I really want to be able to make a minion based necromancer. Have skeletal warriors, zombies, etc.
Is this a valid option?
Would I be able to, say, make myself an undead bird and have it scout for me? Have a skeletal horse carry my things? Summon a ghost, and charge people to "excorcise" it from their house?
If this is a possibility, where should I start?
Thanks for any info
Just getting started with looking into the game, know almost nothing beyond the most basic basics.
I really want to be able to make a minion based necromancer. Have skeletal warriors, zombies, etc.
Is this a valid option?
It is less of an option in 4E than earlier editions of D&D. In 4E, the power of "pet classes" was severely curtailed. "Pet classes" like the Necromancer, Ranger and Druid now use the PCs action economy to control their pets. If a Beastmaster Ranger wants his wolf to attack an enemy, it consumes the action that would have been used for his own attack. This was done to prevent one player from hogging all of the "screen time." In previous editions, PCs that had access to pets would often take three or more times as long to complete their turns as any other player, sometimes longer than the rest of the party combined.
Would I be able to, say, make myself an undead bird and have it scout for me? Have a skeletal horse carry my things? Summon a ghost, and charge people to "excorcise" it from their house?
That being said, these things are prime examples of things that already exist in 4E that can simply be reflavored into the effects you describe. The undead bird could be your familiar, the skeletal horse could be a manifestation of Tenser's Disc. The last could be done via cantrips for short durations, but extended "hauntings" might be difficult to pull off (repeated castings of the Unseen Servant ritual?).
It should be noted that this last bit will quickly wear thin, and might prove an interesting sideline once or twice, but will almost never be profitable. The average adventurer makes more in one month of adventuring than most of the common NPCs will earn in their entire lives. The people who could afford to pay what you would require to make the venture profitable are also the people who a) could have enough influence to have you thrown in jail for fraud, or b) could also have enough money to hire assassins or bounty hunters to take repayment for your misdeeds out of your hide.
What about to influence people?
Make sure to get the place haunted in secret, then expell it as a "favor", to earn a more positive reputation? Pretend to be an excorcist, so that the town doesnt shun me (necromancers arnt usually very well liked in anything I've seen, would imagine itd be the same with dnd)
As for minions taking up my entire turn... what happens if I had two skeletons/zombies/whatever?
I just have always loved necromancer classes in things, and been disappointed with how limited you are in video games. Finding some way to play one would be awesome.
I want a shield-bearing skeleton to protect me while a zombie filled with oil charges (shambles?) into the guys trying to kill me =D
Would it just limit it to 1 action per my turn regardless of how many minions I have, or would I just not be able to have more than 1 thing at once?
2) Sounds like a pretty hard bluff check. But it's possible.
3) Summoning wizard's work out well (reflavored as undead), but you'll have trouble commanding more then 1 at a time. However, some summons do have default actions. So if you don't command them, they will still attack (possibly your ally).
4) There's no AI in D&D, so it would take alot of time away from other players controlling 5 different creatures. It was possible in 3, but not so much in 4.
So short answer... no, not directly. But with the power of reflavoring, and some imagination, yes, yes you can.
Such as web, which instead of being a sticky mass that holds people, could be a bunch of hands coming out of the ground to hold people.
Magic Missile, which instead of being a blue bolt, can be a screaming spirit.
Shield, instead of being a magical forcefield, could be a made of bone.
Scorching burst, which instead of being a colum of flame, could be a suicidal skelleton with oil.
Ray of frost, which instead of being a cold blast, could be tiny rat skelletons jumping on the feat of the target.
Also like to point out that the cleric has 2 dailies that let you keep things that die as pets.
And finally, if you could possibly convince them, play this build, and get all your allies to play the skelletons.
If I could still have multiple things out,though, wouldnt they have default actions as long as I left them very specific instructions?
Like, say party is entering a dungeon, leave skellies at the entrance with orders to attack anything that comes within X feet,so we dont walk out to an ambush?
for example, a summoned monster that recieves no instruction will move its speed to adjacent to the nearest creature (in case of a tie, i can only assume you would control which it chose), if its already next to a creature (ANY creature, including you or an ally) it would use it's attack action. If it is farther than its speed away from anything, it stands still and does nothing. I also think that most of the summoned creatures with "instinctive actions" are the druid summons, not the wizard summons, though i may be mistaken with more recent 4e content.
Also, summoned creatures are limited in duration to 1 encounter (or 5 minutes out of combat). Permanent pets are only available to specific classes, and those classes invest a sizeable portion of their effectiveness into their pet and sometimes have range limits(a sentinel druid's beast spirit companion thingy grants bonuses to any allies near it, and their encounter powers involve both the druid and the beast attacking a target), so leaving it somewhere away from its "owner" is impossible or ill-advised
4e takes a lot of the non-combat spells and FORCES them to be non-combat through the ritual system (taking 10-minutes to an hour to cast spells like unseen servant, tenser's floating disc, or silence), but contrasts it by making the combat spells able to be cast more often (in general) and not use the same resources (a level one wizard can cast magic missile every round, burning hands every encounter, and summon fire warrior once per day). The 4e powers, while you may have less day-to-day options (your spellbook will only contain 2 different daily-level spells at level 1), can easily be reflavored how you want....summon fire warrior might easily be reflavored as a blazing skeleton (though it would still have all the attacks and actions it normally does).
Finally, 4e does now have a "necromancy" school of magic, with a few of 4e's normal summoned creatures (which, like most summons, use your actions) but also focuses mostly on necrotic damage and life-draining type stuff (weakened, dazed, vulnerable to damage, etc.)
The short answer to your question is no, there is not really any way to make use of multiple "minions" (by this i take it to mean followers rather than 1hp monsters, though the answer is the same either way), as 4e tries very hard to preserve action economy, and keep players from stacking dozens of attacks on the same turn.
...at best you're looking at a standard action attack (maybe a double attack from some classes like ranger), MAYBE a minor action attack (usually an encounter power, so not every round), an action-point additional standard action attack (you get an action point every 2 encounters), and maybe an opportunity attack or two if you're a defender or you get lucky with an enemy moving
Looking like I'd have to make a bit of a custom thing, reflavor existing stuff/mix and match, to get the kind of class I want.
I am not terribly interested in having an army of undead or anything,but would very much like to have,say, 1-2 utility and 1-2 combat undead.
Ex: Utility-> travel; skeletal horse utility, acts as a horse as long as I am not in combat, non-sentient so would require me to actively keep it moving. In combat/arrive at destination, collapse horse back into bones.
In a dungeon, utility -> pack zombie; only there to hold things for the party, 0 attack skills, while I had a skeleton out for fighting.
a lot of the ideas I have would also use undead as tools or weapons. mentioned in a similar thread in the general forum, about an idea I had.
In town,buy some small birds, fill them with oil or explosive potions, then raise them as undead, and have them fly at my enemies and explode.
Or even just to light up a path, make a small undead bird and cast light on it,have it fly in front of me.
From what I am hearing, it sounds like a lot of what I am thinking should be doable, at least to some extent, by tweaking/reflavoring existing spells, and the rest would be up to the DM as far as how far theyd let me go with it?
The closest I'd want to having multiple attacking monsters is the scenario I mentioned before, the idea of leaving a skeletal guard at the entrance of a cave.
Thanks again for all the input! Very new here and loving how helpful the community has been so far.
From what I am hearing, it sounds like a lot of what I am thinking should be doable, at least to some extent, by tweaking/reflavoring existing spells, and the rest would be up to the DM as far as how far theyd let me go with it?
Most of what you suggest already exsists, just not in skelletal form. So that's easy to reflavor.
You can have an undead scout for you but it must have at least some intelligence to beable to commuicate what it saw so a standard skeleton or zombie will not do.
You can ride or packmule a skeleton horse or rhino or tiger, or whatever large creature your able to raise.
Dont need a ghost, just have 1-5 zombies walk into someones house thats often enough to scare the hell out of any commoner.
These are, of course, 3.5 rules I cant really give advice on 4th ed.
If you don't have access to a 3e game (or any players that like/know how to play 3e) then yes, you can do it in 4e by reflavoring powers. I'm pretty sure there is official 4e Necromancer class somewhere as well, but I've never really seen it.
Additionally, there has been some work done on a homebrew 4e necromancer that allows their undead summons to act independently of them (i.e. not mess with their action economy). You can see this here, but be warned that 1) it is unfinished, 2) it is homebrew so there's no guarantee it's balanced, and 3) using homebrew classes/items/powers/whatever always requires DM permission, so don't get your hopes up.
4e is a good system, but its focus is mostly on combat. For this reason, summoner classes tend to be considerably less useful than they were in the past. This is because it takes time to go through each summon's turn, which can bog down combat.