Wizard or Sorc for necromancer?

[gothtaku]

Hi all,

I'm rolling up a spellcaster for a game next week and was hoping for some general advice. The road I want to go down is a mage specalizing in necromancy. Now, wizards are great for versitility and sorcerers get more spells, albiet slower. So if i plan to specalize anyway, is it worth it going wizard?

 

[Thanee]

I would say, that a wizard is better-suited for this, there are lots of Necromancy spells out there, and you still want some standard spells supposedly.

From Unearthed Arcana

There are some nice 3rd-party necromancer base classes, too.

Bye
Thanee

 

[delericho]

If your DM will allow it, I would recommend the Dread Necromancer from "Heroes of Horror".

If not, go with the Wizard. Personally, I wouldn't bother specialising, but rather just focus on your chosen school, but that's just me.

 

[Herobizkit]

I would go Sorcerer. I'm actually going to go against Thanee (and the universe will weep for it) and say that there really aren't that many useful Necromancy spells, and you'll only use a few key ones at any time, so you might as well specialize and be a "couple of tricks" pony.

Sure, you won't get those free metamagic feats once every 5 levels, but so what?

 

[Plane Sailing]

The backup character for a campaign I'm playing in at the moment is a sorcerer/necromancer, I've not started using him yet, but he looks like he's going to be a lot of fun. Should he get to 12th level+ he is going to start using more conjuration too - specifically planar binding (I've always thought that demonology and necromancy were good bedfellows, in a manner of speaking).

A sorcerer necromancer will be survivable (false life pretty much as often as you like rocks), he'll be great at commanding undead with the 2nd level 'command undead' spell (which is so much better than the 7th level 'control undead' it is funny), and the 4th level enervation is a wicked spell against all non-undead targets. Empower helps your false life, enervation and various attack spells just when you need it. Heighten helps keep 'command undead' useful against higher level foes.

You certainly could be a specialist wizard necromancer (and class options in UA/PHB2/others might make that more attractive), but I wouldn't rule out the sorcerer option out of hand.

Cheers

 

[Nightchilde-2]

If your DM will allow it, I would recommend the Dread Necromancer from "Heroes of Horror".

If not, go with the Wizard. Personally, I wouldn't bother specialising, but rather just focus on your chosen school, but that's just me.

QFT. Dread Necromancer is pretty awesome, for a necromancer-type. My players hate to hear when the phrase "Dread Necromancer" come out of my mouth.

Otherwise, yeah, Wizard, I'd say.

 

[Thanee]

I would go Sorcerer. I'm actually going to go against Thanee (and the universe will weep for it) and say that there really aren't that many useful Necromancy spells...

Hey, I never said 'useful' ...

The main point is, that if you only take very few necromantic spells, then you aren't really a necromancer.

And yeah, Dread Necromancer! That was actually the class I was originally thinking of when writing the rather neutral 3rd-party comment... but I don't have the HoH book, though I recalled having heard of a fairly cool necromantic base class, so I figured it might have been 3rd-party.

Bye
Thanee

 

[tvknight415]

I would echo using dread necromancer as a first choice.

If that's not an option, I would ask yourself how your character came to be interested in dead things, and choose your class accordingly. If he was perhaps traumatized as a youth (lost in a crypt or what not) and developed a fascination with it and went on to study, then go wizard. If he found a strange affinity for the dead and death magic that he can't explain (perhaps he's been touched by a taint inherited from his parents), go with sorcerer.

 

[Garnfellow]

A little wackier, but interesting route if your DM would let you, is to try an eldritch weaver from Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual. This is essential a 3e version of the old "paths of magic" approach, whereby the mage can advance by choosing a handful of thematically related threads to specialize in. I've been having good luck using this class to create mages that don't fit neatly into the core choices. Here would be an example of a necromancy-specialized weaver:

Ethan