Well my friend wasn't able to play his animator, but it go me thinking about it.
There are still a lot of PFS1 games in my local area and my characters are starting level out of the low ones. So I need to start a new guy.
Now for PFS there could be some Pharasmites at the table or in the mission. Could also be kids or others that just don't like undead. I am certainly not going to force working with undead on to them. So the character has to be able to function just fine when it isn't appropriate to animate.
It is a very rare PFS scenario that gives lots of bodies that could be animated. So I don't want to concentrate the build on large numbers of undead. I would rather focus on 1 or 2 that can be as durable and effective as possible.
Also, PFS generally only goes up to level 12. I might get the chance to put some PC's through seeker level adventures, but certainly not all of them. So I'm only planning through level 12. Therefore want to be doing some animating as soon as is reasonable. To me, that says cleric or oracle (let me know if you have other thoughts).
I'm looking for suggestions and ideas based on those 3 main criteria.
1) Can function well even if not animating.
2) Fairly decently functioning undead rather than huge numbers.
3) Want to play with the concept at low level since only up through level 12.
The thing that makes necromancy and animating the dead so powerful is that it requires basically no investment from your character build, just the gold cost to animate the minions. If you're going the divine path you will need to know the Animate Dead spell, the Desecrate spell, and the Remove Paralysis spell. If you're going the arcane path you will need to know the Animate Dead spell, the Command Undead spell, and the Haste spell. That's really all there is to it. Find a good corpse and animate it.
With Gravewalker banned in PFS there are really no stand-out archetypes anyways. Cleric, Wizard, and Sorcerer stand out as the best options. Cleric gets Animate Dead earlier than the others and gets Desecrate, Wizard gets Command Undead and Animate Dead reasonably early, and Sorcerer has the unique property of being the only charisma-based caster to get the Command Undead spell which allows him to take control of intelligent undead.
I would suggest taking a look at the Occultist class. The Necromancy Implement school gives you access to a focus power called Necromantic Servant that you can use to produce a decently powerful undead servant at any time, and is available at level 1. You could even take the Necroccultist archetype to get access to necromancy spells from the sorcerer/wizard spell list as well as some extra abilities that can be highly functional when you can’t have undead following you around.
The thing that makes necromancy and animating the dead so powerful is that it requires basically no investment from your character build, just the gold cost to animate the minions. ...
That's really all there is to it. Find a good corpse and animate it.
...
For some reason, I was thinking there were also feats and stuff to make your undead more powerful. Like Augment Summoning does for summoned creatures. But now I can't find them. Just feats to give you more of them. Maybe they were magic items? Or maybe I'm just remembering wrong. {shrug}
I would suggest taking a look at the Occultist class. The Necromancy Implement school gives you access to a focus power called Necromantic Servant that you can use to produce a decently powerful undead servant at any time, and is available at level 1. You could even take the Necroccultist archetype to get access to necromancy spells from the sorcerer/wizard spell list as well as some extra abilities that can be highly functional when you can’t have undead following you around.
Hmm... That is an option I hadn't looked at.
Pros:
- It does give you an undead for a short time right at first and you don't even need a corpse. Even a little better than the bones oracles Undead Servitude revelation.
- Intelligence based spontaneous caster (which I like).
- Get some necromancy spells of both the divine and arcane caster lists.
- Medium armor so not as squishy for those short range and touch necromancy spells.
- Has an extra bonus to necromancy spells DC to make up for the lower spell level.
- Do get the Command Undead spell which is awesome.
Cons:
- Only a 6th level spell casting class. So even though Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell like for a cleric, you don't get it until level 7 like a wizard.
- Can't get channel negative or the command undead feat.
- Can't get desecrate to create more powerful skeletons or zombies.
- Customizable spell list, but smaller.
More thought will be required for this.