Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Nyronus Oct 15, 2008 16:48:34	Alright. It seems everyone and their mother seem to be making a necromancer class. I decided to try my hand at this. My concept of the necromancer is a spell-caster who summons and controls spirits to do his bidding. Some necromancers use these spirits to raise swarms of undead minions and summon greater undead to their side. Other necromancers use spirits extend their range and help them deliver plagues and crippling necrotic attacks. Thank you, enjoy, and PEACH. ---- Class Name: Necromancer “I can hear the whispers of those who you have wronged in the past. They do not bode well my friend.” Role: Controller, using the powers of shadow you weaken and dominate the field of battle. Power Source: Shadow, using the negative energy of the universe you summon spirits and send crippling attacks to harry your enemies. Key Ability Scores: Charisma, Wisdom, Constitution Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, Leather Weapon Proficiencies: Simple Melee Implement: Fetish, Reaping Scythe Defense Bonuses: +1 Fortitude, +1 Will Hit Points at first level: 10 + Constitution Score Hit Points per level Gained: 4 Healing Surges per Day: 6 + Constitution Modifier Trained Skills: Shadow. From the class skills list below, chose three more trained skills at first level. Class Skills: Arcana (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Endurance (Con), Insight (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Religion (Int), Shadow (Wis) Build Options: Soul Shepard, Scourge Lord Class Features: Spirit Summon, Raise Corpse, Implement Focus, Ritual Casting. Necromancers are a special kind of spell-slinger. Unlike the wizard who hurls elemental fury or befuddling enchantments against foes, or the pact-bound arcane assassins that are warlocks, necromancers deal with a wholly different sphere: that of life or death itself. Necromancers summon spirits to do their bidding, or call down the forces of life and death to plague and cripple foes, literally. While such probings into what many consider to be a realm not meant for mortals often draw needless hatred and stigma, it need not be true. Some necromancer’s are merely curious as to the secrets of life and death. Others seek to use the ultimate powers of nature to punish the wicked. Some still are trickers who are neither good nor evil, but seek to commune with spirits and rule the dead for amusement and fortune. Some though are true tyrants, enslaving both the dead and the living to their whims. You can hear the whispers of those who have come before you in your ear now as you stand at the edge of a gulf unlike any you have seen before. The question now is, will you stare down the abyss as you march into the unknown, or will you become it as its own eyes bore into your very soul? Creating a Necromancer Necromancers have many different ways to employ the power of death and shadow against their foes, but often tend to specialize in two types of builds: the Soul Shepard and the Scourge Lord. All necromancer powers key off of either the Constitution, Wisdom, or Charisma stat. Soul Shepard You have chosen the path of a warlord of the dead. Your powers focus on raising and using of spirits from the Shadowfell for battle. Your powers are focused to make the most use of his spirit and undead minions. You often creates many spirits, often using them to hinder the movements of enemies, or to posses the corpses of fallen foes. Your primary ability is his Constitution, as contact with the Shadowfell is often strenuous on a person’s body. Your second stat is Charisma, often using the force of his personality to glean information from the dead, or boost their abilities in battle. Your Wisdom as well can be of use as it enables you to gain small bonuses on spells or can help with special skills and the Reaping Scythe implement. Choose the Reaping Scythe Implement Focus, as that allows you to control more spirits and undead at a time. Suggested Feat: Suggested Skills: Diplomacy, Endurance, Insight, Shadow Suggested At-Will Powers: Shadow Wave, Haunting. Suggested Encounter Power: Charge! Suggested Daily Power: Summon Blazing Skeleton Scourge Lord You forgo the waste of time that raising an army of weak undead minions and fragile spirits is. Your powers tend to focus on crippling damage and area of effect spells which weaken and slow his foes. Your primary stat is Wisdom, using your intuition to channel necrotic energy against your foes. Secondary stat is your constitution, as you often draw on your bodily strength to empower certain attacks. Your Charisma often helps in negotiations and getting along with those who fear you, as well as giving a bonus to the powers of your Fetish. Choose the Fetish Implement Focus, as that allows you to impose greater curses and penalties upon your foes. Suggested Feat: Suggested Skills: Arcana, Insight, Intimidate, Shadow Suggested At-Will Powers: Necrotic Ray, Nauseating Touch Suggested Encounter Power: Foul Wind Suggested Daily Power: Necromancer Class Features Spirits Part of all Necromancer’s training is the summoning and control of spirits. Any Necromancer can, as a minor action, summon forth a spirit to do his bidding. When you summon a spirit, it counts as a minion of equal level to you, and uses your defense stats as its own. As a move action, you can move any number of spirits up to your movement speed. Spirits have no attack options at all. You may use the square a spirit occupies as your origin square for purposes of close powers and line of sight. Spirits will dissipate and return to the Shadowfell when you take a short rest. The spirit counts towards the number of undead minions you can control at one time. You can only control a number of undead minions equal to your level (see: Implement Focus). Summon Spirit - Necromancer Class Feature With a wave of you hand, you call forth a pale transparent figure from the flickering shadows around you. At-Will ✦ Shadow, Conjuration Minor Action, Close burst 1 Effect: Summon one Spirit minion into the area of the burst Raise Corpse Once per encounter, as a minor action, you may have a spirit you control posses the corpse of a fallen enemy. The corpses raises as an undead minion under your control. In addition, as a standard action, you may declare that all undead minions under you control may make a basic melee attack against an adjacent enemy. Undead minions cannot make opportunity attacks. You roll for each attack and damage using your constitution modifier and the damage dice from the original monster. The undead minion adopts your defense scores. Raise Dead - Necromancer Class Feature As you command the pale form of a spirit sinks into the mauled body. After a moment, the tattered corpse sluggishly rises to its feet. Encounter ✦ Shadow, Heal Minor Action, Range 20 Effect: Sacrifice a spirit. You may heal a dead enemy adjacent to the spirit to one health. The enemy is now an undead minion under your control. The minion’s maximum hit points drops to one and it now counts as undead for the purposes of origin. This power cannot effect an Elite or Solo monster. Ritual Casting You gain the Ritual Caster feat (page 200) as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals (see Chapter 10 of the Player’s handbook). Implement Focus Choose one of the following implement focuses and gain the following benefits: Reaping Scythe Focus: Increase the number of undead minions you may have under your control equal to the enchantment bonus of your scythe, plus your Wisdom modifier, minimum 1. Fetish Focus: Once per encounter as a free action, you may sacrifice a spirit to give a penalty to any single enemy’s roll equal to your Charisma modifier, minimum 1. Necromancer Powers Your powers are also know as invocations. Each power is related either to the Scourge Lord or Soul Shepard paths. Soul Shepard powers key off of constitution, as the rigors of manipulating the power of the Shadowfell and bringing the undead to heel require a great fortitude. Scourge Lord powers on the other hand, rely mostly on wisdom and focus on striking the enemy with plagues and crippling necrotic energy. At-Will Invocations. Show Necrotic Ray - Necromancer Attack 1 With gesture, you point and fire a beam of purple energy into your foe, sapping his strength and scourging his flesh. At-Will ✦ Shadow, Necrotic, Implement Standard Action, Ranged 5 Target: One Creature Attack: Wisdom vs. Reflex Hit: 1d6 + Wisdom modifier necrotic damage and the target is weakened until the end of your next turn. Increase damage to 2d6 + Wisdom modifier damage at 21st level Shadow Wave - Necromancer Attack 1 You fling both arms forward with a shout and send a wave shadow into your foes, driving them back. At-Will ✦ Shadow, Necrotic, Fear, Implement Standard Action, Close blast 3 Target: Each creature in blast Attack: Constitution vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d6 + Constitution modifier necrotic damage, and you push the target a number of squares equal to your Wisdom modifier. Increase damage to 2d6 + Constitution modifier at 21st level Haunting - Necromancer Attack 1 With a wail, one of your spirit minions dissipates into cloud of negative energy, hindering those who pass through it At-Will ✦ Shadow, Psychic, Fear, Zone Standard Action, Close burst 1 Special: Before you make this attack, you must sacrifice a spirit under you control. The spirit is considered the origin square for purposes of this attack. Target: Each creature is burst Attack: Constitution vs. Will Hit: 1d4 + Constitution modifier psychic damage. Increase damage to 2d4 + Constitution modifier psychic damage at 21st level Effect: You create a zone equal to the area of effect for this attack. This zone counts as difficult terrain. Each time a creature starts or moves into a square in this zone, it takes psychic damage equal to your Charisma modifier. You may sustain this zone with a minor action. Nauseating Touch - Necromancer Attack 1 You gently place your hand upon the body of a foe, who suddenly writhes in pain and begins to vomit. At-Will ✦ Shadow, Necrotic, Poison, Implement Standard Action, Melee touch Target: One creature Attack: Wisdom vs. Reflex Hit: Wisdom modifier necrotic damage. The targets takes ongoing 2 necrotic and poison damage (save ends). Increase ongoing damage to 5 at 21st level.
#2 Nyronus Oct 15, 2008 16:49:07	Level 2 Utility Powers Bone Armor - Necromancer Utility 2 With a snarl, sprouts of bone burst from your flesh and the flesh of your minions, deflecting your enemy’s strikes Encounter ✦ Shadow Standard Action, Personal Effect: You and your undead minions gain +1 to your AC and Fortitude defenses for five minutes or until the end of the encounter. Shadowswept Retreat - Necromancer Utility 2 You dodge away from an enemies blows in a flurry of shadows Encounter ✦ Shadow Immediate Reaction, Personal Trigger: An enemy misses you with a single attack. Effect: Shift three squares. You gain the insubstantial and phasing qualities until the end of your next turn. Fear of the Grave - Necromancer Utility 2 Foes cower before you as your spirits and minions whirl about you, wailing with the terror of death Encounter ✦ Shadow, Fear Free Action, Personal Effect: Use this power when you make an intimidate check. Gain a +2 bonus to the roll per each spirit and undead minion under your control. Foul Vitality - Necromancer Utility 2 With a shudder, you purge your body of whatever ails you, but at a cost to your endurance Daily ✦ Shadow, Healing Move Action, Personal Effect: You lose a healing surge. You may make an immediate saving throw against an effect with a +3 bonus.
#3 Nyronus Oct 15, 2008 16:49:43	Saved for Paragon
#4 Nyronus Oct 15, 2008 16:50:23	Epic save-age!
#5 Nyronus Oct 15, 2008 16:51:09	Paragon Paths, Feats.
#6 Nyronus Oct 15, 2008 16:51:46	Update log and misc.
#7 demontongue Oct 15, 2008 22:52:39	glad to see you yoinked some of my(? maybe they were someone elses first) ideas about a Shadow power source and calling them invocations. (at a glance) I see some problems with the undead minion mechanic. It says once per encounter you can sacrifice a spirit and then it goes back to the shadowfell after a short rest. As worded you can only have one zombie and it only lasts till a short rest. Further you can't raise these minions in encounters where foes don't leave bodies and its of no use when you fight a single foe. What happens if you drop a huge foe? do you get a huge minion? I'm interested in seeing what else you come up with so I can steal it for my own build (plagerism makes class building go so much faster...) I also think the weakening and ongoing damage at wills might be a little too strong but i'm not sure.
#8 Nyronus Oct 16, 2008 0:25:40	glad to see you yoinked some of my(? maybe they were someone elses first) ideas about a Shadow power source and calling them invocations. (at a glance) I see some problems with the undead minion mechanic. It says once per encounter you can sacrifice a spirit and then it goes back to the shadowfell after a short rest. As worded you can only have one zombie and it only lasts till a short rest. Further you can't raise these minions in encounters where foes don't leave bodies and its of no use when you fight a single foe. What happens if you drop a huge foe? do you get a huge minion? I'm interested in seeing what else you come up with so I can steal it for my own build (plagerism makes class building go so much faster...) I also think the weakening and ongoing damage at wills might be a little too strong but i'm not sure. You misunderstood. An undead minion counts as a spirit only for purposes of number and movement. It stays around. There are corpses in battle as well, so it can be used in combat (although you are likely to get more use out of it by doing it outside of combat) If you look, the ongoing damage and weaken at-wills are very short range. I'de be willing to drop Necrotic Ray down to 1d4, or just modifier damage. Maybe also upping Raise Corpse to a limited number of times per battle? Cha mod maybe? Also, I didn't steal any mechanics from you. I came up with the idea for a spirit-based necromancer a little over a week ago, before you posted yours. I'm not even sure I read yours.
#9 demontongue Oct 16, 2008 0:54:39	i didn't mention mechanics only the fluff stuff, so it turns out to be mere coincidence we both opted for the shadow power source and to call the necromancer powers Invocations. great minds eh. (and I made an allowance that I wasn't the first to think of it with what was in parenthesis) I did not notice the range on those powers, but "duh", one of them was called nauseating touch so I should have known, they're fine. I like the spirit suicide bomber but a sustainable damaging terrain altering zone as an at will... then again it is indiscrimate so its probably as big an issue for your party as it is for the foes. but the other stuff quoted from your Spirits section: Spirits will dissipate and return to the Shadowfell when you take a short rest. You can only control a number of spirits equal to your level (see: Implement Focus). In the Raise corpse section it implies animated undead are somehow different from spirits but doesn't detail what would keep the spirit animating them from dissipating (though i might be overthinking this... it's possible they are simply considered "different" and you've already detailed the only ways they are the same). Perhaps it could be written as "You can only have X many minions" since spirits and undead count the same either way... and quoted from your Raise Corpse section (emphasis mine) Once per encounter, as a minor action, you may have a spirit you control posses the corpse of a fallen enemy. The corpses raises as an undead minion under your control. This however needs some clarification. If the idea is that you can make a particular spirit animate a corpse once then you might drop the once per encounter part, since, by including you've made it so only one corpse can be animated per encounter. you might try writing it up as another at will class feature, or not.
#10 d34thf4rt Oct 22, 2008 2:59:40	Bump...I wanna hear more.
#11 Nyronus Nov 01, 2008 17:32:28	I'm sorry for waiting so long. I see what you say now Demontongue. I apologize if I seemed hasty. Anyway, added more powers. Next block of Heroic powers levels 2-5. Is the new language clearer?