Animate Dead and Arcane Necromancy

[Eolin]

Ace, I do not know these feats... but I like them.

How can you raise the villagers immediately? Don't you still need to use the animate dead spell?

 

[apoptosis]

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but necromancers in my campaign basically are basically sorcerers whose known spells are limited to necromantic ones.

They can choose any necromancy spell from any list. They also have the special ability to turn undead as an evil cleric and have access to the Mongoose necromancy feats (from their Necromancy book).

Apop

 

[Twowolves]

The old 3.0 Mongoose Publishing book Encyclopedia Arcane: Necromancy had several great ideas in it, especially the spells. There was a 1st level Animate Skeleton spell and a 2nd level Animate Zombie spell, each of which limited you to only one of each ever. I can't think of a better way to have a low-level necromancer actually feel like a necromancer than by having undead minions right out of the gate.

I'd have to dig my copy out, but there were a LOT more spells along those lines. I run a Scarred Lands game with Hollowfaust being a mecca of undead goodness, and this book was near perfect for fleshing out that area of the world.

 

[drothgery]

As drothgery mentioned, I believe it is. I don't have it myself but it stuck in my mind. I was looking at it last week and went for "Lords of Madness" instead.

Quick summary of the Dread Necromancer
d6 HD, 2 + Int skill points per level, Cha-based caster, warmage-style caster (knows all spells on the Dread Necromancer list, plus an additional Necromancy spell every 4 levels, sorcerer-style spell slot progression)

Animate dead's a 4th-level spell for them, but they do get the summon undead line, can rebuke undead, and start picking up lich-like features at 2nd level and end up becoming a lich (if humanoid) at 20th level.

 

[Twowolves]

Oh, and I almost forgot, the Relics and Rituals book from S&SS has a Crypt Lord PrC. It's 3.0 and might need a little tweaking, but it otherwise is an excellent necromancer PrC that does much of what you are looking for.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I have a game world in which I want Arcane Necromancers to be at least as good and probably better at necromancy than the divine equivalent.

If you are setting up a new campaign world, then why not just do the following:

a) clerics can't turn undead
b) clerics get no undead affecting spells

As a world design issue there is nothing wrong with saying that undeath is an entirely arcane institution and that religious powers have nothing they can do against it.

The clerical powers of undead are just there because of certain earthly traditions and stories. No reason why they have to be there in a different setting.

Have fun!

 

[Eolin]

Mostly uninformative post, but:

Neat. Other people have dealt with this problem in decent to good ways. Hooray.