White Necromancers - Thoughts?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


So, sadly, our Cleric of Desna lost his life in the Gray Garrison in the first module of the Wrath of the Righteous adventure path. The player has chosen to replace the Cleric with a White Necromancer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/kobold-press-open-design /white-necromancer) Has anyone had any experience with this class? Thoughts? Fits well power-wise with other classes? Potential abuses (the player isn't likely to pursue potential abuses, as my players just aren't like that, but sometimes you stumble on things in the course of play).

Thanks!

Liberty's Edge

Its a ton of fun and its power level is decent. They work well as agentsof good gods but fit best in pharasmas church.

Liberty's Edge

One of my favorite classes :)

Silentman73, you might want to take a look at the actual product the white necromancer come freom as well :)

New Paths Compendium from Kobold Press.


Oh wow, didn't know this class existed. Seems like a nice blend of bones oracle and sorceror, if a little narrow in focus.

But I will say, WotR is not an undead-heavy campaign, so be careful if you expect to have to deal with a ton of undead.

Scarab Sages

I neither like nor understand their magic being based on Charisma rather than Intelligence, though I could see Charisma still playing an auxiliary (perhaps optional) role with certain class features.


I'm running a white necromancer right now. It's awesome.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
I neither like nor understand their magic being based on Charisma rather than Intelligence, though I could see Charisma still playing an auxiliary (perhaps optional) role with certain class features.

While I was surprised by this, it kind of makes sense, if only to make them less MAD when they need to actually make Diplomacy checks on their undead.

Sovereign Court

Marc Radle wrote:

One of my favorite classes :)

Silentman73, you might want to take a look at the actual product the white necromancer come freom as well :)

New Paths Compendium from Kobold Press.

Is that the same White Necromancer class that was originally published in KQ or was it reworked?

Liberty's Edge

Thanks for all the nice words everyone! The white necromancer class has proven to be quite popular!

This is indeed the same class that first appeared in Kobold Quarterly. I did a few small updates but it's otherwise the same. The New Paths Compendium does have some new material though:

  • New spells including dance of the dead and wall of bones

  • Necrotic Healer and Grave-Bound archetypes (the grave-Bound archetypes includes detailed rules for undead companions that bind you to a loyal ghost, mummy, vampire, skeleton, shadow or zombie)

  • New necromantic feats


The class itself is really cool and has tons of RP potential. That being said, it is a rather focused class. WotR, as others have stated, features Demons much more prominently than Undead- but the fact that the White Necro can also do some healing (particularly, check out the Necrotic Healer Archetype) is a definite plus, and thematically speaking, it would make sense, as Pharasma's church was considerably active in Sarkoris, and there was even a synthesis-cult which blended druidism/ with Pharasmic beliefs (some details are found in Dave Gross's novel, King of Chaos. Even the cover image shows them fighting in a ruined Pharasman church inside the Worldwound). If the player/character is interested in taking the thematic idea even further via multi-classing, then the Expanded Shaman would be a cool addition, especially with the Spirit Animal Guide and again, spontaneous casting.

Oh man, I wanna be a player in this campaign, and not GM :(

EDIT: forgot to mention- both the White Necro & Expanded Shaman use CHA as their spell-casting attribute. And seriously, there's a lot more groovy goodness in the book than on d20pfsrd!


Hmm, I have been meaning to try something along those lines - has someone tried doing it with a regular necromancer wizard and how does it compare to this class? I was planning to use a necromancer into loremaster.


I haven't really tried to do anything similar with a 'vanilla' Necromancer, but just off the top of my head I can think of a couple major differences:

1) White: Spontaneous Casting. Dark: Prepared Casting
2) White: Unique Spell list (including Cure spells). Dark: Wiz/Sorc list (no cures)
3) White: White Necromancy can create non-evil undead. Dark: Undead created are always evil (and it is therefore an evil act)

There is more, but those are the things that jump out in my mind straight away.

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