School of Merciful Necromancy

The school of Merciful Necromancy focuses on regarding life as an energy dead things possess between states of lifelessness. By pulling this energy out and pushing it in, the school's practitioners can manipulate those states in others. As pupils of both life and death, merciful necromancers handle the dead and the living with the same respect, as from their perspective, both exist in a temporary state and may very well alter to the other with enough assistance.

The school teaches it's students to attempt aiding everyone in a way suitable for the individual and for the general good. Whether it means bringing someone back to life, letting them rest or reducing their energy, doing so comes to a white necromancer not out of malice, but out of consideration for the appropriate outcome.

Also known as the school of Good Necromancy, there is no despision for the dead, undead or living amongst the merciful necromancers and causing excessive suffering to any of them or forcing the undead to hurt others is forbidden. Merciful necromancers consider the common necromancers as erroneous and immoral purists, that disregard others and only use the life force of others for selfish and single minded purposes. This causes schism between the schools and it is considered to be the duty of any merciful necromancer to correct the ways of those they deem as malpractitioners, in any way they see appropriate.

Necromancy Savant

Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy a necromancy spell into your spellbook is halved.

Unforcing Hand

As a merciful necromancer, any undead you create cannot attack or follow an order that would cause direct harm to other creatures or itself.

Merciful Touch

At 2nd level, you gain the ability to share life energy. Once per turn when you touch a single willing and conscious creature as an action, you can either give them your hit points or temporary hit points, or receive hit points or temporary hit points from them. You control which creature gives and which creature receives the points and how many are shared. The targeted creature cannot end or cancel the transfer and the effect takes place immediately. You can't change the amount you declared to be shared after the transfer has taken effect.

You may use this ability an amount of times equivalent to your proficiency bonus between long rests. The creature you target can't be a Construct.

Transferring Hit Points:

You can only lower a conscious creature’s or your own hit points as low as 1, or temporary hit points as low as 0. 

If the giving party has temporary hit points, they must share those first and they remain as temporary hit points when received by the receiving party. You can’t share temporary and ordinary hit points on the same turn.

If the receiving party has temporary hit points and the giving party does not, hit points can be shared whilst ignoring the receiver's temporary hit points, as long as the shared hit points don't exceed the receiver's maximum hit points. Any hit points being shared that exceed the receiver's maximum hit points become temporary hit points when received, or become lost if the receiving party chooses not to accept them. 

A Friend to the Dead

At 6th level, undead not being commanded to do so will not attack you or your allies unless you or your allies attack them first. The DM may rule that certain undead don't have to be commanded to do so in order to attack you, in which case they can still attack.

You can also cast Speak with dead as a ritual once per short rest and when you cast it as a ritual, hostile dead regard you in a neutral way even if they recognize you as an enemy.

Siphon Vitality

Beginning at 10th level, you have resistance to necrotic damage and your hit point maximum can't be decreased.

When a creature you can see within 10 feet of you gets their hit points reduced to 0, you can use a reaction to spend a spell slot of 1st level or higher to gain the remaining hit points that creature had as temporary hit points. You can also use the same reaction to give some or all of those temporary hit points to a creature you can see within 10 feet of you, as long as they're conscious and willing to accept them. This ability won't work on Constructs.

Grant Peace

Starting at 14th level, you can use magic to grant undead peace, even those created by other magic users. As an action, you can choose one undead that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. If it succeeds, you can’t use this feature on it again for 24 hours. If it fails, it is immediately destroyed and can’t become undead again save for by a Wish spell. You can use this ability an amount of times equivalent to your intelligence modifier between long rests.

An undead with a challenge rating of 5 or higher rolls with advantage, and an undead with a Challenge Rating of 8 or higher is immune to this effect. Using this ability may not cause the undead to become hostile if it is not already, unless the creature wishes to remain undead or the DM rules so. The undead you use this ability on knows you have used it and knows your general direction even if you are hidden.