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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8832304" data-attributes="member: 50987">Looks like the great and terrible School of Necromancy is in the hotseat right now. What's so great/terrible about it?  I'm so glad you asked![SPOILER="Let's Look at Necromancy"]The Concept:(from the Player's Handbook)The School of Necromancy explores the cosmic forces of life, death, and undeath.Learn to manipulate the energy that animates all living things."Learn to sap the life force from a creature...transforming that vital energy into magical power."Not all are evil, but the forces they manipulate are considered taboo.Sounds more like a druid to me.  A Circle of Necromancy could be fun, all you would have to do is...wait, no, stay on topic CleverNick....2nd LEVEL FEATURESNecromancy Savant: time and money spent copying a Necromancy spell into your spellbook is cut in half.  It's not a bad idea, but I've never met a Dungeon Master who didn't handwave this (and I've never met a Dungeon Master who didn't complain about "money being useless in 5E" either, so....)Almost all of the PHB wizard subclasses have some kind of ability that rewards you for casting spells of that school.  Necromancy's reward is free healing:Grim Harvest: Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures with a spell, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell's level, or three times its level if it was a Necromancy spell.  This is one of the best wizard abilities in the game: being able to heal yourself for free is incredibly rare in this game.Note that it doesn't specify that the spell has to be a wizard spell, either...so grab the Magic Initiate feat and snag inflict wounds off of the cleric spell list (while you're there, grab the toll the dead and spare the dying, cantrips, to stay on-brand.)  Or if you're a fan of multiclassing (I'm not), you can dip some levels of the Cleric (Death Domain) class.6th LEVEL FEATUREUndead Thralls: you get the animate dead spell for free.  When you cast it, you can create one extra skeleton or zombie...and the creatures you create have more hit points, better attack rolls, and deal more damage.  Pretty handy if you need an ally in combat, or if you need help carrying your stuff around, or if you need someone to trigger boobytraps...10th LEVEL FEATUREInured to Death: you gain resistance to necrotic damage, and your hit point maximum can't be reduced (this is the only time you'll ever see this ability.)14th LEVEL FEATURECommand Undead: as an action, and without even spending a spell slot, you can take control of an undead creature within 60 feet.  A Charisma save vs. your wizard spell DC applies, but if it fails YOU OWN THAT CREATURE for at least an hour.  So if you really want to see your DM absolutely blow a fuse, wait until his pet NPC lich/vampire/mummy lord has used up all of its Legendary Resistances, and then hit it with this. All in all?  Necromancy is a solid subclass in my book.  Some players hate it because it's so dependent on the DM and the campaign setting ("how come we never encounter undead creatures anymore?  Are you still mad about my Command Undead ability?"), and because the Necromancy spell list is so sparse.  (Seriously, they should have given the Necromancer the inflict wounds spell for free at 2nd level.)It's not as good as Abjuration in my opinion, but it's definitely in my Top 3.[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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