Lets build a Necromancer! [Pathfinder]

[13ones]

Morning Boils and Ghouls,

Necromancy has always been one of my favourite types of magic, both in terms of theme and actual use. When I jumped into pen and papers I was a little disappointed at how infective some of the spells are. Sure when they work they work wonders, often ending a fight right there. However having to get through spell resistance, touch ac, and fort saves tends to prove the downfall for a debuff heavy necromancer.

So what about minions? Sure the undead are a fantastic tool to use against other people..but if you play with people who generally favour the good, holy, and noble end of the spectrum the idea of raising an army of the unquiet dead tends to rub them the wrong way. "You raised an unholy army of the night!" "To save an orphanage from the black dragon!" "Still, unholy magics!" *necromancer proceeds to get hit with smite*

Anyways. I'd like to reach out to you folks. As I can see it there are 5 classes in pathfinder that can pull off a necromancer. Wizards, Clerics, Sorcerers, Oracles, and Witches. I'd like your help in building some of these ideas, or maybe hearing some of your own.

Yes I know prestige classes are a thing. I fully understand that. Lets work on the assumption that I'm going to go a raw 20 levels of something.

The ones I'm currently looking at the hardest are Witch and Sorcerer. With a Witch I can screw with DCs through hexes and make necromancy hit a lot harder. With a sorcerer I can grab the Arcane bloodline which is pretty much the be-all-end-all when it comes to DC based Save or Suck/Lose builds. I've never been much of a divine magic sort of type and Wizards have always felt like they are better off doing anything other than Necromancy.

[weckar]

A Juju Oracle can create Juju zombies which, if you ignore some idiotic errata, are not necessarily evil...

[stack]

A Juju Oracle can create Juju zombies which, if you ignore some idiotic errata, are not necessarily evil...

They also retain class levels and you get the spell early. Agent of the grave ups you hd control limit as well, so juju oracle/agent of the grave gets the biggest hordes. I think there is a feat to boost that as well, don't recal.

[13ones]

I'm looking more at the debuffing side of Necromancy. I want to have the option to raise a little dead if the chance calls for it but all in all I'd rather place nicey nice with the party paladins (there are more than one, because fate loves to piss on me it seems).

Sorcerers have the advantage of a large list of spells that they can cast as they choose and the Arcane bloodline is tailored to make DC based builds (a debuffer) utterly monstrous, but there are other bloodlines that could work. Such as Undead/Sanguine or perhaps the one that lets you used touch spells from range (for vampirc touch/bestow curse).

Wizards have a good advantage of just generally having more skill points and utility than a sorcerer but I'm not sure what school to focus on, if any. Extra school slots are awesome, and a lot of school powers are really awesome. The only problem is I generally dislike preparing spells as it doesn't have that 'on the fly I need a fireball' sort of power that sorcerers do.

Oracles are really neat, as are Clerics but I've never been a really big 'divine' person. And generally the party looks to the cleric and oracles for first-aid and healing. If I was to be one of the two I'd probably go bones or juju oracle, just cause I always do prefer that 'on the fly' style of spontaneous casters.

Witches have a flaw in the whole 'prepared' thing but they are one of the naturally strongest debuffers in the entire game with the hexes they can lob around. The only thing really deterring me from witches would be the whole prepared style they have as well as the inability to really buff up their hex dcs without the use of monster feats, which most GMs generally frown on. Otherwise the witch is a really, really solid choice for a debuffing necromancer.

[TheIronGolem]

Summoner is also a viable path to minionmancy.

[13ones]

How so? I thought they could only summon outsiders, not undead.

[TheIronGolem]

Skeleton Summoner (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/skeleton-summoner) lets you apply the skeleton template to whatever you get with Summon Monster spells.

There's also the Undead Appearance evolution for your eidolon; while this doesn't actually change its type, it's "undead enough" for most purposes.

Of course, Summoner is pretty short on debuff spells, so you don't want to go down this road unless you're okay with focusing almost exclusively on minionmancy.

[13ones]

Skeleton summoner does add some nice summons. The whole 'turn something skeletal' is neat but generally results in a worse monster and only once a day. Hmm.

[grarrrg]

And generally the party looks to the cleric and oracles for first-aid and healing.

Nothing stopping you from being neutral and choosing Cure Spells for your bonus spontaneous (Cleric or Oracle).
That way you can still Necro-away most of the day, then play Dr. Band-aid with remaining spell slots later.

[13ones]

So the party is starting to shape up. Two paladins (one base, the second sacred servant), Cleric (Domains: Lust and Life, basically Priestess of the Goddess of Passion and Fertility as she states it), Beast Master Ranger (Giant Scorpion pet) and a Qinggong Tetori Monk (basically playing as Sagat from street fighter) so we've got an Arcane gap so I've narrowed it down to Wizard, Summoner, or Sorcerer at this point.

If I were to go wizard is there any actual benefit to take the Necromancy school focus over any of the other schools? Would a universalist work just as well? I do want to keep myself fairly flexable, despite having a strong necromancy focus.

If I was a Wizard I'd be going Necromancy school (Enchantment and Abjuration opposed), Admixture (with Enchantment and Abjuration opposed), or Universalist.

Sorcerer would either be Sage, or Arcane bloodline since both of those bloodlines have great abilities for DC heavy builds, which Necromancers are.

Summoner I'd probably be a master summoner with skeletal summoner.

Any ideas?