[PF] Necromancy, Lichdom and a Couple of Questions.

[Dulenheim]

Good day fellows,

Recently one of my players became a DM and I gave up my Hat to her, allowing me to be a player for the first time in about two years. I wanted to make a necromancer, and she seems ok with the idea, but I do have a few questions regarding of to effectively become a "Good" Necro. (I'm creating a WIZARD Necro, not a cleric)

The first one would be how many HD of undead am I allowed to control at any given time?

Can I create undead, but not control them?

If so, how do these undead react to me?

What are good feats for a necromancer, aside from spell focus (necromancy)?

And finally, How could my character eventually become a lich? I have read that I need the Craft wondrous Items feat, and to at least be a CL11, but aside from that, I know little else.

Thanks to anyone that cares to answer. :smallwink:

[Giegue]

First of all, if your looking for minion mastery I have a few suggestions. Standard PF wizard is not great for it. In 3.5e wizards didn't really bother with minions much since Dread Necromancer and Cleric where just better. In Pathfinder, the same generally holds true. While the wizard now can control undead like a cleric or Oracle of Bones(or JuJu) can(So you can actually control what you make with the Create Undead line), he still gets animate dead later and still lacks the ability to cast desecrate. Desecrate is a VERY important spell for a Necromancer wizard, trust me on that. You will NEED to get your hands on Desecrate if you want to be a minion focused. You will see why later.

Anyway, if you want to do the minion thing you will NEED to take the Undead Master feat. Undead Master is key to getting as many minions as you can, so you'll want to pick it up ASAP. It also boosts your ability to command undead, which wizards now have in PF. Other feats you may want are threnodic spell(mind-effecting spells effect undead), Spell Focus/Greater Spell Focus Necro and Skeleton Summoner(Lets you use the "summon monster" line to summon skeletal creatures as well as the normal summon choices.)

Now, to get to the desecrate discussion. As I said before, you NEED desecrate if you want to specialize in minions. There is no way around this. If your doing minions, your getting desecrate, and here's why. A wizard, without desecrate can control at max, 80 HD of undead. Even with the undead master feat the most he's controlling is 80 HD. With Desecrate and Undead Master, when paired together, allow you to control 98 HD of undead. The reason? With the desecrate spell and undead master feat you can animate 4x(CL+4) worth of undead and animate dead states that any excess undead created with a casting of it are under your control. Your control limit remains at 80 HD, but as long as you don't cast animate dead again the undead that are in excess of 80 HD are still under your control. Hence, Desecrate is mandatory.

Sadly, Desecrate is not easy to get for a wizard. Thats why people prefer Oracles and Clerics(Especially Oracles) for Necromancy: Desecrate is on their list and easy to get. However, there are three ways for you to get desecrate as a wizard. One of them is HIGHLY dependent on your DM, another forces you to make some VERY painful sacrifices and the other you can do at first level without having to make draconian sacrifices and don't have to rely on DM kindness for. Hence, I prefer that method, but will state them both.

The first way is entirely dependent on having a nice DM. If you take craft wondrous item and have lots and lots of extra gold you can create multible Voidsticks. Voidsticks are an item that can give you a portable desecrate effect. You can stick them in the ground and all land in a 20ft radius around the stick is under the effects of a desecrate spell. The downside? 20ft is not a large radius. Your not fitting all those corpses in there. As a result, you WILL have to craft more then one voidstick if you want to make full use the desecrate effect, and that can be a costly affair(they cost 2,500 GP to make each.)

The second way is to take a prestige class. The Agent of the Grave PrC and the Pathfinder Savant PrC both can get you Desecrate. The Agent of the Grave is the better of the two for a Necromancer. It gives you all kinds of awesome necromantic powers including Desecrate as a class feature. The Pathfinder Savant just lets you get off-list spells, allowing you to choose desecrate as one of these spells(But that means you can't ban evocation...which is a common banned school for wizards.). There is a downside to this, though. When you take a level in a PrC, the PF ruling is that you do NOT get 2 bonus spells added to your spellbook This is a MASSIVE sacrifice that gimps you to dangerous levels and honestly is NOT worth the trade, at all. You lose too much this way, so I don't recommend this method unless your DM houserules that you do get spells added to your spellbook when you level up in PrCs. If you do get that houserule this becomes probably the best option. Otherwise stay away.

Now finally we get to the easiest and most reliable way to get desecrate: play a Dhampire wizard. Why? Dhampires don't get an int bonus? They suck as wizards..Yeah, that is usually true, but Dhampires have a very nice racial archetype called the Cruoromancer. If you want to control lots and lots of undead, this is THE class for it. It gets desecrate not as a spell, but as a class feature. This means you can drop evocation(a common school to drop for wizards IMO) and STILL have a desecrate effect. In addition, they get a boost to their undead control limit, and because of this they can control more undead then ANY other caster. They control more then the cleric. They control more then even the Bones Oracle. The only thing that can rival them is the JuJu Oracle, which is probably the strongest necromantic option in the game.(In terms of pure necromancy)

So my recommendation? Play a Dhampire Cruoromancer if you want to be a minion-focused wizard. It's really the best thing for that.

As for Lichdom, well, that's something entirely up to your DM. Unlike 3.5e in which their was a clear path to lichdom PF as far as I know says that it's something that, ultimately, your DM determines. So ask your DM and that should solve all your questions about that.

Anyway, hoped that helped some.

[watupwithdat]

You're incorrect at some points.

Undead Master doesn't increase the HD control limit for animate dead, it only increase how much HD you can animate during a single casting of the spell. It's a common oversight people make, but by the wording of the feat there is no escaping it. I thought it increased the control limit by +4 myself too at first until I read the feat more closely. The wording is unmistakable. The feat increases the HD control limit for Command Undead, though.

In the same vein desecrate only increase the maximum amount of HD you can animate with a casting of animate dead, it doesn't increase how many HD you can control.

In short, only increases to Caster Level (the Undead Master one doesn't apply to control, just creation) increase how many HD you can control with animate dead. The juju mystery for oracles also increase it by making it CL x 6 HD instead of the standard CL x 4 HD.

[Answerer]

...I am shocked and kind of appalled that Paizo was inane enough to prevent Wizards from getting two free spells when they take Prestige Class levels. Sure, Wizards, particularly Pathfinder Wizards, are overpowered. But this isn't a solution, it's just makes them less fun, not less powerful.

Sigh, Paizo...