Hahaha, what was WotC thinking? Maybe they have a fully ready to go Necromancer that will drop in some book before this horror themed book would release and the joke is on me. I doubt it though.
No necromancer is ridiculous. It is quite literally one of the most highly requested wizard subclasses. All my players want it, and when WotC has their chance to release it... :(
They probably are going to have to absurdly rebalance it, though, and probably change the minion feature. Most of these new updates help streamline combat (or buff Martials).
I mean, what are you going to do if you run an Eberron Campaign 2024 rules? Just have no Order of the Emerald Claw? (This last statement is a joke.)
Yeah, that was a bit baffling to me too. The fact they also went with Grave instead of Death for cleric also has me scratching my head. Though the fact Warlock has both Hexblade AND Undead gives me some hope these are just the first pass or only some of what’s to come for these.
Maybe this is only the first round of subclasses since a lot of the classes didn’t get a new one. Like where is the path of the beast for the barbarian?
Necromancer is actually probably too mainstream for this grouping. Its probably stuff they are putting in a ravenloft book, or something specifically horror themed.
Necromancing is a school of magic in 5e, not something you might only find in certain planes
Hahaha, what was WotC thinking? Maybe they have a fully ready to go Necromancer that will drop in some book before this horror themed book would release and the joke is on me. I doubt it though.
The fear among over on reddit (shared by myself) is that they are going to print it as is, or worse make it revolve around summon undead without releasing it in ua. Neither being a good option.
Hahaha, what was WotC thinking? Maybe they have a fully ready to go Necromancer that will drop in some book before this horror themed book would release and the joke is on me. I doubt it though.
The fear among over on reddit (shared by myself) is that they are going to print it as is, or worse make it revolve around summon undead without releasing it in ua. Neither being a good option.
Revolving it around summon undead could be fine, but they gave the obvious method of doing that to the UA shadow sorcerer. All te best ways I thought to update it are spread out amongst the new UA subclasses. I really hope they don’t just leave it as is in 2014.
They probably are going to have to absurdly rebalance it, though, and probably change the minion feature. Most of these new updates help streamline combat (or buff Martials).
I think the issue here is that the main thing about necromancers that has been causing problems in the past is not the subclass itself, but the Animate Dead spell — and they already reprinted that in the 2024 PHB without changes, so it's too late to do anything about that. At this point, I don't see much harm in releasing the Necromancer in a similar form as the 2014 version.
Personally, the main change I would like to see in an updated Necromancer is reworking Grim Harvest so it's no longer obviously inferior to the Abjurer's Arcane Ward (my approach would be allowing it to trigger on any spell rather than just leveled ones, in return for limiting uses per day, and increasing the amount of healing appropriately) — or replacing it with an entirely new feature.
All that said, I completely agree with everyone here that this subclass not being included in this UA is absolutely baffling. The designers re-committed to the "schools as subclasses" approach in the new PHB, so consistency demands that they fill in the missing subclasses as soon as possible, and a book with this theme seems like a perfect fit for the Necromancer. Right now it's like, the class asks you to pick your favorite school of magic, and then you flip a coin to see if you can play it or not. Unless they plan to release all four missing wizard subclasses in bulk in a setting-neutral book á la Xanathar's/Tasha's at some point? Though having the Knowledge cleric in the Forgotten Realms book shows that they don't necessarily care about the formerly-core subclasses staying out of setting-specific releases. Speaking of the FR book, the Bladesinger being re-released there before even filling in all the default wizard subclasses is ridiculous.
Indeed, though I liked somewhat the theme of the reanimator i got a feeling that this was what a battle smith should been somewhat
The Reanimator is neat, but clearly distinct thematically from a Necromancer wizard — the latter caters to the archetype of the dark mage raising hordes of zombies and skeletons, while the former is more of a Frankenstein deal. Notably, as a half-caster who only gets Animate Dead at level 9 and has significantly fewer spell slots to work with, a Reanimator will never be able to measure up to a Wizard in terms of portraying a capable necromancer.
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Hahaha, what was WotC thinking? Maybe they have a fully ready to go Necromancer that will drop in some book before this horror themed book would release and the joke is on me. I doubt it though.
No necromancer is ridiculous. It is quite literally one of the most highly requested wizard subclasses. All my players want it, and when WotC has their chance to release it... :(
They probably are going to have to absurdly rebalance it, though, and probably change the minion feature. Most of these new updates help streamline combat (or buff Martials).
I mean, what are you going to do if you run an Eberron Campaign 2024 rules? Just have no Order of the Emerald Claw? (This last statement is a joke.)
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Yeah, that was a bit baffling to me too. The fact they also went with Grave instead of Death for cleric also has me scratching my head. Though the fact Warlock has both Hexblade AND Undead gives me some hope these are just the first pass or only some of what’s to come for these.
Maybe this is only the first round of subclasses since a lot of the classes didn’t get a new one. Like where is the path of the beast for the barbarian?
Necromancer is actually probably too mainstream for this grouping. Its probably stuff they are putting in a ravenloft book, or something specifically horror themed.
Necromancing is a school of magic in 5e, not something you might only find in certain planes
I mean, all of the missing wizard subclasses are pretty easy to adapt to the new format.
Yes, but many need rebalance and new features. I’ve done it myself, but people (myself included) want an official version.
The fear among over on reddit (shared by myself) is that they are going to print it as is, or worse make it revolve around summon undead without releasing it in ua. Neither being a good option.
Revolving it around summon undead could be fine, but they gave the obvious method of doing that to the UA shadow sorcerer. All te best ways I thought to update it are spread out amongst the new UA subclasses. I really hope they don’t just leave it as is in 2014.
I think the issue here is that the main thing about necromancers that has been causing problems in the past is not the subclass itself, but the Animate Dead spell — and they already reprinted that in the 2024 PHB without changes, so it's too late to do anything about that. At this point, I don't see much harm in releasing the Necromancer in a similar form as the 2014 version.
Personally, the main change I would like to see in an updated Necromancer is reworking Grim Harvest so it's no longer obviously inferior to the Abjurer's Arcane Ward (my approach would be allowing it to trigger on any spell rather than just leveled ones, in return for limiting uses per day, and increasing the amount of healing appropriately) — or replacing it with an entirely new feature.
All that said, I completely agree with everyone here that this subclass not being included in this UA is absolutely baffling. The designers re-committed to the "schools as subclasses" approach in the new PHB, so consistency demands that they fill in the missing subclasses as soon as possible, and a book with this theme seems like a perfect fit for the Necromancer. Right now it's like, the class asks you to pick your favorite school of magic, and then you flip a coin to see if you can play it or not. Unless they plan to release all four missing wizard subclasses in bulk in a setting-neutral book á la Xanathar's/Tasha's at some point? Though having the Knowledge cleric in the Forgotten Realms book shows that they don't necessarily care about the formerly-core subclasses staying out of setting-specific releases. Speaking of the FR book, the Bladesinger being re-released there before even filling in all the default wizard subclasses is ridiculous.
The Reanimator is neat, but clearly distinct thematically from a Necromancer wizard — the latter caters to the archetype of the dark mage raising hordes of zombies and skeletons, while the former is more of a Frankenstein deal. Notably, as a half-caster who only gets Animate Dead at level 9 and has significantly fewer spell slots to work with, a Reanimator will never be able to measure up to a Wizard in terms of portraying a capable necromancer.