Necromancer [Archive] - Wizards Community

Necromancer [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Lole
04-16-07, 10:20 AM Ok. Thinking, thinking, and thinking some more. Is it possible to do a good necromancer build. I didnt see anything against it since you can be Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral, but what about Lichdom? since they have Libris Mortis and Good Liches, is that possible or is that a closed book? didnt see it on the list in the LGCS.
amnuxoll
04-16-07, 11:08 AM My necromancer is 5th. *shrug* What's a "good" build?
bitznarf
04-16-07, 11:10 AM The problem is you may get your character yanked in short order for being evil. Creating undead *is* an evil act. There may be some expections to that, but I am not aware of any at the moment. And if you are doing it often, you may find that a lot of judges feel that due to either quantity or quality of evil acts, that your character needs to be reported. Just make sure you know what an individual DM can and cannot do. I've heard some stories about DMs stepping over the line, and removing characters themselves.

Edit: As for Libris Mortis being 'open or closed', it's neither. Some parts of it may be closed. I don't know if any of it is open, anything else is NONC. NONC is the default untill otherwise specified.
jstorrie
04-16-07, 04:18 PM There are plenty of powerful necromancy effects that are not about creating undead. If you focus on cursing, debuffing, and blasting with metamagicked Enervation you won't have alignment problems and won't get your character pulled. Straight up Wizard, or Wizard with Loremaster, Archmage or Mage of the Arcane Order levels will work well there; think of feats like Empower Spell, Split Ray, Spell Focus, etc.

If you run around creating undead every adventure, on the other hand, you're going to get yanked. By LG rules the creation of undead is a very evil act, and even if you had the campaign documentation to access good liches in Libris Mortis it wouldn't be feasible to make them in single adventures since they wouldn't carry over.
bitznarf
04-16-07, 04:34 PM There are plenty of powerful necromancy effects that are not about creating undead.
Ah, right, I tend associate necromancy with creating undead, rather then the larger group of 'stuff' that it is. There is still the whole 'channeling negative energy' mess to deal with though. This is intended purely as a heads up type thing. I don't actually have a problem with the character concept, as limited and undefined as it is.
trollbill
04-16-07, 04:40 PM Actually, there is a fair selection of Necromancy spells dedicated to fighting undead rather than using them. Making an anti-undead CG Necromancer would make a lot of sense to me.
copper_wyrmling
04-16-07, 11:43 PM There are plenty of powerful necromancy effects that are not about creating undead. If you focus on cursing, debuffing, and blasting with metamagicked Enervation you won't have alignment problems and won't get your character pulled. Straight up Wizard, or Wizard with Loremaster, Archmage or Mage of the Arcane Order levels will work well there; think of feats like Empower Spell, Split Ray, Spell Focus, etc.

Note however that some regions have issues with necromancy (as in, the local authorities may attempt to arrest your PC if they cast necro spells in front of witnesses). I know necromancy is against the law in Bissel, I've heard that's true in other parts of the Sheldomar Valley as well.

My (Chaotic Good) sorc knows quite a few necromancy spells - Ray of Enfeeblement, False Life, Enervation and Spiritwall - and has Empower and Split Ray as feats. Metamagic School Focus would be a nice feat for a wizard specialist necromancer (or for a sorc with a feat slot to spare for Spell Focus: Necromancy).
jstorrie
04-17-07, 02:43 AM Just as an example:

Human
1 Necromancer: Spell Focus: Necromancy, Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
2 Necromancer
3 Necromancer: Metamagic School Focus: Necromancy
4 Necromancer
5 Necromancer: Split Ray
6 Necromancer: Chain Spell
7 Necromancer
8 Necromancer
9 Necromancer: Craft Wondrous Item
10 Necromancer: Empower Spell
11 Fatespinner
12 Fatespinner: Quicken Spell
13 Fatespinner
14 Fatespinner
15 Necromancer: Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy

There are a large number of decent prestige class options for a character like this, but I thought I'd keep this example nice and simple. Necromancy has three main strains: energy drains, save-or-dies, and undead muckery. The undead stuff is out, but you can focus on blasting things into putrid husks with Metamagic'd Enervation (Split Ray is super-economical for that) and debuffing with high-DC effects like Blindness (a great save-or-die in its own right–who wants to be blind and facing a pack of hostile PCs?) You can pack standard AOE blasts or battlefield control spells like Fireball or Evards for crowd control, or through down stylish effects like Chain Blindess and Chain Wrack.
haferka
04-17-07, 07:26 AM Note however that some regions have issues with necromancy (as in, the local authorities may attempt to arrest your PC if they cast necro spells in front of witnesses). I know necromancy is against the law in Bissel, I've heard that's true in other parts of the Sheldomar Valley as well...

Here in the BK we have a whole metaorg devoted to Necromancers...
http://www.bandit-kingdoms.net/meta/ARs/Western%20Reaches/DeathCultistsAR.pdf
copper_wyrmling
04-17-07, 01:36 PM Just as an example:

Human
1 Necromancer: Spell Focus: Necromancy, Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
2 Necromancer
3 Necromancer: Metamagic School Focus: Necromancy
4 Necromancer
5 Necromancer: Split Ray
6 Necromancer: Chain Spell
7 Necromancer
8 Necromancer
9 Necromancer: Craft Wondrous Item
10 Necromancer: Empower Spell
11 Fatespinner
12 Fatespinner: Quicken Spell
13 Fatespinner
14 Fatespinner
15 Necromancer: Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy

There are a large number of decent prestige class options for a character like this, but I thought I'd keep this example nice and simple. Necromancy has three main strains: energy drains, save-or-dies, and undead muckery. The undead stuff is out, but you can focus on blasting things into putrid husks with Metamagic'd Enervation (Split Ray is super-economical for that) and debuffing with high-DC effects like Blindness (a great save-or-die in its own right–who wants to be blind and facing a pack of hostile PCs?) You can pack standard AOE blasts or battlefield control spells like Fireball or Evards for crowd control, or through down stylish effects like Chain Blindess and Chain Wrack.

You've got GSF (Necromancy) there twice, you don't qualify for Split Ray, and Metamagic School Focus is kinda pointless without any metamagic. The basic idea is fine, you'd just want to shuffle the feats a bit. I'd do:

L1: Empower Spell, SF (Necromancy)
L3: Craft Wondrous Item
L5: Split Ray
L6: Metamagic School Focus (Necromancy)
L9: Quicken Spell
L12: Chain Spell

or something along those lines. I'm not entirely sure that Chain Spell is worthwhile. It might be better to lose the spell focus feat at L1 and play a grey elf instead, since their +2 Int is effectively spell focus: everything, and the +2 Dex is nice when you're throwing a lot of nasty ray spells. You could swap CWI and MSF (Necromancy) if you want empowered ray of enfeeblement ASAP.
_metz_
04-17-07, 07:58 PM I agree, you want craft wondrous item early to get the big benefits from it. (pearls of power and stat booseters anyone?)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lole 04-16-07, 10:20 AM	Ok. Thinking, thinking, and thinking some more. Is it possible to do a good necromancer build. I didnt see anything against it since you can be Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral, but what about Lichdom? since they have Libris Mortis and Good Liches, is that possible or is that a closed book? didnt see it on the list in the LGCS.
amnuxoll 04-16-07, 11:08 AM	My necromancer is 5th. shrug What's a "good" build?
bitznarf 04-16-07, 11:10 AM	The problem is you may get your character yanked in short order for being evil. Creating undead is an evil act. There may be some expections to that, but I am not aware of any at the moment. And if you are doing it often, you may find that a lot of judges feel that due to either quantity or quality of evil acts, that your character needs to be reported. Just make sure you know what an individual DM can and cannot do. I've heard some stories about DMs stepping over the line, and removing characters themselves. Edit: As for Libris Mortis being 'open or closed', it's neither. Some parts of it may be closed. I don't know if any of it is open, anything else is NONC. NONC is the default untill otherwise specified.
jstorrie 04-16-07, 04:18 PM	There are plenty of powerful necromancy effects that are not about creating undead. If you focus on cursing, debuffing, and blasting with metamagicked Enervation you won't have alignment problems and won't get your character pulled. Straight up Wizard, or Wizard with Loremaster, Archmage or Mage of the Arcane Order levels will work well there; think of feats like Empower Spell, Split Ray, Spell Focus, etc. If you run around creating undead every adventure, on the other hand, you're going to get yanked. By LG rules the creation of undead is a very evil act, and even if you had the campaign documentation to access good liches in Libris Mortis it wouldn't be feasible to make them in single adventures since they wouldn't carry over.
bitznarf 04-16-07, 04:34 PM	There are plenty of powerful necromancy effects that are not about creating undead. Ah, right, I tend associate necromancy with creating undead, rather then the larger group of 'stuff' that it is. There is still the whole 'channeling negative energy' mess to deal with though. This is intended purely as a heads up type thing. I don't actually have a problem with the character concept, as limited and undefined as it is.
trollbill 04-16-07, 04:40 PM	Actually, there is a fair selection of Necromancy spells dedicated to fighting undead rather than using them. Making an anti-undead CG Necromancer would make a lot of sense to me.
copper_wyrmling 04-16-07, 11:43 PM	There are plenty of powerful necromancy effects that are not about creating undead. If you focus on cursing, debuffing, and blasting with metamagicked Enervation you won't have alignment problems and won't get your character pulled. Straight up Wizard, or Wizard with Loremaster, Archmage or Mage of the Arcane Order levels will work well there; think of feats like Empower Spell, Split Ray, Spell Focus, etc. Note however that some regions have issues with necromancy (as in, the local authorities may attempt to arrest your PC if they cast necro spells in front of witnesses). I know necromancy is against the law in Bissel, I've heard that's true in other parts of the Sheldomar Valley as well. My (Chaotic Good) sorc knows quite a few necromancy spells - Ray of Enfeeblement, False Life, Enervation and Spiritwall - and has Empower and Split Ray as feats. Metamagic School Focus would be a nice feat for a wizard specialist necromancer (or for a sorc with a feat slot to spare for Spell Focus: Necromancy).
jstorrie 04-17-07, 02:43 AM	Just as an example: Human 1 Necromancer: Spell Focus: Necromancy, Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy 2 Necromancer 3 Necromancer: Metamagic School Focus: Necromancy 4 Necromancer 5 Necromancer: Split Ray 6 Necromancer: Chain Spell 7 Necromancer 8 Necromancer 9 Necromancer: Craft Wondrous Item 10 Necromancer: Empower Spell 11 Fatespinner 12 Fatespinner: Quicken Spell 13 Fatespinner 14 Fatespinner 15 Necromancer: Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy There are a large number of decent prestige class options for a character like this, but I thought I'd keep this example nice and simple. Necromancy has three main strains: energy drains, save-or-dies, and undead muckery. The undead stuff is out, but you can focus on blasting things into putrid husks with Metamagic'd Enervation (Split Ray is super-economical for that) and debuffing with high-DC effects like Blindness (a great save-or-die in its own right–who wants to be blind and facing a pack of hostile PCs?) You can pack standard AOE blasts or battlefield control spells like Fireball or Evards for crowd control, or through down stylish effects like Chain Blindess and Chain Wrack.
haferka 04-17-07, 07:26 AM	Note however that some regions have issues with necromancy (as in, the local authorities may attempt to arrest your PC if they cast necro spells in front of witnesses). I know necromancy is against the law in Bissel, I've heard that's true in other parts of the Sheldomar Valley as well... Here in the BK we have a whole metaorg devoted to Necromancers... http://www.bandit-kingdoms.net/meta/ARs/Western%20Reaches/DeathCultistsAR.pdf
copper_wyrmling 04-17-07, 01:36 PM	Just as an example: Human 1 Necromancer: Spell Focus: Necromancy, Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy 2 Necromancer 3 Necromancer: Metamagic School Focus: Necromancy 4 Necromancer 5 Necromancer: Split Ray 6 Necromancer: Chain Spell 7 Necromancer 8 Necromancer 9 Necromancer: Craft Wondrous Item 10 Necromancer: Empower Spell 11 Fatespinner 12 Fatespinner: Quicken Spell 13 Fatespinner 14 Fatespinner 15 Necromancer: Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy There are a large number of decent prestige class options for a character like this, but I thought I'd keep this example nice and simple. Necromancy has three main strains: energy drains, save-or-dies, and undead muckery. The undead stuff is out, but you can focus on blasting things into putrid husks with Metamagic'd Enervation (Split Ray is super-economical for that) and debuffing with high-DC effects like Blindness (a great save-or-die in its own right–who wants to be blind and facing a pack of hostile PCs?) You can pack standard AOE blasts or battlefield control spells like Fireball or Evards for crowd control, or through down stylish effects like Chain Blindess and Chain Wrack. You've got GSF (Necromancy) there twice, you don't qualify for Split Ray, and Metamagic School Focus is kinda pointless without any metamagic. The basic idea is fine, you'd just want to shuffle the feats a bit. I'd do: L1: Empower Spell, SF (Necromancy) L3: Craft Wondrous Item L5: Split Ray L6: Metamagic School Focus (Necromancy) L9: Quicken Spell L12: Chain Spell or something along those lines. I'm not entirely sure that Chain Spell is worthwhile. It might be better to lose the spell focus feat at L1 and play a grey elf instead, since their +2 Int is effectively spell focus: everything, and the +2 Dex is nice when you're throwing a lot of nasty ray spells. You could swap CWI and MSF (Necromancy) if you want empowered ray of enfeeblement ASAP.
_metz_ 04-17-07, 07:58 PM	I agree, you want craft wondrous item early to get the big benefits from it. (pearls of power and stat booseters anyone?)