Building a Necromancer Class, Need advice on spell casting

[Lord Scythican]

Okay I am currently building a homebrew class to be used as as a necromancer. Right now, has stuff like Channel Negative energy and a few other abilities. However my main concern is the way the class will learn and cast spells. I really like the sorcerer class and how they can cast spells they know over and over, yet I think a necromancer should learn
spells from tombs of magic, etc. I am proposing a blend of sorts but I am not sure if this is the right way to go about this. If you would, please check out this spell entry for the class and let me know what you think.

"Spells: A Necromancer casts arcane spells drawn from the Necromancer spell list. She can cast any spell she knows permanently (detailed below) without preparing it ahead of time. A Necromancer may know any number of Necromancy spells. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a Necromancer’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the Necromancer’s Intelligence modifier.

A Necromancer can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Necromancer. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Intelligence score (see Table: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells).

To learn a spell, a Necromancer must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. She may choose to prepare her spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook. While studying, the Necromancer decides which spells to prepare. Alternatively, a Necromancer can choose to spend 10 hours per spell level to permanently know a spell from the Necromancer Spell List. The spell must be of a level she can cast. When the spell is cast, the Necromancer uses up one of her allotted Spells Per Day. If a Necromancer does not permanently know a spell, she must study her spellbook again to prepare the spell after it is cast. If they spell is known permanently, she can recast the spell again and again without studying her spellbook.

A Necromancer’s selection of spells is extremely limited to the Necromancy School only. A Necromancer begins play permanently knowing four 0-level spells and two 1st-level spells of the Necromancer’s choice. At each new Necromancer level, she gains one or more new spells as indicated on Table 1–2. However because of her extreme specialization in the Necromancy School of Magic, she can learn additional spells from the Necromancy Spell List by studying tombs of magic, scrolls, etc. Spells learned this way may be inscribed into her spellbook or learned permanently as detailed above."

Every time I read it my self, I am a bit worried that this set up will not work the way I want it to.

Basically I want the necromancer to be able to cast the same spell multiple times. I want them to study spell books as well.

[Necromancer]

Not to discourage you from building a new class, but have you taken a look at the oracle of bones?

Oracle link & Bones mystery link.

Oracles do not have to worship a deity, they don't have to prepare spells ahead of time, and they're single attribute (CHA) focused. I recommend trying one out.

[Lord Scythican]

That is a pretty nice looking class. I probably will play one.

It has a lot of stuff that a necromancer should be able to do.

The only thing missing, (and this may be just not seeing a way to do it) is the ability to control a lot of undead. Animate Dead lets you cap out at what, 80 HD, which is like 160 skeletons right? Is there a spell that could allow you to control more?

I picture a 18-20th level necromancer controlling thousands.

Then again maybe he does only control 160 and they lead the others in a herd like in the walking dead.

Thoughts?

[Icyshadow]

I recall the SRD having a Third-Party Class named the Death Mage or something similar.

It's pretty much a dedicated Nercomancer of sorts. See for yourself here.

[Kalridian]

Be careful about the Death Mage though. One of their variants gets the leadership feat for free and all the minions and cohorts are intelligent zombies and skeletons. This has the possibility to be even MORE gamebreaking than Leadership on its own. (crafting cohort that does not need to sleep or eat...)

[Necromancer]

samterry wrote:

That is a pretty nice looking class. I probably will play one.

It has a lot of stuff that a necromancer should be able to do.

The only thing missing, (and this may be just not seeing a way to do it) is the ability to control a lot of undead. Animate Dead lets you cap out at what, 80 HD, which is like 160 skeletons right? Is there a spell that could allow you to control more?

Animate dead is 4 HD per level and the command undead feat allows an additional 1 HD per level; so 5 HD per level. Variant mindless undead's HD only counts for more at creation, therefore a 1HD bloody skeleton still counts as 1 HD worth of undead to control.

samterry wrote:

I picture a 18-20th level necromancer controlling thousands.

Then again maybe he does only control 160 and they lead the others in a herd like in the walking dead.

Thoughts?

I expect the upcoming mythic rules will cover gaining additional undead.

If you decide on an oracle, take leadership if your GM allows it to recruit an apprentice necromancer cohort along with other subordinates. Next, command some undead to follow and obey your minions' orders--your orders, by proxy.