Some ideas for a Necromancer guild.

Have the undeads not auto-follow as other pets do. The 'command undead'
and 'command horde' spells, and 'enter plane of dead' work well as a
way to limit ease of use for the necromancer, while still having the power
of an undead horde available to them. Now, I realise that Batmud is
wanting to have people party more than solo, and this whole 'cast enter
plane of dead' 'cast command horde at down' 'd' 'cast command horde at
kill monster' sort of thing really doesnt lend itself to making your party
members happy. Perhaps then, necromancers could get some sort of charm
spell they could cast on their horde to have them autofollow for some time.
This charm would not make them auto attack, just follow the necromancer
around. The necromancer would have to cast command horde to have their
horde do any other actions.

Make 'freeze plane of dead' unnecessary, or at least not destroy the undeads
you have created in a wholesale manner.

Some undead types that could be created could be skeleton, zombie, mummy,
lich, frankenstein. Each having benefits and drawbacks. Skeletons could
be easy and cheap to make, also have no loyalty issues, but very fragile.
Zombie bit harder to make, but dumber than the proverbial box of rocks, and
would need constant guidance/reminders. Mummys a bit tougher still to
animate, but also a bit more intelligent. Mummys could be a bit prone to
trying to break free of the necromancer's control. Lich even costlier to
animate, but more intelligent than mummies, but also alot more prone to
trying to break control and attack the necromancer. Frankensteins would
be very expensive to animate, and possibly require the services of someone
skilled with sewing as well (except no nuns). Franks wouldnt have any
loyalty issues but if put together poorly might start to fall apart. Perhaps
able to be repaired, but not up to the standards of a 'new' one.

Make normal healing spells not have any effect on the undeads created, nor
should they have a healing tick. However, they shouldnt run out of endurance
points either, as they are magically animated. For healing the necromancer
should have some sort of 'cure undead' spell that only works on animated
undeads.

Some sort of rep system would be neat, maybe necromancers would need to have
certain levels of rep to be able to animate certain levels of undead
creations. skeleton/zombie/mummy/lich/frankenstein.

Anyway, I realise that the necromancers guild probably won't ever live
(un-live) on Batmud again, but if something is in the works, here are a few
ideas for it.

--Hair

When I was playtesting the guild a few months ago they had something similar
to cure undead, as normal heals didn't work at all on them. It required a
fresh corpse for the zombie types, but dissected parts for the frankenstein
types.

Following is a toggle and there were quite a few commands you could give.
Tarken said he was adding some sort of spirit plane thing, but you'd have to
ask him about it.. dunno if its anything like this plane of dead thing you
talked about.

Anyway, fun stuff. Hopefully beta starts soon.