[D&D 4e] Looking for some help with a scary homebrew necromancer power.

Incorporeal

Alright, I'm looking for a bit of help in creating a power for a necromancer villain I intend to use in an upcoming adventure. I'd like the power to be relatively balanced while still being nice and scary. The flavor for the power would be, in a nutshell, the target's skin rips from their body and spawns a Forsaken Shell (Open Grave pg 148).

I'm thinking the power would be against either a single target or a small burst (perhaps more then one power, one on a single target an one on a burst 1), it would obviously do a crap ton of damage while spawning said baddie(s), and it would make a good amount of sense to have it do an additional effect such as dazed, stunned, prone, weakened, etc, or some combination of effects as the victim would be in such horrendous agony. One situation where I plan to use it is an encounter with the villain, and said villain uses it on a few of his own minions before fleeing leaving the party to fight either just the Shells if it kills the minions, or their skinless zombified corpses as well for the party to fight.

Anyone want to suggest a way to implement this power to be at least somewhat balanced while being intimidating as all hell?

susan

One way to add a bit of tension to the power would be to treat it kinda like Petrification attacks, in that there's an initial effect and then a few saving throws with increasingly bad results (Attack 1 - 2d10 Damage and Dazed; Fail 1 - Lose 1 Healing Surge and Stunned; Fail 2 - Skin Rips Off, Lose 1 Healing Surge, Stunned and Immobilized until a 'Regrow Skin' Ritual can be applied). And be sure to make the players know what the price of failure would be for this; don't make it cheap or unclear. And this way, since it isn't automatic and will be resisted several times, you can have the Necromancer do it regularly during the battle.

Incorporeal

susan wrote: »

One way to add a bit of tension to the power would be to treat it kinda like Petrification attacks, in that there's an initial effect and then a few saving throws with increasingly bad results (Attack 1 - 2d10 Damage and Dazed; Fail 1 - Lose 1 Healing Surge and Stunned; Fail 2 - Skin Rips Off, Lose 1 Healing Surge, Stunned and Immobilized until a 'Regrow Skin' Ritual can be applied). And be sure to make the players know what the price of failure would be for this; don't make it cheap or unclear. And this way, since it isn't automatic and will be resisted several times, you can have the Necromancer do it regularly during the battle.

Oooh, that's a great idea! I have no real experience DMing, so I'm not entirely sure how these things work. Though that would work well, as that attack would just be too awesome to only be able to use once! :twisted: