^This pretty much.

I've thought about trying to do it but it seems impossible.

The major flaw in this is.......get ready!

You need dead bodies to play a necromancer...

How exactly does one roleplay a pure necromancer when they have no dead bodies to work with?

Pure Necromancer.

Pure is the keyword here.

When you mean pure, do you mean you're only using conjuration and nothing else?

Well, if you are a necro, you must have a grasp on magickal theory, whether it passes Sybille Stentor's or not remains the question. You can use Illusion Magick to frenzy others ,and rez the loser?

Also, I find it hard to play a necro as well, since all my thralls disappear on fast travel.

Well, ofc you can't summon skeletons and zombies out of nowhere... what did you expect?

Still, a pure necromancer can summon demons, no? Well, you do have your flame atronarchs. Also, in my book, a pure necromancer can hack opponents with their scythe on top of summoning stuff. Well, you have no scyth, but a 2-handed sword enchanted with absorb soul should do...
And sounds pretty powerfull as well...

By pure I mean only using skills of the necromancy tree.

Raise zombie etc.

Umm, you could summon zombies and seletons out of nowhere in Oblivion...

Why didn't they allow dragurs, skeletons, and other undead be able to be controlled by a necromancer?

...and why didn't they allow you to spawn skeletons out of the ground or something?

There is no necromancy tree. There is a conjuration tree. And yeah, pure conjuration is viable...





Well, still, it only makes sense that you can't resurrect a body if there is no body around... Skeletons and zombies are not daedra, thus cannot simply be summoned into existance...

How could anybody play any mage character using only one magic skill anyway? How could you have a Destruction mage that only used Destruction and used neither Restoration nor Alchemy to heal himself? I haven't played a significantly magic-using character myself, but I don't see how any so-called "pure" character is feasible if it boils down to only using one skill. My warrior character is putting his perks into heavy armor, one-handed, block, and smithing, with a few perks in archery (just enough to make a bow useful enough to get a dragon to land) one in sneak and (I think, can't remember) maybe one in restoration. I'm playing a fairly straightforward tank-ish heavy armor warrior, but I still have made no pretense of being able to focus on one and only one skill. Any mage is gonna have to work with more than one skill, so I can't see how you'd be effective at only using necromantic magic and nothing else.

Throw some destuction in there then.

the op makes a great point, in that, this game has reduced the number of options available to the character.

imo, elder scroll games with less options equals less of a game in comparison to past editions.

You also need some sort of damage line like destruction, archery, or melee too I think

This

Of course you can't be successful using but one path in one skill's perk tree. I mean, WTF???

A "pure" Necromancer would actually be rather simple to play. You'd use Destruction magic for frost damage spells, Conjuration for reanimation, probably use some daggers for melee...

There is a necromancy "perk path" on the conjuration tree.

Pure necromancer would involve only using necromancy "perk tree" and skills like raise zombie.

You made it impossible. Period

A "pure" necromancer doesn't even make sense. A pure mage may reject necromancy on moral grounds. But what reason except for being a fool would a necromancer reject other forms of magic? You might as well claim you can't play a pure swordsman taking only the sword related perks on one-handed tree and rejecting all other perks and skills.

That is kind of like saying there is no way to play a pure sneaky character because sometimes you get caught sneaking. You need a backup plan. Even the enemies labeled "Master Necromancer" use destruction spells and daggers.

When I play my Necromancer character I'm planning on Frost/Lighting Destro, Reanimation for Conjuration, and a dagger for melee.

And it is incredibly stupid to use only one branch of one perk tree and expect to be competent.

Well, I understand the concept of concentrating the character somewhat, but I think if your definition of "pure necromancer" means using only the necromantic half of the Conjuration skill, and "pure destruction mage" means using only the Destruction skill and "pure Illusionist" means using only the Illusion skill, then you're probably fighting a losing battle. Would a "pure warrior" who only concentrated on his two-handed skill be feasible? I don't see how. I don't even see how you'd be able to allocate all your perks into one skill. You'd get them faster than you could possibly meet the skill-level requirements for some of the perks.

You also can't play the game using only forks as weapons.

You can't seriously be complaining that you can't play the game using only one type of spells in one type of the arkane arts? It's obvious that you can't just bring back the dead if there is no dead.

Well then what is the point of necromancy if you can't purely rely on it?

Necromancy seems useless if you can just summon atronachs or use skills like fury to have others fight for you.

Necromancy is useless then?

You can be a pure archer (only use bows) in the game.

You can be a pure warrior (only use 1 type of weapon).

You can be a pure destruction mage (Thunder, fire, or ice) I've done it.

But not a pure necromancer. Nice

And why would a pure necromancer not raise demons as well as zombies? You know, necromancy does not only involve raising the dead - it has to do with the general theme of manipulating life and souls. So, for one, a pure necromancer would also be a master in restoration. They would also be able to use weapons and staves enchanted with things like absorb health and absorb soul. And they would almost certainly cooperate with the daedra, thus they should be able to call them to their aid. So, a pure necromancer would certainly do a lot more than simply raising corpses.

A mage that can only raise the dead is not a pure necromancer - they are simply incompetent, like a blacksmith that was never able to craft anything other than steel weapons and armor...





I repeat: there is no skill named necromancy. You can't rely on something that doesn't exist. On the contrary, there are skills named archery, 1-h, 2-h, destruction. Simple as that...

No, you can't. You can't dig out corpses and bones and give them false life and enchant them and whatever.

Even though that's exactly what necromancers in TES do.

I expected to summon skeletons and zombies out of nowhere. Magic leaves no room for any rationalizations involving logic or realism. So I based this expectation on what we had in previous games, thus what is apart of the games lore.