Recently I've been considering creating a Necromancer character, as I've never truly played one in Pathfinder.
I had a cursory look at the various methods to accomplish it, and I've noticed that it is very easy to create many HD worth of undead at your command.
Even if you focused completely on quality over quantity, it seems to me that it would quickly be that your undead minions outnumber the rest of the party combined.
With this in mind, do people find that Necromancer-type characters often slow down the game too much, at the cost of the groups enjoyment of the game? I love the theme of Necromancers, but I would hate to create a character that had my party groan in frustration whenever my turn came around.
Well, then don't. Focus on one strong undead, rather than many weak undead. (Weak undead wont really achieve anything against strong foes.).
Or play a necromancer who debuffs her foes, rather than one who creates undead.
Final note: creating undead costs money, so create regenerating undead when possible, if you're creating undead.
You are correct. A necromancer commanding a couple dozen skeletons would be very time-consuming when his turn comes around the initiative tracker.
Then again, by the time you CAN have a couple dozen skeletons, they won't be able to hurt anything you're fighting. You'll spend 10 minutes moving them around and whiffing their attacks for nothing.
I suggest you will get far more use out of one big undead than you would ever get from a horde of puny undead. Likewise, a 10th level druid could conceivably find and train a few dozen ferrets to follow him around and attack his enemies, but they would be a waste of time - but that druid's large animal companion is probably quite effective.
So treat your undead as if it were just one big animal companion. You'll get much more use out of it and your fellow players won't take a nap every time your turn comes up.
Yes, I know, druids' animal companions automatically get bigger and nastier as the druid levels up and your undead companion won't have that advantage - you'll have to regularly dispose of any undead companion you outgrow and replace it with a better one.
Here's my advice:
- Undead are very expensive early on, but get comparatively cheap at later levels (ymmv depending on use) as the cost is additive. Most other things in pathfinder are multiplicative.
- Infernal Healing is your friend (fast healing works on living and undead alike)
- Create one or two awesome minions vs twenty or so not so awesome minions. This will keep you from bogging down your turn having to roll 50 attack rolls, moves, and whatnot. (Easiest way to do this is to animate bosses and heavy melee brutes)
-Templates Stack, except for Flaming and Bloody (so no endless reusable suicide-bomber skeletons).
I suggest using the Frostfallen template (it's a zombie template if I recall correctly, so you can't make bloody frostfallen) in combination with Fast (by casting haste or remove paralysis on the corpse) to make some exceptionally good brute minions. Just look out for fireballs.
EDIT: Also, another approach is to animate some non-combat minions to help cover the holes in the party. I've gotten some good use out of creative uses for zombies outside of combat and my party has thanked me for it.
+1 to tonyz. A lot of the undead spawning spells have specific material components that can cost quite a bit. There are a lot of spells in the necromancy school that can do a lot of different things. Spawning zombies and skeletons does not need to be the major focus of a necromancer. If that's the flavor of what your character concept is, that's fine, but you'll want to broach that with your gaming group ahead of time to make sure they are on board with it.
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Alternatively, focus on making useful zombie minions--like a mount. Need to cross the ocean? Find a beached whale. ;D
Necromancers can be a load of fun to play.
Some things to consider before submitting your new Master of Darkness to your GM tho...
1) Most, if not all, of your Undead creation spells have the Evil descriptor. Your PC will probably be evil himself or be inclined to evil. This may cause problems for some GMs and Players.
2) A guy wandering around with mindless undead (or worse, Ghouls, Vampires and Mummies) will generally make a negative impact on practically every civilized NPC he meets. You might want to figure this out.
3) Do you want to control hordes of skeletons or do you prefer to animate/control several or a single more powerful minion? My favorite Necromancer had a mix of both. He kept several Crawling Claws on hand and usually had a buffed out skeletal giant or other monster.
4) As you progress in levels, more options open up which can really make your class pretty powerful. You might want to take this into consideration depending on the playstyles of your group.
Personally, I have a lot of fun with Necromancers in my groups. They tend to die more often than other characters due to the dark nature of their craft and the problems associated with it. That said, I do have a player currenly at 12th level who is trying to craft a flesh golem to go along with his minions.
I would definitely go with a necromancer who doesn't do the 'shambling hordes of undead' thing.
I asked for anecdotal advice on my necromancer thread and someone replied who used undead for a variety of things. He said he opened up his own mine staffed by undead workers, and for combat he had a bunch of ogre skeletons tromping around with him. Basically they were used to mass grapple dragons and such. It sounded pretty awesome, but it probably also slowed the game down a bit.
I think I'd just like to have a few minions with me. Some generics for carrying the gear Walking Dead style, possibly some mounts for everyone if they can stomach it (thankfully our party is all neutral aligned. The catfolk might have a problem with it though..) and a couple of brutes. You can still have little skeletons use the aid another action you know. I think having an undead horde is fine, so long as the majority of them are "behind the scenes" and not clogging up a battlefield. One or two good skeletons should be just fine, though.
If you don't want to have lots of combat minions, get two reasonably durable combat minions and use them to create flanking attacks for the other party fighting types. If they also cause damage to the enemy then that's a bonus, but a couple of tough minions should allow you to dictate the battlefield a bit more. If they can tie up a few enemy combatants they'll be aiding the fight without stealing the glory.
Personally, I also have a few small and weak undead servants to add flavour to my character. A porter, handmaiden/manservant and mount to name a few. Don't forget the Gentle Repose spell if you don't fancy your minions smelling like a old sewer after a few days, and a variety of face coverings and gloves will help disguise their nature from potentially hostile onlookers. It's amazing what can be disguised using a veil or shemagh.
I know this thread is a few months old, but figure it may still be relevant. I played an Undead Lord in a home game that went to 11.
1) If you know what your doing, it doesn't have to slow things down. When I played it was actually a live game but we still used a Virtual Table Top. As long as you have macros rolling can be really fast. Ask your GM if you can use a dice rolling program and come prepared with macros. I would have between 3-10 minions, plus I summoned monsters and I took leadership. I still had faster turns than half the party because I go into my turn knowing what I'm doing and executing it quickly. I do think that fewer allies is still beneficial as others have pointed out, but really you can have a lot as long as you can roll dice quickly.
2) Summon Monster is a great boon. Especially caster summons. They also fill the gap in case you fight a cleric or paladin whose more awesome than you and turns your undead;)
3) Don't create undead or command intelligent undead. It WILL cause problems for you.
4) Variant undeath channeling is awesome! No downside and lots of benefits. If you get negative energy affinity (and your allies do too) healing in combat becomes much more viable.
5) Take a level in sorcerer and pick up bloodmoney. It will save you thousands of gold throughout your career. To get the most mileage out of it you can crossblood or take tattooed sorcerer.
Learn to love necrocrafts. Got a bunch of worthless bandit corpses on your hands? Hit your HD cap and want to animate something new? Just gather up all your spares and stitch them into something new! Less hit dice, but a whole list of special abilities to pick from! Make something really situational like an all-around vision burrower, then recycle it into new necrocrafts when it's no longer wanted!
Also, don't forget the various spare-parts undead. You could potentially pull two isitoqs and a beheaded out of any given corpse, and still have the bulk left over for necrocrafting. (You'll definitely need False Focus or Blood Money to cut costs, mind.)
Necrocrafts? Where would one find the rules for these? Thanks...
They're from Bestiary 4. Link.
Definitely focus on quality over quantity with the undead. Large, winged fast zombies are great mounts, as are tireless skeletal horses pulling your carriage while you and your party rests inside. There are a million and one great monsters to animate for combat, but on't forget the utility beasts (love the whale idea, btw!)
Also, don't neglect your non-undead related spells- necromancy offers much more- and you don't want to be caught with your black robe down when your minions are destroyed or unavailable.
Lastly, don't be afraid to break the stereotype! I prefer the reanimator-scientist style necromancer, but make your own! Maybe your undead are very well preserved, or clean bleached bone inscribed with runes. Maybe you don't animate, just command undead which you then destroy or attempt to "cure" of their curse. Play something awesome, be cool to your party and GM, and have fun with it!
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I haven't had the opportunity to test this out in actual play, so this is just armchair necromancy. But: I wanted to try a character who animates a whole bunch of Belching Beheaded. They don't take up a lot of space, they can fly, they get an energy attack of your choice, and it looks cool to have a lot of floating skulls flying around you all the time.