Building an animating necromancer for a new campaign. Start at level 2 and may go as high as level 18. Don't want to be creating and turning loose free willed undead on the populace. But do intend to animate and/or create undead for use in accomplishing our missions.
Note: I don't want to over whelm the table and hog the spotlight with huge numbers of undead. I'd much rather have 1 or 2 powerful ones that are generally useful. Even if just as regenerating meat shields for the rest of the group. I would also want to cast some debuff spells. Seems very thematic for the concept.
My first thought was an arcanist school specialist. But they animate dead is a 4th level spell for them. Be waiting for a long time for that to really come into it's own power.
Oracle of Bones sounds intriguing, but I'm a bit worried about the small selection of spells known.
I've been told that most use cleric of Urgathoa as the vehicle of choice for an animating necromancer. But I've never seen the build details.
What do you guys suggest and how would you build it?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Guide to Necromantic Success with the Wizard Class.
I absolutely love the guide and has helped shape my Necromancer play. It is my favorite school of magic and I NEVER give up necromancy.
I know some other classes have more HD they can control and animate. But I love the Wizard list as it is the most powerful in the game while having the most utility beyond your specialization. It is my recommendation for you.
I've considered trying out a villain necromancer whose schtick is throwing Sharding spears with an ethereal undead flavor, like ghostly bone spears or whatever. It might make a pretty fun PC. Hurling spears is nasty if done right.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you want to have just one fairly powerful Undead, the Occultist with a focus on Necromancy can get the Necromantic Servant focus power. It's actually more summoning than Animating Dead as it doesn't require a corpse, it has half your HP and it doesn't have an Evil qualifier. At level 5, you can also keep it alive by pumping more focus into it. And the Resonant Power for Necromancy can hugely increase how many HD of Undead you can control.
The Occultist even has an Archetype that is entirely focused on Necromancy, the Necroccultist. You have less Occultist spells at your disposal (only one school instead of two at level 1), but you get another Necromancy spell known from the Wizard spell list every level for free.
Of course, the Occultist is only a 2/3 spellcaster, but a 3/4 martial. It's a very different flavor from the classic Wizard Necromancer standing at the sidelines throwing loads of Undead at their problems. As an Occultist, when you're creating flanking buddies for your party, you could be the one making use of that flanking opportunity.
Occultist makes a great necromancer but I prefer silksworn archetype for casting focused Occultists. Mages Panoply :D
Undead Master wizard archetype is my personal favorite necromancer. Requires evil alignment(until you hit high enough level to go into a prc anyway) but that is mostly just a written word on your sheet. Remember the RP determines your actions not your alignment
Wretched Curator is a nice feat that gives you a wide variety of bonuses with evil magic, notably removal of the evil descriptor which is surprisingly helpful for dealing with paladins, gms, and other do gooders
Juju mystery oracle is another option worth looking into. Agent of the Grave is a nice PRC made for necromancers. False focus is a good feat for making free throw away undead. Also repair undead is the wizard way of healing undead