School of the Reaper

The Reaper's blade dances between the crowd, felling foes with frenzy. A mass of rotted flesh and bones follows the Reaper's shadow. When battle's done and dead souls pass, the Reaper claims their bodies, and raises them to serve the sword so they might fight again. 

The School of the Reaper harnesses the energy within the body to invigorate their martial prowess and to animate an undead menagerie. Where the School of Necromancy dabbles with the soul, the Reaper focuses on the bones and flesh, animating them like constructs to serve as soldiers in grand wars. Reapers are on the front lines of the battlefield, using moments of respite to shore up their numbers with the bodies of the dead. Reapers will use any undead material they can get their hands on, but experienced Reapers know that flesh degrades, while bone remains. 

Reaper's Mantle

At second level, you gain proficiency with one type of simple or martial melee weapon of your choice. If you’re proficient with a simple or martial weapon, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells.

Additionally, you learn to use the dead to protect yourself. You can spend one minute and expend a first level spell slot to create a Reaper's Mantle out of bones, flesh, or other undead materials. While wearing your Reaper's Mantle, you gain the following benefits:

• Your base AC becomes 13 + your Intelligence modifier.
• You resist necrotic damage.
• You gain a bonus to intimidation checks equal to your intelligence modifier.

You can dismiss your reaper's mantle as an action. 

Death Siphon

At 2nd level, you also gain the ability to reap life energy from the bodies of the creatures you kill. Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures within 10 ft you, you regain hit points equal to your proficiency bonus. You don't gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead.

Extra Attack

Your studies of animation and siphoning have quickened your sword, allowing a swift end to your enemies.

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

Death Caller

At 6th level, you add the Animate Dead spell to your spellbook if it is not there already. 

When you cast Animate Dead, you can target a corpse or pile of bones and choose to animate or reassert control any of the Difficulty 3 creatures in the table below. 

At Higher Levels: Additionally, When you cast Animate Dead with spell slots above 3rd level, you can forgo additional targets to animate more powerful undead. When you cast Animate Dead using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you animate or reassert control over two additional Undead creatures for each slot above 3rd. Alternatively, you may increase the difficulty of the creature by one category (as shown in the table below) for each slot above 3rd.

For each additional level of spell slot over 3rd, you can elect to animate or reassert control over two additional Undead creatures of the appropriate Difficulty, or increase the Difficulty of the creature by one category.

For example, when casting Animate Dead with a 6th level spell slot, you can elect to:

• Animate 5 creatures of Difficulty 4, or reassert control over 7 creatures of Difficulty 3
• Animate 3 creatures of Difficulty 5, or reassert control over 5 creatures of Difficulty 4
• Animate 1 creature of Difficulty 6, or reassert control over 3 creatures of Difficulty 5

Due to the complexity required for higher difficulties of animation, you may only control 3 creatures of Difficulty 6 or higher at any one time with this spell.

Animation difficulty	CREATURE
Difficulty 3	Zombie, Ash Zombie, Yellow Musk Zombie (Humanoid Corpse) || Skeleton (Pile of Bones)
Difficulty 4	Topi (Humanoid Corpse) || Dwarf Skeleton, Skeletal Alchemist, Warhorse Skeleton (Pile of Bones)
Difficulty 5	Swarm of Zombie Limbs, Returned Sentry, Dread Warrior (Humanoid Corpse)
Difficulty 6	Ogre Zombie, Undying Soldier (Humanoid Corpse) || Ogre Skeleton, Dinosaur Skeleton, Minotaur Skeleton, Skeletal Swarm (Pile of Bones)
Difficulty 7	Ankylosaurus Zombie, Girallon Zombie, Sword Wraith Warrior (Humanoid Corpse) || Skeletal Owlbear, Thunderbeast Skeleton (Pile of Bones)
Difficulty 8	Deathlock (Humanoid Corpse) || Bone Naga (Pile of Bones)
Difficulty 9	Greater Zombie, Deathless Rider, Zombie Clot (Humanoid Corpse) || Giant Shark Skeleton, Frost Giant Skeleton (Pile of Bones)

 

 

Marked for Death

At 10th level, when you make an attack against a creature, you can mark it for death, issuing a command to any undead subordinates of your choice to attack it (no action required).

As part of this marking, you can mentally command any number of undead under your control within 60 feet of you (if you control multiple creatures, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). While the target is marked, your undead add your proficiency bonus to their attack and damage rolls against the marked target. If you mark a new creature for death, the old mark ends immediately. The number of creatures you can have Marked for Death at once increases at higher levels: two creatures at 15th level, and three creatures at 20th level.

If you kill the marked target, your Death Siphon ability instead heals you for a number of hit points equal to twice your proficiency bonus.

Master Animator

Starting at 14th level, you are a master of animating the dead. When you cast animate dead, the spell's power is enhanced, counting as one level higher than normal.

Improved Death Siphon

Additionally at 14th level, the range of Death Siphon is increased to 60 ft and it now works whenever a creature is killed by you or an undead you control.