I'm looking at making a druid necromancer. Mostly for fun right now, but a friend is planning to start a druid-only campaign some time soonish.
To do that, I'm planning on taking the Blight Druid archetype. Based on my understanding, the Undead subdomain should be fair game, since it's a subdomain of one of the domains provided by the archetype. Then, I'm planning to take Shade of the Uskwood and be Samsaran to round out the rest of the useful necromancy spells.
So far so good, but it's not quite perfect.
Ideally, I'd have the ability to use the Command Undead feat. I'm not seeing any obvious ways to qualify for it, though. Full on Channel Negative Energy would be ideal, and then I could just take the feat.
Similarly, I think using Summon Nature's Ally might be a bit over the top, since I'll have some undead minions available. A few archetypes allow druids to spontaneously cast their domain spells, but none of them are compatible with the Blight Druid, as far as I can tell. Anything I might be missing that would allow this?
Thanks!
I'm not a Druid expert, but I've played more than my fair share of necromancers, and with extensive research I've found it impossible to make a good Druid necromancer. The class is just vastly inferior to the other classes at it. I know it's not what you wanted to hear, but I can think of no way to make a decent Druid necromancer.
You might want to reconsider Blight Druid. Between Samsaran & Shade of the Uskwood you'll have most of those spells in the Death/Undead domain anyway.
If you instead take a domain which gives you a familiar (e.g. monkey, serpent or crocodile) you can take the Adept Channel feat, which gives you that channelling ability you want.
Well, regardless of whether you'll be especially kickass at necromancy, remember this: You will definitely be the most kickass at necromancy in your party.
Actually, the blight druid gives you the option of a familiar instead of a domain. I'd get one of the animal domains named if it were my character, but if you want to stink so badly that some enemies will be nauseated blight druid is an option.
Does Adept Channel actually even work? Assuming this reference is correct, it requires the "Summon Familiar class ability", which is an Adept thing... Is there some FAQ that makes this equivalent?
Without picking up the Undead domain, it seems like there's just too many important spells to grab.
Enervation is a great, iconic spell that's not available through a Samsaran.
Lowering Animate Dead to 3rd level (instead of 5th through Shade of the Uskwood) is a pretty big deal, though admittedly available via Samsaran.
Slay Living, Destruction, and Energy Drain are all available to a Samsaran as well, but that'll eat in to what other choices are available.
Here's what I was planning to pick up from Samsaran:
Desecrate (antipaladin 2 or cleric 2)
Blindness/Deafness (antipaladin 2 or cleric 3)
Vampiric Touch (antipaladin 3)
Bestow Curse (antipaladin 3 or cleric 3)
Virulence (cleric 4); this is optional, but seems useful for a Blight Druid
Harm (cleric 6)
hooray necromancer druid!
Adept channel will be up to your DM, may I humbly suggest the Swamp Domain instead?
Eventually, you will want 2 levels of the Agent of the Grave prestige class, this will allow you to treat undead you summon as their original type, for you as a druid you will want this to be 'animals' primarily.
Yes as a Druid you are the master of animals, and now your animals are also undead.
Samsaran and Uskwood are ideal, but with Samsaran you don't specifically need Uskwood, it is good to have both though.
If you want to free up a Samsaran spell slot, I would suggest taking Agent of the Grave to level 3, which will allow you to Desecrate.
If you don't want Agent of the Grave, I would suggest taking the animal companion as an alternative. If your companion falls in combat, you can raise it with animate dead and add it to your horde. In this fashion, you have a living bodyguard, and a semi eternal string of undead ones.
You could also take the Vulture domain, which arguably plays better with a group of other heroes.
Hmm... I like Agent of the Grave. If I took that to level 5, I could pick up everything I would've gotten from the Undead domain, which would free me to go with a different archetype, like Reincarnated Druid (which is what prompted the whole idea).
I'm a bit iffy on Swamp domain as a replacement, though. The campaign will take place in a primarily urban setting, so I'm not sure how many animals I'll have to raise. In many ways, animate dead is kind of a secondary thing here; I'm mainly thinking towards a necromancy focused caster.
Hmm... I like Agent of the Grave. If I took that to level 5, I could pick up everything I would've gotten from the Undead domain, which would free me to go with a different archetype, like Reincarnated Druid (which is what prompted the whole idea).
I'm a bit iffy on Swamp domain as a replacement, though. The campaign will take place in a primarily urban setting, so I'm not sure how many animals I'll have to raise. In many ways, animate dead is kind of a secondary thing here; I'm mainly thinking towards a necromancy focused caster.
Ironically, even though the flavor fits well, I would advise against taking Agent of the Grave past 3 especially if you intend to be reincarnated druid. I mentioned this in my guide, but if you take agent of the grave past 3 you basically become undead, and it's sort of a pain to try and heal yourself with negative energy. the druid simply doesn't have access to it.
Now, if you want to build yourself to be a negative energy character you can. Or if you have your eyes set on ultimately becoming an undead creature, you would make a fine lich, but reincarnate druid would enable you to do that without really needing to be undead.
Urban settings can be filled with just as many animals as any other setting, you have Call Animal to help with that. Rats/bats/wolves/stray dogs/ sewer gators. If you become a man of wealth, pay poachers to go and get the animal you want and bring it to you.
Reincarnated Druid + Agent of the Grave 3, Samsaran, Shade of the Uskwood, and Vulture domain will give you access to dang near every necromancy spell in the game, with the only overlap being from getting Circle of Death twice
Hah, didn't realize it was you. Thanks for the guide, it's a great read!
Yeah, I suppose that the negative energy affinity is a bit of a problem... When I'm not on my phone, I'll poke at the spell list some more.
The Vulture domain's 8th level ability wouldn't apply to the Reincarnated Druid's Many Lives, would it? Didn't sound like it from the wording, but it'd be really awesome if it did.
I am going to mention something that I think nobody else has, despite it being obvious.
Your GM may well allow you take a level in another class- say cleric. If you need or want channel negative energy, that does the trick. I have no experience of GMs of Druid only campaigns and failed my KS Weirdos roll, so can't tell what they will say, but I would allow it.
While I am saying the obvious, which is my proper role as most people here know the rules better than I [not as flattering as it sounds] you should talk about it with the other players. They could all think all necromancers must die... even if they don't want to I mean.
I am going to mention something that I think nobody else has, despite it being obvious.
Your GM may well allow you take a level in another class- say cleric.
I believe the specific requirement is only that the first level must be in druid, so a cleric dip would be possible.
However, that isn't particularly useful because Command Undead would then scale based on cleric level. Both the HD limit and the DC would be based on level 1. My hope was to find a way that would scale. If there is/were an arcane school equivalent to Eldritch Heritage, that'd work well enough.
Hah, didn't realize it was you. Thanks for the guide, it's a great read!
Thanks
The Vulture 'will it apply to many lives' is a debate that's never been had as far as I know. Many Lives says "as the spell" which means anything that would normally apply to reincarnate should apply. However, the Vulture ability specifically says "when you cast reincarnate from your prepared spells" meaning in the case of RAW v RAI it shouldn't work.
However, the odds of you even making it to druid 8 before multiclassing out to agent of the grave is slim, especially with samsaran. I think most DM's would allow it because it feels nitpicky.
you should talk about it with the other players.
This is pretty important as well. Your DM may think the concept is cool enough to let you trade out a class feature for channel, or some other house rule.