Now, I love the Necromancer, but Animate Dead tends to have Evil conotations that tends to put almost every Good-aligned PC on the knife-edge between outright PvP and intense RP Conflict.
One of the things that the Necromancer School lacks is a low-level 'Damage' spell, so I came up, based upon the old NWN games, Nightbeam, 1st level Sorcerer/Wizard (Necromancy) spell, a 30-foot ray that dealt 1d4 negative energy damage, increasing by 1d4 at 5th, 8th, 11th and 14th levels. Spell cranks up the damage very, very slowly but the Damage Type ties in to the School's description and the damage type is relatively unblockable except by Undead or Clerical Spells. Casting time 1 standard action, Verbal and Sommatic components.
The other spell I wanted to ask about was Skeletal Minion, 3rd level Sorcerer/Wizard/Cleric (Necromancy/Conjuration) Spell, Allows the Caster to prepare a Skeleton to serve as a bodyguard and powerful warrior. The Skeleton is treated as a Warrior of one of the standard PC races, unaltered by subtypes or templates other than the Skeletal template (To avoid epic asshattery from transmuting the Skeleton into a Half Dragon Half Fiend Tauric monstrosity) with a number of HD equal to 1/2 the Caster's Level. The Caster must equip and outfit his Skeletal Minion himself, and takes a -1 to Constitution for so long as the Skeletal Minion exists. A Caster cannot have more than one Skeletal Minion at a time, or the spell will fail. The Skeletal Minion cannot be Rebuked or Cowed by Channeling Negative Energy, but it can be Turned or Destroyed by Channeling Positive Energy. Casting time of 10 minutes per HD of Skeletal Minion, 100 gold's worth of Onyx per HD and 200 gold's worth of rare incense and oils to annoint the Skeleton with. Verbal and Somatic Components.
Mr. Fishy hopes his trollop doesn't hear about the minion spell. Mr. Fishy ran a Negative energy well solo for her. {Negative energy well think Hollowfaust}. Mr. Fishy let her buy a, one skeleton to act as a body guard. She used the Sorcerer power to charm undead to recruit a trio of zombies. She gave them their own gear. The skeleton had magic armor and a magic shield. That was a good game, very weird but it worked.
The level negative zap spell looks good too but death ward might shut it down and protection from evil is going to hit it too. Mr. Fishy agrees that Necromancers get no love...Even as villians they have to cast out of school spells to compete. How about a few more necro spells like a negative energy fog that lowers will and fort spells and obscures vision as obcuring mist. Or a short duration create zombie spell that only last for a few minutes or rounds and only works on humanoids to cut abuse{charm person/hold person style}.
Ahhhhhh mah gawd it's de Fishy! *throws bbqed Trolls onto the altar in praise* In regards to the Skeletal Minion, I forgot to mention it didn't count against the number of Undead a Caster could safely have under their control, was a Neutral Spell since it requires a willing Spirit (which is why the ritual is so long, to entice the spirit to serve the Caster) and raises the Undead as a Neutral entity, although still Undead and therefore still all the penalities. If the caster dies, the Skeletal Minion crumbles to dust as well.
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The Con loss from the Skeletal Minion spell suggests that the necromancer is animating the skeleton with *his own* life-force (which would be a perfectly necromantic thing to do, shuffling life-force around, only, in this case, in part, instead of all at once, like magic jar).
Given the costs, I'd be inclined to make that a 2nd level spell.
Multiple 3rd party sources (Hollowfaust indeed being one) have come up with 1st level 'create a single skeleton' spells and 2nd level 'create a single zombie' spells. This spell is both more expensive, and takes a toll of the caster's Con, but has the advantage of making the skeleton tougher (HD equal to half caster level), kind of like a 'ghetto' version of the Unearthed Arcana Necromancer 'Skeletal Minion' variant.
If the skeletal minion can have various skills and feats, and you can select them, by summoning the appropriate spirit, then yeah, 3rd level all the way, as that's way useful, and potentially trouble.
If it's animated by the caster's own projected life-force, and is mindless (being directed solely by his will), lacking skills or feats (other than the Bonus feat of Improved Initiative, which skeletons get for free and doesn't count anyway, since it goes on your turn regardless!), then I'd go with 2nd level.
Another vote for mindless / animated by own life-energies is that if it's a summoned spirit, the caster would most likely have to summon a *new* spirit whenever she went up a couple of levels, because the new Skeletal Minion would now have another HD, and possibly new skill ranks and even a Feat. It doesn't really flow with the theme for the skeleton to suddenly 'remember' that it has Combat Reflexes because Molly Bag O' Bones went up to 6th level and it got that 3rd HD...
As for Nightbeam, it does less base damage than Magic Missile, has a shorter range, only affects certain types of targets, can't be split up between targets, possibly requires a ranged touch attack, and *should* (following the Inflict line of spells precedent) have a Will save for 1/2 damage.
I'd consider bumping it up to 1d4 at each odd level, like magic missile (max 5d4 at 9th) and add a side-effect like, 'if will save is failed, target is sickened for 1 round / die of damage taken.'
Even then it's just wildly less effective than magic missile, but, to be fair, most 1st level direct damage spells *should* be less effective than magic missile.
Mmmm, that was my thought with the Nightbeam spell, but on the other hand make it too good and you tread on the Evoker's toes, and really, all I wanted was a lukewarm 'oh shit' spell for the low-level Necromancer. Possibly obscure the target's vision for 1 round, giving a -1 penalty to attack-rolls and AC unless they succeed on the Fortitude save?
In regards to the Skeletal Minion, I really should dig up the rest of the notes. I planned on having it only be a standard Skeleton, and thus zero intelligence, sans the Evil Alignment due to conjuring up a spirit to make it mobile and paying a portion of your own life-force to as part of the price to the Spirit and having a built-in failsafe in that if the caster dies, the Skeletal Minion goes down too, preventing leaving something nasty behind to torment the neighbours.
On the other hand, making the Skeleton quasi-sentient, ie Int 3, could be interesting but then we're giving the Caster access to a relatively cheap version of Undead Cohort, something I am not keen on creating and potentially treading on the toes of the Planar Binding/Summoning spells if the Skeleton becomes sentient!
The Con loss of Skeletal Minion reminds me of the HP loss of Spectral Hand. If you want to lower the level of the spell put in something like "the caster can reclaim the Con ant any time, but if the Minion is destroyed the Con is lost as per Con damage". That might let you skip any material component, not counting the skeleton you are animating.
Also if you are using part of your own life force to animate the thing it should share your alignment.
There is that. I was also thinking that, as the Con Damage was permanent so long as the Skeletal Minion existed, it was more like the Spirit animating the Skeletal Minion was constantly feeding off a small portion of the Caster's Life force as payment for animating the Skeleton, but that could also work.
Sorcerer yanks back the Constitution point and the Skeletal Minion crumbles to dust. Enemy kills the Skeletal Minion and the Sorcerer then has to recover the Constitution Damage as per normal ... interesting idea, thank you!
I use a straight up:
Negative Energy Ray
School: Necromancy
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S, M (A small steel mirror, value 10gp)
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25' +5' per 2 levels)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will Half (See text); Spell Resistance: Yes
A ray of negative energy projects from your pointing finger. You must succeed at a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 1d6 points of damage to a living creature.
For every two extra levels of experience past 1st, you deal an extra 1d6 damage, to a maximum of 5d6 damage at 9th level or higher.
Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell cures them of a like amount of damage, rather than harming them.
Sourced out of Tome and Blood.
I like the concept of NightBeam, but it seems under-powered. You also need to adjust the levels for damage down to 1/4/7/10/13 to maintain formula.