Base Class: Druid
Circle of Death are not evil, well not all of them. Many suffer from some harrowing past where a family member or close friend died in their arms and, in that moment, they were powerless. Believing that their druidic powers were not enough, they sought out answers from anywhere and found them in the undead. Studying the remains of past creatures has given them insight into life and death. Gaining more understanding in medicinal and survival tactics, death is not the end for these druids. Circle of Death druids search high and low for more power, even learning spells from other invocations. This has weakened their bond with nature, making them unable to transform into any living animal. However, this has not stopped them. Through more research, they have found a way to transform through an unnatural connection to undead creatures. All this is a means to an end. Life and death must be in balance and they will see to it by any means necessary.
Expanded Spell List, Bonus Cantrips
At 2nd level, you learn animate dead as a cantrip, as well as spare the dying and decompose. They count as druid cantrips for you, but they don't count against your number of cantrips known. Animate dead is now instant and lets you create two undead servants at the same time within 30 feet of you. You can regain control of the undead creatures by recasting the cantrip.
Expanded Spell List
Spells Spell Level Class Attack Range (ft)
Animate Dead, Spare the Dying Cantrip Ranged (30ft), Touch
Detect Thoughts, Invisibility 2nd Wizard
Fireball 3rd Wizard Ranged (150ft)
Cloudkill 5th Wizard Ranged (120ft)
Finger of Death 7th Wizard Ranged (60ft)
Power Word Kill 9th Wizard Ranged (60ft)
Decompose Cantrip Touch
Forsaken Wild Shape
Your connection to nature is somewhat dimmed, you cannot transform into any living thing with Wild Shape. At 3rd level, however, Circle of Death druids can transform into undead creatures they have seen before. This includes a picture of an undead creature, as long as it exists and they have a picture of it in their mind. Other than this, Wild Shape works in the same way.
Sacrificial Pawns
At 6th level, you can use a bonus action to sacrifice your undead creatures to regain HP equal to 1d12(per creature) plus your wisdom ability modifier. At 6th level you can only use this feature once per short rest. At 14th level you can use this feature twice per short rest.
Unnatural Form
At 10th level when your HP falls to 0, your spirit and body are separated. You cannot cast spells but you also do not make death saving throws. You can float around freely at a flight speed of 60ft. This state only lasts 1 minute and you must return to your body or fail three death saving throws automatically and die permanently. When you return to your body, you must make death saving throws like normal. If you are healed while your spirit and body are separated, you will return to consciousness. Allies will be able to see your ghostly form but you will be unable to respond to them if they talk to you or ask you a question.
You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Taboo Casting
At 14th level, the presence of a dead body renews some of your power. Years of research has taught you that the dead hold massive amounts of energy that flows into nearby objects and creatures. This newfound energy allows you to regain one spell slot of your choosing after taking a short rest near a dead body. It has to be within 500 feet of you throughout the short rest.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.
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Posted Oct 12, 2023Really unsure about how the Forsaken Wildshape is supposed to work? When viewed on a character sheet it states: "You can only assume the shape of an undead creature equal to your class level or lower. Other than this, Wild Shape works in the same way." So does this mean a level 3 PC can wildshape into a CR3 undead creature? It makes no mention of the wildshape needing to be a beast. So assuming you can wildshape into any undead creature, if that creature is a caster, could you also then cast spells? Wildshape specifically states you cannot cast while in that form. Any clarification would be great!
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Posted Aug 10, 2022Me ether.
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Posted Apr 19, 2022How do you calculate how many undead you can raise using animate dead? I get that it's two as a cantrip, but if I cast it at a 1st level is it 4 undead? Or something different.
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Posted Jan 23, 2022It's extremely overpowered, even if you can only have 4 undead it still big amount of allies. Sacrificial Pawns has cool idea but d12 per undead is too much, also after this you can just recast animate dead on them granting you infinite hp. Unnatural Form is just... Meh.. it not as cool, just 3 times per day instead of dying you mcQueen all over the battlefield for 1 minute. Taboo Casting is interesting and not godlike, however I would reduce 500 ft to 15 ft so it will be literally resting near some random body, then it could create some interesting rp.
Subclass has good idea but it needs massive rework
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Posted May 16, 2021I agree
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Posted Dec 24, 2020Been a while since I've been back here. Sorry for the REALLY LATE reply. Decompose is a homebrew cantrip created by Matthew Mercer as a flavor spell for Caduceus Clay. The caster touches the corpse of a creature and causes significant decomposition and growth of fungus, moss, and perhaps a flower or two within a minute. It does not stop resurrection.
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Posted Sep 11, 2020Just more of a nit picky kind of thing. Maybe for Taboo Casting add a spell level limit for what slot you could recover. I understand that the circumstances are rare for it to happen, but a player could really just carry a corpse/skeleton with them in a bag of holding and bam 2 9th level spells every day wherever you go. Just seems a tad much. Also if the inspiration is stopping death, a potential other spell to add/replace one with would be clone. It is D&D's closest to an immortality spell technically.
In the PHB when it gives the description of this spell, it says there are two uses of it. One use is to reanimate dead and create up to four undead at once. The other use is to cast it on already reanimated creatures to maintain your control over them. It says nothing about only being able to maintain control after the spell is first cast. This is partially how one could have an undead army. Get to a high enough level and just burn through some 3rd levels to maintain control of these undead for the next 24 hours. With spells slots it does limit how many you can control in one day. As a cantrip with an instant casting time you very much so do have an unlimited amount of soldiers at your disposal. I would recommend just homebrewing your own cantrip. One that maybe takes an action, starts out with only being able to control 2 undead at once, and as you progress in levels much like other cantrips it gets stronger so you can have a higher amount of undead. Or just make it a once a day class ability where you cast it initially and each day after you wake up from a long rest with the ability to either gain new undead or keep control of the ones you have.
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Posted Mar 30, 2020what is decompose
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Posted Mar 15, 2020I cant Get animate dead to show up on the spell list? CAn someone help me?
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Posted Mar 3, 2019It was my intention to make the class strong. They are driven by their motivations and push the laws of morality to get what they want. You can only summon four undead servants at a time so it's not a literal army. Page 212 in the PHB clearly states you reassert control over them not create a new one. Also you need a corpse or pile of bones to summon an undead servant so you'll probably only get one or two uses per combat encounter depending on your DM. Also I love the Necromancer class in other games so I might have made it stronger than it should be. Thanks for your comment, I love discussing D&D.
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Posted Mar 3, 2019I feel like making the Animate Dead spell instant And a cantrip to be quite broken, don't you think? You would, at just second level, be able to raise a literal army of undead without spending a spell slot, or any significant amount of time, and then you padded out its range and doubled the creatures raised to boot. I could see getting away with making it instant, but still taking a third level spell slot would do a lot to limit its power. Or, just making it a cantrip could work, but only if the casting time were longer and/or there was some sort of hard limit to the number of dead that can be controlled/raised at any given time.