Thursday, March 17, 2022

5E: Valda's Spire of Secrets' Necromancer Class




After running Hyperborea 3E for several sessions my group and I decided to use the setting but switch over to DnD 5th Edition. One of my players was a Necromancer and we were both underwhelmed by the Necromancy tradition in the Player's Handbook. After looking through the PDFs of things we had Crowdsourced I remembered that Valda's Spire of Secrets had sever new Classes and dozens of new Sub-Classes.

The Necromancer caught my attention with the new Cantrips available to it like Eye of Anubis that deals necrotic damage and prevents the target from taking the Disengage action until the end of your next turn or Minor Life Steal that damages your target and gives you that many Temporary Hit Points. 

The Class itself has d6 Hit Dice with Saving Throws in Constitution and Intelligence and at Level 1 it gets Spellcasting and Charnel Touch which is the reverse of a Paladin's Lay On Hands but doesn't affect Constructs and Heals Undead.

At 2nd Level they gain Thralls that lets your animate small and medium dead creatures with a CR cap that grows as you level. As written the undead you use Raise Dead on count agains this cap but a an optional rule is presented if you want to throw caution to the wind. 

Also at 2nd Level they gain the Bag of Bones feature that lets them store Undead.

At 3rd Level they choose a Grave Ambition that includes Blood Ascendant where they become a vampire, Death Knight where they focus on becoming a dark warrior, Overlord where they excel in manipulation and are backed up by their undead minions, Pale Master where they focus on the "traditional" type of Necromancer, Pharoh which is a more balanced focus on Arcane and Divine magics, Plague Lord where their magic focuses on plagues, Reanimator that mixes science and magic, and the Reaper where you adopt the aspects of Death itself. Additionally, they can expend a Spell Slot to replenish your Charnel Tough pool.

At 5th Level if a creature rolls a natural 1 on a Saving Throw against one of their Spells they automatically fail their Save and take double damage. Additionally, your Critical Success range on Spell Attack Rolls is 19 and 20.

At 7th Level their Thralls are immune to being Turned

At 18th Level they can use their Reaction to Heal a Thrall.

And at 20th Level they perform the Rite of Lichdom.

I'm really curious how this class will perform at the table and should see it in action this coming weekend.

One of my favorite aspects of Valda's Spire of Secrets is the tone of the book and the innovations I see in the Classes and my intention is to use large swaths of it at my table.

2 comments:

Pun Isaac said...

This sounds like the type of Necromancer I'd love to play.

Brutorz Bill said...

Looking forward to hearing how it plays.

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