necromancer base class [peach]

[kopout]

Necromacer
Alignment: any
Hit Die: d6
{table=head]Level|Base Attack<br>Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|
+0|
+2|
+0|
+2|Animate Dead 1/day, Undead affinity

2nd|
+1|
+3|
+0|
+3|Heal Undead

3rd|
+1|
+3|
+1|
+3| Command Undead 1/day, Desecrate 1/week

4th|
+2|
+4|
+1|
+4|Animate Dead 2/day

5th|
+2|
+4|
+1|
+4|Improve Undead

6th|
+3|
+5|
+2|
+5|Command Undead 2/day

7th|
+3|
+5|
+2|
+5|Animate Dead 3/day

8th|
+4|
+6|
+2|
+6|Craft Limbers

9th|
+4|
+6|
+3|
+6|Create Undead 1/day

10th|
+5|
+7|
+3|
+7|Animate Dead 4/day

11th|
+5|
+7|
+3|
+7|Greater Heal Undead

12th|
+6/+1|
+8|
+4|
+8|Command Undead 3/day, Create Undead 2/day

13th|
+6/+1|
+8|
+4|
+8|Animate Dead 5/day

14th|
+7/+2|
+9|
+4|
+9|Greater Improve Undead, Create Greater undead 1/day

15th|
+7/+2|
+9|
+5|
+9|Command Undead 4/day, Create Undead 3/day

16th|
+8/+3|
+10|
+5|
+10|

17th|
+8/+3|
+10|
+5|
+10|Create Greater undead 2/day

18th|
+9/+4|
+11|
+6|
+11|Command Undead 5/day, Create Undead 4/day

19th|
+9/+4|
+11|
+6|
+11|

20th|
+10/+5|
+12|
+6|
+12|Create Greater undead 3/day[/table]
Class skills(8 + Int modifier per level, ×4 at 1st level):
Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (wis), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Knowledge (arcane) (int), Ride (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Use Rope (Dex).

Class Abilities

Animate Dead Grants animate dead as a spell like ability with caster level equal to Necromancer level for the number of times per day listed next to it. This is the defining purpose of the class.

Undead affinity Uncontrolled undead will not attack you except in self defense.

Heal Undead As Inflict light wounds but with no effect on living creatures. Is an at will abyility

Improve Undead Permanently increases Strength of undead by +2 and Hit die by +1 can only be used once per undead. Stacks with all other boosting effects.

Craft Limbers takes muscle from dead creature and artificially attaches it to an object (usaly a crank shaft) and magically animates it so that it will contract with regularity at a pace set by the Necromancer that made it.

Greater Heal Undead
As Inflict moderate wounds but with no effect on living creatures.Is an at will abyility


Greater Improve Undead Permanently increases Strength of undead by +4 and Hit die by +2 can only be used once per undead. Stacks with all other boosting effects.

Create Undead Create undead spell like ability. caster level equal to Neromancer level for the number of times per day listed next to it.


Create Greater Undead Create Greater undead spell like ability. caster level equal to Neromancer level for the number of times per day listed next to it.

Desecrate Use Desecrate as a spell like ability, caster level equal to Necromancer level

Using the Necromancer
The Necromancer is designed to be used in a setting were Necromany is not intently Evil. Although they can still be used in any setting they where designed with the "playing with fire" take on undeath and negative energy in mind.

[Dragon Elite]

Seems good, but I need more!
Control undead, enhance undead as class abilities.
Enhance undead: All undead within 20 feet of you gain +4 strength and +4 constitution

[kopout]

Sort of like Improve Undead :smalltongue:

[Dragon Elite]

Yup. MAybe have it start out lower but increase?

[kopout]

Undead have no constitution so It will have to be hit die

[Golden-Esque]

Seems good, but I need more!
Control undead, enhance undead as class abilities.
Enhance undead: All undead within 20 feet of you gain +4 strength and +4 constitution

Undead don't normally have Constitution scores, how would that work?

EDIT: Guy above me made my point :).

[kopout]

Done, a class for those who wish to play a necromance and not just a specialized wizard.

[Zore]

There already exists the Dread Necromancer class from Heroes of Horror which is like this class but several times better. It gives more Hd of undead added to your limit, slowly transforms you into a lich, and has several other things like a spell list of necromancy spells.

I suggest giving this class some ability outside of pure undead creation. Something else to do in a fight, even just to buff or heal their undead minions, and maybe animate dead at will.

[Mongoose87]

Do you have to hold the cheese for the grater undead, or do they do it all for you?

[kopout]

They do it all by themselves. tell me how to spell the other kind of grater and I will, I have some trouble with homophones. (i blame Hocked on phonics.)


There already exists the Dread Necromancer class from Heroes of Horror which is like this class but several times better. It gives more Hd of undead added to your limit, slowly transforms you into a lich, and has several other things like a spell list of necromancy spells.

I suggest giving this class some ability outside of pure undead creation. Something else to do in a fight, even just to buff or heal their undead minions, and maybe animate dead at will.

Given the way animate dead is written as long as you make them yourself you can control an indefinite number of undead. Plus a rules layer could say that because it doesn't say they don't use of improve undead (an at will action) stack. a zombie rat commanded by a level five Necromancer could theoretically have 80 HD and 160 strength (on top of base)and be the work of a few hours. Now imagine what he can do with a week . The Necromancer is all about Prep time.

[Godskook]

They do it all by themselves. tell me how to spell the other kind of grater and I will, I have some trouble with homophones. (i blame Hocked on phonics.)

It is spelled greater.

[kopout]

Thank you.

[I_Got_This_Name]

Animate Dead has a control limit.

No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled.
link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm)).

Also, some other things are missing.

Heal Undead: How often can you use it? If I had to guess what you meant, I'd say at-will.

Bonus Feat: Which feats can you pick from? If I had to guess, I'd assume "all of them," which this class shouldn't do (usually bonus feats come from a narrow list related to the class's focus). Also, unless the source of the bonus feat says otherwise, you don't need to meet its prerequisites if you take a feat as a bonus feat (cite (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm)), so you need to put that in if you mean for it to be there (so a Rogue could take Craft Construct as a bonus feat without a caster level, or Whirlwind Attack without even Dodge or Combat Expertise, but a Fighter could not, because the Fighter says "A fighter must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat," and the rogue doesn't). Also spelling, unless I'm completely off-base here and this makes you grow extra limbs.

Improve Undead: How often can you re-use it and how long does it last? If I read it literally, I'd say once, ever; if I had to guess what you meant, I'd say as much as you want, but it only lasts until you use it on something else.

Craft Limbers: Needs more rules. It's a flavorful ability, but it needs to have exactly what it can do explained. What's its strength score? How much control do you have over it? How is it better than just having a zombie do whatever manual labor?

Now that the places where the class is unplayable or doesn't do what you want it to do are out of the way, let's move on to the inside:

Create Undead and Create Greater Undead come too late, and also don't give you any ability to control the undead they create.

You have 8+int skill points and a short skill list. Also, a Necromancer isn't at all roguish, and only roguish classes get 8+int, since they're supposed to do things that use the Skill system as a primary schtick; Necromancers rely on their abilities.

After a certain point, Animate Dead more times per day stops being useful unless you're throwing monsters into a grinder (which you should be, since it doesn't cost you anything except corpses as an SLA). You also lack Desecrate, which is an essential necromancer spell.

The class has a lot of bonus feats, which also seems like it's not the primary purpose of the class, like the skills, although I could see more justification for narrowly focused bonus feats.

You don't use any ability scores at all, and you don't have any personal combat abilities at all. Your character's actions are going to waste entirely, pretty much, and you're very fragile, since you don't get any immunities, or, aside from putting mindless undead between you and your enemies (not viable), defenses of any kind.

Writing up an effective necromancer based on this, then:
In general, don't worry about keeping your level progression symmetric if it means putting abilities later than they're worthwhile.

First, you want a mess of Spell-like abilities, since we're not making this a real caster.
Animate Dead from level 1 onward. You can get a few more daily uses of it as you level, but Animate Dead is one of the few spells that's useful if you put it on an x/week schedule, so you could also go ahead and do that (at least at level 1).
Something to heal your undead is good. Normal healing spells don't do enough to be worth combat actions.
Desecrate probably from level 3 onward.
Command Undead, probably also from level 3 onward. Save DC based on Charisma.
Create Undead and Create Greater Undead earlier than Wizards/Clerics get them. I recommend levels 9 and 14.
These are minimums. You'll want to add more if you make SLAs a focus. Enervation is a good choice, although you shouldn't get it earlier than 7.

You probably also want Rebuke Undead.

The class needs to do something in combat. The undead are raised already, so what are you spending your actions on? Spell-like abilities is one possibility, as are short-term enhancing status effects on your undead. You could also go the Death Knight route and build the character into a tough melee class.

You need defenses. Probably flat-out immunities from the undead type, coming in slowly. Alternately, you could go with the "the best defense is a good offense" approach, but that means being able to, at level 12, kill a Purple Worm before it grapples you to death at least some of the time, and that kind of offense is hard to justify unless you hide it in a spell list.