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View Full Version : Dread Necromancer Sorcerer Origin v2



Giegue
2018-05-04, 03:21 PM
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"The Blackest Night falls from the skies, The darkness grows as all light dies, We crave your hearts and your demise, By my black hand — The dead shall rise!" — Black Hand

Necromancy. Few other magics inspire as much revulsion, dread...and fascination, as this black art. The ability to command the forces of death and animate shambling armies of the dead is a temptation that lures a many depraved individuals, and of them the Dread Necromancer is perhaps the most foul. While Necromancy specialist wizards spend years devoted to the study of undeath, the Dread Necromancer is an individual who seeks a quick and easy route to necromantic power. Lacking the patience and skill to take up wizardry, they gain mastery over the undead comparable to the most learned wizard in one, terrible act of depravity. To be a Dread Necromancer is to become undeath, willingly tainting yourself with necrotic energies so you may bend them to your will. How you assumed this taint is something intimate and personal to you; many aspiring Dread Necromancers actively seek out undead, locking themselves in desecrated tombs for days on end in the hope that the foul necrotic energies within forever corrupt them. Others may take a more gruesome road, such as pledging themselves to Orcus in a depraved act of evil, or consuming the flesh of a particularly powerful or tainted undead.

While most Dread Necromancers are twisted individuals seeking an easy route to necromantic power, there are an unlucky few who are instead cursed with the powers of Dread Necromancy. Such an individual could be the child of adventurers, born on one of their many quests into a desecrated or undead infested location. Or perhaps they could be somebody cursed by Orcus, Velsheroon or another deity of Undeath. However, regardless of whether you sought out your powers or where cursed with them, they are fundamentally twisted and corrupting. While you may not be a villain, you constantly struggle against depraved, morbid urges that fester within your psyche. Whether you end up a tortured anti-hero or force of evil depends largely on whether you gain control over your powers or let them control you. However, no matter your origin or outlook, you are a master reanimator, able to raise stronger and larger undead hoards than any other spellcaster.

Advance Learning

Due to the twisted origins of your magic, you learn how to wield necromantic spells beyond the scope of traditional sorcery. Starting at 1st level, when your spellcasting feature lets you select a Sorcerer cantrip or Sorcerer spell known of 1st level or higher, you can choose that spell from all Necromancy spells of levels to which you have access, or the Sorcerer spell list. Any spell you select this way not on the Sorcerer list becomes a Sorcerer spell for you.

Additionally, you gain Cause Fear as a bonus spell. For you, Cause Fear is a Sorcerer spell, and does not count against your spells known. (as-per the Sorcerer table) At 5th level, you may exchange this Cause Fear spell for Animate Dead. If you do so, Animate Dead becomes a Sorcerer spell for you, and still does not count against your spells known. Whenever you cast Animate Dead as a Sorcerer spell, it can target one additional corpse or bone pike and create one additional skeleton or zombie. (As applicable)

Raise Minion

As an action, you channel necrotic energies to raise a personal undead minion. When you do this, you expend one spell slot of 5th level or lower to raise a single undead creature from one corpses you can see within 30ft. The creature you create can be any type of undead (including an incorporeal undead), as long as its total combined CR dosen’t exceed 1/4th the slot's level. These undead remain reanimated for 1 hour, or until you dismiss them with a bonus action. When an undead you create with this feature dies, is dismissed or reaches its 1 hour reanimation limit, it crumbles to dust or discorporates, leaving it unable to be reanimated again. The undead you create with this feature cannot create spawn or other undead.

You can command these undead to move freely (no action required), but to have them take an action of any kind you must command them with a bonus action. You can command any other undead under your control with this same bonus action. These undead always act immediately after your initiative in combat. Regardless of how many times you use this feature, you can only control an amount of undead created equal to your Charisma modifier at any given time.

Undead Mastery

At 6th level, you learn the most iconic power of the Dread Necromancer: the ability to raise stronger minions than other casters. When you use your Raise Minion feature, you can have it create an undead whoes CR equals the level of the expended slot instead of 1/4th it’s level. This can be done once per shirt or long rest. At 11th level and again at 17th level you gain the ability to do this an additional time per rest, to a maximum of 3/rest at 17th level. Additionally, when you summon, Raise or ceate one or more undead creatures (either with a spell like Animate Dead, or your Raise Minion feature.), they gain the following additional benefits:

They add your Sorcerer level to their hit point maximums
They add your proficiency bonus to their weapon damage rolls.
Master Reanimator

Starting at 14th level, you learn how to further bolster your undead and animate more of them than other casters. When you cast a spell that creates undead (such as Animate Dead or Create Undead), that spell can create one additional undead of a type it could create normally with the slot you used to cast it. (And target one additional corpse or bone pile, if applicable) Additionally, undead you create with necromancy spells increase their Strength or Dextarity score (chosen when you create them and not subject to change afterwards) by 2, to a maximum of 20.
.
Enslave Undead

Starting at 18th level you learn how to bring undead under your control indefinitely, even those created by other spellcasters. As an action, you can choose one undead that you can see within 60 feet of you. When you do this, you can also expend a spell slot of at least 8th level to cast Feeblemind on that undead as a Sorcerer spell, even if you do not know it. The effects of this Feeblemind spell are applied before a y other effects of this feature. Regardless of whether or not you cast Feeblemind on that creature, it must make a Charisma saving throw against your Sorcerer spell save save DC.

On a sucssessful save, you can’t use this feature on it again. On a failed save, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again. Intelligent undead are harder to control in this way. If the target has an Intelligence of 8 or higher, it has advantage on the saving throw. If it fails the saving throw and has an Intelligence of 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free.

This is my attempt at doing what Wizards did for the Favored Soul for the Dread Necromancer. It is likely unbalanced in some places, hence why I am posting it up. I am looking for all the balance help I can get with it, though I have a clear goal in mind. The clear goal is that it should be BETTER than a school of Necromancy wizard at undead pets, without being brokenly so. The thing is, wizard is straight up a better caster and better class than Sorcerer. As a result, and to stay true to the flavor of the Dread Necromancer, my philosophy behind this subclass was to create a pet-based necromancer that can create stronger and more undead than the wizard, but at the cost of being specialized/having significantly less casting power than the wizard. Thus, its pet commanding abilities should be better than that of the wizard, since a Sorcerer will never have the wizard's versatility and metamagic doesn't really give a necromancer any reason to not go wizard over sorcerer. That being said, I'd like some balance help to make this better than the wizard at pets, but not so broken it could never see play at a table (allowing you to attempt to permanently control a different undead creature.)

Hell, for all I know, it may be fine as-is, so any and all comments/suggestions are appreciated!