Building a 'True' Necromancer & his minions

[Grey_Wolf_c]

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I need help building a necromancer+undead minions party in 4e. Suggestions welcomed.

We all know that the 4e necromancer is not particularly good. I suspect that the main reason for this is that any undead raised are by necessity dailies, and thus there cannot be permanent raising of undead minions without breaking the design choices of 4e - and a necromancer without a few skeletons following him around is just not what it should be.

On the other hand, for some time I have been mulling a form of 4e single-person play that could work in PbP: one person controlling a whole team. Now, usually, that is not a good idea since ideally an adventuring group is made up of independent individuals. However, this idea clicked with the concept of a true necromancer. In PbP, a player could play a necromancer and his undead minions, all of whom are fully realised characters but that, from the PoV of role play, are mindless minions controlled by the only actual character, the necromancer.

And this is where I hit the snag: while the high level vision works, the details are beyond my ability. So I am finally taking the plunge and bringing it to the overmind of the OotS forums. Please, guys, let me hear what you would do. I'll start with what I have figured out myself, to get us started.

Ground rule: I am no friend of house rules. I am perfectly happy with refluffing till the cows come home, but I'd rather play the rules of the game as straight as possible. That said, mild house rules are acceptable if they make the concept work much better with just a minor change.


The Necromancer

Ideally, this should be a leader class. His job is to strengthen and maintain his undead minions, who fight for him. If he were the type to blast his enemies with fireblasts, he wouldn't be a necromancer. To my limited knowledge of class variants, this rules out the wizard, so I looked through the priest (usually the second choice for necromancer), but found him to not mesh with what I was looking for (too many holy powers). Then I found what I consider the perfect class: the shaman. The spirit of an animal gets refluffed to an angry ghost of some kind, and everything else pretty much falls into place. On the plus side, it has a lot of psionic powers. On the cons side, it has very few necrotic powers, and I picture necromancers more as an high-int than high-wis character.

So, is there any other leader (or leader-ish) class that has a more necrotic tendency and int-primary? And if I you agree that shaman is a decent choice, what would be its level progression? I'm not asking for power picks beyond extremely obvious ones (i.e. one of the necrotic powers of the shaman turns out to be just perfect or something), but things like paragon and epic classes. For example, is the lich epic destiny something to aim for here?

I'd also like to hear race choices. Human is the classic one, of course (I don't think I've ever heard of a non-human necromancer, come to think of it), but I'm open minded.


The Minions

Sky is really the limit, because anything can be refluffed to be undead if one sets ones mind to it, but I'd like to keep this as classic as possible. That means mostly skeletons and zombies and other mindless minions. Yes, a necromancer could conceivably have a vampire at his beck and call, but that once again brings the problem of having multiple independent voices in the same party which I am trying to avoid.

(That said, Diablo II had skeleton spellcasters, so wizard and similar are not out of the question. If you guys know of any other "prior art" examples beyond the obvious skeleton swordsman and skeleton archer, I'd love to hear them.)

In broad strokes, the party should be a balanced one. Since that means different things to different people, lets say it should have at least one of each role (the necromancer is the leader, as per the above), and the fifth wheel being up for grabs. Striker and defender are easy enough, and even a skeleton spear-wielder as a warlord, but I'm not as clear on the controller. Wizard would work, as per the above, but is the archer controller any good?

Finally, what would be a good choice for race? I'm thinking they should be revenants (duh) and refluffed warforgeds (because they are endlessly "re-raisable"), but is there any other picks that can easily be seen as "undead"?

Thanks for your help,

Grey Wolf

PS: It occurs to me that I may be treading old ground, so if a discussion of this exact topic exists, please point me in the right direction, and sorry for the dup.

PPS: And hey, if anyone would like to DM me trying this out, feel free to let me know. I don't do evil character as such, but I can do a differently-moral necromancer (not "evil mad guy trying to take over the world" but "the soul has left, it is just a waste of resources to let bodies rot" adventurer)

[Tegu8788]

I will first say I'm certainly not familiar with all the powers of a Bard, but Int and Cha would work well I think. I'd think Charisma, force of personality so to speak, would be helpful. It is also a Leader with strong controller leanings, that I could being useful for the necromancer. Boost your minions while weakening your foes at the same time. The heavier armor and weaponry isn't ideal and neither are a lot of the powers I suspect, but it's something to consider.

Alternately, of you want to really refluff stuff, a Beastmaster Ranger that MCs Shaman with a Fey Beast Tamer theme will get you three minions, not sure how to add an arcane familiar that could be used in battle. But that's serious refluffing.

And as for a controller minion, find a controller monster, kill and resurrect it. Or get a defender minion and three strikers with controller leanings, to compensate.

One question, how do you plan to play all the characters? As actual characters that simply never RP beyond a moan, or as part of necromancer? Because if it's the latter, your action economy is going down the drain. This might work better if, instead of controlling PCs, you get some monsters and try to scale them. One DM against another.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Alternately, of you want to really refluff stuff, a Beastmaster Ranger that MCs Shaman with a Fey Beast Tamer theme will get you three minions, not sure how to add an arcane familiar that could be used in battle. But that's serious refluffing.

This only works if there were other players. Not the purpose of this exercise. The idea is for one person to control the entire party, with a role reason why.

GW

[Kurald Galain]

So, is there any other leader (or leader-ish) class that has a more necrotic tendency and int-primary?

You could either try the cleric and pick necrotic powers, or the warlord who has an int-primary build (the lazylord). The archlich ED is mostly for int-based classes.

I'd also like to hear race choices. Human is the classic one, of course (I don't think I've ever heard of a non-human necromancer, come to think of it), but I'm open minded.

Revenant is fitting, as is shadar-kai. If you want something weird, try bladeling.

I'm not as clear on the controller. Wizard would work, as per the above, but is the archer controller any good?

No, it's not. Psion and invoker are your main alternatives. Druid could also work, and it has a fitting paragon path in Blightbeast.

[theNater]

The Necromancer
You may want to give the Artificer, from the Eberron Player's Guide, a look. As I recall, it's an intelligence based arcane leader. I'm not familiar enough with it to say for sure if it'll have what you want, but I do recall that he has an ability which lets the party trade healing surges around. That might refluff nicely as moving the animating force from one minion to another.

Also, if there's a class that has good necrotic powers, you may want to consider multiclassing into it. That can shore up your necrotic arsenal and clear out some of the less necromantic powers you'll be picking up as a leader. Remember that multiclassing into a class makes you count as that class for purposes of paragon paths. A quick glance at the PHB suggests Blood Mage(from Wizard) or Life-stealer(from Warlock).

The Minions
Shardmind, from the PHB3, is another critter that doesn't have to worry about the traditional concerns for living creatures, so might be worth looking at.

You could argue that a really fresh zombie(or just a really well-made one) might have the stats of the living creature, if you want an excuse to use one of the more common races. I definitely wouldn't have more than one member of the party doing that, but one zombie that gets lots of care and attention might make sense.

Wacky idea for the team's controller: go Druid(PHB2). Make it either a spirit that can possess any one of several corpses, or a swirling mass of bones that can reshape itself as necessary. Take mostly beast form powers, and have good times.

[Tegu8788]

Some kind of fleshly golem as a defender would be good. It would have stats with theNater's logic, and it would get the most healing anyway.

[Giegue]

Are you 100% bound to using actual WOC content? Because if your DM is willing to allow 3rd party or homebrew there are a few necromancer classes that are ballanced enough for a non-solo game.

The first is from Goodman Game's Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud book, which features a necromancer class as a controller, as well as necromantic-themed classes for every other roll. This necromancer is, however, not really the hoards of minion type and is basically just an undeath/necromantic themed controller with it's undead being standard daily-power summons. However, despite that, it's a good class and captures the "Necromancer" feel quite well. Word of warning, though, this book was created before the shadow power source existed and as a result all the classes use the 3rd party "death" power-source, which could be trouble for getting it passed a potential DM. If you DM does not like the powersource, ask him if you can change it to shadow. You can find Goodman Game's Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud for sale on most sites that sell 3rd party pdfs.

The second is a homebrew class created by ThePlaneswalker from the Wizards Community, called the Dread Necromancer. Don't let the name fool you, however, this class is more akin to a 3.5e necromantic cleric in fluff and play then a 3.5e dread necromancer. It, while listed as a controller, can really play both controller and leader if built right(though it is slightly better at controlling then leading). The class, unlike the other necromantic options I will present, gets chainmail, some decent HP and surges and even a few melee powers that really make you feel like a 3.5e evil cleric in 4e. Like the Goodman Game's necromancer, it's undead are all just normal summon powers like any other character obtains, however, this class stands out for getting an At-Will skeleton summon. Yes, that may seam a tad broken, but trust me, it's more balanced then it sounds. The class also has a nifty support PDF that acts as it's own kind fo splatbook, and the class has several builds ranging from a typical controller to a more leader-y melee build and even a dagger-based necro-cultist build. Fun class, and it uses cha for it's casting stat if your tired of always going int or wis-based for your necromancer. The twin pdfs(one for the class, and one for some extra builds/support for it) can be found 100% free here.


The third and final class is a very special one, and probably the class that most fills the "minionmaster" roll you are looking for. A homebrew stab at the Necromancer created by the makers of the Shadow Done Right 4e homebrew project, this necromancer, unlike the others, is based primarily around minions rather then just being a controller or controller/leader with lots of undead summon powers. It's main feature is the ability to summon a small hoard(about 3 I think...I have to check though) of undead minions and use powers with the "minion" keyword through them. It does not get just minion powers, however, and gets lots of other control powers(since it is a controller class) and minions are not all it does, but they are, admittedly, the main focus of the class. Thus, if you really want to play a 4e "minionmaster" type necromancer, this is probably the class for you. It can be found here.