School of Necromancy (Revised)

The School of Necromancy explores the cosmic forces of life, death, and undeath. As you focus your studies in this tradition, you learn to manipulate the energy that animates all living things. As you progress, you learn to sap the life force from a creature as your magic destroys its body, transforming that vital energy into magical power you can manipulate.

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.

Necromancy Prodigy

At 2nd level, you may add a number of additional spells to your spellbook equal to half your wizard level. These spells must come from the school of Necromancy, and must be of a level you can cast.

Fallen Puppet

As a reaction, when a creature within 30 feet of you dies and you can see them, you may harness their fading consciousness to momentarily command their body. The creature must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or fall under your control. Upon failure, the creature can immediately move up to its speed and perform one action of your choice. The permitted actions include:

• Taking the Attack action to make a single weapon attack or unarmed strike. If the creature possesses abilities like Divine Smite or Sneak Attack, only these effects can trigger.
• Attempting a single grapple or shove.
• Casting a Spell, limited to a cantrip known by the deceased.
• Dashing, Hiding, Disengaging, or Using an Object.

This feature can be used once, and you regain the ability to use it after you finish a short or long rest, or when you cast a Necromancy spell of 1st level or higher using a spell slot.

Undead Thralls

At 6th level, your mastery over necromantic magics grows, allowing you to bend the will of the undead with even greater prowess and impart additional strength to your summoned creatures. Choose one of the following spells to add to your spellbook: Animate Dead or Summon Undead. When casting your chosen spell, it gains the following enhancements:

• Animate Dead: You can target one additional corpse or pile of bones, creating an additional zombie or skeleton.
• Summon Undead: Treat the spell as being cast using a spell slot one level higher than the one you actually expended.

Whenever you create or summon an undead using a necromancy spell, it gains the following 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.

Inured to Undeath

At 10th level, you have resistance to necrotic damage, and your hit point maximum can’t be reduced. 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.

Command Undead

At 14th level, you can use magic to bring undead under your control, even those created by other wizards. As an action, you can choose one undead that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. If it succeeds, you can’t use this feature on it again. If it fails, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again.

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 at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free.