Talk to Ashiel About Anything Mark II

[Ashiel]

Thank you very much Ash. I've finally had time to look at this, and it looks really cool.
I'm working on a homebrew class for an "action necro" (i love Eddie Izzard), that is a kind of necro-gish. The idea is he (or she) would be focused on necromantic magic, and use spell combat and spell strike with necromancy spells. He will have a reduced spell list, but most (if not all) of the sorc/wiz necromancy spells. He would have a summon undead ability (similar to summoners, but using the summon undead line of spells instead of summon monster; the spells are in a 3rd party book calls 'Summon Undead', go figure) and some darkness stuff.
Was going to start with it just being an archetype, but it's grown into more of a hybrid class of magus and...summoner, kind of...

For S&Gs, how would you build my class concept above with d20 legends?

Well, while the class construction is still underway, I can say that the vast majority of that would be really easy for the following reasons.

1. The warrior class preview I showed already has options for a magus-like character. One of their stances lets you deliver touch spells through melee attacks (and refunds the spell if you miss).
2. As noted before, you build your own spell list, so you just pick lots of necromancy, darkness, and summoning themed spells.
3. The undead minion thing is the part that's up in the air, but there's a number of ways we could write it to do that, from the traditional animate dead, or a variant of the Animal Companion (which is the Ranger's class feature), or a summoning spell and some class talents (Mage will very likely have necromancy and conjuration talents that could do things like that).
4. And then you'd just choose what sort of progression you wanted (martial, hybrid, or magic). Hybrid, like bard or magus, has a nice mixture of BAB, HP, Skills, and Magic.

So hypothetically you might end up with a character that looks something like this.

Level 4 (Hybrid 4); Classes Warrior, Mage
Str 16, Dex 15, Mind 15
Hp 38; Fort 17, Ref 16, Will 16
AC 18, Touch 12, Flat 16 (+6 armor, +2 dex); ACP -4
BAB +3 (+1d6); CMB +6; CMD 16; Speed land 30 ft.
Feats Spell Focus (Necromancy), Greater Spell Focus (Necromancy), Combat Casting (+2 Concentration, cast using a weapon hand)
Melee longsword +6 (1d8+1d6+3, slashing)
Warrior Techniques
Stances - blade magic, phantom rush
Techniques - arcane brand
Boosts - moment of clarity
Spellcasting
Attack Bonus +6 (+8/Necromancy); Concentration +10 (-4 ACP)
(DC 14) 2nd Level, 4/day --darkness, death knell, desecrate, false life, ghoul touch
(DC 12) 1st Level, 5/day -- chill touch, divine favor, inflict wounds, protection from evil, ray of enfeeblement, shield
Class Features
Warrior
Warrior Features (2 stances, 1 technique, 1 boost)
Twin Stances (have 2 stances active at once)
Mage
Mage Features (Familiar: Undead Thrall)

Breakdown: At 4th level we've amassed 3 talents. Two invested into Warrior and one invested into Mage (Necromancer).

Our mode of operations is pretty strait forward. We grabbed twin stances so we can stay in Phantom Rush and Blade Magic stance 24/7. This effectively cuts our armor check penalty in half (allowing us to wear medium armor and maybe even a shield without ruining our plans) and makes our techniques and boosts cool down much faster (both our technique and boost are phantom style so using them has a 4 round cooldown, and every time we cast a spell it reduces by 1 round too).

Blade magic stance allows us to deliver touch spells like chill touch, ghoul touch, and inflict wounds through our weapon and refunds the spell if our attack misses (great for ghoul touch). Moment of Clarity allows us to take-15 on a Concentration check which is super handy if we find ourselves wanting to cast spells while threatened. If we're not threatened, we can casually take-10 on Concentration checks to cast all of our spells (assuming we're not entangled or on fire or something).

The +1d6 damage from BAB applies to any attack using a normal attack roll. This includes spells delivered through touch attacks, so it makes our chill touch, inflict wounds, ray of enfeeblement, and ghoul touch a little better.

The mage's familiar in this case would be a skeleton or zombie minion that possesses things like share spells.

Our feat selection makes our necromancy spells stick better, gives us a bump to our Concentration checks, and allows us to use somatic components with a weapon hand (allowing us the option to dual wield, use a shield, or otherwise hold something in both hands while casting).