Necromancer builds

[Xelah]

I've seen a few posts both here and on other websites advocating various builds for necromancer, generally advocating cleric or oracle of bones as the two best choices.

These same threads also tend to steer newcomers away from wizard necromancer and undead sorcerer builds.

Gravewalker witch tends to fall somewhere in the middle.

I've been scouring the rules, and unless I'm missing something all of the above is bad advice. Single classed, a necromancer wizard or an undead sorcerer are quite a bit weaker than a single class cleric. Necromancer wizard with a single level in undead sorcerer outscales the clerics at mid-high levels. The only real drawback is a slower start.

At character level 8

A single class cleric has the following pools:
32 HD for animate dead's HD pool
8 HD for command undead feat
x HD in whatever held by command undead spell

A wizard 7 / sorcerer 1 has the following pools:
28 HD for animate dead's HD pool
7 HD for command undead feat
x HD in whatever is held by command undead spell
**y HD in whatever is held by the Dominate Person**

The level 1 class perk for undead bloodline sorcerer applies to all spells that character casts. Which means a level of this, plus a wizard that can cast dominate person There isn't a cleric domain that grants dominate person.

Now, in addition to having an entirely new pool to play with and store minions, reading the spell description for dominate person, it looks like the perfect place to store intelligent undead. There are no daily saves, no charisma checks, and no HD pools to worry about. I would never use Create Undead with any single class necromancer, the spell becomes much more appealing with a necromancer wizard undead sorcerer. Dominate Person is also 2 harder to resist than command undead. Drop a Heighten Spell metamagic on this and you have a spell that can completely wreck a lich way better than control undead.

Also, unlike clerics, wizards have access to Magic Jar. The advantage here is pretty obvious, especially if you have a totally slick minion to posses like a dragon zombie (See dracolich as far as anyone knows :D ).

The only real drawback here (aside from having to suffer at low levels) is that a wizard sorcerer cannot cast desecrate. That's solved readily enough with points spent on Use Magic Device, which happens to be a sorcerer class skill, and buying a wand of desecrate.

Have I missed a rule somewhere or does anyone have a better build?

[Nickadeamous]

Dominate Person is a compulsion, mind-affecting spell,which undead are immune to.

[Xelah]

Nickadeamous wrote:

Dominate Person is a compulsion, mind-affecting spell,which undead are immune to.

Except for this:

Undead Bloodline
Bloodline Arcana: Some undead are susceptible to your mind-affecting spells. Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them.

[Vaellen]

I'm a big fan of the Occultist as a necromancer although I have to try it out personally.

[Lemartes]

Maybe I'm missing something but why not go full undead sorcerer?

[Xelah]

Lemartes wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something but why not go full undead sorcerer?

Because the undead sorceror doesn't get the pool for the command undead feat. You don't really get to do any cool necromancery things until level 6. You can have a small collection of minions you've hijacked if you're primarily a wizard.

Sorcerer can't cast animate dead or dominate person until 8th level, undead sorcerer gets animate dead for free as their 9th level class spell, so it is pointless to take it at 8th. A wizard can cast animate dead and dominate person at 7th level. Take 7 levels of wizard and your 8th level as sorcerer and you've already got a force of bloody skeletons and can start adding intelligent undead by the time the sorcerer can start doing either one. And there is no downside, unless you just really really don't like prepcasting.

The only real reason I'd ever take a full undead sorcerer would be to get those level 20 perks, which with two castings of wish can be yours anyway.

[Mysterious Stranger]

How are you healing your undead minions as an arcane caster? The cleric gets full channel negative energy and can spontaneously convert any spell to an inflict wounds to heal undead. The oracle has all inflict spells on his spell list. You have a couple of ways to heal undead and a few buffs but a lot less than a divine caster. Dominate person will allow you a few more undead minions but you have less ways to buff and heal them than a divine caster.

[Gray Warden]

Ehem...except for this domain. Take the Theologian archetype and you can spam Dominate Person all day. Want to affect undeads? Dip in Sorcerer or Threnodic Spell metamagic rod, or even the feat to be used with Spell Perfection if you really like it.

Are you really neglecting the whole channel energy thing? It's one of the best things of necromancer cleric: get an army of undeads, cast sanctuary on yourself, and heal them all together from the middle of the battle.

Wizards are the top for a lot of things, but concerning undeath, Divines do it better.

[Xelah]

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

How are you healing your undead minions as an arcane caster? The cleric gets full channel negative energy and can spontaneously convert any spell to an inflict wounds to heal undead. The oracle has all inflict spells on his spell list. You have a couple of ways to heal undead and a few buffs but a lot less than a divine caster. Dominate person will allow you a few more undead minions but you have less ways to buff and heal them than a divine caster.

The dominated minions aren't just a "few more" minions. They're intelligent undead with better stats already. Also, cleric might be king of buffs, but wizard is king of debuffs. I consider it a tie that gets decided by who has better minions to start with.

Gray Warden wrote:

Ehem...except for this domain. Take the Theologian archetype and you can spam Dominate Person all day. Want to affect undeads? Dip in Sorcerer or Threnodic Spell metamagic rod, or even the feat to be used with Spell Perfection if you really like it.

Are you really neglecting the whole channel energy thing? It's one of the best things of necromancer cleric: get an army of undeads, cast sanctuary on yourself, and heal them all together from the middle of the battle.

Wizards are the top for a lot of things, but concerning undeath, Divines do it better.

Forgot about slavery domain. Slavery theologians can't raise new minions, you'd only be able to steal others.

Undead-Slavery Cleric / Undead sorcerer looks appealing, but you still can't do the puppeteering trick, which I find to be a better spell than sanctuary if I've stashed my body before the battle. Though being able to heal them all, buff them, and have the better minions is really appealing.

I think I'm still going to go wizard though. Thanks for the input guys.

[Gray Warden]

What are you talking about?
Clerics can do anything Wizards can in this case, but better.

"Slavery theologians can't raise new minions", what? You get Animate Dead as a 3rd level Cleric spell, while it's a 4th level spell for Wizards. You get Create Undead as 6th level spell, and, as a Theologian, you get also Dominate Person as 5th. Since both need the Sorcerer dip (or Threnodic Spell), it seems a tie to me. Except that Wizards get Command Undead as a spell, while Clerics get Animate Dead one spell level earlier. Between the two, the latter is absolutely better.

Plus the fact that, as a Theologian, you can add some metamagics to your domain spells for free (Bouncing Dominate Person to be sure you don't waste your slots). Add the already mentioned Channel Energy, Desecrate and some of the best buffs that ever existed, and we are done.

Wizards are good necromancer too, don't get me wrong, but you can't absolutely say that are better than Clerics in this field.

[Akharus]

I prefer my necromancers more life-drainy and "vampiric", trafficking more in souls and life-energy than in rotting minions. Not to hijack, but what's best suited towards that kind of necromancer?

[Heretek]

Akharus wrote:

I prefer my necromancers more life-drainy and "vampiric", trafficking more in souls and life-energy than in rotting minions. Not to hijack, but what's best suited towards that kind of necromancer?

This prestige class sounds right up your alley.

[Anzyr]

This is a general reminder of things I always say in these threads, but abilities like Channel or 6/HD Animate Dead to control undead are pointless. Command Undead is a 2nd level spell that will let you easily control several hundred HD of undead if you want. And once you over 200 HD under control, another 7 or 8 don't really matter.

The most valuable spells for a necromancer to have are:

1. Animate Dead - If you can't do this you don't count as a necromancer in my book.

2. Command Undead - If you can't order a 20+ HD mindless undead around with no save using a 2nd level spell slot you're not very good at controlling undead.

3. Blood Money - Not inherently important to being a necromancer, but extremely important if you want to Animate Dead both on the fly and on the cheap.

4. Desecrate - But not really. Or rather any character can get a desecrate effect by picking up a voidstick for 2,500 gp.

My vote for best Necromancer continues to go to Gravewalker Witch as they can at-will control undead from level 1, get all the relevant spells, and can at-will magic jar undead later on.

[Skyler Malik]

I am playing a Twilight Sage Arcanist right now, and I enjoy him. So I will vote for that one. He has to prepare one necromancy spell of each spell level, so its posing an interesting issue.

[Bearserk]

What about Undead Sorcerer with Variant MultiClassing Necromancer Wizard or Cleric?

[Xelah]

Gray Warden wrote:

What are you talking about?

Clerics can do anything Wizards can in this case, but better.

"Slavery theologians can't raise new minions", what? You get Animate Dead as a 3rd level Cleric spell, while it's a 4th level spell for Wizards. You get Create Undead as 6th level spell, and, as a Theologian, you get also Dominate Person as 5th. Since both need the Sorcerer dip (or Threnodic Spell), it seems a tie to me. Except that Wizards get Command Undead as a spell, while Clerics get Animate Dead one spell level earlier. Between the two, the latter is absolutely better.

Plus the fact that, as a Theologian, you can add some metamagics to your domain spells for free (Bouncing Dominate Person to be sure you don't waste your slots). Add the already mentioned Channel Energy, Desecrate and some of the best buffs that ever existed, and we are done.

Wizards are good necromancer too, don't get me wrong, but you can't absolutely say that are better than Clerics in this field.

Yeah, I get rules and spell lists muddled if posting when just waking up. It happens at my gaming table too :p.

Cleric might win on buffs, but take a necromancer wizard and raise a few 3 HD spellgorged zombies, load them up with fireballs and the buffs are a footnote on the outcome of the battle. Granted, there are many situations where fireballs just aren't apropriate and I'd rather have some beefy minions holding the line, but I don't think a cleric could produce this kind of opening volley as easily.

You've made a strong case for Theologian or a Cleric/Sorcerer, but I can't agree that it is definitively better. Both have their merits in different situations... I just tend to not care as much about collateral damage... much to the chagrin of my fellow players at times.

Anzyr wrote:

This is a general reminder of things I always say in these threads, but abilities like Channel or 6/HD Animate Dead to control undead are pointless. Command Undead is a 2nd level spell that will let you easily control several hundred HD of undead if you want. And once you over 200 HD under control, another 7 or 8 don't really matter.

The most valuable spells for a necromancer to have are:

1. Animate Dead - If you can't do this you don't count as a necromancer in my book.

2. Command Undead - If you can't order a 20+ HD mindless undead around with no save using a 2nd level spell slot you're not very good at controlling undead.

3. Blood Money - Not inherently important to being a necromancer, but extremely important if you want to Animate Dead both on the fly and on the cheap.

4. Desecrate - But not really. Or rather any character can get a desecrate effect by picking up a voidstick for 2,500 gp.

My vote for best Necromancer continues to go to Gravewalker Witch as they can at-will control undead from level 1, get all the relevant spells, and can at-will magic jar undead later on.

You raise a fair point with the pool being fairly small in comparison to late game, though gravewalker's bonethrall is mechanically pretty much the same as necromancer or cleric's command undead, it is still a limited HD pool ability. No arguments with your most valuable spells, except that I'd add Magic Jar. You get it for free as an ability playing a gravewalker though. 11th level onward, Create Undead also. Most of the undead it creates are intelligent, but even if you're not going as an undead sorcerer multiclass, you can use it to make spellgorged zombies... which are not intelligent, and probably my favorite undead minion. Raise a 20HD spellgorged zombie and load it with two castings of meteor swarm. Tie this in with the 3HD fireball spellgorged zombies I mentioned earlier and give them all the same discharge condition and you're pocket nuking an area. Assuming you have a 20HD critter, and 3x3HD critters, and your condition is "Anyone that I cast meteor swarm at" ... goodbye most things caught in the blasts.

[Namaeva]

Undead Master feat says hi. Also, glory be to Fumeiyoshi, our lord of envy.

[Gray Warden]

Xelah wrote:

Cleric might win on buffs, but take a necromancer wizard and raise a few 3 HD spellgorged zombies, load them up with fireballs and the buffs are a footnote on the outcome of the battle. Granted, there are many situations where fireballs just aren't apropriate and I'd rather have some beefy minions holding the line, but I don't think a cleric could produce this kind of opening volley as easily.

In which case you are playing a blaster :P

[Xelah]

Gray Warden wrote:

Xelah wrote:

Cleric might win on buffs, but take a necromancer wizard and raise a few 3 HD spellgorged zombies, load them up with fireballs and the buffs are a footnote on the outcome of the battle. Granted, there are many situations where fireballs just aren't apropriate and I'd rather have some beefy minions holding the line, but I don't think a cleric could produce this kind of opening volley as easily.

In which case you are playing a blaster :P

I prefer the term "necromancer with a more flexible army" ;)

[Goblin_Priest]

What about mystic theurges?

[Lemartes]

Yeah sorry to bump this but starting another thread when there is all this information here seems like a waste.

Anyways somewhat of a new question.

What is the best(or best two) necromancer for each type of magic and how do the best of each compare?

So I think some are saying Gravewalker Witch, that would be arcane for example.

Divine: Oracle of Bones or a Cleric with some domains that focus on raising undead.

Occult classes? The only thing I can think of is Occultist with necromancy implements.

Pros and cons of each? Any help is appreciated. Thanks. :)

[Dasrak]

Lemartes wrote:

What is the best(or best two) necromancer for each type of magic and how do the best of each compare?

There are pros and cons to each, and I feel that the bottom line is that any character that gets access to the Animate Dead spell is automatically a good necromancer. Necromancy's biggest upside is that it works incredibly well out of the box and requires no class or feat support to be incredibly effective. This is what holds back most undead-related archetypes; it's already so easy to be great at necromancy that their benefits are often inconsequential compared to what vanilla can do. For instance, there's really no point to being an Undead bloodline Sorcerer when any Sorcerer can learn the Command Undead spell.

Anyways, my thoughts:

Gravewalker Witch is the only non-convoluted means of getting the Command Undead and Animate Dead spells along with reliable access to a Desecration effect. While multiple characters working in tandem can easily duplicate this combination, if you want a solo independent necromancer it's either this or Mystic Theurge. It's one of the few honestly good necromancy archetypes out there and the best overall option for making a solid necromancer.

Undead Master Wizard is a nice option for getting arcane necromancy rolling at low levels, being the only arcane caster to get Animate Dead at 5th level. The archetype becomes dead weight (no pun intended) at higher levels, however, since eventually there just isn't a big difference between a 3rd and 4th level slot for a spell you're only casting once or twice per day tops. At higher levels vanilla Wizard does it just fine.

Sorcerer has a unique niche as the only charisma-based caster to get access to the Command Undead spell, making the class the only remotely consistent option if you want to take the risky path of controlling intelligent undead. However, they take a long time to get rolling since they only get access to Animate Dead at 8th level and will probably want to wait until 9th to pick it up (don't want it to be your only 4th level spell known...)

Clerics make very solid necromancers without any archetypes, or really any character investment at all. They know all the necessary spells automatically and get them at the earliest possible level. It's smooth, simple, and just works. There's a reason why no undead-related archetype has ever impressed: vanilla Cleric does it so well there's little to improve upon. The one thing that the Cleric lacks is access to the Command Undead spell. There are two ways to fix it: you can take the Inevitable domain (a subdomain of Law of all things has the best necromancy domain spell a Cleric could ask for; go figure) or you can take the Dreamed Secrets feat, which requires you to worship a Great Old One and can be problematic if you have less than +19 will saves.

Oracle of Bones and the Juju Oracle get some good options for necromancy, but it's a bit delayed over the Cleric and has a rather annoying overhead in terms of just how many spells it wants to know. Overall a solid choice but just doesn't quite match up to the Cleric.

Among psychic spellcasters the Occultist wins by default, although he's not particularly good at it. No other psychic caster can even touch undeath. It's a shame because Paizo did experiment with psychic undead, particularly the Echohusk template, but never did anything with it and to this day there's no PC support.

[gnoams]

The reason people recommend cleric is the healing. There's numerous ways to make yourself heal from negative energy so then you have a bunch of minions which you can aoe heal all them and yourself while they fight for you.

I think this is what people are wanting when they ask for a necromancer build and so cleric is the way to do that. It's not that other classes aren't viable or good, but cleric best fits the play style envisioned for what a "necromancer" is.

[Lemartes]

Thanks both. Great write up Dasrak breaking it all down. Very useful. I think I like the idea of being surrounded by minions safe in the middle channel blasting the living or healing undead as needed.

And I've theory crafted/built but not played pcs with the dreamed secrets feat before. It's...insanely good...sorry I had to. :)

[ShadowcatX]

I'm a fan of undead master coupled with specialization in evocation. It works as the basic blaster build, emphasizing rime metamagic fire ball but skeletons being immune to cold is a wonderful tool.

[doc roc]

The best necromancer build I can rememeber seeing was a min-maxed Undead Lord archetype online somewhere, I should have kept a copy!

It basically revolved around Craft Reliquary Arms & Armour + Desecrate spell.....the sheer volume of undead healing and undead HD summoning was insane.

Im not sure though you couldn't do a similarly effective build with vanilla Cleric though, the UL archetype does give up a fair bit for what it gets.

Following on from Dasrak....a cleric of Xhamen-Dor using Dreamed Secrets could make a very thematic necromancer with the added bonus of getting Wall of Thorns and Insanity as bonus deity spells

[ShadowcatX]

Another non-typical build I like for necromancy is an evangelist cleric. Having sweet bard buffs for your undead throng is rather nice.

[LordKailas]

i agree with what Dasrak says above. Ideally you'll want the following:
Animate Dead
Command Undead(Feat) or equilvent
Command Undead(Spell)
Desecrate

anything beyond that is nice but unnessasary. While the create undead spells are powerful you can't reliably control the undead you make, meaning even with my high level necromancer i only ever used the spell to create ghouls which i controlled via leadership. they were the "backup muscle" for my places of business.

for anyone thats interested my character concepts document has a bunch of necromancer builds near the end. IMO the most interesting ones are my non-caster necromancers.

Late in Life Necromancer (Any Class)

Spoiler:

Key concepts: An Unconventional Necromancer, A master of the Undead that doesn’t cast spells
Deity: Circiatto
Class: Any(7), Evangelist(10), Any(3)
Key Feats: Exotic Heritage [Heal] (1st), Eldritch Heritage[Empyreal](3rd), Fiendish Obedience(5th),
Improved Eldritch Heritage[Sacred Cistern] (11th), Command Undead (13th)
Suggested Feats: Charnel Soldiers
Key Features: Gets Command Undead (Spell) at 10th
Gets Animate Dead (no cost) at 13th
Gets Command Undead (Feat) at 13th level
Gets Create Undead (no cost) at 16th

The Secret Re-animator (Any Class)

Spoiler:

Key concepts: An Unconventional Necromancer, A master of the Undead that doesn’t cast spells
Deity: Urgathoa or Orcus
Key Feats: Exotic Heritage [Heal] (1st), Eldritch Heritage[Empyreal](3rd), Deific/Fiendish
Obedience(5th), Diverse Obedience/Damned Disciple(7th), Improved Eldritch
Heritage[Sacred Cistern] (11th), Command Undead (13th)
Suggested Feats: Charnel Soldiers
Key Features: Gets Animate Dead (no cost) at 10th
Gets Command Undead (Feat) at 13th level

its worth noting since these builds get their animation spells as spell like abilities it means the spells cost nothing to use. As a result even tradional necromancer builds would see benefits.

[Lemartes]

Thanks.

I think I'm leaning towards a Separatist Cleric of Mahathallah with the Inevitable domain as the secondary domain. I don't think that the weaker domain effects the rate I get spells if I read that right. So I should get command undead at 5th level which is the only reason I'm taking it.

I don't care if this PC is mega powered I would just like it to be pretty good...if it ends up mega powered I won't complain. Also I think I would err on the side of less numerous powerful undead vs many lesser undead to not slow the game down too much.

If I'm understanding everything I get 3 ways to get undead. Animate dead, command undead spell and command undead feat. Not sure where create greater undead falls in there but that is high level so not too worried.

So further ideas are channel soldiers feat with shield wall with say 8 blood skeletons with armour and tower shields. PC in the middle with a shield. Fire skeletons running around etc. Various other ideas for feats that I can go in several different directions. Then the supreme dirty, leadership and get an Occultist that is all necromancy who generously lends main pc implement that ups your undead controlling HD level. Plus I'd have them get a familiar. As I like having one. :)

Visually and thematically I have an idea that I think works very well. Storywise I think Separatist Cleric works great with Mahathallah as she rebelled against her original masters.

Thanks again all. :)

[Lemartes]

Ha funny I didn't see the last two posts before I just posted. Good to see channel soldiers in those builds. :)

Thanks. :)

[Dasrak]

ShadowcatX wrote:

Another non-typical build I like for necromancy is an evangelist cleric. Having sweet bard buffs for your undead throng is rather nice.

Doesn't work; Evangelist Cleric buffs are morale bonuses and undead are immune to all morale effects, even beneficial ones.

[ShadowcatX]

Dasrak wrote:

ShadowcatX wrote:

Another non-typical build I like for necromancy is an evangelist cleric. Having sweet bard buffs for your undead throng is rather nice.

Doesn't work; Evangelist Cleric buffs are morale bonuses and undead are immune to all morale effects, even beneficial ones.

That's what I thought at first as well. But they're not.

Quote:

An affected ally receives a +1 morale bonus on saving throws against charm and fear effects and a +1 competence bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls.

[VoodistMonk]

Non-typical necromancer build?

Blight Druid 13, Agent of the Grave 5...
Death Domain and the Shade of the Woodlands feat.

It's not the best, but it's doable. Great start to a Lich.