Necromancer (Ilgore)

A Necromancer plays with the boundaries between death and life, often finding themselves surrounded by undeath. A wizard intent on manipulating lifeforce, the energy that animates all living things, will eventually learn to drain that which keeps creatures alive, and harness that power for yourself, or bestow it unto other creatures and objects.

Most people see necromancers as menacing, or even villainous, due to the close association with death. Not all necromancers are evil, but the forces they manipulate are considered taboo by many societies.

This Necromancer is a reworked class from the PHB with a focus on prolonged control of undead and more reasonable undead characteristics. (Produced by Illias Gore (Ilgore) with assistance from Ayden Poynter)

 

Necromancy Savant

Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy a necromancy spell into your spellbook is halved.

Grim Harvest

At 2nd level, you gain the ability to reap life energy from creatures you damage with your spells. Once per turn when you damage one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, you gain temporary HP equal to your wizard level for each creature you damage. You don’t gain this benefit for damaging constructs or undead.

Temporary HP granted by this feature can be added together, but only to a maximum of three times your wizard level {{3*classlevel}}. So a Level 2 Necromancer can only ever have a maximum of 6 temporary HP granted by Grim Harvest. The usual rules for temporary HP granted by other sources still apply and cannot be added to the temporary HP from Grim Harvest (PHB, Chapter 9: Combat, Damage and Healing).

Undead Thralls

At 6th level, you add the animate dead spell to your spellbook if it is not there already, and the ability to cast it as a ritual once per day. When you cast animate dead, you can target one additional corpse or pile of bones, creating another zombie or skeleton, as appropriate.

Whenever you create an undead using a necromancy spell, it has additional benefits:

• The creature’s hit point maximum is increased by an amount equal to your wizard level.
• The creature adds your proficiency bonus to its weapon damage rolls.

When you cast animate dead as a Necromancer Ritural, you raise an undead that will remain under your control forever. This undead's hit points decay by 2d4 every 24 hours until the undead's hit points reach 0, after which the undead will return to inert dust. This undead's hit points are not able to be regenerated by any means (with the exemption of Necrotic Wake).

Soul Siphon

Beginning at 10th level, you have spent so much time dealing with undead and the forces that animate them that you have become inured to some of their worst effects. You gain resistance to necrotic damage, and your hit point maximum can’t be reduced. 

Additionally, whenever you damage a creature that has less than a quarter of its maximum HP left, you can add an extra damage die. The extra damage is necrotic. For example if a 10th level Necromancer casts fireball at 3rd level, they would roll 9d6 (8d6 fire damage plus 1d6 necrotic damage).

When you reach 15th level in this class, you can add an another damage die to your extra necrotic damage. Using the above example, a 15th level Necromance would roll 10d6 for a 3rd level fireball (8d6 fire damage plus 2d6 necrotic).

Necrotic Wake

Starting at 14th level, you can use magic to cause devastating damage and bring undead under your control, even those created by other wizards. Once per long rest, as an action, you can release a wave of necrotic energy centred on yourself out to a range of 60 ft. Any creature you choose within that radius must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (against your spell save DC) or take 12d6 necrotic damage, half as much on a successful save. This damage can trigger Soul SIphon and Grim Harvest and at level 20, you gain 2 uses of Necrotic Wake per long rest.

Additionally, any undead within the radius are effected differently; those under your control heal for half the damage rolled, and those not under your control have to succeed a CHA saving throw (also spell save DC) or they become friendly to you and obey your commands. To keep these undead under your control, you must concentrate on this as if concentrating on a spell for 10 minutes, afterwhich they are permanently under your control and act as if created by your Undead Thralls ability.

Intelligent undead are harder to control in this way. If the target has an Intelligence of 8 or higher, it has advantage on the saving throw. If it fails the saving throw and has an Intelligence of 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw every 10 minutes until it succeeds and breaks free.