School of the Departed

Though there are many different kinds of Wizards that are a part of the School of the Departed, they all have one thing in common: death. They don't believe that power stop at death, but rather that it only gets stronger. Many people frown upon Wizards that go down this path, fearing its power and taboo nature.

Whether one undead Ogre or a horde of skeletons, those who join the ranks of this creed rely on the assistance of the lifeless to accomplish their goals. Wizards within this School focus on improving their Undead Minions above all else. Since they usually pour some of their own lifeforce into the undead they create, they tend to be more frail and defenseless than other types of casters, relying instead on their creations to safeguard them.

School of the Departed Spells

Undead Minion

Starting at 2nd level, you gain the ability to raise minions from the dead. If you have at least one Wizard hit die remaining, you can use an action to touch the corpse of any creature that is of one of the following types: aberration, beast, humanoid, monstrosity, plant, or undead. The creature can be no bigger than medium size, and its CR can be no higher than your Wizard level. When doing so, you will attempt to raise it as an an Undead Minion.

You expend a Wizard hit die (roll and add your constitution modifier): the creature’s current and maximum health becomes equal to the result plus twice your Wizard level. Though the creature retains the proficiencies and any passive traits it had in life, it now counts as Undead and gains immunity to poison damage. Additionally, a newly created minion also takes the following penalties:

• It loses 4 points in each ability score (to a minimum of 1)
• It cannot cast spells, or use abilities that summon other creatures
• It loses any multi-attack ability it may have had
• If it had abilities with a limited amount of uses per day, each of these abilities can only be used once per day.
• It loses 10 feet of its walk, swim, and climbing speed (to a minimum of 5 feet).
• If the creature possesses a flying speed, it is halved, and cannot be used to ascend more than 5 feet off the ground

While the Undead Minion is within a 1 mile distance of you, you can telepathically give it orders that it will follow to the best of its ability. At will, you can command any Undead Minion under your control to return to you, even if it is further than 1 mile away from you. In combat, an Undead Minion takes turns on its own initiative, during which you can control it. It regards you and those not hostile to you as allies.

You only control the physical body of an Undead Minion: it retains the memory, personality and consciousness it had in life, but is forced to act as you command it to. While it can talk to you in a hostile manner, taunt you, and even lie to you, it is unable to thwart your plans directly by performing actions such as giving away your position to nearby enemies, revealing you to be a Necromancer to others, or leading you into a trap the Undead Minion itself is aware exists.

Whenever you heal one of your Undead Minions, it is healed for double the amount. An Undead Minion that drops to 0 hit points instantly crumbles into dust. Otherwise, it lasts until the end of your next long rest, after which it also crumbles into dust. You cannot control more than one Undead Minion at a time: attempting to raise a second Undead Minion while already controlling one will cause the first one to crumble into dust. Additionally, at any moment, you can willingly decide to destroy your Undead Minion.

Finally, when you use the Arcane Recovery class feature you may choose to instead recover one quarter of your hit dice.

If a target corpse cannot be raised (due to effects such as the Gentle Repose spell), the hit die is lost and the ability fails, though you are made aware of the fact that the corpse cannot be raised. You may use this ability to revive beings that have been dead for an unlimited amount of time, but at the DM's discretion, additional restrictions may be imposed on the resulting Undead Minion if your target has been dead for longer than a week.

Conduit Walkers

Also starting at 2nd level, whenever you cast a spell with the range of touch, your Undead Minion can deliver the spell as if it had cast it. Your Undead Minion must be within 100 feet of you and within 5 feet of your target, and it must use its reaction to deliver the spell when you cast it.

If your Undead Minion is not within 5 feet of your target, it may use its movement to get in range as part of the same reaction, though it may provoke attacks of opportunity while doing so. If the spell requires an attack roll, the Undead Minion uses one of its melee attack actions for the roll.

Shepherd's Resolve

At 6th level, you improve your abilities to maintain your Undead Minions in a more solid condition. As such, when determining an Undead Minion’s hit points upon raising it, you may now expend two Necromancer hit dice, instead of one, adding both results to the Minion's health pool.

Additionally, your Undead Minions no longer take the 10 feet land, swim and climbing speed penalty.

Animator Style

At 10th and 20th level you gain one of the following features of your choice.

 

Adept Awakener

Undead Minions raised by you may now make two attacks per turn, provided the original creature had a multi-attack option. Additionally, your Undead Minions no longer take a penalty to ability scores when you raise them. Finally when determining an Undead Minions' hit points upon raising it, you may now choose to expend three hit dice instead of two.

Giant Rouser

You are now able to create Undead Minions out of corpses of large and huge sized creatures as well as creatures of the celestial, fey, fiend, and giant types. Additionally the maximum CR of creatures you can raise becomes equal to your Wizard level plus your Intelligence modifier. Finally, your Undead Minions can now ascend and descend freely while flying, although their original flight is still halved.

Undead Magnate

You can now control a number of Undead Minions equal to your proficiency bonus before new ones cause older ones to collapse, but you no longer add twice your Wizard level to the result of the expended hit dice when determining a Undead Minion's hit points upon raising it. Additionally, your undead minions no longer crumble to dust after a long rest. The Conduit Walker feature may be used to deliver touch spells through any one of your Undead Minions.

Life Painter

At 14th level you become so adept at raising undead that you gain a certain amount of control over how they appear. When raising an Undead Minion or when casting a spell that raises the dead, you are able to dictate the looks of the creatures as if they were casting a Disguise Self spell on themselves. When a creature is disguised in this way, the changes made are permanent rather than being bound to a one hour duration.