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Finger of death is now divine.

Wail and soul bind are occult.

Bards are now better necromancers than necromancers, since almost all wizard necromancy spells are shared with occult casters.

I don't think the spell lists were done well. Occult casters are better necromancers than wizards specialized in necromancy, for instance; if anything, I'd expect bards to be masters of illusions and enchantments.

Occult has all the old necromancy spells, which makes the change bizarre. Why is finger of death divine and not occult? Why is wail occult but not arcane? Why is vampiric exsanguination arcane?

Basically, the necromancer wizard is a worse necromancer than the occult bard. I personally don't think this change was well thought out; the divisions are arbitrary - finger of death has never been a divine spell, and wail has been a wizard spell since it first showed up in 2e.

It's not just the animate dead line. Necromancy has lost almost all its core iconic spells to other spell lists. We only get horrid wilting while bards get almost all of necromancy's old spells, including those on the arcane list, and clerics get finger of death.

Necromancy as a school has been utterly gutted.

LordofBones wrote:

Necromancer wizards have lost most of their spells. Finger of death, wail of the banshee and soulbind have been shunted to divine and occult lists, and for some reason implosion is on the arcane list.

The logic here is bizarre; necromancer wizards have almost no higher level spells except horrid wilting, and their spells have been given to divine casters. Finger of death and wail of the banshee have always been arcane spells, with wail shared with Death domain clerics.

They're rebalancing the lists, while also introducing a background lore explanation of two essences (physical, material, spiritual, or primal) driving the spell inclusion of each list. Arcane is material and mental, so I figured most of the necromancy would drop off as animating the dead or stealing their soul isn't really a physical or mental change.

Then enervation, false life and ray of enfeeblement have no business being on the arcane spell list. Bards are now better necromancers than necromancers.

What's the point of having necromancy as a school of magic, when the wizard spell list has almost no support for necromancers? Even diviners got wish, of all things.

Necromancer wizards have lost most of their spells. Finger of death, wail of the banshee and soulbind have been shunted to divine and occult lists, and for some reason implosion is on the arcane list.

The logic here is bizarre; necromancer wizards have almost no higher level spells except horrid wilting, and their spells have been given to divine casters. Finger of death and wail of the banshee have always been arcane spells, with wail shared with Death domain clerics.

Why have necromancer wizards lost finger of death and wail of the banshee, which have been arcane wizard spells since 2e?

It's mind-boggling. Necromancer wizards have no 9th level spells. Every necromancy spell on the 9th level wizard list has been moved to occult and divine. Seriously, why not have necromancy spells be shared among occult and arcane instead of divine and occult? As it stands, necromancers have lost iconic spells.