Hello everyone. I started a campaign a few weeks ago and I wanted to build a necromancer. There's a lot of different ways to do this. Ultimately, I wanted to build one that didn't have massive hordes, but rather maybe one or two minions and dealt a lot of corrosive and debuff spells.
At first level, I chose the school understanding exploit and took the Universalist ability, Hand of the Apprentice. Considering our group makeup, this has proven to be very valuable with some of our combat situations. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have taken this, though we might have wiped a time or two if I hadn't. Most of the group are new players, and some of their decisions have almost killed us.
I've reached a bit of a snag, however, in that I'm not sure what to do. I had considered eventually retraining, but I have no idea if or when we will be leaving the area we are in, as it is a massive dungeon crawl. I've also locked myself away from being able to some effective cross classing for Channel and Command Undead, as my Wisdom is a dump stat and my Charisma isn't that high.
Basically, I'd like some advice on potential directions to go and what I should possibly take. I don't mind the idea of cross classing to a point, but I don't want to really fall behind on my spellcasting to do it.
In my opinion, the best thing about necromancy is that you don't actually need to do anything special with your build to be great at it. So my advice here is that you shouldn't go out of your way if it's going to hurt your build in other aspects.
The Command Undead ability is nice to have, but by no means necessary. The Command Undead spell on the other hand, is extremely good. This spell's downsides - single target, subject to dispel, and limited duration - are largely irrelevant to a spontaneous (or pseudo-spontaneous, in the case of an Arcanist) spellcaster who can just cast the spell repeatedly. Its upsides are pretty dramatic, with mindless undead getting no save and there being no upper limit on how many undead you can control.
The one thing that you should be looking for is the Desecrate spell. This spell is hard to get ahold of, and no arcane spellcaster can get it. If the party doesn't have a non-good Cleric who is willing to cast the spell for you, grabbing a Wand of Desecrate is probably your best option. The spell is necessary to create the strongest possible undead minions, and well worth the extra cost.
Arcanists have an exploit which allow me to take a spell not on my list, but it is one spell level higher. I'll look into it for Desecrate later on. If all else, if we leave the dungeon we're in, I'll purchase a wand and deck out my UMD skill.