I am become Death (Spheres in Review)

[SangoProduction]

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Preamble: I already did a Death sphere review, but that only focused on the Ghost Strikes. Well, I’m looking at potentially having my character class be reshaped to a committed necromancer - due to some traumatic experience as part of a trial, but I’m sure it’s fine. So having a nice, long look at the Reanimate-focused abilities has some use.
Obviously, as someone who generally doesn’t play minion-mancers, there is plenty of room for me to totally screw up.

Post-Review Analysis:
Really did not turn out how I imagined. I really did think that Dominion talents would be where all the reanimation power would be. Also did not expect Permanent Undead to be so easily accessible.

[Seerow]

1) For the Variant undead, Frostfallen is one I personally used, and was surprised to see it not even get a mention. They're not super flashy, but Lifesense is incredible, and +4 natural armor and +6 cha just make them surprisingly tanky.

2) Tomb of Flesh is a great "sneak your undead" around talent if you're going with few powerful undead instead of an army of weaker undead (which is frankly the much more powerful option anyway, even if it's not quite as awesome). You're getting at most 5x your CL in HD you can reanimate, with an individual creature cap at your CL. You can carry around 5 minions with you in your gullet by CL12. Which you can pretty reasonably have around level 8-9, just don't take greater reanimate twice before then.

Also the ability to in an emergency suck an enemy into yourself to CC them for a round or two isn't bad as what is essentially a freebie with the sneaking option. (Same game where I was playing a necromancer, other player was doing a more melee focused death character who used this as a control tool. If the enemy doesn't actually have a dagger or similar on them it's surprisingly effective to keep them out for a few rounds).

3) Honestly I am not a fan of any of the dominion talents. For the most part they all seem too niche. Piecemeal Undead at least has some fun flavor behind it, but I just find it hard to imagine having the space for any of them.

4) Rage of the Grave is possibly the most metal feat ever, both in name and effect. It may not be the best thing, but you better believe if I am ever playing a casting barbarian it will dip into Death just for this feat.

5) I am a little bit sad having read this because I had somehow missed that Might of the Grave/Warded Bones were restricted to base Death Sphere duration. Which does make them much sadder than I had originally thought.

6) Sylvan Necromancy was actually a feat I ported forward into a 3.x game I was DMing, just because of how cool the flavor is. Plant zombies you don't have to kill anyone to create? That is just awesome, and makes necromancy way more accessible. Great option to still get to use the Death Sphere fun in a campaign setting where necromancy will get you burned at the stake.

[SangoProduction]

Sodding freaking hell! Thanks for that. In my defense, it was like 3 in the morning when I got to it. I had the different variants pulled up... and then forgot that I didn't do it. lol.

And finished.

[A.J.Gibson]

Icy Grip talent?

[SangoProduction]

Icy Grip talent?

"Oh, pretty sure that's a ghost touch talent. I already covered it. But I should perhaps check it out just in case."
*reads it*

Oh... Oh wow. That's really quite good.
They only get to hold it for the round though, so it's not like it's indefinite pre-charging. But it's an alternative to Mass Death.