New Necromancy spells

ZanathKariashi

Work in progress, only rough descriptions added at the moment.


1st Level -

Animate dead animals -

Cast time - 1 Round
Duration - 1 Hour

Lvl 1: Animates 1 skeletal dog (1HD)
Lvl 2: Animates 2 Skeletal dogs (1HD)
Lvl 3: Animates 3 Skeletal dogs (1HD)
Lvl 4: Animates 1 Skeletal Wolf (2 HD), 2 Skeletal Dogs (1HD)
Lvl 5: Animate 2 Skeletal Wolves (2HD), 1 Skeletal Dog (1HD)
Lvl 6: Animates 3 Skeletal Wolves (2HD)
Lvl 7: Animates 1 skeletal bear (3HD), 2 Skeletal wolves (2HD)
Lvl 8: Animates 2 Skeletal bears (3HD), 1 Skeletal wolf (2 HD)
Lvl 9: Animates 3 Skeletal Bears (3HD)

(Regardless of type, skeletal animals have 8 base AC, 50% resistance to slashing, 60% resistance to piercing, and 70% resistance to missiles).



Exterminate -

Spell has a choice to two options.

Can instantly slay small rats or small spiders within a 30ft radius with no save. Or can be used to slay a single large spider, with a saving throw. -1 save penalty per 3 levels of caster.

2nd Level -

Spectral Hand -

Gives the caster x3 charges of the spectral hand ability. Can be used to cast any prepared touch spells at a 30ft range.

Choke -

Target humanoid creature takes 1-4 damage per round per level. Save for half.

3rd Level -

Bone Dance - Summons a skeleton with 1hd per caster level. Lasts 1 turn.

Bone Club - Caster creates a +1 Club made of bone. Strikes undead as if +4. Can be passed to other characters. Lasts 2 round/level

Hovering Skull -

Functions similar to Wizard Eye, except it isn't invisible and can attack. Has 4 hit points, an AC of 3, and deals 1d4 damage on hit.

4th Level -

Enervation - Drains 1 level target creature (lasts 4 hours). 30ft range.

Empathetic Wound Transfer -

The Caster can heal the target creature for 2 damage per level, but takes an equal amount of damage.

Summon Shadow -

Summons 1 shadow, as per the monster, per 4 caster levels. Lasts 1 round per level.

5th Level -

None (for now)

6th Level -

Reincarnation -
Raises target dead character as per raise dead. Character race and appearance changed to that of a random playable race, with all applicable bonuses and penalties. Class is unchanged.


7th Level -

Finger of Death (tweaked). Same as current, except, any character slain is immediately animated as an undead copy of the slain character under the casters control, though is only half the level of the original. Copy lasts 1 hour.

Wound Conferral -

Caster damages target for 3 hp per level, and heals an equal amount.

8th Level -

Death Shroud -

Caster is surrounded by a protective ring of negative energy. Any enemy attempting to strike the caster in melee must save or take 1 magical damage per 3 levels and lose 1 level. A successful save prevents level loss and halves the damage dealt. Lasts 2 rounds per level.

9th Level -

Energy drain (tweaked). Removes 2 levels from target creature. If the creature dies within 3 seconds of this spell being cast on it, it is immediately reanimated as a perfect undead copy of the slain creature.

Varwulf

My friend and I always thought Necromancy was less 'summony' than we'd like to see. I approve of the summon spells for sure.

Southpaw

I approve. Necromancers need some love. Literally.

Mrpenfold666

i think reincarnation needs to be changed. having it change race seems odd and with class restrictions probably impossible but what would be cool if you made it like a 3rd or 4th level spell and it acts like raise dead but the re-incarnated character dies again should the wizard die or the spell is dispelled. so its like a weak and early raise dead until you can get a cleric high enough level / have enough spare money to get them fixed correctly.

and maybe give the spell "intelligent undead" (cant remember the spells actual name but it exists in 3rd edition PnP not sure about AD&D) but change it to target undead creature you control becomes a specialist necromancer equal to its level and knows all the same necromancy spells you know

ZanathKariashi

Nah, they're getting rid of hardcoded class restrictions (which wouldn't affect this to begin with).

You can shadowkeeper a race after the fact easily, and that's basically all this would be doing is SK a character to a random race with the proper stat changes applied. Shorty bonus and Elf resistances are applied by the race template, so just changing the race and avatar would change most of that. And then have it take away the base race bonus/penalty to stats and add the new race bonus/penalty to stats, if any.

The spell is basically accurate as written (except you can potentially be ANY living non-planar creature by the PnP version). Restricting it to just playable races eliminates any possible issues, since I've dicked around in Shadow Keeper enough to know that changing the race after the fact like that won't hurt anything (as long as you stick with playable races or Tiefling...anything else can potentially cause issues).


The random race is the main drawback of the spell, which otherwise is actually superior raise dead in almost every way. (doesn't require a system shock/survival roll, no lost Con, condition of the body doesn't matter. Still can't revive characters killed by necromantic death spells or died of old age, and must be used within 24 hours of death but it can revive elves (though they might end up as a different creature).

recklessheart

Death Shroud seems really nifty. Where are you pulling your source information from, if I may ask?

ZanathKariashi

Player's Handbook (2nd), Complete book of Wizards (2nd), and Tome of Magic (2nd).

Most are as written, though a couple I went ahead and added some suggested tweaks to keep their level of power correct with BG's system.