April 16th, 2012
Which is... kinda weird in D&D, to be honest! Why you would refer to something that is the manipulation of both positive AND negative energy as "necromancy" I am... not really sure. OH WELL.
But generally speaking, I do really like the concept of necromancy and healing magic being two sides of the same coin -- rather than being opposed arts like you might think at first, they're just two different uses of the same kind of magic. It makes a kind of sense to me!
posted at 2:12pm on April 16th, 2012
Months-late nerd pedantry opportunity! "Archive comment section that will never again be read" obscure bonus multiplier!
Unless 4e did something funny (does 4e even still have the same spell schools? I never got into it), the whole thing of healing being necromancy was pre-3e. The justification was that necromancy involved manipulating life energy, so healing was under its general aegis.
In 3e (and 3.5, and Pathfinder), cure and inflict spells got shuffled over to Conjuration magic, because they were re-written as calling positive or negative energy from other planes/sources entirely. Instead of just bolstering or draining someone's life energy, you were giving them more life energy or applying anti-life-energy to them (kind of like matter meeting antimatter).
Months-late nerd pedant, away!
posted at 9:41pm on November 19th, 2012
Oh okay, I didn't know which editions did it, but I DID know that healing is Conjuration in 3.5 -- that's the system I usually play in. xD I like the idea of death magic and life magic being two sides of the same coin (OBVIOUSLY SINCE I USED IT).... but for the way D&D set it up, having them together was, as I said, weird, mostly because of the plane issue you mentioned.
(P.S. - I get notified of all comments, so I actually do read them all! >u> )
posted at 12:56pm on November 23rd, 2012
Funny... in the spell system of the Elder Scrolls games, all Necromancy falls under Conjuration... on account of basically summoning Daedra to animate corpses and whatnot.
posted at 8:03am on March 9th, 2016
Comment by Seth
Fun fact: healing spells in D&D are classified as necromancy.
posted at 7:22am on April 16th, 2012