Dungeons & Dragons 5e Class Features : Necromance
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VSS
Necromance
A withered old woman reaches out and grasps a
battle-hardened knight by the arm. The knight
laughs at the crone’s gesture before collapsing in
mere seconds, desiccated and dead.
A scarred and grizzled warrior in breastplate
leads a charge through a detachment of soldiers,
swinging a glaive, shrouded in dark energies, at her
foes. A shambling, undead vanguard follows her
path, and her slain foes rise to join their ranks.
A grim, robed figure presides before his court,
all arranged in a marble hall of gothic construction.
Shambling corpses, abominations of flesh and bone,
and dead-eyed charmed nobles wait in attendance,
forming perfect lines in silent obedience.
Necromancers are spellcasters that hold sway
over the forces of life and death, twisting them to
serve their own ambitions, and commanding small
armies of lifeless, animated thralls.
Morbid Curiosity
Necromancers must match their grand intellects with an equal lack of scruples, the willingness to turn to forbidden knowledge and unquestionably evil methods. No matter their means, every necromancer is driven by a deep fascination with the dark arts and the power necromancy can afford them. Most see themselves as outcast members of the academic elite, braving new dark territories of magic that other spellcasters are too cowardly to explore. However, collecting knowledge expanding their understanding is merely a means to an end for most necromancers—they are almost always driven by a deeper, darker impulse, a goal which pushes them to the utter brink. This might be the perverted ideal of a “greater good” or a goal to right the wrong of mortality; in every case, necromancy is a grim implement for their life’s work. Masters of Undeath
Necromancers have learned through trial and error how to puppet the flesh, bone, and spirits of the dead, binding them to their will. Through their terrible magic, they command the forms of lesser undead, and demand respect from those powerful enough to resist their thrall. All necromancers share the capability of simply animating corpses, along with the knowledge and foresight to create new and terrible undead abominations to further their goals. Beyond the basic command over the undead, each necromancer specializes in a method to impart their will upon the world. Some dive deeply into the necromantic arts, whereas others focus on their ability to assert control over others, while others still master the art of both martial and magical combat. While their skills might seem specialized, properly prepared necromancers can dominate both on the battlefield and at the round table. Creating a Necromancer
As you create your necromancer, the most important piece of information to consider is your character’s ambition. What is their goal? How do they intend to achieve it? How does necromancy fit into the picture? Once you’ve decided on your ambition, consider why they turned to necromancy to accomplish it. Were they scorned by their previous spellcasting master? Did they come across an old, rotting tome filled with forgotten knowledge? Were they the survivors of some great attack by another necromancer? Work with your GM to determine how necromancy is viewed in the world. Is it just another method of spellcasting, or is it an abominable tool, used only by the most abhorred spellcaster? How do commoners react when they see you? Must you hide your thralls from public scrutiny, and if so, how? Furthermore, do the other player characters know of your sinister magic, and if so, how have they reacted to seeing your puppeteered corpses? Work with other players, especially those with cleric and paladin characters, to find suitable reasons you might work together. QUICK BUILD
You can make a necromancer quickly by following these suggestions. First, Intelligence should be your highest ability score, followed by Constitution, and then Strength or Dexterity if you plan to choose to be the Death Knight ambition. Second, choose a background of your choice, preferably one that ties into your ambition. Third, choose chill touch, hocuspocus, light, and spark of life for your cantrips, and then choose detect magic, expeditious retreat, Gahoul’s gruesome garrote, and inflict wounds as your 1st level spells.
Necromancers must match their grand intellects with an equal lack of scruples, the willingness to turn to forbidden knowledge and unquestionably evil methods. No matter their means, every necromancer is driven by a deep fascination with the dark arts and the power necromancy can afford them. Most see themselves as outcast members of the academic elite, braving new dark territories of magic that other spellcasters are too cowardly to explore. However, collecting knowledge expanding their understanding is merely a means to an end for most necromancers—they are almost always driven by a deeper, darker impulse, a goal which pushes them to the utter brink. This might be the perverted ideal of a “greater good” or a goal to right the wrong of mortality; in every case, necromancy is a grim implement for their life’s work. Masters of Undeath
Necromancers have learned through trial and error how to puppet the flesh, bone, and spirits of the dead, binding them to their will. Through their terrible magic, they command the forms of lesser undead, and demand respect from those powerful enough to resist their thrall. All necromancers share the capability of simply animating corpses, along with the knowledge and foresight to create new and terrible undead abominations to further their goals. Beyond the basic command over the undead, each necromancer specializes in a method to impart their will upon the world. Some dive deeply into the necromantic arts, whereas others focus on their ability to assert control over others, while others still master the art of both martial and magical combat. While their skills might seem specialized, properly prepared necromancers can dominate both on the battlefield and at the round table. Creating a Necromancer
As you create your necromancer, the most important piece of information to consider is your character’s ambition. What is their goal? How do they intend to achieve it? How does necromancy fit into the picture? Once you’ve decided on your ambition, consider why they turned to necromancy to accomplish it. Were they scorned by their previous spellcasting master? Did they come across an old, rotting tome filled with forgotten knowledge? Were they the survivors of some great attack by another necromancer? Work with your GM to determine how necromancy is viewed in the world. Is it just another method of spellcasting, or is it an abominable tool, used only by the most abhorred spellcaster? How do commoners react when they see you? Must you hide your thralls from public scrutiny, and if so, how? Furthermore, do the other player characters know of your sinister magic, and if so, how have they reacted to seeing your puppeteered corpses? Work with other players, especially those with cleric and paladin characters, to find suitable reasons you might work together. QUICK BUILD
You can make a necromancer quickly by following these suggestions. First, Intelligence should be your highest ability score, followed by Constitution, and then Strength or Dexterity if you plan to choose to be the Death Knight ambition. Second, choose a background of your choice, preferably one that ties into your ambition. Third, choose chill touch, hocuspocus, light, and spark of life for your cantrips, and then choose detect magic, expeditious retreat, Gahoul’s gruesome garrote, and inflict wounds as your 1st level spells.
hit dice:
1d6
hit points at 1st level:
6 + your Constitution modifier
hit points at higher levels:
1d6 (or 4) + your Constitution modifier per necromancer level after 1st
armor proficiencies:
None
weapon proficiencies:
Simple weapons
tools:
None
saving throws:
Constitution, Intelligence
skills:
Choose two from Arcana, Deception, History, Investigation, Intimidation, Medicine,
Persuasion, and Religion
starting equipment:
You start with the following equipment, in addition
to the equipment granted by your background:
You start with the following equipment, in addition
to the equipment granted by your background:
- A dagger and any simple weapon
- (a) a component pouch or (b) an arcane focus
- A shovel and (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) a scholar’s pack
spellcasting:
Your connection to the realm of negative energy allows you to cast powerful necromantic spells. CANTRIPS
At 1st level, you know four cantrips of your choice from the necromancer spell list. You learn additional necromancer cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Necromancer table. SPELL SLOTS
The Necromancer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast spells of the 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all spell slots when you finish a long rest. SPELLS KNOWN OF 1ST LEVEL AND HIGHER
You know two 1st-level spells of your choice from the necromancer spell list. You learn an additional necromancer spell of your choice at each level except 12th, 14th, 16th, 19th, and 20th. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 3rd level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.
Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the necromancer spells you know and replace it with another spell from the necromancer spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots. SPELLCASTING ABILITY
Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your necromancer spells, since your power is rooted in the fine manipulation of negative energy and research into magical secrets. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a necromancer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier RITUAL CASTING
You can cast a necromancer spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag. SPELLCASTING FOCUS
You can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus. For a necromancer, these are typically objects with sentimental value, such as a locket, childhood toy, prison shackle, or wedding ring, that are altered with magically conductive materials.
Your connection to the realm of negative energy allows you to cast powerful necromantic spells. CANTRIPS
At 1st level, you know four cantrips of your choice from the necromancer spell list. You learn additional necromancer cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Necromancer table. SPELL SLOTS
The Necromancer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast spells of the 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all spell slots when you finish a long rest. SPELLS KNOWN OF 1ST LEVEL AND HIGHER
You know two 1st-level spells of your choice from the necromancer spell list. You learn an additional necromancer spell of your choice at each level except 12th, 14th, 16th, 19th, and 20th. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 3rd level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.
Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the necromancer spells you know and replace it with another spell from the necromancer spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots. SPELLCASTING ABILITY
Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your necromancer spells, since your power is rooted in the fine manipulation of negative energy and research into magical secrets. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a necromancer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier RITUAL CASTING
You can cast a necromancer spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag. SPELLCASTING FOCUS
You can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus. For a necromancer, these are typically objects with sentimental value, such as a locket, childhood toy, prison shackle, or wedding ring, that are altered with magically conductive materials.
class features:
Charnel Touch
Your connection to the negative energy realm grants you an inner nexus of dangerous power, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice. At 1st level, you have a pool of Charnel Touch points equal to your necromancer level × 5 that replenishes when you finish a long rest.
As an action, declare the number of points you wish to expend, up to a maximum of 5 × your proficiency bonus, and make a melee spell attack against one target within reach. On a hit, you expend the declared amount of points and deal necrotic damage equal to the points expended. If you miss the attack, you do not expend any points. The damage dealt by your Charnel Touch is doubled when you score a critical hit, expending no additional points. This attack deals no damage to constructs and instead heals undead for the amount of points expended. You can target a willing creature with this ability without making a spell attack roll. Thralls
While lesser spellcasters can only animate flesh and bone in a rudimentary fashion, and must expend valuable energy to maintain their undead’s loyalty, true necromancers can provide their undead with a portion of their own life force, ensuring long term obedience. Beginning at the 2nd level, you learn an ancient and powerful ritual which allows you to raise and command your own army of the undead.
By spending 10 uninterrupted minutes performing this ritual with a spellcasting focus or component pouch, you can raise the remains of one or more Small or Medium humanoids into undead creatures. Undead created in this way become your thralls. You maintain control over your thralls indefinitely. Stat blocks for zombies, skeletons, and other thralls can be found in the Undead Thralls section at the end of the class description. COMMANDING THRALLS
If you are conscious, you can mentally control all of your thralls, without using any actions. If you are unconscious, your thralls will move to protect your body from harm, but will not attack. In combat, your thralls share your initiative count, but take their turns immediately after yours. All thralls collectively share one reaction and bonus action, which a single thrall can use each round. Thralls use your spellcasting modifier to make their attacks. MAXIMUM THRALLS
You can animate and control a thrall of challenge rating (CR) 1/4. As you gain levels in this class, you can animate more thralls. The combined CR of all your thralls can’t exceed the number shown in the Thrall CR Total column of the Necromancer table, and the total number of thralls under your control can never exceed your proficiency bonus. At any time, you can use your action to sever your connection to one or more thralls, releasing them. Corporeal undead crumple into a heap and incorporeal undead flee to the Ethereal Plane. ANIMATE DEAD
Beginning at 5th level, a necromancer can learn the animate dead spell, a staple of the school of necromancy. Necromancers can cast this spell as an action, instead of in one minute. All undead created by the animate dead spell (as well as any other magic, such as the create undead spell, which allows you to control undead) count as your thralls and can be commanded as such. If your new thralls granted to you by a spell cause you to exceed your total CR or number of thralls, you can immediately sever your connection to any of your existing thralls so as to stay within these limits. Your thralls can never command or create other undead. As always, you can’t reanimate your undead which have been reduced to 0 hit points. Your Animate Thralls ritual, the animate dead spell, and similar magic only affects humanoid corpses, whereas your thralls are undead creatures.
Also at 2nd level, you learn how to create a necromantic magic item, a bag of bones. The bag connects to a vast extradimensional space which can only hold Medium or smaller corpses, bones, and undead creatures; it violently expels anything else placed within it. You can use an action to place a corpse or willing undead creature into the bag, up to a maximum of 10 corpses or undead creatures, or use your action to dump the contents of the bag, which land in spaces within 5 feet of you.
You can transform any container you can carry into a bag of bones by performing a special ritual over the course of 1 hour while you hold it. This container ceases to be magical if you perform this ritual again to create a new bag of bones. The container always connects to the same extradimensional space. If the bag is placed inside an extradimensional space, such as that created by a bag of holding, it is destroyed. Its contents remain in the same extradimensional space until you create a new bag. Grave Ambition
When you reach 3rd level, you decide on a proper path of research into the dark arts in order to carve a path leading your ultimate goal. Choose one Grave Ambition, detailed at the end of the class. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level, and again at 6th, 10th, and 20th level. Black Arcana
Also beginning at 3rd level, as a bonus action, you can expend a spell slot to replenish your Charnel Touch point pool. Your pool regains 1d8 expended points, plus 1d8 for each level of the spell slot expended, up a maximum of your pool’s total. Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. Critical Spellcasting
At 5th level, your potent necrotic powers punish your enemy at the first sign of weakness. When a creature rolls a 1 on a saving throw against one of your spells, it automatically fails the save and takes twice the number of damage dice dealt by the spell. The additional damage only applies to the creature that rolled a 1.
Additionally, your spell attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20. Starting at 14th level, creatures automatically fail their saving throws against your spells and take additional damage when they roll a 1 or a 2. Additionally, your spell attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18–20. Enthralling Presence
At 7th level, the negative energy that flows through you reinforces your thralls against those who would seek to destroy or control your servants. Your thralls and other undead you control can’t be turned or forcefully controlled by another creature while you are conscious. Undying Servitude
When you reach 18th level, your connection to your thralls can pull them back from the brink of destruction. When a thrall under your control is reduced to 0 hit points and not destroyed outright, you can use your reaction to restore it to half of its maximum hit points. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest. Lichdom
By 20th level, you have unlocked the pinnacle of necromantic prowess, through which you will conquer death itself: The Rite of Lichdom. When you reach this level, you have completed your phylactery and are ready to undergo the rite. To do so, you shut yourself away for 30 days in an isolated location of your choice, and emerge as an immortal lich, an undead of unsurpassed power. Once the rite is complete, you gain the following benefits as well as those dictated by your choice of Grave Ambition. PHYLACTERY
A phylactery is a small object that houses a lich’s soul, safeguarding their immortality. If you drop to 0 hit points, your body crumbles to dust, but your will and mind escape to the phylactery. After 1d4 + 1 days, a new body coalesces as near to your phylactery as possible and you return to life (or rather, unlife). When your body reforms, you gain the benefits of a long rest. The new body is identical in every way to the one that was destroyed. UNDEAD RESILIENCE
You gain immunity to poison and necrotic damage. UNDEAD TRAITS
You are immune to the effects of exhaustion and you do not need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. You must still rest for 4 hours a day to gain the benefits of a long rest. Though your type is Humanoid, spells and effects which specifically affect undead affect you as well. You are immune to any effect that turns undead.
Necromancers use the following creatures as their thralls: bonebeasts, gorgers, gravetouched ghouls, skeletons, spirits, and zombies. Unless otherwise stated, no other undead creatures can be animated as thralls. A Small or Medium humanoid corpse can be animated into any of these undead. Other than having a different size, their statistics are unchanged. A corpse can become a zombie, gorger, or gravetouched ghoul. A pile of bones can become a skeleton or bonebeast. The corpse of a creature that has been dead for no more than an hour can become a spirit or visage.
The Undead Thralls table can be used as quick reference for thrall statistics. [url:
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Charnel Touch
Your connection to the negative energy realm grants you an inner nexus of dangerous power, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice. At 1st level, you have a pool of Charnel Touch points equal to your necromancer level × 5 that replenishes when you finish a long rest.
As an action, declare the number of points you wish to expend, up to a maximum of 5 × your proficiency bonus, and make a melee spell attack against one target within reach. On a hit, you expend the declared amount of points and deal necrotic damage equal to the points expended. If you miss the attack, you do not expend any points. The damage dealt by your Charnel Touch is doubled when you score a critical hit, expending no additional points. This attack deals no damage to constructs and instead heals undead for the amount of points expended. You can target a willing creature with this ability without making a spell attack roll. Thralls
While lesser spellcasters can only animate flesh and bone in a rudimentary fashion, and must expend valuable energy to maintain their undead’s loyalty, true necromancers can provide their undead with a portion of their own life force, ensuring long term obedience. Beginning at the 2nd level, you learn an ancient and powerful ritual which allows you to raise and command your own army of the undead.
VARIANT RULE: NECROMANCY UNLEASHED This class imposes limitations on animate deadstyle spells, as well as the number and types of thralls a player can use in order to ensure timely, balanced play. If you’d like to throw caution to the wind and embrace the undead horde experience, use this variant rule. Ignore the “Animate Dead” header in the Thralls feature. Animated undead from spells are separate from your thralls for the purposes of your class features, but have no other class-based limitations.ANIMATE THRALLS
By spending 10 uninterrupted minutes performing this ritual with a spellcasting focus or component pouch, you can raise the remains of one or more Small or Medium humanoids into undead creatures. Undead created in this way become your thralls. You maintain control over your thralls indefinitely. Stat blocks for zombies, skeletons, and other thralls can be found in the Undead Thralls section at the end of the class description. COMMANDING THRALLS
If you are conscious, you can mentally control all of your thralls, without using any actions. If you are unconscious, your thralls will move to protect your body from harm, but will not attack. In combat, your thralls share your initiative count, but take their turns immediately after yours. All thralls collectively share one reaction and bonus action, which a single thrall can use each round. Thralls use your spellcasting modifier to make their attacks. MAXIMUM THRALLS
You can animate and control a thrall of challenge rating (CR) 1/4. As you gain levels in this class, you can animate more thralls. The combined CR of all your thralls can’t exceed the number shown in the Thrall CR Total column of the Necromancer table, and the total number of thralls under your control can never exceed your proficiency bonus. At any time, you can use your action to sever your connection to one or more thralls, releasing them. Corporeal undead crumple into a heap and incorporeal undead flee to the Ethereal Plane. ANIMATE DEAD
Beginning at 5th level, a necromancer can learn the animate dead spell, a staple of the school of necromancy. Necromancers can cast this spell as an action, instead of in one minute. All undead created by the animate dead spell (as well as any other magic, such as the create undead spell, which allows you to control undead) count as your thralls and can be commanded as such. If your new thralls granted to you by a spell cause you to exceed your total CR or number of thralls, you can immediately sever your connection to any of your existing thralls so as to stay within these limits. Your thralls can never command or create other undead. As always, you can’t reanimate your undead which have been reduced to 0 hit points. Your Animate Thralls ritual, the animate dead spell, and similar magic only affects humanoid corpses, whereas your thralls are undead creatures.
VARIANT THRALLS With the GM’s permission, undead raised using the Animate Thralls ritual can be of types other than humanoids. Such thralls might use existing undead statistics (such as various skeletons, zombies, or spirits) when appropriate, or might use thrall statistics with variant weapons, AC, or traits.Bag of Bones
Also at 2nd level, you learn how to create a necromantic magic item, a bag of bones. The bag connects to a vast extradimensional space which can only hold Medium or smaller corpses, bones, and undead creatures; it violently expels anything else placed within it. You can use an action to place a corpse or willing undead creature into the bag, up to a maximum of 10 corpses or undead creatures, or use your action to dump the contents of the bag, which land in spaces within 5 feet of you.
You can transform any container you can carry into a bag of bones by performing a special ritual over the course of 1 hour while you hold it. This container ceases to be magical if you perform this ritual again to create a new bag of bones. The container always connects to the same extradimensional space. If the bag is placed inside an extradimensional space, such as that created by a bag of holding, it is destroyed. Its contents remain in the same extradimensional space until you create a new bag. Grave Ambition
When you reach 3rd level, you decide on a proper path of research into the dark arts in order to carve a path leading your ultimate goal. Choose one Grave Ambition, detailed at the end of the class. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level, and again at 6th, 10th, and 20th level. Black Arcana
Also beginning at 3rd level, as a bonus action, you can expend a spell slot to replenish your Charnel Touch point pool. Your pool regains 1d8 expended points, plus 1d8 for each level of the spell slot expended, up a maximum of your pool’s total. Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. Critical Spellcasting
At 5th level, your potent necrotic powers punish your enemy at the first sign of weakness. When a creature rolls a 1 on a saving throw against one of your spells, it automatically fails the save and takes twice the number of damage dice dealt by the spell. The additional damage only applies to the creature that rolled a 1.
Additionally, your spell attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20. Starting at 14th level, creatures automatically fail their saving throws against your spells and take additional damage when they roll a 1 or a 2. Additionally, your spell attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18–20. Enthralling Presence
At 7th level, the negative energy that flows through you reinforces your thralls against those who would seek to destroy or control your servants. Your thralls and other undead you control can’t be turned or forcefully controlled by another creature while you are conscious. Undying Servitude
When you reach 18th level, your connection to your thralls can pull them back from the brink of destruction. When a thrall under your control is reduced to 0 hit points and not destroyed outright, you can use your reaction to restore it to half of its maximum hit points. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest. Lichdom
By 20th level, you have unlocked the pinnacle of necromantic prowess, through which you will conquer death itself: The Rite of Lichdom. When you reach this level, you have completed your phylactery and are ready to undergo the rite. To do so, you shut yourself away for 30 days in an isolated location of your choice, and emerge as an immortal lich, an undead of unsurpassed power. Once the rite is complete, you gain the following benefits as well as those dictated by your choice of Grave Ambition. PHYLACTERY
A phylactery is a small object that houses a lich’s soul, safeguarding their immortality. If you drop to 0 hit points, your body crumbles to dust, but your will and mind escape to the phylactery. After 1d4 + 1 days, a new body coalesces as near to your phylactery as possible and you return to life (or rather, unlife). When your body reforms, you gain the benefits of a long rest. The new body is identical in every way to the one that was destroyed. UNDEAD RESILIENCE
You gain immunity to poison and necrotic damage. UNDEAD TRAITS
You are immune to the effects of exhaustion and you do not need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. You must still rest for 4 hours a day to gain the benefits of a long rest. Though your type is Humanoid, spells and effects which specifically affect undead affect you as well. You are immune to any effect that turns undead.
PHYLACTERY A lich’s phylactery is as much a memento as it is their anchor to immortality, and as such, no two are alike. Phylacteries are often constructed from objects with sentimental value, such as family heirlooms or prized possessions, but can be fashioned from swords, pieces of armor, or even entire castles. Furthermore, every phylactery has a weakness, a critical flaw by which it can be destroyed, allowing their lich to be slain permanently. These weaknesses, too, are unique to each phylactery. One phylactery might require a ritual to be performed around it for 24 hours, while another might call for the phylactery to be dipped in the lava of an active volcano. Discuss with your GM the form your phylactery takes and what weakness it possesses.UNDEAD THRALLS
Necromancers use the following creatures as their thralls: bonebeasts, gorgers, gravetouched ghouls, skeletons, spirits, and zombies. Unless otherwise stated, no other undead creatures can be animated as thralls. A Small or Medium humanoid corpse can be animated into any of these undead. Other than having a different size, their statistics are unchanged. A corpse can become a zombie, gorger, or gravetouched ghoul. A pile of bones can become a skeleton or bonebeast. The corpse of a creature that has been dead for no more than an hour can become a spirit or visage.
The Undead Thralls table can be used as quick reference for thrall statistics. [url:
VSS
Bonebeast CR: 1
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points: 28 (5d8 + 5) 5d8+5
Speed:
40 ft
STR
13 +1
DEX
15 +2
CON
11 +0
INT
5 -3
WIS
10 +0
CHA
5 -3
Damage Immunities: poison
Condition Immunities: poisoned
Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages: understands all languages it knew in life, as well as the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Challenge Rating: 1
Keen Smell. The bonebeast has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell. Pack Tactics. The bonebeast has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of the bonebeast ’s allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn’t incapacitated.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) 2d6+2 piercing damage.
Constructed of haphazardly-assembled humanoid
bones, a bonebeast looks nothing like a man.
Lumbering about on four legs with great boney
fangs, the beast can run as fast as a bear and strike as
viciously as a lion.
VSS
Gorger CR: 1
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 8
Hit Points: 36 (8d8) 8d8
Speed:
30 ft
STR
16 +3
DEX
7 -2
CON
10 +0
INT
7 -2
WIS
10 +0
CHA
6 -2
Damage Immunities: poison
Condition Immunities: charmed, exhausted, poisoned
Senses: blindsight 10 ft., darkvision 60 ft., passive
Perception 10
Languages: understands all languages it knew in life, as well as the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Challenge Rating: 1
Echolocation. The gorger can’t use its blindsight while deafened.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) 2d8+3 piercing damage.
An unholy tangling of flesh, the gorger still vaguely
resembles a humanoid in profile, except for the
gaping, toothed maw in its chest. Its colossal teeth
are little more than sharpened ribs, but its monstrous
bite can easily decapitate.
VSS
Gravetouched Ghoul CR: 2
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 12
Hit Points: 63 (14d8) 14d8
Speed:
30 ft
STR
18 +4
DEX
15 +2
CON
10 +0
INT
9 -1
WIS
10 +0
CHA
8 -1
Damage Immunities: poison
Condition Immunities: charmed, exhausted, poisoned
Senses: blindsight 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages: understands all languages it knew in life, as well as the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Challenge Rating: 2
Regeneration. The gravetouched ghoul regains 5 hit points at the start of its turn. If the gravetouched ghoul takes fire or radiant damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the gravetouched ghoul’s next turn. The gravetouched ghoul dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.
Actions
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (4d6 + 4) 4d6+4 slashing damage.
Gravetouched ghouls, which are suffused with
terrible necromantic energies, manifest various
deformities on their undead bodies. Despite being
undead, their flesh knits itself back together nearly as
quick as a troll’s, with strength to match.
VSS
Skeleton CR: 1/4
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 13 (armor scraps)
Hit Points: 13 (2d8 + 4) 2d8+4
Speed:
30 ft
STR
10 +0
DEX
14 +2
CON
15 +2
INT
6 -2
WIS
8 -1
CHA
5 -3
Damage Vulnerabilities: bludgeoning
Damage Immunities: poison
Condition Immunities: exhaustion, poisoned
Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 9
Languages: understands all languages it knew in life, as well as the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Actions
Shortsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) 1d6+2 piercing damage. Shortbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 80/320 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) 1d6+2 piercing damage.
The renanimated remains of humanoids long since
dead, skeletons are puppets of bone held aloft by
strings of magic.
VSS
Sprirt CR: 1/4
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 15
Hit Points: 7 (2d8 – 2) 2d8-2
Speed:
25 ft
, can hover
STR
1 -5
DEX
14 +2
CON
9 -1
INT
10 +0
WIS
10 +0
CHA
11 +0
Damage Vulnerabilities: radiant
Damage Immunities: cold, poison, necrotic
Condition Immunities: poisoned
Senses: darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages: understands all languages it knew in life, as well as the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Incorporeal Movement. The spirit can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. The spirit takes 5 (1d10) 1d10 force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
Actions
Grave Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) 1d4+2 necrotic damage and the target’s hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken.. This reduction lasts until the creature finishes a long rest. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0.
A spirit is the scarcely tangible echo of humanoid,
a soul bound to the mortal realm by necromantic
magic.
VSS
Visage CR: 2
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 17 (natural armor)
Hit Points: 41 (9d8) 9d8
Speed:
25 ft
, can hover
STR
1 -5
DEX
16 +3
CON
11 +0
INT
10 +0
WIS
10 +0
CHA
11 +0
Damage Immunities: cold, poison, necrotic
Condition Immunities: poisoned
Senses: darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages: understands all languages it knew in life, as well as the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Challenge Rating: 2
Incorporeal Movement. The visage can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. The visage takes 5 (1d10) 1d10 force damage if it ends its turn inside an object. Magic Resistance. The visage has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Actions
Horrify. Melee Spell Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 15 (5d4 + 3) 5d4+3 psychic damage. Invisibility. The visage magically turns invisible until it attacks or until its concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). Any equipment the visage wears or carries is invisible with it.
Mournfully longing for the world of the living, a
visage is the lingering soul of a departed humanoid.
Their yearning for a life once lived binds them to the
mortal realm, and drives mad those who see their
terrible countenance.
VSS
Zombie CR: 1/4
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 8
Hit Points: 22 (3d8 + 9) 3d8+9
Speed:
20 ft
STR
13 +1
DEX
6 -2
CON
16 +3
INT
3 -4
WIS
6 -2
CHA
5 -3
Damage Immunities: poison
Condition Immunities: poisoned
Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 8
Languages: understands all languages it knew in life, as well as the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Undead Fortitude. If damage reduces the zombie to 0 hit points, it must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5 + the damage taken, unless the damage is radiant or from a critical hit. On a success, the zombie drops to 1 hit point instead.
Actions
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) 1d6+1 bludgeoning damage.
A zombie is the rotting remains of the once-living,
held together and driven by dark magic.
subclass options:
Starting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you can use your action to touch an incapacitated humanoid, bringing them under your necromantic control. The creature becomes enthralled by you. While enthralled, the creature is charmed by you and follows your commands. It remains enthralled until a remove curse spell is cast on it, the charmed condition is removed from it, you use this feature again, or you release the creature as an action. An enthralled creature counts against the total number of thralls under your control and the total CR of thralls you can control. If the creature is of a higher CR than the total CR of thralls you control, you can’t enthrall it. You can release thralls under your control as a part of the action used to enthrall a creature. CHARNEL DRAIN
At 3rd level, you drain the essence of those you slay. When you reduce a hostile creature or an enthralled humanoid to 0 hit points with your Charnel Touch ability, you regain hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier + your necromancer level (minimum 3). Additionally, you can choose to knock the target unconscious instead of killing it. VAMPIRIC TRANSFORMATION
Starting at 6th level, you can use your action and expend 15 Charnel Touch points to transform for up to 1 hour, or until you drop to 0 hit points or revert on your turn as an action. Anything you are wearing transforms with you, but nothing you are carrying does. Choose one of the following transformations:
Bat. You transform into a Tiny bat. While in bat form, you can’t speak, your walking speed is 5 feet, and you have a flying speed of 30 feet. Your statistics, other than your size and speed, are unchanged.
Mist. You transform into a Medium cloud of mist. While in mist form, you can’t take any actions, speak, or manipulate objects. You are weightless, have a flying speed of 20 feet, can hover, and can enter a hostile creature’s space and stop there. In addition, if air can pass through a space, you can do so without squeezing, and you can’t pass through water. You have advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws, and you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
By 10th level, the hordes of the night answer to your beck and call. When you perform your Animate Thralls ritual, you can summon one or more swarms of bats, swarms of rats, or wolves to serve as your thralls. You command these creatures as your thralls. When one of these creatures is reduced to 0 hit points or released by you, it vanishes in a cloud of mist. LICHDOM: NOSFERATU
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. You have embraced the blood curse of vampirism to become a vampire lord in all but name: a nosferatu.
Coffin Phylactery. Your phylactery is a coffin filled with grave dirt. When you drop to 0 hit points, you reform in your coffin after 1 hour. You are permanently weakened until you spend 24 hours resting in the coffin. During this time, your hit point maximum is reduced to 1, and you drop to 0 hit points if you begin your turn in sunlight.
Regeneration. At the start of each of your turns, you regain 10 hit points. You don’t gain this benefit if you have 0 hit points or you are in direct sunlight.
Vampiric Agility. Your movement speed doubles. Additionally, you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Starting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you’ve honed your body and mind to the various tools of war. You gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons. Additionally, you can perform the somatic components of spells while wielding weapons or shields you are proficient in, as long as you have your arcane focus on your person. CHARNEL STRIKE
Also at 3rd level, when you take the Attack action on your turn, you can channel your Charnel Touch through a weapon strike as part of the attack. When you do so, make an attack with a melee weapon instead of a spell attack. On a hit, the target suffers the weapon attack’s normal effects, in addition to the necrotic damage of Charnel Touch. You can only deal necrotic damage using this ability once per turn. Additionally, whenever you deal damage using this ability or a Charnel Touch attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to the necrotic damage dealt, up to a maximum of half your total hit points. EXTRA ATTACK
Beginning at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Additionally, your melee weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20. OVERCHARGED THRALLS
At the 10th level, your inner nexus of energy has spread to your thralls, turning them into your own personal pools of spare energy when the need arises. When one of your thralls dies or you release it, your Charnel Touch point pool regains a number of expended points equal to your necromancer level. LICHDOM: IMPERATOR
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Due to your martial capabilities and incredibly potent inner nexus of necromantic power, you have transformed into an imperator lich; an undead creature unmatched in both arcane and combat prowess. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Completed Combat Research. You gain proficiency in heavy armor if you did not have it already, and gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
Peerless Charnel Strike. The necrotic damage caused by Charnel Touch ignores resistance and immunity to necrotic damage. Additionally, you can gain any number of temporary hit points from your Charnel Strike, instead of a maximum of half your total hit points.
At 3rd level, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you learn the following spells, which don’t count against your number of spells known. If you gain access to a spell that does not appear on the necromancer spell list, the spell is nonetheless a necromancer spell for you.
CHARNEL BOON
At 3rd level, you can grant a boon to minions by empowering them with your own potency. As a bonus action on your turn, you can expend any number of points from your Charnel Touch pool to empower each of your thralls within 30 feet. Until the beginning of your next turn, the thrall gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, and their AC for every 5 points expended, up to a maximum of +3. DESPOTIC DISCOURSE
When you reach the 6th level, your black magic has granted you a silver tongue, which you can use to manipulate those around you. You gain proficiency in your choice of Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion.
Additionally, you can use your Intelligence instead of Charisma for Charisma (Deception), Charisma (Intimidation), and Charisma (Persuasion) checks. SACRIFICIAL THRALLS
At the 10th level, you can force your thralls to sacrifice themselves to ensure your own safety. When you are targeted by an attack, you can use your reaction to force a thrall within 5 feet of you to become the new target of the attack or spell. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so until you finish a short or long rest. LICHDOM: TYRANT
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Your desire for control has warped your transformation, turning you into a tyrant lich. Your flesh and bone rapidly decay, reducing your features to nothing more than two glowing dots beneath your hood. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Immortal Rule. If you drop to 0 hit points, you can choose to possess a nearby body, instead of beginning the process of reforming at your phylactery. When you do so, choose an unconscious humanoid or the corpse of one that has died within the last minute that is within 100 feet of you to possess (a creature warded by a protection from evil and good or magic circle spell can’t be possessed). Once you possess a body, you control it. Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the creature, though you retain your alignment and your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. If the body has 0 hit points when you possess it, its type becomes undead and it regains 50 hit points, up to its hit point maximum. You retain the benefit of your own class features. If the target has any class levels, you can’t use any of its class features. If you possess the body of an unconscious creature, the creature makes a Charisma saving throw against your spellcasting DC every 8 hours. On a success, you are ejected from the body and begin the process of reforming at your phylactery. You are also ejected if the body dies or you choose to leave it as an action. You can only possess a creature once using this ability.
Tyrant’s Influence. You can expend 25 points from your Charnel Touch pool to cast the spell dominate beast without using a spell slot or spell components. You can spend 30 points to cast the spell dominate person, or 60 points to cast the spell dominate monster without using a spell slot or spell components.
Starting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you can empower your spells with potent necromantic energy from your own well of magic. When you cast a necromancy spell of 1st level or higher which deals damage, you can expend a number of points up to your level + your Intelligence modifier from your Charnel Touch point pool. When you do so, you add necrotic damage equal to the number of points spent to one of the spell’s targets. UNDEAD EMPATHY
Also at 3rd level, your command of the undead affects the will of those who aren’t under your control. Whenever an undead creature tries to attack you, it must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, its attack misses and, if its Intelligence is 4 or lower, it becomes friendly to you and your allies.
Additionally, you have advantage on Charisma checks you make against undead with Intelligence of 5 or higher. FRIGHTENING GAZE
Beginning at 6th level, you gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill, if you did not have it already. Additionally, you can expend 10 Charnel Touch points as a bonus action to fix your horrific gaze on a creature you can see within 60 feet. This creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or be frightened of you for 1 minute. The frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. THRALL RUSH
Beginning at 10th level, whenever you roll initiative and are not surprised, you can command each of your thralls to either move up to their movement speed or attack once. LICHDOM: PALE ASCENDANT
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Your skin clings tightly to your bones, your muscles wither, and your eyes turn milky and dull. Yet, through the veil of weakness your body exudes unbelievable arcane power. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Devour Soul. When you reduce an hostile creature to 0 hit points, you can immediately devour the creature’s soul to refuel your horrific powers (no action required). Roll 1d8, and regain a number of expended spell slots whose combined level is no greater than the number rolled. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest. A creature whose soul is devoured cannot be restored to life by means other than a true resurrection or wish spell.
Paralyzing Touch. When you expend 20 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be paralyzed for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Additionally, you learn the thaumaturgy cantrip, which is a necromancer spell for you and does not count against your total number of cantrips known.
CHANNEL DIVINITY
Starting at 3rd level, you can channel your pseudodivinity to fuel magical effects. You start with one effect: Ankh of Radiance. When you use your Channel Divinity, you choose which effect to create. You must then finish a short or long rest to use your Channel Divinity again. Additionally, if you expend 15 Charnel Touch points as an action, you can regain your Channel Divinity.
Ankh of Radiance. As an action, you can brandish your holy symbol and wreath each creature you choose within 60 feet in a holy radiance, which lasts for one minute. Whenever a creature with a holy radiance makes an attack roll or saving throw, it can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the attack roll or saving throw. The first time a creature with a holy radiance takes damage, it has resistance to that damage. The holy radiance then ends for this creature. HOLY SYMBOL
Also at 3rd level, you can use a holy symbol as a spell focus for your necromancy spells. MOCK DIVINITY
Beginning at 6th level, you can convincingly reflect the trappings of a demigod walking the earth. You can create the following additional effects when using the thaumaturgy cantrip:
Starting at 10th level, you can use your Channel Divinity to transfer life from the undead to the living. As an action, you can touch an undead creature you control and choose a willing humanoid you can see within 60 feet. The undead is destroyed and reduced to dust, and the humanoid regains hit points equal to the undead’s hit points. Once a creature regains hit points in this way, it can’t do so again until it finishes a short or long rest. LICHDOM: GOD-KING
At 20th level, you undergo the ancient funeral rites of the pharaohs, removing your organs and entombing your body in a sarcophagus amongst your worldly possessions. You become the oldest and most exalted type of lich: a god-king. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Canopic Phylacteries. Your phylactery has also changed with your transformation. Your stomach, lungs, intestines, and liver have been removed and placed into canopic jars. Each one has a specific weakness, which you will need to discuss with your GM, and your regeneration is only stopped when all four canopic jars are destroyed. When you are destroyed, you reform at your sarcophagus.
Mummy Rot. When you expend 20 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be cursed with mummy rot. The cursed target can’t regain hit points, and its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If the curse reduces the target’s hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and its body turns to dust. The curse lasts until removed by the remove curse spell or other magic.
Whirlwind of Sand. As an action, you can magically transform into a whirlwind of sand, move up to 60 feet, and revert to your normal form. While in whirlwind form, you are immune to all damage, can’t be grappled, petrified, knocked prone, restrained, or stunned. Equipment you are wearing or carrying remain in your possession.
At 3rd level, even your touch can cause sickness. When you expend 10 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be poisoned until the beginning of your next turn. VILE CONGREGATION
Starting at 3rd level, leagues of vermin cling to your skin and swarm over others nearby. Whenever a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack roll or saving throw, you can roll 1d4 and subtract the result from its attack roll or saving throw. This ability has no effect on constructs and undead. PROJECTILE SPEW
Beginning at 6th level, your own inner nexus of power has become a volatile cocktail of disease, allowing your spells to have a far greater reach. You can reach creatures out to 15 feet with your Charnel Touch feature and spells with a range of Touch, as you use magically imbued projectile vomit to deliver your payload. BLOATED THRALLS
At the 10th level, your thralls have become hives of vermin and disease, ready to burst at any moment. When a thrall drops to 0 hit points or you release it, you can choose to cause it to explode in a shower of poison, gore, and vermin. Each creature within 5 feet of the thrall, other than yourself and your other thralls, must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, a creature takes 4d6 poison damage and is poisoned until the start of your next turn. A creature is not poisoned and takes half as much on a successful save. LICHDOM: CORPULENT LICH
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Your obsession with disease and rot has affected your transformation: your body engorges, much like a waterlogged corpse, and your skin turns a sickly green. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Gore Burst. When you drop to 0 hit points, your body explodes in a shower of plague and necromantic energy. Each creature in a 20-foot sphere centered on you must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, a creature takes 5d10 necrotic damage and 5d10 poison damage and is poisoned until the start of your next turn. A creature is not poisoned and takes half as much damage on a successful save.
Master of Disease. When you use your Charnel Toxin ability and expend 25 or more points from your Charnel Touch pool, the target creature is poisoned for up to 1 minute on a failed save. Additionally, you can also apply two of the following effects of your choice which affect the creature while it is poisoned:
Beginning when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Medicine skill, if you did not already have it. You can use your Intelligence, instead of Wisdom, for Wisdom (Medicine) checks. MAD SCIENCE
At 3rd level, you can spend 10 minutes installing a monstrous graft on one of your thralls that does not have the Incorporeal Movement trait. Additionally, your thralls don’t lose hit points or hit dice from installing or removing grafts, and it takes them no time to recover after the attachment of a new graft. CHARNEL VOLTAGE
At 3rd level, you supplement your necromantic energies with arcing bolts of electricity. You can choose to deal lightning damage with your Charnel Touch. When you expend 5 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack and deal lightning damage, you can cause the energy to arc to a second creature within 5 feet of the target. The creature must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC, taking lightning damage equal to half the number of Charnel Touch points expended on a failure. LAZARUS BOLT
Starting at 6th level, as an action, you can drive a bolt into the torso of a creature within 5 feet of you that has died within the last minute and shock it back to life. That creature returns to life with 1 hit point. This feature can’t return to life a creature that lacks a heart, a creature that has died of old age, or a creature that is missing vital organs. Once this creature returns to life, you can restore hit points to it using your Charnel Touch ability for 1 minute, as if the creature were one of your thralls.
Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. ARCANE STITCHING
Starting at 10th level, you’ve learned how to inscribe magical effects on your thralls using gruesome arcane stitches. You can expend 10 points from your Charnel Touch pool to apply an arcane stitch to one of your thralls in a process requiring 1 minute of work with a needle and thread. The arcane stitch lasts until your thrall uses it, your thrall is killed, or you use this feature again. You can apply any of the following arcane stitches:
Augmented Incision. The thrall gains advantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the end of its turn (no action required).
Bulwark Backstitch. The thrall casts shield when an attack would hit it.
Fleet Threads. The thrall’s movement speed is tripled until the end of its turn (no action required).
Searing Suture. On a hit, the thrall deals an additional 3d6 necrotic or lightning damage (your choice). LICHDOM: PATCHWORK GOLEM
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Through abominable works of alchemy and surgery, you have constructed yourself an artificial body to act as the vessel for your soul.
Golem Form. Your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores become 20 if they weren’t already higher, and you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons that aren’t adamantine. Additionally, you don’t lose hit points or hit dice from installing or removing grafts, and it takes you no time to recover after the attachment of a new graft.
Magic Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Reaper
The oblivion of death is the sure wellspring of all necromancy, a dark abyss into which all necromancers stare, and which sometimes stares back. Those rare necromancers that gamble with their own souls might become intertwined with death, becoming reapers, figures of shadow and demise that beckon others to the afterlife. For performing this deed, they strengthen their connection to the distant oblivion, until they are but tenebrous shadows, harbingers of an inevitable end. SHROUD OF DEATH
Starting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you manifest a wispy cloak of darkness about your person, which you can hide or reveal as a bonus action. While cloaked, you levitate one inch off the ground and ignore nonmagical difficult terrain. Additionally, you can walk across fluid surfaces, such as water and quicksand. CHARNEL VEIL
At 3rd level, you can fade from view like a specter of death. Whenever you expend 5 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, you can become invisible until the start of your next turn. During this time, you make no sound while you move. UMBRAL FORM
Beginning at 6th level, as an action, you can sink into a surface, flattening until only a shadow remains. As a shadow, you can only move along the surfaces to which you are attached, but you gain a climbing speed equal to your movement speed. Additionally, while in the form of a shadow, you can move across difficult surfaces, including ceilings, without needing to make an ability check. You can’t talk or manipulate objects, and any objects you are carrying or holding can’t be dropped, used, or otherwise interacted with. You can’t attack or cast spells.
Opportunity attacks have disadvantage against you while you are in the form of a shadow. If you are in darkness as a shadow, you are effectively invisible to creatures without darkvision or the ability to see in darkness. You can end this ability as a bonus action on your turn. WRAITH FLIGHT
Beginning at 10th level, spirits you command move with an unearthly speed. The flying speeds of your thralls are doubled. Additionally, when one of your thralls flies out of an enemy’s reach, opportunity attacks against it have disadvantage. LICHDOM: HARBINGER
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. You have become an embodiment of death itself, a harbinger of the ultimate end. Clad in shadows, you seem little more than a grim skeletal presence in a foreboding robe, a sight which all men fear to behold.
Death’s Touch. When you use Charnel Touch against a creature you can see and roll an 11 or higher on the d20 for the spell attack roll, you hit the target, regardless of its AC.
Fell Flight. You gain a 50-foot flying speed. Grim Harvest. When you kill a humanoid using Charnel Touch, you rip their soul from their body, which animates as a visage under your control.
GRAVE AMBITIONS
Becoming a necromancer is seldom an accident. Almost all who dive into the secrets of life and death do so with a purpose, a method to the madness. This ambition is what drives them into the tenebrous corners of forgotten libraries, long abandoned tombs, and the graveyards of simple commoners. This ambition drives them further into the dark, with only the light of their goal to lead them through the all-consuming shadows. A necromancer’s ambition represents the path to their ultimate goal, the length they’ll go to achieve it, and serves to validate their actions, if only to themselves.Blood Ascendent
Necromantic might comes in many forms, but a singular, ancient source is the blood curse of vampirism. Though it promises much—immortality, agility, charm—it comes paired with insidious drawbacks, from the stinging burn of sunlight to a perpetual thirst for blood. Necromancers that wish to capture a measure of this power without suffering its myriad weaknesses perform a special ritual with vampiric blood in order to become blood ascendents. In doing so, they fall deathly pale and lose their reflection within mirrors, but learn to slowly pry out vampiric powers without fully succumbing to the all-devouring curse. ENTHRALL HUMANOIDStarting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you can use your action to touch an incapacitated humanoid, bringing them under your necromantic control. The creature becomes enthralled by you. While enthralled, the creature is charmed by you and follows your commands. It remains enthralled until a remove curse spell is cast on it, the charmed condition is removed from it, you use this feature again, or you release the creature as an action. An enthralled creature counts against the total number of thralls under your control and the total CR of thralls you can control. If the creature is of a higher CR than the total CR of thralls you control, you can’t enthrall it. You can release thralls under your control as a part of the action used to enthrall a creature. CHARNEL DRAIN
At 3rd level, you drain the essence of those you slay. When you reduce a hostile creature or an enthralled humanoid to 0 hit points with your Charnel Touch ability, you regain hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier + your necromancer level (minimum 3). Additionally, you can choose to knock the target unconscious instead of killing it. VAMPIRIC TRANSFORMATION
Starting at 6th level, you can use your action and expend 15 Charnel Touch points to transform for up to 1 hour, or until you drop to 0 hit points or revert on your turn as an action. Anything you are wearing transforms with you, but nothing you are carrying does. Choose one of the following transformations:
Bat. You transform into a Tiny bat. While in bat form, you can’t speak, your walking speed is 5 feet, and you have a flying speed of 30 feet. Your statistics, other than your size and speed, are unchanged.
Mist. You transform into a Medium cloud of mist. While in mist form, you can’t take any actions, speak, or manipulate objects. You are weightless, have a flying speed of 20 feet, can hover, and can enter a hostile creature’s space and stop there. In addition, if air can pass through a space, you can do so without squeezing, and you can’t pass through water. You have advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws, and you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
By 10th level, the hordes of the night answer to your beck and call. When you perform your Animate Thralls ritual, you can summon one or more swarms of bats, swarms of rats, or wolves to serve as your thralls. You command these creatures as your thralls. When one of these creatures is reduced to 0 hit points or released by you, it vanishes in a cloud of mist. LICHDOM: NOSFERATU
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. You have embraced the blood curse of vampirism to become a vampire lord in all but name: a nosferatu.
Coffin Phylactery. Your phylactery is a coffin filled with grave dirt. When you drop to 0 hit points, you reform in your coffin after 1 hour. You are permanently weakened until you spend 24 hours resting in the coffin. During this time, your hit point maximum is reduced to 1, and you drop to 0 hit points if you begin your turn in sunlight.
Regeneration. At the start of each of your turns, you regain 10 hit points. You don’t gain this benefit if you have 0 hit points or you are in direct sunlight.
Vampiric Agility. Your movement speed doubles. Additionally, you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Death Knight
Some necromancers are content to sit in dusty old tombs with musty old tomes, privy to pick apart a battlefield for fresh ingredients and new company. The death knight is a predator among scavengers, able to reap his own rewards through the melding of magic and traditional combat. Death knights are necromancers that chose to take a more direct approach to solving their problems. Well-armed and well-protected, the death knight brings a flurry of steel with the might of death behind every strike. INTENSIVE COMBAT RESEARCHStarting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you’ve honed your body and mind to the various tools of war. You gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons. Additionally, you can perform the somatic components of spells while wielding weapons or shields you are proficient in, as long as you have your arcane focus on your person. CHARNEL STRIKE
Also at 3rd level, when you take the Attack action on your turn, you can channel your Charnel Touch through a weapon strike as part of the attack. When you do so, make an attack with a melee weapon instead of a spell attack. On a hit, the target suffers the weapon attack’s normal effects, in addition to the necrotic damage of Charnel Touch. You can only deal necrotic damage using this ability once per turn. Additionally, whenever you deal damage using this ability or a Charnel Touch attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to the necrotic damage dealt, up to a maximum of half your total hit points. EXTRA ATTACK
Beginning at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Additionally, your melee weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20. OVERCHARGED THRALLS
At the 10th level, your inner nexus of energy has spread to your thralls, turning them into your own personal pools of spare energy when the need arises. When one of your thralls dies or you release it, your Charnel Touch point pool regains a number of expended points equal to your necromancer level. LICHDOM: IMPERATOR
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Due to your martial capabilities and incredibly potent inner nexus of necromantic power, you have transformed into an imperator lich; an undead creature unmatched in both arcane and combat prowess. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Completed Combat Research. You gain proficiency in heavy armor if you did not have it already, and gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
Peerless Charnel Strike. The necrotic damage caused by Charnel Touch ignores resistance and immunity to necrotic damage. Additionally, you can gain any number of temporary hit points from your Charnel Strike, instead of a maximum of half your total hit points.
Overlord
There are few ambitions the common man fantasizes about more than the power to rule. From the ignoble peasant to the haughty nobility, many dream of a world in which they are in charge. Some necromancers, known as overlords, see their magic as an opportunity to accomplish this common dream. Overlords seek control both on and off the battlefield, using dark magics to bolster their allies as well as manipulate their enemies. OVERLORD SPELLSAt 3rd level, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you learn the following spells, which don’t count against your number of spells known. If you gain access to a spell that does not appear on the necromancer spell list, the spell is nonetheless a necromancer spell for you.
| Necromancer level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 3rd | hold person, suggestion |
| 5th | haste, slow |
| 7th | compulsion, confusion |
| 9th | dominate person, geas |
At 3rd level, you can grant a boon to minions by empowering them with your own potency. As a bonus action on your turn, you can expend any number of points from your Charnel Touch pool to empower each of your thralls within 30 feet. Until the beginning of your next turn, the thrall gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, and their AC for every 5 points expended, up to a maximum of +3. DESPOTIC DISCOURSE
When you reach the 6th level, your black magic has granted you a silver tongue, which you can use to manipulate those around you. You gain proficiency in your choice of Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion.
Additionally, you can use your Intelligence instead of Charisma for Charisma (Deception), Charisma (Intimidation), and Charisma (Persuasion) checks. SACRIFICIAL THRALLS
At the 10th level, you can force your thralls to sacrifice themselves to ensure your own safety. When you are targeted by an attack, you can use your reaction to force a thrall within 5 feet of you to become the new target of the attack or spell. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so until you finish a short or long rest. LICHDOM: TYRANT
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Your desire for control has warped your transformation, turning you into a tyrant lich. Your flesh and bone rapidly decay, reducing your features to nothing more than two glowing dots beneath your hood. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Immortal Rule. If you drop to 0 hit points, you can choose to possess a nearby body, instead of beginning the process of reforming at your phylactery. When you do so, choose an unconscious humanoid or the corpse of one that has died within the last minute that is within 100 feet of you to possess (a creature warded by a protection from evil and good or magic circle spell can’t be possessed). Once you possess a body, you control it. Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the creature, though you retain your alignment and your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. If the body has 0 hit points when you possess it, its type becomes undead and it regains 50 hit points, up to its hit point maximum. You retain the benefit of your own class features. If the target has any class levels, you can’t use any of its class features. If you possess the body of an unconscious creature, the creature makes a Charisma saving throw against your spellcasting DC every 8 hours. On a success, you are ejected from the body and begin the process of reforming at your phylactery. You are also ejected if the body dies or you choose to leave it as an action. You can only possess a creature once using this ability.
Tyrant’s Influence. You can expend 25 points from your Charnel Touch pool to cast the spell dominate beast without using a spell slot or spell components. You can spend 30 points to cast the spell dominate person, or 60 points to cast the spell dominate monster without using a spell slot or spell components.
Pale Master
Necromancers are defined by their ambition. Some wish to conquer, others to control, but all utilize their necromantic powers as a means to an end, a way to pave the way to their true ambitions. Pale masters are no different, but few have grand plans to compete with the overlords nor dedicate themselves to the art of war as the death knights do. Rather, pale masters dedicate themselves to self-improvement and the growth of their powers. Pale masters range from the curious mage’s college student to the power hungry spellcaster harassing the local hamlets. With the ability to embolden their spells, communicate with the undead, reduce the bravest souls to quibbling cowards, and effortlessly command their thralls in the thick of battle; these seemingly aimless spellcasters are no less a threat than any other necromancer. CHARNEL EMPOWERStarting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you can empower your spells with potent necromantic energy from your own well of magic. When you cast a necromancy spell of 1st level or higher which deals damage, you can expend a number of points up to your level + your Intelligence modifier from your Charnel Touch point pool. When you do so, you add necrotic damage equal to the number of points spent to one of the spell’s targets. UNDEAD EMPATHY
Also at 3rd level, your command of the undead affects the will of those who aren’t under your control. Whenever an undead creature tries to attack you, it must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, its attack misses and, if its Intelligence is 4 or lower, it becomes friendly to you and your allies.
Additionally, you have advantage on Charisma checks you make against undead with Intelligence of 5 or higher. FRIGHTENING GAZE
Beginning at 6th level, you gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill, if you did not have it already. Additionally, you can expend 10 Charnel Touch points as a bonus action to fix your horrific gaze on a creature you can see within 60 feet. This creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or be frightened of you for 1 minute. The frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. THRALL RUSH
Beginning at 10th level, whenever you roll initiative and are not surprised, you can command each of your thralls to either move up to their movement speed or attack once. LICHDOM: PALE ASCENDANT
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Your skin clings tightly to your bones, your muscles wither, and your eyes turn milky and dull. Yet, through the veil of weakness your body exudes unbelievable arcane power. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Devour Soul. When you reduce an hostile creature to 0 hit points, you can immediately devour the creature’s soul to refuel your horrific powers (no action required). Roll 1d8, and regain a number of expended spell slots whose combined level is no greater than the number rolled. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest. A creature whose soul is devoured cannot be restored to life by means other than a true resurrection or wish spell.
Paralyzing Touch. When you expend 20 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be paralyzed for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Pharaoh
The god-kings of ancient kingdoms practiced a unique style of necromancy, forgotten to time. Through the extraction of organs, the desiccation of flesh, and innumerable enchantments, those ancient kings were able to rule their subjects as divine, undead beings, long past their mortal deaths. While those kingdoms have been lost to the shifting sands and wild jungles of the world, their methods have been preserved in the carvings of colossal temples, and have been revived by modern necromancers, who take on the guise of the erstwhile pharaohs. Their magic is a hybrid of divine and arcane influences, the legacy of god-kings from a forgotten age. PHARAOH SPELLS At 3rd level, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you learn the following spells, which don’t count against your number of spells known. If you gain access to a spell that does not appear on the necromancer spell list, the spell is nonetheless a necromancer spell for you. New spells are marked with an asterisk.Additionally, you learn the thaumaturgy cantrip, which is a necromancer spell for you and does not count against your total number of cantrips known.
| Necromancer level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 3rd | halo of flame, lesser restoration |
| 5th | snakestaff, revivify |
| 7th | death ward, divination |
| 9th | insect plague, greater restoration |
Starting at 3rd level, you can channel your pseudodivinity to fuel magical effects. You start with one effect: Ankh of Radiance. When you use your Channel Divinity, you choose which effect to create. You must then finish a short or long rest to use your Channel Divinity again. Additionally, if you expend 15 Charnel Touch points as an action, you can regain your Channel Divinity.
Ankh of Radiance. As an action, you can brandish your holy symbol and wreath each creature you choose within 60 feet in a holy radiance, which lasts for one minute. Whenever a creature with a holy radiance makes an attack roll or saving throw, it can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the attack roll or saving throw. The first time a creature with a holy radiance takes damage, it has resistance to that damage. The holy radiance then ends for this creature. HOLY SYMBOL
Also at 3rd level, you can use a holy symbol as a spell focus for your necromancy spells. MOCK DIVINITY
Beginning at 6th level, you can convincingly reflect the trappings of a demigod walking the earth. You can create the following additional effects when using the thaumaturgy cantrip:
- You can brighten or darken the sun or moon, affecting a 100-foot radius, for up to 1 minute. You can change darkness to dim light, or dim light to bright light, or vice-versa. Additionally, you can heighten bright light to a blazing radiance which causes disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks which rely on sight, or deepen darkness to a pitch black which limits darkvision to a 30-foot radius. This deeper darkness has no effect on creatures which can see in magical darkness.
- At a point you can see within 100 feet, you manifest a Huge illusory avatar of a deity which mimics your movements and projects your speech in a booming voice for 1 minute.
Starting at 10th level, you can use your Channel Divinity to transfer life from the undead to the living. As an action, you can touch an undead creature you control and choose a willing humanoid you can see within 60 feet. The undead is destroyed and reduced to dust, and the humanoid regains hit points equal to the undead’s hit points. Once a creature regains hit points in this way, it can’t do so again until it finishes a short or long rest. LICHDOM: GOD-KING
At 20th level, you undergo the ancient funeral rites of the pharaohs, removing your organs and entombing your body in a sarcophagus amongst your worldly possessions. You become the oldest and most exalted type of lich: a god-king. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Canopic Phylacteries. Your phylactery has also changed with your transformation. Your stomach, lungs, intestines, and liver have been removed and placed into canopic jars. Each one has a specific weakness, which you will need to discuss with your GM, and your regeneration is only stopped when all four canopic jars are destroyed. When you are destroyed, you reform at your sarcophagus.
Mummy Rot. When you expend 20 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be cursed with mummy rot. The cursed target can’t regain hit points, and its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If the curse reduces the target’s hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and its body turns to dust. The curse lasts until removed by the remove curse spell or other magic.
Whirlwind of Sand. As an action, you can magically transform into a whirlwind of sand, move up to 60 feet, and revert to your normal form. While in whirlwind form, you are immune to all damage, can’t be grappled, petrified, knocked prone, restrained, or stunned. Equipment you are wearing or carrying remain in your possession.
Plague Lord
The power of plagues can’t be denied. A single disease can single handedly overwhelm a nation, or even an empire. Necromancers that realize the potential within sickness will often seek to wield that power themselves. These are known as plague lords, commanders of vermin and disease alike. A plague lord’s touch is toxic, vermin protect them from harm, can transfer their spells through unconventional means, and spread their filth to their thralls. CHARNEL TOXINAt 3rd level, even your touch can cause sickness. When you expend 10 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or be poisoned until the beginning of your next turn. VILE CONGREGATION
Starting at 3rd level, leagues of vermin cling to your skin and swarm over others nearby. Whenever a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack roll or saving throw, you can roll 1d4 and subtract the result from its attack roll or saving throw. This ability has no effect on constructs and undead. PROJECTILE SPEW
Beginning at 6th level, your own inner nexus of power has become a volatile cocktail of disease, allowing your spells to have a far greater reach. You can reach creatures out to 15 feet with your Charnel Touch feature and spells with a range of Touch, as you use magically imbued projectile vomit to deliver your payload. BLOATED THRALLS
At the 10th level, your thralls have become hives of vermin and disease, ready to burst at any moment. When a thrall drops to 0 hit points or you release it, you can choose to cause it to explode in a shower of poison, gore, and vermin. Each creature within 5 feet of the thrall, other than yourself and your other thralls, must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, a creature takes 4d6 poison damage and is poisoned until the start of your next turn. A creature is not poisoned and takes half as much on a successful save. LICHDOM: CORPULENT LICH
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Your obsession with disease and rot has affected your transformation: your body engorges, much like a waterlogged corpse, and your skin turns a sickly green. You gain the following features in addition to the Lichdom feature:
Gore Burst. When you drop to 0 hit points, your body explodes in a shower of plague and necromantic energy. Each creature in a 20-foot sphere centered on you must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, a creature takes 5d10 necrotic damage and 5d10 poison damage and is poisoned until the start of your next turn. A creature is not poisoned and takes half as much damage on a successful save.
Master of Disease. When you use your Charnel Toxin ability and expend 25 or more points from your Charnel Touch pool, the target creature is poisoned for up to 1 minute on a failed save. Additionally, you can also apply two of the following effects of your choice which affect the creature while it is poisoned:
- Choose one ability score. The target has disadvantage on ability checks and saving throws made with that ability score.
- The creature can only see out to a radius of 10 feet.
- The creature falls prone at the end of each of its turns.
- The creature loses an additional 1d6 hit points whenever it takes damage.
- The creature can speak only in a babbling nonsense language while poisoned, and can’t perform the verbal components of spells. At the end of each of its turns, the creature can make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC, ending this effect on a success.
Reanimator
Through bubbling test tubes and sparking electrodes, you have discovered the true heart of necromancy: mad science. You’ve experimented in far-reaching disciplines of surgery, alchemy, and physics, using your animated minions as gruesome test subjects and walking surgical dummies. Most crucially, you have discovered that lightning can imbue almost anything with a semblance of life, from the smallest severed muscle to the most towering and soulless golems. SKILLED SURGEONBeginning when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Medicine skill, if you did not already have it. You can use your Intelligence, instead of Wisdom, for Wisdom (Medicine) checks. MAD SCIENCE
At 3rd level, you can spend 10 minutes installing a monstrous graft on one of your thralls that does not have the Incorporeal Movement trait. Additionally, your thralls don’t lose hit points or hit dice from installing or removing grafts, and it takes them no time to recover after the attachment of a new graft. CHARNEL VOLTAGE
At 3rd level, you supplement your necromantic energies with arcing bolts of electricity. You can choose to deal lightning damage with your Charnel Touch. When you expend 5 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack and deal lightning damage, you can cause the energy to arc to a second creature within 5 feet of the target. The creature must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC, taking lightning damage equal to half the number of Charnel Touch points expended on a failure. LAZARUS BOLT
Starting at 6th level, as an action, you can drive a bolt into the torso of a creature within 5 feet of you that has died within the last minute and shock it back to life. That creature returns to life with 1 hit point. This feature can’t return to life a creature that lacks a heart, a creature that has died of old age, or a creature that is missing vital organs. Once this creature returns to life, you can restore hit points to it using your Charnel Touch ability for 1 minute, as if the creature were one of your thralls.
Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. ARCANE STITCHING
Starting at 10th level, you’ve learned how to inscribe magical effects on your thralls using gruesome arcane stitches. You can expend 10 points from your Charnel Touch pool to apply an arcane stitch to one of your thralls in a process requiring 1 minute of work with a needle and thread. The arcane stitch lasts until your thrall uses it, your thrall is killed, or you use this feature again. You can apply any of the following arcane stitches:
Augmented Incision. The thrall gains advantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the end of its turn (no action required).
Bulwark Backstitch. The thrall casts shield when an attack would hit it.
Fleet Threads. The thrall’s movement speed is tripled until the end of its turn (no action required).
Searing Suture. On a hit, the thrall deals an additional 3d6 necrotic or lightning damage (your choice). LICHDOM: PATCHWORK GOLEM
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. Through abominable works of alchemy and surgery, you have constructed yourself an artificial body to act as the vessel for your soul.
Golem Form. Your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores become 20 if they weren’t already higher, and you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons that aren’t adamantine. Additionally, you don’t lose hit points or hit dice from installing or removing grafts, and it takes you no time to recover after the attachment of a new graft.
Magic Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Reaper
The oblivion of death is the sure wellspring of all necromancy, a dark abyss into which all necromancers stare, and which sometimes stares back. Those rare necromancers that gamble with their own souls might become intertwined with death, becoming reapers, figures of shadow and demise that beckon others to the afterlife. For performing this deed, they strengthen their connection to the distant oblivion, until they are but tenebrous shadows, harbingers of an inevitable end. SHROUD OF DEATH
Starting when you choose this ambition at 3rd level, you manifest a wispy cloak of darkness about your person, which you can hide or reveal as a bonus action. While cloaked, you levitate one inch off the ground and ignore nonmagical difficult terrain. Additionally, you can walk across fluid surfaces, such as water and quicksand. CHARNEL VEIL
At 3rd level, you can fade from view like a specter of death. Whenever you expend 5 or more points when making a Charnel Touch attack, you can become invisible until the start of your next turn. During this time, you make no sound while you move. UMBRAL FORM
Beginning at 6th level, as an action, you can sink into a surface, flattening until only a shadow remains. As a shadow, you can only move along the surfaces to which you are attached, but you gain a climbing speed equal to your movement speed. Additionally, while in the form of a shadow, you can move across difficult surfaces, including ceilings, without needing to make an ability check. You can’t talk or manipulate objects, and any objects you are carrying or holding can’t be dropped, used, or otherwise interacted with. You can’t attack or cast spells.
Opportunity attacks have disadvantage against you while you are in the form of a shadow. If you are in darkness as a shadow, you are effectively invisible to creatures without darkvision or the ability to see in darkness. You can end this ability as a bonus action on your turn. WRAITH FLIGHT
Beginning at 10th level, spirits you command move with an unearthly speed. The flying speeds of your thralls are doubled. Additionally, when one of your thralls flies out of an enemy’s reach, opportunity attacks against it have disadvantage. LICHDOM: HARBINGER
At 20th level, you have reached the pinnacle of necromancy and transformed yourself into a lich. You have become an embodiment of death itself, a harbinger of the ultimate end. Clad in shadows, you seem little more than a grim skeletal presence in a foreboding robe, a sight which all men fear to behold.
Death’s Touch. When you use Charnel Touch against a creature you can see and roll an 11 or higher on the d20 for the spell attack roll, you hit the target, regardless of its AC.
Fell Flight. You gain a 50-foot flying speed. Grim Harvest. When you kill a humanoid using Charnel Touch, you rip their soul from their body, which animates as a visage under your control.
| LEVEL | PROF. BONUS | TOTAL THRALLCR | FEATURES | CANTRIPS KNOWN | SPELLS KNOWN | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | +2 | — | Spellcasting, Charnel Touch | 4 | 2 | ||||
| 2nd | +2 | 1/4 | Thralls, Bag of Bones | 4 | 3 | ||||
| 3rd | +2 | 1/2 | Grave Ambition, Black Arcana | 4 | 4 | ||||
| 4th | +2 | 1/2 | Ability Score Improvement | 5 | 5 | ||||
| 5th | +3 | 1 | Critical Spellcasting | 5 | 6 | ||||
| 6th | +3 | 1 | Grave Ambition Feature | 5 | 7 | ||||
| 7th | +3 | 1 | Enthralling Presence | 5 | 8 | ||||
| 8th | +3 | 1 | Ability Score Improvement | 5 | 9 | ||||
| 9th | +4 | 2 | — | 5 | 10 | ||||
| 10th | +4 | 2 | Grave Ambition feature | 6 | 11 | ||||
| 11th | +4 | 2 | — | 6 | 12 | ||||
| 12th | +4 | 2 | Ability Score Improvement | 6 | 12 | ||||
| 13th | +5 | 3 | — | 6 | 13 | ||||
| 14th | +5 | 3 | Critical Spellcasting improvement | 6 | 13 | ||||
| 15th | +5 | 3 | — | 6 | 14 | ||||
| 16th | +5 | 3 | Ability Score Improvement | 6 | 14 | ||||
| 17th | +6 | 4 | — | 6 | 15 | ||||
| 18th | +6 | 4 | Undying Servitude | 6 | 15 | ||||
| 19th | +6 | 4 | Ability Score Improvement | 6 | 15 | ||||
| 20th | +6 | 4 | Lichdom | 6 | 15 | ||||
| Spell slots | |||||||||
| Necromancer level | 1ST | 2ND | 3RD | 4TH | 5TH | 6TH | 7TH | 8TH | 9TH |
| 1st | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2nd | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 3rd | 4 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 4th | 4 | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 5th | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 6th | 4 | 3 | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 7th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 8th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 9th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — | — | — | — |
| 10th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — | — | — | — |
| 11th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | — | — | — |
| 12th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | — | — | — |
| 13th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — | — |
| 14th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — | — |
| 15th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 16th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 17th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 18th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 19th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 20th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.042 © 2017-2024 [en] | Anvil Time: 13:41, Nov 22 2024