Necromancer warlock

[clash]

Here is my take on a necromancer warlock archetype

Patron Acendant Undead:
lvl 1 Deathless Vigor: You gain the spare the dying cantrip. When you drop to 0 hit points you may cast spare the dying on your own body 1/short rest
lvl 6 Rebuke Undead: As an action, you shout out the name of your patron and harness its control over the undead. Each undead that can hear you within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, it is rebuked for 1 minute or until it takes any damage. While rebuked it cowers in awe. It is incapacitated and has a speed of 0. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
lvl 10 Undead resilience: You no longer need to eat or sleep but must still rest. In addition you gain resistance to necrotic damage.
lvl 14 Immortal Acension: You are given an obsidian box from your patron. Should you choose you can remove your own heart and place in the box in order to gain immortality. Doing so does not injure you in any way and provides the following benfit: You no longer age and cannot die of old age, as well when you drop to 0 hit points or would normally be slain your heart instead acts as a container for magic jar 1/short rest.
Spells:
lvl 1: Inflict wounds, ray of sickness
lvl 2: gentle repose, Blindness/deafness
lvl 3: Bestow curse, vampiric touch
lvl 4: Phantasmal Killer, Death ward
lvl 5: Antilife Shell, CloudKill

Pact of the graft:
You replace one of your own body parts with a graft from a magical creature bestowed upon you by your patron. Choose one of the following creature types: Celestial(Abjuration), Dragon(Conjuration), Abberation(Divination), Fey(Enchantment), Elemental(Evocation), Fiends(Illusion), Undead(Necromancy), Constructs(Transmutation). Each corresponds to a school of magic indicated. Your graft can be used as an arcane focus. In addition you gain a 1st level spell from the selected school from any spell list that you may cast once expending a warlock spell slot. You cant do so again until you finish a long rest.

Invocation
Lvl 5 Graft Magic: Choose a spell of third level or lower from the school corresponding to your graft. You may cast it once using a warlock spell slot. You cant do so again until you finish a long rest.
Lvl 12 Graft Mastery: Choose a spell of fifth level or lower from the school corresponding to your graft. You may cast it once using a warlock spell slot. You cant do so again until you finish a long rest.

[Millstone85]

Do you know about the Undying warlock patron from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?

[smcmike]

Should be Pact of the Tomb.

[clash]

Do you know about the Undying warlock patron from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?

I haven't seen that actually. Do you have a link handy? I am having trouble tracking it down.

[Joe the Rat]

Undying has a lot of common themes, crib heavily.

1 is a bit off. Remember that revive no longer kills zombie in this edition, and a lot of undead aren't necrotic resistant. Plus you could effectively heal to full with a cantrip (chill touch).

Resistance to necrotic would be good. Getting zapped and gaining temporary HP to a cap works as well - CHA + Warlock level, borrowing from the fiend feature. Hmm... half damage, and the other half charges a necrotic ward - sort of like the Abjurer's Arcane Ward. This would give you a buffer on top of your hp and possible temp hp. Extend your Armor of Agathys.

I'd be more inclined to make Graft a pact, and put the non-warlock spells in as graft invocations. Frankly, this would be a cool general pact concept. Your patron replaces an arm/hand/leg/whatever with a clearly magical/artificial replacement. It would have a patron-specific flavor (red hand o doom or goat legs for fiend, living wooden or silver hand for fey, the limb is a tentacular polyp or pale and creepy and EYES DO NOT BELONG THERE for great old one... and zombie / skeletal / mummified for deadite.) We just need a base feature besides "can use Graft invocations."

[clash]

This:


I'd be more inclined to make Graft a pact, and put the non-warlock spells in as graft invocations. Frankly, this would be a cool general pact concept. Your patron replaces an arm/hand/leg/whatever with a clearly magical/artificial replacement. It would have a patron-specific flavor (red hand o doom or goat legs for fiend, living wooden or silver hand for fey, the limb is a tentacular polyp or pale and creepy and EYES DO NOT BELONG THERE for great old one... and zombie / skeletal / mummified for deadite.) We just need a base feature besides "can use Graft invocations."

Is a great idea for any warlock. I have no idea what the base ability would be, but I'm sure I could come up with something.

[Millstone85]

I haven't seen that actually. Do you have a link handy? I am having trouble tracking it down.Well, this is the book in question:
http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/sc-adventurers-guide

Not sure what else I can link to without going against the forum's rules.

[clash]

Well, this is the book in question:
http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/sc-adventurers-guide

Not sure what else I can link to without going against the forum's rules.

Fair enough. Thanks. I have actually taken a look at it and they are fairly similar. I am thinking an undying warlock with a Graft pact would work nicely for the concept.


I'd be more inclined to make Graft a pact, and put the non-warlock spells in as graft invocations. Frankly, this would be a cool general pact concept. Your patron replaces an arm/hand/leg/whatever with a clearly magical/artificial replacement. It would have a patron-specific flavor (red hand o doom or goat legs for fiend, living wooden or silver hand for fey, the limb is a tentacular polyp or pale and creepy and EYES DO NOT BELONG THERE for great old one... and zombie / skeletal / mummified for deadite.) We just need a base feature besides "can use Graft invocations."

What if the basic Pact of the graft gave some type of expertise? then the player could make it thematic. Like Expertise in intimation for the weird eyes. Expertise in athletics for an arm or a leg. Expertise in arcane for a beholders eye.

[Addaran]

Do you know about the Undying warlock patron from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?

Pretty sure Undying warlock doesn't get Animate Dead (AFB), so you can't have a "real" necromancer feel with it.

[Naanomi]

Animate dead with warlock casting and chained short-rests can get silly if not constrained on one end or the other

[Gastronomie]

Animate dead with warlock casting and chained short-rests can get silly if not constrained on one end or the otherThis. You should instead create a new Eldritch Invocation unique to this patron that allows you to cast Animate Dead once per short rest.

And if you think that's not enough, a level 11 or higher-only invocation that allows you to do it twice.

Any more than that is too much for Warlocks. Certain spells work insane when given to them.

[NecroDancer]

The first level ability is way to strong, however I do like the pact of the tomb

[Joe the Rat]

What if the basic Pact of the graft gave some type of expertise? then the player could make it thematic. Like Expertise in intimation for the weird eyes. Expertise in athletics for an arm or a leg. Expertise in arcane for a beholders eye. My first thought was inspired by Pact of the Blade. PoB gives you an always-accessible magic weapon. So what else could we have? Rod of the Pact Master (graft gives you one additional warlock slot, 1/long rest), which might be over the top. Acting as an arcane focus would save some item-shuffling in combat, but might be too little. Making it a skill booster would make this the skill monkey pact, compared to the gish pact (blade) or "imma wizard!" pact (Tome).


This. You should instead create a new Eldritch Invocation unique to this patron that allows you to cast Animate Dead once per short rest.

And if you think that's not enough, a level 11 or higher-only invocation that allows you to do it twice.

Any more than that is too much for Warlocks. Certain spells work insane when given to them.

I'm thinking of all the "use a warlock spell slot" spells as a model here. Animate dead using a warlock spell slot once per long rest. That does limit you to animating up to 5 / day, but it also means that you could only animate some, or maintain control over your stack.

Hmm... put the Zombies! Invocation ("The Dead Shall Walk" req: 5th level) in the general population, and give the Necrolock the ability to maintain control of a number of undead (Warlock level? Cha mod? X+Cha mod?) as a Patron feature. 10 would make this a mid-game option (and put the horde-building behind "traditional" Necromancers), while 6 would be nearly automatic (you gain the ability one level after the Invocation is available), and combines with heavy cross-classing (would give a severely cross-classed Necromancer or Cleric extra control reserves - not optimal but usable)

[JobsforFun]

I like it, I always enjoy being necromancers

[clash]

I finally got around to reworking this. I switched around the class features and the graft features and made the graft more generic to apply well to any patron. I removed animate dead from the spell list and made it accessible once/long rest from he Graft Magic invocation. Let me know what you think of the revision. In particular I am not sure about the level 6 feature. For those that played 3.5 it is my attempt at bringing back rebuke undead.