Hi!
I have an upcoming game of Pathfinder in which I'll be playing a necromancer. I've read a few guides online but I'm still kinda new to the whole system so i'm not totally understanding it. My DM is being friendly and allowing me to show him stuff from other books that he may approve for my character but I want to try and avoid pulling stuff from a bunch of different books if I can.
Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
In pathfinder there are basicaly 2 types of necromancers.
The minion master with an undead hord at your command
or
the debuff necromancer as the necromancy school has some of the best debuffs
What should it be?
I'd have to say the minion master sounds like more fun than debuffing.
I originally looked at doing a wizard or sorcerer but a few people recommended cleric instead. but i'm open to either.
The minion master style will slow every combat encounter down to a crawl because you now need to take a turn for every one of your minions. Just something to keep in mind; you don't want your GM or fellow players to groan every time it's your turn.
As far as class, personally I'd go wizard. That's the Pathfinder necromancer -- a wizard with specialization in the necromancy arcane school. A death cleric is not a necromancer, it's a priest who plays with corpses.
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el cuervo wrote: The minion master style will slow every combat encounter down to a crawl because you now need to take a turn for every one of your minions. Just something to keep in mind; you don't want your GM or fellow players to groan every time it's your turn. This is only true if you don't master your minionmancy.
Become highly organized, obtain numerous sets of color-coded dice and structure your turns accordingly.
GM's group the same creature together on the same initiative all the time, there's no reason the GM can't let you do the same [or even put ALL of your critters on your initative tick. There is a bit of an advantage in making tons of initative checks to fish for fast starters, but they require your commands in most cases anyway so it makes a lot of sense to have them move on your turn.]
Plan out your moves in advance before your turn comes up and act quickly, declaring the actions and die results of each group in turn smoothly.
Roll Attack and Damage of everybody at the same time [this is what the color coded dice are for], call out attack rolls with the creature that made the attacks one at a time, calling out the corresponding damage if the GM says the attack hit.
Always be thinking and planning, never let your mind grow dull during combat. [This is actually good advice for ALL players in my opinion, but is critical to those with lots of minions such as Enchanters, Necromancers and summoners.
Good points, kyrt-ryder. I only mentioned it at all because OP said he was new to the Pathfinder system in general. Mastery of a single character is already difficult for players who have familiarity with the system; to expect a new player to have such mastery not only over their own character but of their minions as well is asking a lot.
That's not to say that it can't be done, but it's an uphill battle if you ask me.
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In my opinion, you should take baby steps before playing a necromancer, which is one of the most complex builds.
If you want to command a minion, try out an Unchained Summoner first.
Once you get the gist of summoning and minion management, move onto a full necromancer.
Here is Brewer's Guide to Undeath. I'll give you the quick version:
Wizards are better at debuffing, clerics are better at minion mastery. You need Animate Dead, Desecrate, and either Remove Paralysis or Haste. Don't use Create Undead. The only minions you should consider raising are Bloody Skeletons and Fast Zombies. Bloody Skeletons for immortal beatsticks, Fast Zombies for flying mounts. The only things you need to know from your GM when you raise a given creature are its HD, size, str, dex, and number of natural attacks.
One correction to Brewer in regards to Create Undead:
If you have the Command Undead spell it's not difficult to control them, but it does add extra management to make sure everybody stays properly controlled.
Create Undead is also the only way to get awesome Bloody Skeletal Champions, which are for the most part an investment that always recovers.
An extra thing: The Necroccultist Occultist is awesome.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
It's not a "standard" option, and it's feat-intensive, but a preservationist reanimator alchemist with Spell Focus (Necromancy), Planar Preservationist, and Skeleton Summoner feats can be fun: instant skeletons (for the whole party, with the Infusion discovery), plus the ability to create undead through alchemical means.
First and most importenly if you want to play a minion master you will most likely need to be evil, as raising the undead is considerd pure evil in most/all pathfinder settings.
As long as your gm is not fine with houseruling of course.
For building a minion master I will quote Castilonium here, he is right.
Castilonium wrote: Wizards are better at debuffing, clerics are better at minion mastery. You need Animate Dead, Desecrate, and either Remove Paralysis or Haste. Don't use Create Undead. The only minions you should consider raising are Bloody Skeletons and Fast Zombies. Bloody Skeletons for immortal beatsticks, Fast Zombies for flying mounts. The only things you need to know from your GM when you raise a given creature are its HD, size, str, dex, and number of natural attacks. So if you want a full minion master use the guide with a cleric.
You could do most of what the cleric can with an oracle but in my opinion he is slightly weaker and for you most importenly he isnt handled in the guide.
And if you want more of a fighter with minions the Occultist with the necrooccultist achetype can be great, i am working in my off time at a good concept.
But i think this is to much for a pathfinder newby to work out.
Kando wrote: First and most importenly if you want to play a minion master you will most likely need to be evil, as raising the undead is considerd pure evil in most/all pathfinder settings.
As long as your gm is not fine with houseruling of course.
There are two different answers to this.
First: alignment is altered by your deeds. A Necromancer who does a lot of good deeds with a good heart can at least remain Neutral if not Good whilst teetering on the edge of falling to Neutral.
Second: there's nothing wrong with evil characters. Some GM's [and PFS] ban them, and for fairly good reason [Douchebag players often use the word Evil on their character sheet as an excuse to be disruptive.] but there's nothing in the rules prohibiting an evil PC in a standard party.
PsymonSays wrote: I'd have to say the minion master sounds like more fun than debuffing.
I originally looked at doing a wizard or sorcerer but a few people recommended cleric instead. but i'm open to either.
Gravewalker Witch is my personal pick.
Main reasons:
1. Can control undead from level 1. Bonewhistle can be used repeatedly on the same targets. Bonewhistle also solves a Witch weakness by giving you a repeated SoD v. Undead.
2. Gravewalker gives you the three most important spells for animating minions at their lowest level - Blood Money at level 1, Command Undead as a level 2 spell and Animate Dead as a level 3 spell. Admittedly you will have to wait til 6 to start animating.
3. The other important Necromancy spell Desecrate can be replicated by a Voidstick for only 2,500 GP.
4. You can eventually get to use magic jar on your undead all day long.
So ya, Gravewalker Witch.
kyrt-ryder wrote: There are two different answers to this.
First: alignment is altered by your deeds. A Necromancer who does a lot of good deeds with a good heart can at least remain Neutral if not Good whilst teetering on the edge of falling to Neutral.
You are somewhat right but this depends on your gm, if you can get way with that, speaking from (bad) experience here.
kyrt-ryder wrote: Second: there's nothing wrong with evil characters. Some GM's [and PFS] ban them, and for fairly good reason [Douchebag players often use the word Evil on their character sheet as an excuse to be disruptive.] but there's nothing in the rules prohibiting an evil PC in a standard party. As you already sayd some gms (and PFS) ban evil player charakters. Depending on his/here roleplaying maybe a mixed alignend group is not something he/she wants to do ether. Thats why i sayd it in the first place.
You can play an occlutist arcanist too and with spell focus necromancy and skeleton summoner just summon a skeleton as your pet which now stays minutes per level what makes it even worth to go augment summoning etc.
That´s a very good entry there and you can do debuffs at the same time.
Else take the usual feats.
Or the Dirge Bard. Not as strong as some of the other Necromancers but has lots of fun tricks
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