Wizard Healing Undead?

[Bane-Wordsmith]

So I've recently started a campaign from 1st level, and one of my players would like to play a specialist necromancer.
There's a nifty Variant in Unearthed Arcana that lets him loose his familiar and gain a Skeleton minion instead.

The problem I've just run into is that undead don't naturally heal, so after each fight this minion is going to be in worse shape. He can create a new one for 100gp and 24hrs, but that could put a real drain on the adventure if they have to stop every time he wants to 'rebuild' his minion.

My question is; Is there any way a low level wizard can heal his undead minion?
The only thing I can think of is to buy potions of inflict and administer it to him when needed. Would that work? Can skeletons take potions? And Is there any other way?

Thanks a bunch guys!

[Gildedragon]

So I've recently started a campaign from 1st level, and one of my players would like to play a specialist necromancer.
There's a nifty Variant in Unearthed Arcana that lets him loose his familiar and gain a Skeleton minion instead.

The problem I've just run into is that undead don't naturally heal, so after each fight this minion is going to be in worse shape. He can create a new one for 100gp and 24hrs, but that could put a real drain on the adventure if they have to stop every time he wants to 'rebuild' his minion.

My question is; Is there any way a low level wizard can heal his undead minion?
The only thing I can think of is to buy potions of inflict and administer it to him when needed. Would that work? Can skeletons take potions? And Is there any other way?

Thanks a bunch guys!
Make a (handful of) Flaming Skull(s) with Destructive retribution; when one dies the others are healed; it will reform in a bit
gate or summon in a xeg yi to help ya out
edit:you could always make the familiar behave like a flaming skull, reforming after a few days.

[Thurbane]

Requires a bit of feat investment, but the Lord of the Uttercold feat (Complete Arcane) can turn your damaging spells into 1/2 cold, 1/2 negative energy damage. Skeletons are immune to the cold part, and are healed by the negative energy part.

There's also the Negative Energy Ray spell from Tome and Blood, but since it's 3.0, might need DM approval.

[Eisfalken]

There's really only two ways to get undead minions you can also heal.

The first is the dread necromancer class from Heroes of Horror. They have an at-will touch attack that does negative energy damage (like an inflict spell). It doesn't heal much, though, so it's more of a downtime thing for healing minions. Better than nothing, though.

The second option, however, is considered far better: he needs to be a cleric (or cloistered cleric). If he's neutral or evil, he can spontaneously cast inflict spells, which makes for better healing of undead, and his rebuke undead ability can be used for a lot of good stuff (Divine Metamagic for spells, and certain divine feats that let him do stuff like area damage that heals him or ranged healing for undead).

Remember, he doesn't have to actually worship a god or anything here. He can play a cleric of philosophy devoted to the spiritual powers in general. Let him take the Deathbound and Undeath domains from Spell Compendium; the first one will give him increased limit on animated undead, the second gives him Extra Turning (both of which are very useful).

If you're not totally opposed to the idea, he could aim for taking warlock and eventually get to eldritch disciple. He'll need to be Chaotic Neutral (unless you're more flexible on alignment restrictions, or don't mind him playing an evil character), but he gets a lot of very useful power out of it. You basically are looking at a pseudo-glaivelock merged with a cleric who focuses on undead minions and lots of buffs and stuff. (If you do let him go this route, and he goes with eldritch glaive, let him say it looks like a scythe instead of a glaive. This doesn't change it's damage or whatever, I just think it would look cool. That is all.)

Let's see... you can do warlock with ur-priest and thaumaturgist, but that delves into a build that, even with some flexibility on alignment, would offend the hell out of certain divine-caster types, but if that's not really a problem, then fire away.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope it helps.

[GenericClone]

Playing a neutral cleric would make for a much better necromancer build. Can easily get a stronger skeleton instead of a familiar. He could do a construct familiar instead.

You could house rule that they can use a wand of inflict wounds without use magic device, or make put ranks in it and decide if it's going to be Cross class for them. Picking up eternal wands would be good for it as well.

Or you could say that he can heal it like constructs. I believe eberron has repairing spells for constructs to heal war forged.

Or... Just say since it's their familiar he is able to sacrifice a spell slot to pump some negative energy into it to heal it. Heal it for a certain amount depending on the level of spell slot used. If you don't want them to be able to spontaneously do that then give them inflict wounds equivalent that can only be used to heal undead. Players are allowed to create there own spells if you approve them and we know wizards can use negative energy spells already.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Is there a domain that grants the inflict spells? If so he can take the Arcane Disciple feat and select that domain to add the spell to his class list. Alternatively you can allow the Extra Spell feat to let him add those spells to his list one at a time.

Dread Necromancer is probably a better class to play for this kind of concept.

[Belzyk]

Let him find a pinch of black sand. And hope he's smart enough to use it to give the skeleton a infinite fast healing.

You end up with 3 possible outcomes.
1. Wizard goes douche baggy and uses the pinch of black sand on every person possible right before they die turning them into bla k sand.
2. Kills himself with it.
3. Uses it to keep his unread healing.

[ShurikVch]

Negative Energy Ray (Sorc/Wiz 1, Tome and Blood): 1d6 negative energy damage, +1d6 fo every 2 CL after 1st (up to 5d6)

[Bane-Wordsmith]

Wow thanks guys that's super helpful!
I think I'll allow him to take the genitive energy ray. It's not that overpowered to ruin anything if I let it, especially when you compare it to spells such as lesser Orb of Cold.
I did show him the Dread Necromancer, but he wasn't happy the limited spell selection, still wanted access to the Wizard spell list and possible Prestige classes in the future.
The Arcane Disciple feat is a really good idea as well, I'll have to check his wisdom for the requirements.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Dread Necromancer doesn't lock you out of Prestige classes. It stands to gain quite a bit from taking a Prestige every now and then. Dread Witch is a popular example.

Limited spell selection is a valid concern however. The Wizard is undeniably superior in that regard.

[zergling.exe]

They could always take just one level to get the healing touch, and just delay their casting by one level.