What books have good arcane necromancy spells?

[Arpad]

Howdy. I love to play specialist necromancers but, as I'm sure everyone will agree, most of the spells in the PHB are lame. Sure, there are some good ones in there, but then there's stuff like cause fear. And way too many of the cool spells are cleric only.

So, what books have cool spells? Especially ones that a good necromancer could use.

 

[Thanee]

Well, there is a pretty large number of [EVIL] spells in that school.

Libris Mortis has a lot about Necromancy, naturally.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Arpad]

But are they good spells? Or were they just packed in to fill the page count? I find that a pretty important distinction.

 

[Thanee]

Well, that's pretty subjective.

What is 'good' for you?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Teemu]

Book of Exalted deeds obviously has 'good' necromancy spells.

 

[Arpad]

Well, that's pretty subjective.

What is 'good' for you?

Bye
Thanee

Useful spells. Spells that have an effect of some kind when the subject makes their save. (I would never play an enchanter, since almost all their spells are useless if the subject saves.) Unique spells, unlike what you see in the PHB.

By "good" I mean high-quality.

 

[Arpad]

Book of Exalted deeds obviously has 'good' necromancy spells.

I dunno. I've heard my friends bad mouth that book a lot. But they didn't talk about the spells any. Could anyone tell me what they're like?

 

[Scion]

I dunno. I've heard my friends bad mouth that book a lot. But they didn't talk about the spells any. Could anyone tell me what they're like?

Some are interesting, some are horribly broken beyond belief.

If you stick only to the interesting ones and skip the horribly broken ones then you will at least have a lot more extra umpf for your character, which is good.

For my old necromancer gnome I made a few spells up every now and then to run by the dm. There simply werent many spells for him to use pretty much ever.

 

[Arpad]

Some are interesting, some are horribly broken beyond belief.

If you stick only to the interesting ones and skip the horribly broken ones then you will at least have a lot more extra umpf for your character, which is good.

Could you tell me about one of the broken ones? What did they do to make it too powerful?

 

[Scion]

Could you tell me about one of the broken ones? What did they do to make it too powerful?

I'll give you one of the broken ones, 'Consumptive Field'.

Get a bunch of nearly dead bunnies and/or puppies, become an invincible killing machine. And it keeps on going throughout its duration.

I have seen it used in a few different optimization builds.. it is insane.