So this characters sole goal is to get animate dead to raise just 2 skeletons (his brothers). I dont want this to be a summoning build (because im nice to the DM and thats not this character) so once he has this spell, what does he become?
For reference he murdered a wizard who wouldnt teach him and stole his book and has spent his time studying it to get to this point. (level 6 where it all seems to click into place).
Perhaps he started as another class? Perhaps he goes on as that class? Perhaps a different one?
Perhaps he continues as a wizard (which school?) with his archer brothers protecting him?
But this is about two concepts taking what he wants to protect his brothers and fighting by their side. I dont see this character as a necromancer.
My own thoughts have been a fighter with 1 level in that, the 5 in wizard and back to fighter (archery build). Or perhaps a cleric rejecting his god for one who would allow him to learn (level up) from the wizards book quickly and then returning to this new gods service (not death domain) - although not sure how to stand beside his brothers at range with this idea.
With only a 13 in intelligence (for multiclassing) these should be feasible.
There are a lot of options for getting animate dead.
Few things to consider, given that you say he "murdered" a wizard and "stole" his spell book I assume this means your character is going to be some form of evil alignment? Or did you character kill the wizard because he killed the brothers? Also, Skeletons are not particularly strong HP wise and they cannot be healed with cure wounds etc, so will your character have a mental blind spot where if the skeletons die he animates the next corpse he finds and thinks its still his brothers?
As you say you only want to cast it once, then it'll be easier to say he has a spell scroll of animate dead which would give him a one time casting, it is a uncommon magic item but if you are starting at level 6 this might not be an issue and wont eat up any restrictions on preparing spells or spells known but would require you to be a spell caster with animate dead on their spell list.
Otherwise, options would be:
Bard: College of Lore, use your level 6 magical secrets to get Animate Dead and gives you a bunch of party friendly abilities.
Other Bards: any other Bard would work but you wouldn't be able to get Animate Dead till level 10 but still gives you a bunch of party friendly abilities and other skills depending on college.
Cleric & Wizard: It's on the general spell list so any domain/school would work, Grave Domain could be thematically appropriate as could Arcana (in Sword Coast adventures guide) and Knowledge.
(Shameless self promotion) My homebrew fighter subclass: Occult Ritualist would give you Animate Dead as a ritual at level 7 (https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/216856-occult-ritualist) you would definitely need to run this one past you DM before hand though.
Also to be run past DM first would be the Death Domain Cleric and Oath-breaker Paladin in the DMG.
As a real outside the box view, what about Barbarian Path of the Ancestral Guardian? My thinking being the death of his brothers and subsequent murder of the wizard has driven him a little mad, he foudn the spell book and tried to cast the animate dead spell thinking it was a raise dead spell and realizing it would not work for him made him prone to fits of rage which is when he summons the "shades" of his brothers to fight along side him, his brothers can then appear in what ever guise you want, maybe they appear completely normal then get more decayed and skeletal as a fight progresses, or maybe they shed their living forms to be skeletons whenever a class ability activates etc.
After casting animate dead, he realizes that the skeletons / zombies of his brothers doesn't really bring them back as they were. He has to go on a longer quest to discover and learn the spell resurrection to truly bring back his brothers.
Edit: and he also has to deal with the process of killing his brothers a second time and consecrating them. (They can't be "undead" to be resurrected...)
Yeah, being undead isn't at all like being alive in most campaign worlds. You should really talk to your DM about how they deal with Undead stuff. Much of the lore assumes that the soul isn't in the reanimated body at all, esp for low level undead like skeletons and zombies. Undead are generally seen as abominations b/c life isn't actually restored to the once dead: the soul is seen as becoming prevented from passing on to where ever it was going and sort of becomes trapped or forced to do the bidding of the spellcaster who created the skeleton in the first place.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So this characters sole goal is to get animate dead to raise just 2 skeletons (his brothers). I dont want this to be a summoning build (because im nice to the DM and thats not this character) so once he has this spell, what does he become?
For reference he murdered a wizard who wouldnt teach him and stole his book and has spent his time studying it to get to this point. (level 6 where it all seems to click into place).
Perhaps he started as another class? Perhaps he goes on as that class? Perhaps a different one?
Perhaps he continues as a wizard (which school?) with his archer brothers protecting him?
But this is about two concepts taking what he wants to protect his brothers and fighting by their side. I dont see this character as a necromancer.
My own thoughts have been a fighter with 1 level in that, the 5 in wizard and back to fighter (archery build). Or perhaps a cleric rejecting his god for one who would allow him to learn (level up) from the wizards book quickly and then returning to this new gods service (not death domain) - although not sure how to stand beside his brothers at range with this idea.
With only a 13 in intelligence (for multiclassing) these should be feasible.
There are a lot of options for getting animate dead.
Few things to consider, given that you say he "murdered" a wizard and "stole" his spell book I assume this means your character is going to be some form of evil alignment? Or did you character kill the wizard because he killed the brothers? Also, Skeletons are not particularly strong HP wise and they cannot be healed with cure wounds etc, so will your character have a mental blind spot where if the skeletons die he animates the next corpse he finds and thinks its still his brothers?
As you say you only want to cast it once, then it'll be easier to say he has a spell scroll of animate dead which would give him a one time casting, it is a uncommon magic item but if you are starting at level 6 this might not be an issue and wont eat up any restrictions on preparing spells or spells known but would require you to be a spell caster with animate dead on their spell list.
Otherwise, options would be:
Bard: College of Lore, use your level 6 magical secrets to get Animate Dead and gives you a bunch of party friendly abilities.
Other Bards: any other Bard would work but you wouldn't be able to get Animate Dead till level 10 but still gives you a bunch of party friendly abilities and other skills depending on college.
Cleric & Wizard: It's on the general spell list so any domain/school would work, Grave Domain could be thematically appropriate as could Arcana (in Sword Coast adventures guide) and Knowledge.
(Shameless self promotion) My homebrew fighter subclass: Occult Ritualist would give you Animate Dead as a ritual at level 7 (https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/216856-occult-ritualist) you would definitely need to run this one past you DM before hand though.
Also to be run past DM first would be the Death Domain Cleric and Oath-breaker Paladin in the DMG.
As a real outside the box view, what about Barbarian Path of the Ancestral Guardian? My thinking being the death of his brothers and subsequent murder of the wizard has driven him a little mad, he foudn the spell book and tried to cast the animate dead spell thinking it was a raise dead spell and realizing it would not work for him made him prone to fits of rage which is when he summons the "shades" of his brothers to fight along side him, his brothers can then appear in what ever guise you want, maybe they appear completely normal then get more decayed and skeletal as a fight progresses, or maybe they shed their living forms to be skeletons whenever a class ability activates etc.
After casting animate dead, he realizes that the skeletons / zombies of his brothers doesn't really bring them back as they were. He has to go on a longer quest to discover and learn the spell resurrection to truly bring back his brothers.
Edit: and he also has to deal with the process of killing his brothers a second time and consecrating them. (They can't be "undead" to be resurrected...)
Yeah, being undead isn't at all like being alive in most campaign worlds. You should really talk to your DM about how they deal with Undead stuff. Much of the lore assumes that the soul isn't in the reanimated body at all, esp for low level undead like skeletons and zombies. Undead are generally seen as abominations b/c life isn't actually restored to the once dead: the soul is seen as becoming prevented from passing on to where ever it was going and sort of becomes trapped or forced to do the bidding of the spellcaster who created the skeleton in the first place.