? Magic exists in WarCraft. Healing themselves with their weapon is especially important for the DK, because they're designed to be self-sufficient unholy warriors that grow more powerful as they cause death and pain to their opponents. It's blood magic, drawing life energy from the victim with each strike and using that to fuel the unholy processes that animate them. And summoning flies, ghouls, and copies of their weapons are all pretty standard Conjuration magic.

Why shouldn't they be able to do these things? What do you think DKs should be, just an undead warrior? Magic exists in WarCraft. Healing themselves with their weapon is especially important for the DK, because they're designed to be self-sufficient unholy warriors that grow more powerful as they cause death and pain to their opponents. It's blood magic, drawing life energy from the victim with each strike and using that to fuel the unholy processes that animate them. And summoning flies, ghouls, and copies of their weapons are all pretty standard Conjuration magic.

Death Knights use rune magic, but healing themselves as they hit somebody was never lore, healing themselves was something that took time, they were never like wolverine. And yeah, thats pretty much what Death Knight are, they are undead warriors kept alive by the necrotic energy within. The rune magic is not something they know straight from that bat, it is something that was taught to the third generation death knights under the command of the lich king by the Vrykuul.

And conjuration is not rune magic. That said, as I said from my first post, its all down to preference, I'm from a different time when game mechanics were ignored and seen as silly, and thats all I'm used to. I don't have a problem with that changing, change is part of life, I just prefer adapting my RP from the warcraft lore. -Personally-.

Belserden / Anivitas wrote:
Death Knights use rune magic, but healing themselves as they hit somebody was never lore, healing themselves was something that took time, they were never like wolverine. And yeah, thats pretty much what Death Knight are, they are undead warriors kept alive by the necrotic energy within. The rune magic is not something they know straight from that bat, it is something that was taught to the third generation death knights under the command of the lich king by the Vrykuul.

But player DKs are by default third generation Death Knights. In other words, expect rune magic.

Also, regarding abilities such as Void Shift and Vampiric Embrace, I wouldn't be so hasty with applying DnD/Pathfinder magic system to such spells. Sure, the PnP WoW RP may have listed them as Necromancy because it was based on 3rd edition DnD, but it doesn't sound entirely accurate to me.

Personally I make a distinction between Divine Shadow abilities such as shadowpriest spells and Arcane Shadow abilities such as necromantic spells used by Scourge Necromancers.

But you can role play your divine shadow abilities as being arcane shadow abilities.

Belserden / Anivitas wrote: Death Knights use rune magic, but healing themselves as they hit somebody was never lore, healing themselves was something that took time, they were never like wolverine. And yeah, thats pretty much what Death Knight are, they are undead warriors kept alive by the necrotic energy within. The rune magic is not something they know straight from that bat, it is something that was taught to the third generation death knights under the command of the lich king by the Vrykuul.

Runes essentially are spells which are "written down". To activate one once it exists, one need only pour energy in the rune. "Learning" rune magic can be taken in several ways, but most third generation Death Knights, as far as I know, got the runes carved into their rune blades by someone who actually knows the patterns, and the Death Knight can then activate these runes by using the energy of the souls inside their rune blades. The third generation Death Knights were mass-produced for war, and it's just that much handier if they can all use magic without having to instruct them in it for years (and runes might be handier for combat overal, since they require no vocal components).

Drustai wrote:

Braiden wrote:

Drustai wrote:

Also, if we are to consider changes to game mechanics canon then rune tap has been retconned and while necromancy is shadow magic not all shadow magic is necromancy leaving your argument that necromancy can heal other living then the actual user not confirmed by game mechanics or lore. Now I suppose I'm just being an ass arguing my opinion anyway since I don't mind you playing it out that way but I personally wouldn't interpertate it as the nature of necromancy to be very beneficial to anyone but the user and undead in terms of healing, just seems like the lights and natures turf to me.

The nature of necromancy is to focus on death. So it's never fully beneficial. For it to give, it first has to take. Healing is not always good. It can be 'evil', and selfish, when you're sucking life from one person in order to feed it into another. In both cases where Dru has used necromantic healing in-game, it has been at the cost of the people around her. She stole years of life from Valten when healing Zailynia, and stole years of life from Skarain when healing Jarric. I really don't see how that is 'not the nature of necromancy', when the core of necromancy is often the pursuit of means to escape death. Even if a necromancer took from their own life, it doesn't change the fact that it is causing death in order to restore life.

Necromancy is a school of magic that focuses on studying anatomy and the forces of life and death. And I'd say that it is confirmed to be able to heal in-game. Even if you decide to ignore spells like Void Shift and Vampiric Embrace, we do still have Raise Ally. It resurrects the dead to life, not just undeath, and that would require an element of healing. Not only are you reuniting body and soul, you also have to cure the mortal wounds that were inflicted on the victim. They are brought from 0% health to 30% health, afterall. I'd also consider healthstones and soulstones to be necromancy, and both can be given to other people.

Healthstones and soulstones could be shadow magic that doesn't classify as necromancy, health stones could even be fel fueled in theory (which is a fun possibility to me in a sense). Never the less the core of my idea is that necromancy is that the life given to the undead is twisted life energy (meaning not the exact same thing as a standard healing spell), I can buy the fact that you take life from one person in order to give to another... I still firmly believe that the experience should have an impact the character receiving it, the one that's doing it and the one that it's taken from on many planes since you in essence fuck around with their souls/life energy/whatever you want to call it, the experience of having your soul and body being touched by dark forces (feel free to make jokes about darkness touching you in your special place, I can see them coming) can surely never leave you the same. Again the Void shift debuff implies that a touch of the spirit realm lingers on you for example, seems like an excellent indication that it somehow fucks you up.

My personal opinion is that necromantic healing is treated very lightly and that resurrections are used without much of an impact, turning it from the dramatic event it should be for the characters involved to a "meh"-moment where it's just glorified "regular" healing where the repercussions seen in rp at most is the necromancer being hunted by the authorities (forgive me if I'm wrong, it's just the way it looks trough my eyes. The healing I actually witnessed was quite tame).

On healthstones/soulstones: We have established schools of magic, Braiden. If not necromancy, which school would you put it in? For that matter, where would you put abilities like Void Shift and Vampiric Embrace? Vampiric Embrace is already a necromancy spell in the WoWRPG (where it is known as Vampiric Aura).

It should be noted that neither of the 'resurrections' were true resurrections. They were done immediately after death, while the body was still warm, rather than, say days later. I treat necromantic resurrection as only being able to restore true life if it's done immediately. Everytime I've raised someone after a longer period of time, it's been to undeath only (like Thelos). Likewise, I view resurrections as being incredibly draining for the target, and only able to be used a limited number of times, for the sake of dramatic impact. Each time Dru has soulstoned herself, the 'reviving' has been more and more painful, and more and more draining, since I treat each revival as essentially tearing the spirit apart. Eventually it will become too damaged for it to work again.

As for the incident you mention. I don't know if you've ever RPed healing people, Braiden, but it is very stressful from an OOC perspective. It's often you RPing with some stranger you've never met, trying to figure out wtf is going on, how to appropriately heal the type of wound they have, while trying to also keep it quick enough that neither of you get bored with it. I personally don't ever just "lolol infuses magic into wound, healing it immediately! Hrrng". I look into what type of wound the person has, then quickly alt-tab to Wikipedia to research the wound and the various methods of repairing it. Then I apply those methods in my RP. When I do use magic, it's only as a supplement to the surgery.

That instance you saw was actually the first time I ever actually used necromantic healing, and I had only done it after spending about an hour or so attempting to use normal surgery. It's something I avoid using, both for legal reasons and because I despise instant rejuvenatory healing magic. So at the time, I wasn't really thinking about the sideeffects of recovery, especially once you showed up and started screaming for guards.

But yeah. I typically let people determine for themselves how they recover from their wounds once the surgery is over. I'll answer questions if they ask, but I usually don't go out of my way to demand they act a certain way. All that being said, if you feel it'd be better for me to attach more of a negative effect to it, then I will. My RP isn't perfect, and I'm quite willing to re-evaluate things I do if people have issues. However, I still view most of the damage being done to the "supplier" of life energy, not the receiver. Since you said you often play necromancers in tabletop, Braiden, essentially the spell I typically use is Healing Touch, except through using other people as the supplier instead of the caster. Dru is essentially a Necromancer with the Life focused school according to the Pathfinder system.

I'd place a healthstone under the conjuration school by use of a fel powered conjuration spell, it would depend on the nature of it tough. Soul stones could very well be tied to the necromantic arts as they could be described as a form of phylactery tough. Vampiric embrace and void shift are both tricky spells tough as they can possibly fall under the divine shadows arts (since shadow priests are the ones with access to them if we are to go by mechanics), if not then of course they could be necromancy.

I'm not blaming you for how you did the healing in that specific situation, I'm just saying that there's room for evolving it and making it more dramatic. I have role played healing people as a priest in wow on a few occasions and I admittedly have difficulties putting drawbacks in there (or at least hinting at drawbacks before letting the one healed decide for themselves). Never the less I can agree that the one that's being drained takes the biggest hit but I cant imagine that having the life force of someone else shoved into your system is pleasant. I don't demand that you should change the way you do things either, nor force anything upon the receiver. I just feel it's something I myself would have appreciated if being healed by dark forces... I like the idea of there being a price to pay for all involved, it's part of the essence in necromancy and other dark arts in fantasy for me. But by all means if your personal opinion differs a lot from this then feel free to consider it my own opinion. Now I believe we have derailed this thread enough, feel free to poke me on skype if you have ideas and want my opinion tough

erwtenpeller wrote:But you can role play your divine shadow abilities as being arcane shadow abilities.

Of course. But unless I missed something, in the context of this discussion the said divine shadow spells were being treated as necromancy which is an arcane art.

Or I might have just been nitpicking semantics.

Why would you want to heal a corpse?

Lini wrote:

erwtenpeller wrote:But you can role play your divine shadow abilities as being arcane shadow abilities.

Of course. But unless I missed something, in the context of this discussion the said divine shadow spells were being treated as necromancy which is an arcane art.

Or I might have just been nitpicking semantics.

In DnD terminology (which WarCraft has often used, in the WoWRPG and a bit in-game with the schools of magic), typically both divine and arcane spells are divided into the same schools (evocation, conjuration, necromancy, etc). Thus you could have an arcane conjuration spell and a divine conjuration spell, same thing with necromancy.

And that particular spell (Vampiric Aura) was an arcane necromancy spell, for the necromancer class. I was just equating it to Vampiric Embrace because it functions exactly the same way (everyone in your party getting healing for damaging your opponents).

Feng-Huang wrote:Runes essentially are spells which are "written down". To activate one once it exists, one need only pour energy in the rune. "Learning" rune magic can be taken in several ways, but most third generation Death Knights, as far as I know, got the runes carved into their rune blades by someone who actually knows the patterns, and the Death Knight can then activate these runes by using the energy of the souls inside their rune blades. The third generation Death Knights were mass-produced for war, and it's just that much handier if they can all use magic without having to instruct them in it for years (and runes might be handier for combat overal, since they require no vocal components).

The third-gen DKs are trained to runeforge -themselves- and on how to use the magic. The ease of use comes not from lack of necessary training, but from the ability to runeforge any weapon. (And they don't steal, store or work off of souls at -all-, by the way, by lore; runeblades are simply blades with magic runes on them. Vampiric blades are debated and rare, let alone soulblades, which are -exceptionally- rare, i.e. on par with Frostmourne rarity. Unfortunately, this is another case of DB serverlore having gone a bit wonky, so most people play that all DKs use a soulblade).

And his point on runemagic was exactly that--expect rune magic from DKs, but that doesn't make them casters. They -are- still essentially physical killing machines, just with access to shadow & blood/frost/unholy runic spells. This is why I think going off game mechanics is silly--you're saying my DK can summon an army of the dead, raise my friends from the dead instantly, and so forth? Because I would -not- do that in RP.

Feral / Blackfall wrote:

Feng-Huang wrote:Runes essentially are spells which are "written down". To activate one once it exists, one need only pour energy in the rune. "Learning" rune magic can be taken in several ways, but most third generation Death Knights, as far as I know, got the runes carved into their rune blades by someone who actually knows the patterns, and the Death Knight can then activate these runes by using the energy of the souls inside their rune blades. The third generation Death Knights were mass-produced for war, and it's just that much handier if they can all use magic without having to instruct them in it for years (and runes might be handier for combat overal, since they require no vocal components).

The third-gen DKs are trained to runeforge -themselves- and on how to use the magic. The ease of use comes not from training, but from the ability to runeforge any weapon. (And they don't steal, store or work off of souls at -all-, by the way, by lore; runeblades are simply blades with magic runes on them. Vampiric blades are debated and rare, let alone soulblades, which are -exceptionally- rare, i.e. on par with Frostmourne rarity. Unfortunately, this is another case of DB serverlore having gone a bit wonky, so most people play that all DKs use a soulblade).

And his point on runemagic was exactly that--expect rune magic from DKs, but that doesn't make them casters. They -are- still essentially physical killing machines, just with access to shadow & blood/frost/unholy runic spells. This is why I think going off game mechanics is silly--you're saying my DK can summon an army of the dead, raise my friends from the dead instantly, and so forth? Because I would -not- do that in RP.

Personally, I consider them possible. Just slightly less "quick" as they are in mechanics. I've summoned an army of the dead before, but only when I actually had a bunch of nearby corpses to use. If I were to raise an army without corpses, then I'd make some long ritual of it, with lots of reagents such as corpse dust, to conjure said army.

Likewise, with raising people from the dead, even in game mechanics that requires runic power, which comes from causing pain and suffering to another individual. So whenever I've used that, as I said earlier in this conversation, it's involved draining life from nearby people, and even then only working when the corpse is still 'fresh'.

Point is, having the spells is fine. They are there, they are part of the game, acknowledge them. You don't have to use them exactly as they are in game mechanics, you can use them in a more realistic fashion, but you can't just pretend they don't exist.

(And they don't steal, store or work off of souls at -all-, by the way, by lore; runeblades are simply blades with magic runes on them. Vampiric blades are debated and rare, let alone soulblades, which are -exceptionally- rare, i.e. on par with Frostmourne rarity. Unfortunately, this is another case of DB serverlore having gone a bit wonky, so most people play that all DKs use a soulblade).

Your very first weapon as a DK is called a Runed Soulblade. It's also far more dramatic and better for RP to go with the original PnP lore for death knight runeblades, which was that they were all very much like Frostmourne, binding your soul to them and consuming the souls of others in order to grow more powerful. That offers far more interesting plotlines for RP than "just a simple blade with magic runes on it".

When I wrote my DK guide (which is the source for everyone using soulblades on their DKs, since no one did it prior to me writing that), the PnP sourcebooks were still canon. So, it's not wonky, simply 'outdated'. DK blades were soulblades by canon in PnP, when PnP stuff was still canon. And even then, there are still plenty of hints in-game that the DK blades are spiritually bound to them in some way (such as the Runed Soulblade, as mentioned, and some of the Naxxramas NPCs in the starting area talking about how important a death knight's runeblade is to their wellbeing). And even if they don't consume souls, they do drain life energy at the least, as that is how runic power is acquired.

Feral / Blackfall wrote:
And his point on runemagic was exactly that--expect rune magic from DKs, but that doesn't make them casters. They -are- still essentially physical killing machines, just with access to shadow & blood/frost/unholy runic spells. This is why I think going off game mechanics is silly--you're saying my DK can summon an army of the dead, raise my friends from the dead instantly, and so forth? Because I would -not- do that in RP.

That's just your choice. They're the listed abilities of a third generation death knight. You can choose that your DK character isn't able to do [Ability X] but that's just a deviation from default.

If death knights "really" were just strong undead warriors then why not just roll a warrior and play it as an undead character? What would the difference be?

Any DK debate that ends up talking in terms of generations should be considered moot as the terminology is so poor. Dont use generation systems to describe DKs.

As for healing... I never see the strength of the argument that holy magic was such a bane to DKs. Never in the Lore sourses do DKs get face rolled by lighties. Uther himself in the form of an avatar of light was bested by Arthas who was not the LK at the time but just a DK. It should be seen as more of an edge than an "i win button".

As for druids, I got no idea about them I will be honest but if their healing boosts the bodies own healing then I would say they would not heal the DK. If their magic can put life into the body and it is the magic that heals and not the body, then yes, they would then heal the DK. I cant see how life magic would hurt a DK, they are surrounded by it all the time and are happy (by dk standards)