Rework Necromancy - Animation

[Shrouded Wanderer]

Id love to see Necromancy get a bit more lore friendly and PHB friendly.

Currenlty necromancers character wise are feared and hostiled often yet mechanically they differ from conjurers only in flavor.

I have seen many an arguement that people shouldnt be so hostile to necromancers because what they do is summon undead and they don't defile the undead they utilize.

Id propose a system of undead animation that affect animate dead and create Undead, as opposed to Summon/mummy dust. It may be a bit complicated to do, but would be fairly rewarding for necromancers and give it more distinction from conjuration focused wizards.

Animate/create undead require physical components such as corpse, pile of bones, mummy dust, vampire dust

Each undead animated via this means become henchmen, not considered summons.

Summoning undead via ability or spell will revert animated undead to their core components

When you use animate dead you gain a baseline Zombie/Skeleton/mummy/vampire based on component used, they then can be communicated with and equipped with weaponry found, anything on these undead will be dropped upon death.

PC can also expend Constitution stat to experiment and increase undead stats, constiution spent will be permanent as long as the Undead henchmen exists

Stats would need to be balanced based on existing undead and be weaker than summoned/mummy dust.


For every SF in necromancy you can have one additional undead henchman

Maximum 4 undead henchmen allowed in a party (with ESF necromancy)

Necromancy school choice wizard - all undead animated or created from physical entities get +2 AB and +2 AC

At Level 25 wizard with necromancy school Undead henchment are granted an additional +2 AB/AC



Overall, a rework similar to this for necromancy will allow necromantic players the ability to defile graves, find corpses or Bones then subsiquently experiment upon them and equipment with items found in the world.


This system is similar to one used on EFU city of rings, so it is feasible to be done, but would need a balance pass to make sure it fits and isnt overpowered


The goal here as well is to make this more about being a wizard based necromancer than a palemaster based one.

[garrbear758]

This is too similar to an already approved suggestion. Denied.