"I am where life and death converge. I bring death to the living, and life to the dead."
Class Traits
Role: Controller. The forces of life and death are yours to command. You invoke the spirits of the dead, leech life from the living, and spread pestilence among those who dare to oppose you. You lean toward either Defender or Leader as your secondary role.
Power Source: Shadow. You have gained your powers by surrendering a portion of your own life and replacing it with pure shadow energy.
Key Abilities: Intelligence, Charisma, Constitution
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth
Weapon Proficiencies: simple melee, military flails, simple ranged
Implement Proficiencies: Tome, Totem, Staff, Scythe, Dagger
Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Will
Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + Constitution score
Hit Points per Level Gained: 4
Healing Surges per Day: 6 + Constitution modifier
Trained Skills: Arcana or Religion (your choice). From the class skills list below, choose three more trained skills at 1st level.
Class Skills: Arcana, Bluff, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal, History, Intimidate, Insight, Religion, Stealth, Thievery.
Build Options: Blight Necromancer, Dread Necromancer, Horde Necromancer
Class Features: Dark Knowledge, Necromancy Focus, Master of Death.
Corrupt. Disturbed. Tainted. The necromancer and his affinity for undeath is often misunderstood, or outright hated, by common peoples. They see necromancy as a mad perversion of life - an insult to everything living.
The necromancer disagrees. He understands the reality of the world - death is, and will not cease to be, a reality of life. There is power in it. There is mystery to it. But overall: it is eternal. Almost without fail, the necromancer is the pragmatic sort - he does what he does despite cultural or societal taboos, because it is useful.
The actual motivations for each necromancer have as much wild variety as life itself. Some find themselves called to the practice, drawn to the shadows of unlife from an early age. Others learn the art of necromancy through research and study before finally giving themselves fully to the art. Some seek to serve some noble goal, while others wield their powers toward terrible ends. Regardless of the motivations or goal, all necromancers have made the same sacrifice - pledging some of their own life to the darkness, and filling themselves with shadow in return.
With death as your constant companion, you have little to fear from life. After all, each end is simply a new beginning in a cycle you are intimately familiar with.
Class Features
Necromancers have the following class features.
Dark Knowledge
Your studies in ancient texts of anatomy, medicine, virology, and various other topics related to death and suffering have left your mind full of knowledge which others can only dream of. You have wandered to the edge of a dark precipice and stared into the abyss, and the abyss has stared back into your soul. You now command knowledge which would wither a normal mortal, using what others consider evil and profane for your own agenda.
At 1st level you choose three at-will attack powers. At least one, but no more than two, of those powers must have the minion keyword. In addition, choose one of the following options:
Death's Scholar
You gain a +5 bonus to religion checks to identify undead creatures, and resistance to necrotic damage equal to 5 + 1/2 your level. In addition, your attacks against undead creatures ignore resistance or immunity to necrotic damage.
Plague Bringer
You a +5 bonus to heal checks made to treat disease, and resistance to poison equal to 5 + 1/2 your level. In addition, your attacks against undead creatures ignore resistance or immunity to poison.
Unlife Master
You gain a +5 bonus to endurance checks, and your undead minions gain resistance to all damage equal to 5 + 1/2 your level. In addition, your undead minions gain a +1 bonus to all defenses.
Necromancy Focus
You have devoted your life to the study of life and death, and now you have accumulated enough knowledge to put your work to good use. However, no man can hold within him all the profane knowledge of the ancients, and so you have been forced to devote most of your studies to a particular topic. Choose one of the following disciplines for your Necromancer to specialize in.
Undeath Focus
You have studied intensively the profane arts of Necromancy until the world of death is open to you. You can call up the spirits of those who have passed on and drive them into service in your name.
| Ghost Harrier | Necromancer Feature |
|---|
Haunting shades of the recently departed arise to torment the living.
Encounter ♦ Conjuration, Shadow
Free Action Close Burst 10
Trigger: You hit with an encounter or daily power.
Effect: Each target of the power grants combat advantage (save ends).
Blight Focus
Your studies have included herbs, toxins, and diseases which can kill or maim hundreds. Your dark hexes spread curses and plagues which torment your enemies and bring them to death's door.
| Plague Harbinger | Necromancer Feature |
|---|
You inject a little bit of venom into your most devastating attacks.
Encounter ♦ Poison, Shadow
Free Action Close Burst 10
Trigger: You hit with an encounter or daily power.
Effect: Each target of the power gains ongoing 5 poison damage (save ends).
Level 11: Ongoing 10 poison.
Level 21: Ongoing 15 poison.
Unlife Focus
The flipside of Necromancy is the study of how to create life out of death. You have studied the works of decried prophets and denounced masters, eking out an idea of the basics of enhancing life by sowing death. You gain the "Leech Life" power.
| Leech Life | Necromancer Feature |
|---|
You drain the energy from your foes to bolster your allies.
Encounter ♦ Poison, Shadow
Free Action Close Burst 10
Trigger: You hit with an encounter or daily power.
Target: One ally in burst
Effect: The target gains temporary hit points equal your Constitution modifier.
Level 11: 3 + Constitution modifier.
Level 21: 6 + Constitution modifier.
Master of Death
You have long pursued rituals of great power and forbidden knowledge. You gain the Ritual Caster feat as a bonus feat and gain the Gentle Repose and Speak with Dead rituals at 1st level (see Players Handbook, pp 305 and 312). Once per day, you may spend a healing surge to ignore the component cost when casting one of these these two rituals.
In addition you gain the Animate Dead power.
| Animate Dead | Necromancer Feature |
|---|
At your command, the dead rise to stalk the living.
At-Will ♦ Implement, Shadow, Summoning
Minor Action (Special) Close Burst 5
Effect: You summon four undead minions in four unoccupied squares in the burst. Each minion has a speed of 5. Each minion has 1 hit point, and takes no damage from a missed attack. You do not lose healing surges when your minions are destroyed. You may only have four minions summoned at one time, if you try to summon any more than this number, the extra minions are not summoned. When you take a move action you may move each minion up to its speed. You may give your minions the following special commands.
Standard Action: Melee 1; Intelligence vs. Reflex; 1d6 + intelligence modifier damage and the target is slowed.
Special: You may use this power only once per round.
Implements
Necromancers with a more scholarly bent channel their power through dusty tomes containing the anatomy of undead and demonic creatures, powerful dark rituals, and similar profane knowledge. Others use a totem, a small object often made of bones, skin, or similar gruesome materials. Similar to how primal characters use totems to commune with the spirits of the natural world, Necromancers use totems to call forth and bind the spirits of the dead from the Shadowfell. Still other Necromancers use a staff, a scythe, or a ceremonial dagger as an implement for their powers. These necromancers are often more inclined to feel the blood of their enemies coat their weapons directly, rather than feeding a horde of ravenous undead.
Creating a Necromancer
Necromancers rely on Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma for their powers. You can choose any powers you like, but many necromancers choose powers that complement their Necromancy Focus.
Horde Necromancer
You are but a single mortal, but your whim can summon thousands of apostate souls to take physical form and kill on your command. You ignite the animus in corpses to raise them to unlife and stalk your enemies. A horde Necromancer needs a high Intelligence to understand the complete rituals and dark rites which must be performed to raise an army of the damned, but you also need to be Constitution in order to contain the dark power which keeps your legions of undead walking. A high Charisma may also help you negotiate with more intelligent undead, allowing you to bring them under your sway.
Suggested Class Feature: Undeath Focus
Suggested Feat: Deathless Horde
Suggested Skills: Arcana, Bluff, Intimidate, Religion
Suggested At-Will Powers: Swarming Horde, Ghastly Bite
Suggested Encounter Power: Tomb Guardian Strike
Suggested Daily Power: Ghoul's Embrace
Dread Necromancer
Instead of relying on hordes of undead, you prefer to fight with living allies. You use fear, death, and undeath to ravage your foes and bolster those who fight alongside you. To your allies you are a patient protector… to your enemies, you are a savage terror. Your attacks key off of Intelligence, so make that your highest ability score. Deception and force of will increase your ability to keep both the living and the dead under your influence, so Charisma should be your second-highest ability score. Constitution should be your third highest score, to aid in your durability.
Suggested Class Feature: Unlife Focus
Suggested Feat: Death Thane
Suggested Skills: Arcana, Bluff, Heal, Intimidate
Suggested At-Will Powers: Grave Pulse, Deathly Shriek
Suggested Encounter Power: Wraith's Touch
Suggested Daily Power: Paralyzing Dread
Blight Necromancer
The ultimate purveyor of death is plague and disease, and you have worked diligently to become the master of this primal force of devastation. with a word and a gesture you can summon horrid fevers, blisters, rains of frogs and flies, putrify water sources and pollute the land. You are a walking agent of corruption, and you use this power to further your own agenda. Intelligence should be your highest score, like all Necromancers. Constitution should be your second highest, as channeling pestilence through your own body requires you to be strong and healthy yourself. Charisma is a good third score to bolster your Will Defense.
Suggested Class Feature: Blight Focus
Suggested Feat: Master of Venom
Suggested Skills: Arcana, Endurance, Heal, Insight
Suggested At-Will Powers: Spread Sickness, Charnel Touch
Suggested Encounter Power: Wave of Vermin
Suggested Daily Power: Horrid Effluvia
Necromancer Powers
New Keyword: Minion
Attacks with the Minion keyword are made by your Undead Minions, and originate in the square of a specific minion of your choice. Unless otherwise specified, you choose only one of your existing minions to make the attack. Minion powers cannot be used if you have no Undead Minions present.
Heroic Necromancer Powers
Paragon Necromancer Powers
Epic Necromancer Powers
Paragon Paths
At 11th level you may choose a paragon path from among the options available to you. Some options are presented below:
Horde Raiser
Pale Horseman
Dread Sovereign
Reaper's Scion
Page Discussion
Having designed and playtested my own minion utilizing class (that actually uses minions in the same way that your necromancer does), I can attest that there are a number of problems with this class feature.
The first is that it is simply possible to get too many minions out at a time. Limiting the number of minions by your Intelligence modifier works well for the heroic tier because you only get 4-5 minions at a time. By the time you get to epic tier, however, having 8-9 minions out at a time becomes exponentially more complex and difficult to balance and play (especially when you consider many of the minion powers that deal more damage the more minions are adjacent to the target). My own playtesting of this mechanic found that it's more appropriate to limit the number of minions to 4 or 5, if only to keep the battlefield from becoming painfully clustered. On this same note, many summoning powers have increased defenses, largely because they represent a risk to the summoner and a reward for attacking them. There is no such benefit or risk for these summoned minions so there is no reason beyond action denial (an inefficient action at best since it's so easy to replace them) to kill them. Giving them increased defenses simply makes it easier to generate a massive horde.
The second is that allowing the player to summon a large number of said minions per turn with a minor action (which you should likely restrict to being used once per turn to prevent a player from dropping 8 minions in the first turn, potentially completely encircling an enemy right out of the gate) provides the character with too much capability to dominate the field from the onset. It is better to force the player to summon a smaller number of minions per turn to prevent early saturation and domination of placement, especially when the only challenge to this domination is the monsters wasting attacks on minions that cost the player next to nothing (because it's not as if minor actions are used every turn anyway).
The third is that the range of the power, combined with the ability to deny movement, is an incredible tactical advantage, especially when the minions have no range limitation. An intelligent player could spend the entire fight without ever getting attacked by placing minions at max range and spending a move action to move away while forcing the minions to move up and attack (since the attacks do not have a range that limits how far away you can command a minion to attack from). The necromancer could easily maintain a 30 square distance from any real combat while being fully functional and still have a sizable screening force in between himself and his opponents. Situations like this are simply not balanced and end up trivializing combats.
The fourth is that the standard action attack damage is too powerful. Remember that you're already giving necromancers 3 at-will attack powers, one of which has to have the minion key word. By giving the minion a default standard action, you are giving all necromancers a *4th* at-will attack power that deals more damage than any controller at-will attack power with a range greater than that of most at-will attack powers (which are generally range 10). Another problem with it is that it does not fit with the general context of a controller (i.e. control or AoE instead of pure single target damage). It would fit better to have the standard action have lower damage and a control effect attached.
The fifth is that opportunity actions on horde type monsters are *inordinately* powerful, especially when they have control effects. If you place one next to each enemy on the field (not that difficult considering it is burst 20 and you get 4 of them per turn), you can, from the first turn, without ever actually attacking the target, deny the ability of the target to move appreciable distances or make ranged attacks. It also slows down combat because you are threatening so very many squares. It's for this reason that threatening reach for players is so uncommon: it's way too powerful.
In summation, Animate Dead needs to be brought in line heavily.
To prevent dominating the field from the very beginning, the range needs to be restricted to a close burst 5: force the necromancer to get into a risky position before being able to summon his hordes.
To prevent egregious bookkeeping and battlefield saturation problems, restrict the number of minions that can be on the field to 5.
To prevent abuse of movement mechanisms, have any minions that end their turn more than 5 squares from the necromancer be immediately destroyed.
To prevent the minions from dealing too much damage and controlling enemies too well without circumventing the economy of actions, change the effect of the standard action to "1d6 + Int mod damage and the target is grabbed", and remove the opportunity action entirely (remember, of course, to have the standard action damage increase to 2d6 at 21st level).
Finally, to prevent mass placement of minions, it should be explicitly mentioned that the power can only be used once per turn.
Remember that it is intended to be a class *feature*; not a class *replacement*. It is not intended to supplant everything else that the character would normally do. It should be intended to supplement the actions of the necromancer or provide a springboard for the other powers of the necromancer to leap from.
I agree with all counts. Go ahead and change it all if you want.
Ok, I've been long absent, but I've been running a campaign, and I've been getting a big complaint from one of my players: it just doesn't feel like he's a necromancer. 4-5 zombies just doesn't feel like enough. Sure, at heroic tier, I could argue he's just not talented enough yet. But here's an idea: do we have to be self-consistent with our summoning mechanics? What if we also create daily summoning powers that create Huge (and later Gargantuan) swarms? I think that can really drive home the idea. A large field of undead, packed too tightly to try fighting through. To avoid reworking the class, it would have to work alongside the minions. But it's an idea.
If your player wants to control a massive horde of undead, he needs to go back to 3.5e. A small cadre of [insert preferred undead minion here] should be sufficient for a "heroic" necromancer; use only what's needed, when it's needed. Gigantic hordes of walking dead are for the villainous version.
I could easily see powers such as that working out well. The best way to implement it would be to have the power create a zone that you can move around. If you want to allow it to be "killable", we would just need to allow the conjuration to be attacked, either destroying the zone in its entirely after a certain amount of damage is reached or simply having damage reduce the size of the effect in question.
It's not untoward to have player necromancers controlling hordes of zombies, especially since player necromancers are not necessarily going to be good (evil campaigns are quite possible and very fun). If your player is perturbed that he doesn't get to control a vast horde, you can simply explain that he does in fact have a vast horde, but he can only bring in the 4-5 in combat that he regularly animates to prevent anything from happening. Simply change the cosmetics from creating new zombies from local corpses every time you summon to dragging in "reserve" zombies to fill in the area.
The Unlife Master class feature is inordinately powerful compared to the other two. While Death's Scholar and Plague Bringer provide moderate situational survivability benefits to the Necromancer only, Unlife Master provides a substantial, constantly useful survivability benefit to all of the Necromancer's allies. Similarly, Death's Scholar and Plague Bringer provide a mechanism by which the Necromancer's attacks can actually affect the undead, which are notoriously resistant to the given damage types; Unlife Master simply provides a static substantial benefit against any of the many undead that have damage recovery mechanisms or even any undead in the presence of another creature that provides healing (e.g. many creatures with the leader subtype). In short, Unlife Master is way too powerful.
My suggestion would be to reign in and repurpose Unlife Master to be more balanced alongside the other two. First off, operating under the assumption that the Unlife Master path is intended to be the path that focuses primarily on using minion attacks while the other two are focused on using spells with the poison or necrotic keywords, there is no need for some mechanic designed to get around the natural defenses of the undead: the undead are no more resilient to getting clawed or mauled to pieces by undead monstrosities than any other variety of creature. Because the undead are no more commonly resilient to these effects, there is no reason to include some mechanism to bypass them. Similarly, the intended effect of resistances conferred by the other two path options exists to provide the Necromancer with a modicum of thematic but not particularly potent situational survivability. Conferring a substantial bonus to all of your allies' healing surge values (in effect, increases the potency and efficiency of all healing effects used on your allies) is not especially thematic (seeing as your allies are living as opposed to unliving) or situational (since everyone can always use a higher healing surge value and healing surges are consumed in virtually every combat imaginable). Following suit with this, the benefit of Unlife Master *should* be something that follows through as both thematic (augmenting unlife) while being situational (not be a major part in every combat). My recommendation is as such: Unlife Master provides all undead allies within 5 squares of the Necromancer with resistance to all damage equal to 5 + Constitution modifier. Since the Necromancer's minions are notoriously squishy (a single hit of any kind or even an active aura immediately destroys them), this confers a benefit that is both situational (rarely should an enemy expend an attack to destroy a minion without the attack being a lower damage area attack that the resistance *could* mitigate) while being thematic (as a master of unlife, your minions are hardier than the minions of those that only dabble in the arts of reanimation). Similarly, it augments all powers used by the Unlife Master that fall within the purview of its specialty.
Necromancy Focus: Leech Life is way too strong. First off, consider what Ghost Harrier and Plague Harbinger provide. Ghost Harrier provides combat advantage for slightly more than two turns (the limit of the sum of all values of .55^n where n is all values between 0 and infinity as n approaches infinity is ~2.13). This provides a 10% increase in total chance to hit, or, as the developers have assigned, the equivalent of roughly 2.5 damage per tier per attack made (using Power Attack as the foundation of the assumption). Assuming a group of 5, only 2 of the 5 will manage to gain the benefit of the granted combat advantage (in other words, only 40% of any combat advantage from a non-traditional source will be capitalized upon instead of being unused or rendered redundant by traditional mechanisms such as flanking). Doing the math, this means you can expect this power to provide roughly 10 damage (2.5 damage * 2 allies * 2 turns) per target affected at heroic tier (20 damage and 30 damage per turn at paragon and epic tiers respectively). Using the same numbers, one can make a similar assumption about Plague Harbinger such that it is assumed to provide 10 damage (5 damage * 2 turns) per target affected.
Leech Life provides a quarter of an ally's life (if not slightly more). The average hp value for a mid-heroic tier monster is roughly 60 (8 * (level + 1) + (10 + roundDown(level / 2)). The same average hp value for a mid-heroic tier player is roughly 50 (2 + (5 * (level + 2)) + conScore). Therefore, assuming a 1:1 balance scale (which is not actually the intended balance scale between monsters and players; I'll address this later), 1 monster hp is valued at 1.2 player hp. Using this (albeit, at this moment, unaddressed but incorrect) conversion, the single healing surge (12 hp) is worth 14.4 monster hp at the mid-heroic tier. Assuming that the power would waver between affecting multiple and single targets with some happy medium in between, it would seem that the equivalence is rather appropriate. The problem with this assumption, however, is twofold: regained resources are considered to be *more* valuable than lost resources (i.e. healing is supposed to be less efficient than dealing damage) and players resources are considered to be more valuable than NPC resources. The first is obvious when you consider the size and rarity of healing/recovery/prevention effects compared to damage dealing effects. Compare two Cleric at-will attack powers: Priest's Shield and Righteous Brand. Priest's Shield provides a +1 bonus to AC whereas Righteous Brand provides a +3 bonus to attack rolls. The design intends for combat to be resolved by attrition instead of stalemate and, because of this design decision, damage dealing effects are intended to be more efficient than healing mechanisms. The second problem is relatively obvious when you consider one simple thing: the players are meant to survive a fight while the creatures they fight are not. Even though they have fewer hit points than monsters of the same level, players are intended to win without spending a majority of their resources to do so, and monsters are intended to spend all of their resources (since they're intended to do) without forcing the players to do so. QED, player resources are supposed to be considered even more valuable than the equivalent normalized amount of a monster's resource. Because of this, Leech Life's temp hp granted should be reduced rather heavily. I would suggest something along the lines of Con mod temp hp, with an additional 3 per tier beyond heroic (Con mod + 0/3/6).
TL:DR - Leech Life is stronger than it should be. Reduce it to Con mod temp hp, 3 + Con mod at 11th level, 6 + Con mod at 21st level.
Levels 1-30 ready for evaluation and play-testing!
Added a page with a table for superior scythe implements, linked on the main page. :3
I decided to take Ekio's advice and make a third power for Undeath Focus that fits the format of the other two, while moving Animate Dead to be a class feature for all Necromancers. What does everyone think of this change?
My suggestion is that the at-wills should be run as the druid's, then. Get three, and at least one but no more than two must have the minion keyword. That way everyone gets some use out of their new class feature, see? :3
Okay. The new power for Undeath Focus seems to be more in line with how a Dread Necromancer wants to play. Maybe switch the suggested class features for Horde and Dread builds? :3
…Answer my own question. Really should have read the powers first, sorry. ^_^;;
I'm just starting to read all of this. :|
At first, I read that necromancers were able to use totems as implements, which felt really weird, but the explanation really clicked with me. I really like this. It does feel weird that necromancers can't use wands, but they already have a billion implement proficiencies…
The Dark Knowledge feature is cool, but Death's Scholar is vastly underpowered compared to the rest… you're able to make Religion checks instead of Arcana checks for monsters? It needs something else, something to give it that oomph. Also, I'm not sure if this was on purpose, but it seems that the encounter powers Plague Harbinger and Leech Life should be linked to the different Dark Knowledges, except one's missing.
I powered up Death's Scholar. The third Dark Knowledge power is Raise Undead, but it's at-will instead of an encounter power. I might end up changing it into an encounter power, or just making it a class feature.
INT-primary now? Fair enough, I'll have to wait and see what comes of that, much as I was hoping to have dragonborn as the optimal PH33R Necromancers (with good reason, Dragonfear fits great with the terror of death). Plus, y'know, we'd all agreed that the "trade life for power" thing kinda bones out study as the primary focus here.
…But enough of my silly pandering! If this one gets finished, I'll have to accept it anyway, so support must be given!
…And Frito didn't give consideration to the Plaguemaster aspects necromancy can have. Very nice. :3
So, is anyone using this page after Oskar bowed out? It seems a lot like a copy of one of the other Necromancer sub-classes on here. I was thinking about making my own, so I'm wondering if this page was already "claimed" by anyone.
Give it a month so we can be sure Oskar's had time to copypaste it. And Greatfrito's build is apparently going to eat it. :3
Hey guys, so I just finished writing a small book for my last final but now that I'm done… I'm oddly disinterested in this project. I'm also about to go farm indefinitely and learn to live like a mountain mehn so, I don't know that I'll likely contribute anymore to this.
Please feel free to use any of my ideas (the incunabula seems to be popular), and don't worry about crediting me, I really don't care about recognition much less intellectual property BS.
Hope my input helped more than it hurt and I wish you all the best.
-David
PS: Please leave this page up for a little while so I can copy it for my archive of abandoned ideas, thanks.
My second variant trying to make this more of a necromancer and less of a summoner involves significant mechanical adjustment. It also oddly involves embracing the summoner aspect explicitly. This is a significant variant, unsuitable for a sidebar, and is basically a fourth take on the necromancer.
Create Undead: becomes a new necromancer ritual, usable only during extended rests, that transforms a corpse into an undead minion. There are multiple undead minion templates (maybe one for humanoids, one for beasts?), that incorporate some traits of the target corpse into the minion (size, movement modes, ability to function as a mount, etc), though these may be restricted by level or accessed via feat. Other traits (HP, Defenses) are still based on the necromancer to ensure proper scaling.
At the close of the ritual, the necromancer has a new minion, up to their max number of minions (down from the current number due to having to track individual details of each minion). Excess minions are destroyed. If you do not currently have the maximum number of minions, you may use Summon Undead (see below) to conjure new undead minions from the shadowfell instead of creating them yourself. these minions are medium size and possess only land movement.
Undead minions do not have their own actions or attacks. Some necromancer powers are made through the minions. When you take a move action, all of your minions may also move up to their speed.
Example Templates
Corpse Beast (shadow undead beast)
you infuse the remains of a beast with a portion of your own tainted soul, creating a skeleton or zombie to serve you
Size: as base creature (poss level restricted)
movement: if the target creature had a land, swim, clime, burrow, or fly speed the corpse beast has speed 8 of the same type of movement (poss. feat restricted)
HP: necromancer's surge value
AC: Level +N
NADs: Level +X, Y, Z
Corpse Damage (used as damage dice size for implement powers channeled through the minion): d8
special: if the minion takes enough damage to kill it, it is destroyed. otherwise, ignore the effects of attacks.
Corpse Minion (shadow undead humanoid)
you infuse the remains of a humanoid with a portion of your tainted spirit, creating a skeleton or zombie to serve you
Size: as base creature
movement: see above, but speed 6
HP: necro's surge value
AC: level +N (better then above)
NADs: Level +X,Y,Z (better then above)
Corpse Damage: d6
special: as above
Aspect of Death and Dark Talent recombined:
each necromancer forms a personal connection to death via the shard of darkness in their soul. This connection taints their own physical form, and, as their undead minions are infused with a portion of their own spirit, it affects them as well.
Aspect of the Grasping Corpse: Your gaze deadens and your skin takes on a deathly pallor causing you to resemble a corpse. You feed upon the very essence of life itself. While you are not wearing heavy armor, you can use your Constitution modifier instead of your Strength modifier when making melee basic attacks with weapons you are proficient with. Additionally, you may use Constitution instead of Wisdom when making heal checks. You gain the Profane Reaping (renamed from dark sustenance) encounter power.
Additionally, undead minions you make with create undead are slow, but especially resilient and powerful. These undead minions suffer -1 speed, but gain +2 to all defenses.
Aspect of the Skeletal Warrior Your eyes become hollow and your flesh tightens causing you to resemble a skeleton. You are imbued with dark energy that increases your celerity. While you are not wearing heavy armor, you gain a +1 bonus to speed. Additionally, you may use Intelligence instead of Strength when making athletics checks. You gain the bone armor encounter power.
Additionally, undead minions you create with create undead are faster and more aggressive. These undead minions gain +1 speed, and the size of their corpse damage die increases by one.
Aspect of the Looming Shade Your eyes and skin darken and your form becomes hazy and indistinct, causing you to resemble a shade. You walk in the shadows between this world and the next. While you are not wearing heavy armor, attacks do less damage to you. When you take damage, that damage is reduced by 1/2 your Charisma modifier. Additionally, you may use Charisma instead of Dexterity when making Stealth checks. You gain the wraith step power.
Additionally, undead minions you create with create undead also walk between worlds, allowing them to bypass mortal obstacles & defenses. They gain phasing and you gain +1 to the attack role of any power made through them..
Summon/Banish Undead: a necromancer may banish any or all of his minions to the shadowfell as a free action. Necromancers gain the following power:
Summon Undead: Standard action, close burst 5 (10 at lvl 11, 15 at lvl 21). You conjure one of your currently banished undead into any unoccupied square within range. You may only have a number of undead summoned at one time equal to your maximum number of created undead minions (relevant, see below). Summoned undead last until they are destroyed or until you banish them as a free action.
special: if you spend a healing surge as you use this power, you may instead conjure all of your currently banished undead into unoccupied squares within range.
Necromancer Summon Powers: As the necromancer levels up, they may acquire special daily summon powers to summon other types of undead, for instance ghouls, wights, wraiths, and so on. While summoned, these creatures count against the necromancer's normal limited number of summons.
These creatures can be used for normal minion based attack powers, but do not benefit from the Necromancer's aspect of death. Instead, they have other special abilities to make them interesting. Some of these will be daily summons (creatuers only available in one encounter a day), while others will be encounter summons (creatures available every encounter of every day). Daily summons tend to have minor action at will and standard action encounter attacks, while encounter summons tend to have either standard action at will attacks or no signature attacks, but instead a benefit that applies to any minion attack powers used through them.
Example:
Summon Banshee: Necromancer Daily 15
instead of one of your own minions, you conjure a deadly banshee from the shadowfell
standard action
range: close burst 10
effect: You summon a banshee in an unoccupied square within range. The banshee counts against the maximum number of undead you may have summoned at one time. The banshee lasts until the end of the encounter, until it is destroyed, or until you banish it with a minor action. The banshee has the following stats:
Banshee (shadow undead humanoid)
HP: equal to healing surge
AC: Level +N
NADs: Level +X, Y, Z (good reflex)
corpse damage d6
Movement: fly 6 hover
special: phasing, insubstantial
Any enemy hit by an attack made through the banshee is slowed until the end of its next turn. In addition, while summoned you may make the following attacks through your banshee:
Banshee Touch (cold, necrotic) at will
Minor Action
Range: melee minion one (banshee only)
Target: one enemy
Attack: Implement vs. Reflex
Hit: [C] necrotic and cold damage
Banshee Wail (fear, psychic) encounter
Standard Action
Range: close burst minion two (banshee only)
Targets: all enemies in burst
Attack: Implement vs. will
hit: 4d6 psychic damage, and slide the target two squares.
miss: half damage.
Sustain standard: when you sustain this power, repeat the attack.
Summon Ghoul necromancer encounter 7
instead of one of your normal undead minions, you summon a ghoul from the shadowfell
Standard action, close burst 5, you summon a ghoul within range, it counts against your max number of undead summoned at one time. The ghoul lasts until it is destroyed or you banish it as a minor action.
Ghoul statblock
the ghoul can flank with allies. Any time you hit an enemy that the ghoul is flanking with an attack made through the ghoul, that enemy becomes immobilized until the end of its next turn.