|
It won't be army-building, but Lesser Animate Dead has no component cost. Plus, only one combat "pet" allowed, so you're good to go for a session.
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'd actually recommend you look into one of three options if you want to play a Necromancer style character with Undead, but want to keep it cost effective:
1) Death Domain Cleric, Necromancer Wizard, or Plague Patron Witch
Get Skeletal Summoner (Ultimate Magic) ASAP, which will allow you to summon some low level skeletons via Summon Monster and once a day summon a Skeletal version of anything on the list. If you go the Cleric route, Spell Focus (Conjuration) & Augment Summoning would also be worth the investment at that point. Your undead buff abilities still work with these summoned creatures.
If you go this route, use of Animate Dead in scenario is a "sometimes" option that is saved for when the party needs more muscle that beyond just one fight (and there aren't any of those preachy Paladins or Clerics of Pharasma around). Or when you just think that nasty the group killed would be an awesome zombie/skeleton (T-Rex, anyone?). Focus the character on debuff Necromancy spells and dealing damage (Channeling Negative Energy is a great DPS mechanic; Wizard spells speak for themselves) so they have something to do when they don't have an undead minion about or are out of Summon Monster spells.
Pros: You have flexibility in your spell-casting, can conjure up some mean undead on the fly, and your undead scale as you level thanks to Summon Monster scaling.
Drawbacks: Your undead are generally pretty temporary and Summon Monster spells take a full-round to cast. This means that in faster fights, your mileage may vary. At higher levels, the Skeletal Champion in Summon Monster III ceases to be useful, leaving you with the ability to summon a skeleton of use off Summon Monster only once per day.
2) Oracle of Bones
Very similar to the above, but instead of Summon Feat-chains you utilize the "Raise the Dead" revelation for an undead minion. You can still do the Summon Feat-chains, but these are much more difficult to manage with spontaneous spell-casters as you'll need to carefully plan out what Summon Monster spells you swap out and when.
Pros: Raise the Dead scales very well by level, you can keep a tight spell-list conceptually, and you can squeeze out 2-3 level scaled undead a day (1-2 from Raise the Dead & 1 from Skeletal Summoner) scaled to your level in terms of strength.
Drawbacks: Specialization will leave you with less flexibility in combat and Summon Monster spells still take 1 full round to cast.
3) Summoner/Oracle (Bear With Me Here!)
Give your Eidolon the "Undead Appearance" evolution (Ultimate Magic). Use the build guidelines for Undead from Ultimate Magic to guide your evolution choices as you level. Take Skeletal Summoner, which will apply to your Summon Monster class ability.
Take 1 level in Oracle of Bones and take Undead Servitude along with the Improved Channel feat (to make up for the DC hit for only splashing Oracle). This will allow you to try and command undead you come across in scenarios and is helpful from a flavor perspective.
Pros: You have a custom undead minion, can summon a scale-able Skeleton once per day as a standard action if you need it, and get lots of buff/debuff spells that everyone in the party will love you for.
Cons: You don't get a lot of the spells that specifically bolster undead, your Command Undead will have a low DC for your level, you don't get Animate Dead as a spell, and you'll have to cope with an Oracle's Curse for your troubles.
My Suggestion:
Take option #1 and be alright with not having an undead pet in every fight or using Animate Dead every scenario (once you have it). Summoning a small squad of Summon Monster I Skeletons or Summon Monster III Skeletal Champions (via Superior Summons in Ultimate Magic) and being able to heal them via negative channeling or give them Necromantic buffs is pretty useful, nonetheless.
Good Pathfinders are those who are flexible and have multiple tricks up their sleeve; even if Undead is your best schtick, Option #1 makes you capable of doing several other things well that are helpful.
|
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
|
I have a Razmiran Priest Sorcere in PFS who focuses on Necromancy. Since the bonuc feat from the Archtype allows you to substitute a Divine Focus for expensive material components, and he purchased a divine focus wayfinder, he can ignore 100gp from that pesky Animate Dead spell. ^_^
I agree with kaisc006, an eidolon can be rather powerful, and have the appearance and similar abilities to an undead depending how you build it.
|
|
Drawbacks: Your undead are generally pretty temporary and Summon Monster spells take a full-round to cast.
There are ways around the full round casting time of summon spells like the feat Acadamae Graduate which says "Prerequisites: Specialist Wizard Level 1st, cannot have conjuration as a forbidden school. Benefit: Whenever you cast a prepared arcane spell from the conjuration (summoning) school that takes longer than a standard action to cast, reduce the casting time by one round (to a minimum casting time of one standard action). Casting a spell in this way is taxing and requires a Fortitude save (DC 15 + spell level) to resist becoming fatigued."
Airy smiles and says in a silky smooth voice: It has worked wonderfully for me; often provoking comments of my superiority over other summoners. When I summon forth hell hounds or bearded devils those around me are sick with envy..." and with more than a little yearning she whispers "Ah! How I love Cheliax!
After a disembodied cough, she rolls her eyes and adds "Oh. Please know when your summons appear and begin carving into the backsides of your enemies... those same enemies may charge forth angrily at you, as has happened more than a time or two for me. Perhaps an invisible imp familiar readying an action to drop caltrops in the path of their charge would be... prudent?"
|
|
Undead Sorcerer doesn't give you the ability to Command/Bolster undead through Channeling or a free Command Undead feat =D.
Pathfinder uses Opposition Schools instead of Forbidden Schools. You can still learn and prepare Opposition School spells, but they take up two spell slots to prepare (which is still pretty rough). If you're playing a Necromancer, I'd recommend Enchantment & Illusion.
Not being able to prepare Invisibility/Greater Invisibility later on without taking up two slots hurts, but that's nothing a scroll of either can't fix for when you need to not be seen. Or, invest in a Ring of Invisibility =D.
|
Schools that are typically chosen first are Evocation and Enchantment. This is due to the fact that Evocation is fairly sub-optimal in what it's supposed to do and can largely be replaced by the Shadow Evocation line of Illusion spells; while the Enchantment school suffers from a small/narrow list that tends to be resisted (if not outright negated) by enemies at higher levels. However, should you decide that you do not want to sacrifice either of the two aforementioned, another choice includes Divination.
Schools that should not be considered for opposition schools are Conjuration, Illusion, and Transmutation. Though, depending on your situation, Abjuration may fall into this category as well.
[Edit]
- Common de-buff spells can be found in Conjuration, Illusion, and Transmutation schools.
- Direct damage is often equivocated to Evocation but more often it's considered "more optimal" to either buff allies or summon a horde of monsters to eat your enemies (though the latter isn't particularly effective at lower levels).
- No real comment on death effects, sorry.
|
I see that nobody said a thing about walking around with your undead minions.
You will have huge problems if you walk around with your undead minions in the city. People will run, panic, maybe even call guards and give you 0% chance on having social interactions with them. Having means to disguise them or just not carry them in city is must.
You could carry corpses also in bag of holding for example and keep a few cloaks for disguise.
Also, people in party might not like you. Expect cleric of Sarenrae to be highly hostile and paladins smiting your undead.
|
|
It won't be army-building, but Lesser Animate Dead has no component cost. Plus, only one combat "pet" allowed, so you're good to go for a session.
Read the spell description. Lesser Animate Dead works as Animate Dead. There is even a link provided in the spell description so you can see the requisites for the spell. It requires a material component: an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead.
|
|
It won't be army-building, but Lesser Animate Dead has no component cost. Plus, only one combat "pet" allowed, so you're good to go for a session.Read the spell description. Lesser Animate Dead works as Animate Dead. There is even a link provided in the spell description so you can see the requisites for the spell. It requires a material component: an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead.
Shows what I know about casters. I knew regular Animate Dead had the component cost, but I thought when something "functions like X," I thought it simply meant the effects of "X". Oh, well.
|
Ovule, in my opinion the wizard necro is pretty strong although the cleric is as well.
The necro school itself will bring things like: blindness, ghoul touch, lipstitch, ray of exhaustion, bestow curse, ray of enervation, vampiric touch, etc. the wizard class itself will give you extreme versatility with options like fly, haste, slow, fireball, and the like.
The cleric is not wanting in itself but it is more limited in options. My cleric has found the awesomeness of breath of life to be worth the wait, that character has brought over 12 fellow pathfinders back from the gates of pharasmas boneyard with BOL. That and a certain friendly stegosaurus named Taldor has made the cleric fun for me to play.
On the wizard note, I almost always choose a familiar because i like pets, however the apg has a pretty cool albeit expensive item that when used as an arcane bond allows necromancers to spontaneously change any necromancy school spell they have prepared into another necromancy school spell they know. Pretty cool, eh.
One thing that might be of help in corner cases where you think that calling up the undead might cause friction- ask your fellow players/GM around the table beforehand whether or not it would be okay if you could call up undead. If they are all fine with it, you're golden. If at least one person balks at the notion (heck, it could even be a guardian of a player, if the player happens to be a minor), then it is probably a no go. Better safe than sorry and all that.
|
As I am reminded, the Don't be a Jerk rule is part of the Core Assumption. Also a basic Pathfinder tenet is to Cooperate. It seems that players who can't work it out beforehand as Here3daFreeSwag suggests, will have to suffer the rulings of the GM.
All I will say in regards to "destruction of property" or messing with another PC's class abilities is that control/creation of undead has serious social and alignment implications for others and in my opinion is not the same as destroying a neutral item or animal companion. It is what it is. And if you are going to play an extreme class that exists on the borders of Pathfinder society, you should expect table variance.
|
|
As I am reminded, the Don't be a Jerk rule is part of the Core Assumption. Also a basic Pathfinder tenet is to Cooperate. It seems that players who can't work it out beforehand as Here3daFreeSwag suggests, will have to suffer the rulings of the GM.
All I will say in regards to "destruction of property" or messing with another PC's class abilities is that control/creation of undead has serious social and alignment implications for others and in my opinion is not the same as destroying a neutral item or animal companion. It is what it is. And if you are going to play an extreme class that exists on the borders of Pathfinder society, you should expect table variance.
I agree, up to a point with you Don. I think it's a very important rule of thumb to remember that you have to expect table variance if you're playing borderline concepts. But at the same time I can completely see the grief that would come up in such a case.
If anything I would talk to both players (that is if a cleric/paladin and a necromancer were playing at the same table) and ask them politely to respect each others choice in characters and not be a jerk about it. Which is to say that the Necromancer shouldn't flaunt their obviously borderline abilities at the cleric/paladin and said cleric/paladin should understand that the Society (both in game and out) expects people to cooperate. If they can't do that (and I do mean both players) then they should play something else or somewhere else.
|
|
I think this thread is going off track...
(Assorted commentary)
Anyways i was asking how the witch does on the caster side opposed to the minion side.
This. Please do not turn this thread into another argument about the use of undead at PFS tables. Just don't. It's not what the OP asked for; take it somewhere else.
Witches have pretty solid utility. Their Hexes, being most often supernatural and not spell-like abilities, can bypass Spell Resistance. They make good single-target healers with the Healing Hex and maintain a nice repertoire of debuff and control spells. They don't have the breadth of spells you see with the Wizard/Sorcerer list or the durability that many Clerics have (being armored, Channeling, lots of buff spells), but they are a nice middle ground. I enjoy playing my Winter Witch.
|
|
@Ocule
What I meant to say before and Don said it quite right, is that undead users are on borderline with PFS. They cause negative reactions from both NPCs and PCs. Such path should be treated with care and while GMing I wouldn't allow immediatly for a paladin or such to disrupt your play, far from that.
They are actually in worse situation then you, because they have to decide how to roleplay it out without disrupting you.
However if intend to carry undead around as pets in every city, people will run on the streets, you can forget on Diplomacy there. While they might not burn you, they will burn your pet. This is why I said that proper roleplay and disguise is needed if you wish to keep them near you.
I don't wish to derail thread, but I simply wanted to explain what just might happen. My cleric also loves to use animate dead spells, but he for example will coup de grace them after fight is over. It's too bothersome to carry them around.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This whole discussion is silly. We do have factions that create undead. Osirion even has a "used to dealing with undead trait." We do have factions that consort with devils.
Saying only neutral and good actions/spells are allowed in PFS doesn't make PFS neutral. It makes it a good aligned society.
Necromancers are specified as allowed in the PFS guide. Changing that into Necromancer that don't practice active necromancy is frankly going against the PFS guide.
|
|
I don't make those comments any more, since I understand now that there are a determined vocal group that insists that having shambling corpses follow you around be deemed socially acceptable.I see that nobody said a thing about walking around with your undead minions.
Yes, apparently divine characters and the Silver Crusade have veto rights over characters doing what is normal for Scarny, Cheliax, and Osirion factions.
|
My second character is a necromancer Wizard. he jokes about summoning undead, but never does. He is, however, a great debuffer. He is designed to basically screw people over. I played two scenarios with him at 4th level and Ghoul Touched the BBB in both scenarios, allowing them to be Coup'ed. It was amusing for me, but not so much for the GM.