Necromancer Thread

I like the idea of a crazy one who lives in the city sewers trying to raise an army of rats to "SHOW THEM ALL" only for all of the rats to be eaten by a random crocodile every time.

The town guard leaves him be because his parents own the brewery.

I like average joe necromancers a lot
scary, but not evil
dark, but not brooding, or even jovial

>Because if you're gonna use Evil magic, own it.
depends on the setting
the diablo2 necromancer was incredibly good, and necromancy was one of the least abusable powers

I want to play an abandoned cat familiar that took up necromancy to SHOW THEM, SHOW THEM ALL and spends most of his time riding around in his skelly minions, napping, and scheming to get fish.

That said, my OTHER favorite old Veeky Forums necromancy bit was a super ballsy showoff move:
>Undead, even simple, unintelligent undead hate the living and the vast majority of necromancer training is learning how to crush the wills of your minions so they don't eat your cat/the neighbors/etc.
>Talented classy female necromancer preserves and ghoulifies a shitload of minks
>Wears 300 undead minks as a dress to show off how good her minion control is
>She's basically wearing 300 swarming drills made of hate to go "LOOK AT MY GIANT WIZARDRY STAFF"
>Also as personal protection, of couse

You forgot about
>i lost my necronomicon in a boat accident

I like to play necromancers as a high functioning sociopath. Usually quite kind actually, may even help you if its not too much hassle for him, but he is not good guy in the end.

and on the contrast in heroes III necromancy was the most broken mechanic in the game and it belonged to hideous evil wizard warlord types

>/
Ancient Emperors wearing speedos

imagine if those two met each other

Okay what's the appeal of necromancers to begin with? They work with reanimating corpses, and up close corpses are fucking disgusting. Why not any other field of magic that lets you involve living, breathing, warm people?

Heroes III undoubtedly has more minions, but the Diablo II character is especially skilled with slaughtering hordes of minions.
Either way, it's probably a fight.

Recycling. Corpses are a lot less creepy when your imaginary avatar-duder is interacting with them instead of you (Log Horizon had a funny bit with that) and it also tends to come with debuffing out the ass.
There's not really any sane way to keep track of bringing 30 mercenaries on an adventure with you, but you can literally just tip skeletons into a bag of holding or something when they're not being used; similarly, you don't have to care about morale, arguing, or paying them.

Basically, it's the simplest way to try and run an army, so the archetype sees a lot of love.

I hate you, but appreciate the pun.

The diablo 2 necromancer was actually a priest of a death god and i suspect that he doesn't just summon any old soul willy nilly but maybe other, dead, followers of his faith into other peoples bones.

he calls on vague "ancient warrior spirits" to control his skeletons
controlling hordes of skeletons is cool

I agree that non-preserved corpses are disgusting which is why I prefer mummies.

Robotic.

if I were to PLAY a Necromancer I'd play him like the one in this thing I wrote many years ago.

if I were running one as anything but a MAJOR villian I'd have him act similarly up to the point where he springs the finale shit.

a MAJOR BBEG necro as I implement him would be a Sole Survivor of a dragon-slaying expedition and start with a big-ass pile of gold. his gathering of corpses and weapons to arm them with being what gets adventurer attention...with added bullshit like bone-constructs, skelecopters, a Deep-Rot, and possibly a Bob The Skull.

in all cases though I'd have them wear purple...lots of purple and gold

Necromancers in my setting are not evil, they are just broken people.

The natural order of things is that when you die you move on. To resist that requires a massive amount of power. Most necromancers don't have quite that level of power. They are able to mostly resist but they often have a part of them move on.
This might mean they lose their emotion or empathy and are a stereotypical "evil" necromancer. But it also can manifest in other mental quirks. An obsession over an idea or a person/thing, OCD, boarderline personality disorder, A dominating emotion (absolute rage, fear, or happiness), narcissism, etc.

Specifically in my setting I have a small community of necromancers living together and I went through a mental health book to build myself a little island of misfit toy necromancers.
Each trying to break their curse and extend their life. But losing something of themselves in the process.

Here's almost everything on this subject.
Playable Necromancers in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e?
For official base classes, we have:
-Wizard Necromancer (school specialist)
-Three variants of the Necromancy specialization in Unearthed Arcana including either a Skeletal Minion, Undead Apotheosis, or Enhanced Undead as a class feature.
Please note, that 'Van Richten's Guide to Lich' states that liches are no longer limited to their dropped schools of magic if they were specialists in life, so that's something to look forward to.
-The Wizard Necromancer Variant in Dragon 357's Unversed Arcana - The School Mastery variant for Necromancy, swapping out getting familiar for casting chosen school spells at +1 caster level, and all undead madde with [evil] descriptor spells gaining temporary HP equal to your caster level, combine with Enhanced Undead's swap out extra spells per day as a specialist for +2 to STR and DEX and HP per HD in Undead you make, and you've a very decent Necromancer Wizard to use.
-The three 'Dark Magi' Necromancer base classes from Dragon Magazine 312, Deathwalker, Fleshcrafter, and Soul Reaper.
-The Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror, popular choice solid class to level 20 and provides base Lichdom as a class feature.
-The Death Master base class (Orcus followers only) from the Dragon Compendium Volume 1. Provides base Lichdom as a class feature.
-A Cleric with some of the following Domains
>Death, Deathless, Deathbound, Decay, Envy, Evil, Hunger, Undeath, Undead, Vile Darkness (referred to as a Darkness domain but is different), Gluttony, Corruption, Repose, Repose(2(there's a second one of this)) Spirit, Pestilence, Necromancer (Blood of Vol) and the seven deadly sins domains.
-The Binder class with choice vestiges such as Acererak, Tennebrous, and some other vestige I don't know about (Tome of Magic).
-The Spellcaster class from Unearthed Arcana (non-descript class built around bonus feats and not class features, build appropriately).

-Nightstalker (Dragonlance - Races of Ansalon)

d20 unnoficial base classes
-Necromancer class from 'Secret College of Necromancy' by Greem Ronin Publishing
-Flesh Mage from Sourcebook, 'Magic' (d20, AEG, 2002).pdf

For official Prestige Classes (PrC) we have:
-Thrall of Orcus (Book of Vile Darkness).
-Walker in the Wastes (Sandstorm) Provides Dry Lichdom, which is basically being a Tomb Kang n sheeit, multiple cheaper phylacteries at the cost of longer rejuvanation time, can literally harvest limitless salt and use infinite pocket sand with this PrC.
-Pale Master (Tome & Blood - Libris Mortis) Suitored to Arcane necromancy users or in choice builds, is easy to get fluff wise, and useful becase fuck black onyx. I also suggest using it's hombrew remake which features some of it's qualities shown in Dungeons and Dragons Online dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Pale_Master,_Rebuild_(3.5e_Prestige_Class) This PrC also has an epic level variant, mentioned fucking somewhere.
-Fleshwarper (Lords of Madness) Mad science so hard you go fullblown aberration, graft dead people to yourself!
-Red Wizard of Thay (In campaign perks of regional feats and background should apply).
-Master Specialist (Necromancy) (Complete Mage).
-Necrocarnate (Magic of Incarnum PrC, is shit).
-Master of Shrouds (Libris Mortis) control of incorporeal undead, maximize ghost blowjobs.
-Tennebrous Apostate (PrC for Binders that use the Tennebrous vestige).
-Soul Eater (Book of Vile Darkness) self explanatory.
-Dirgesinger (Libris Mortis) summon undead with guitar solos.
-True Necromancer (Libris Mortis) don't ever use this.
-Horned Harbinger (FR Faiths and Pantheons) Undead Army Maker
-Companion of the Dead (Gnomish Class with progression unto undeath)
-Darklight Wizard (Kingdoms of Kalamar Villain Design Handbook)
-Death Dancer (Kingdoms of Kalamar Stealth and Style) Thriller.
-Lady/Lord of the Dead (Web Enhancement - Dead Life)
-Blighter (Masters of the Wild, Complete Divine) Anti-druid

Also for effects of Necromancy use, look to the the use of Taint Tables, from Heroes of Horror, Corruption from Fiendish Codex II, Necromantic Corruption from the Complete Book of Necromancers.

I want Dread Necromancer for 5e so badly

>the necromancer uses hideous evil wizard warlords as "faces" to interact with people
>in order to hide the fact that they actually became a lich at the age of 12 and their resurrected form always reflects this
>they can't let anyone find out or no one will take them seriously

As PCs I want them in an Abhorsen type role. There are no active gods, strong willed spirits are capable of returning from death on their own, and necromancers, who are still feared and considered tainted, are the ones tasked with putting the undead back to rest.

I generally like necromancers the least of all spellcasters. However I often find myself having a lot of fun in video games with them for some reason. Probably because video games tend to distance them fro the whole shitty "I maek skellinton xDD" thing.