Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Help in building a "Grim reaper" type necromancer

Hey everyone, been wanting to build a themed character based on the grim reaper. Casting necromancy spells and summoning the dead. Fighting with a scythe (quartet staff in this case)

Any and all ideas on how to do this are welcome. My ideas look something like this.

Was thinking of starting off as a Cleric and focus on Wis/dex with some con possibly grabbing nature domain to get a hold shillelagh (there are no scythe weapons from what I've seen, but a quarter staff blessed with shillelagh works for me) cleric is where I'd probably take the most lvls in, eventually getting a hold of spirit guardians.

Also thinking of dipping 1 LVL into monk to get a hold of unarmored def where I'd have beefy Ac with all that Wis and dex. Making me robed also.

Now from here would it be a good idea to take min 2 lvls in wizard and specialise in necromancy?

Feat-wise war caster is a must, then maybe take 2x stat increase. Or maybe polearm master could work in this case also.

Anyways, lemme hear your thoughts and ideas for this type of build!

I would pick a sickle over a staff. A sickle is just a short kind of scythe, an instrument for harvesting (reaping).
The game is not very generous in handing out sickles, but they can be dual wielded, and you can craft one that shuts people up, which is kind of fitting for a grim reaper.

Oh yeah, you should play a githyanki, they look emaciated by default. Make their skin white, and wear black eye makeup and a black hood. And support this feature request.

I think how you spec depends heavily on what you want to lean into as a fantasy.

If you just want undead armies and don't care about getting up close and personal, wizard would be better imho. It gets better undead options and has the thematic ability to heal on kill.

If you're going for a "death knight" then a war cleric summoning undead then using dark spirit guardians and wading in would satisfy that nicely.

So you have 2 options really. And both honestly can function well as a pure class build. Because animating undead is linked to spells and you won't really get that til level 5, you're better off sticking pure until at least level 5 then *maybe* respeccing or dipping at level 6 to get proficiencies or whatever.

Ironically cleric 1 is an insanely good dip for wizard because of all the proficiencies you get, as well as no loss of slot progression. So if you go wizard, I'd play straight for 6 levels then at level 6 or 7 respec so your first level is cleric and then the rest in wizard. Cleric I'd play it straight cleric.


Edit: One more thing. If you go for melee death knight with spirit guardians, a single dip in fighter at level 6(respec so you start as fighter) will give you con save proficiency and then you can warcaster at cleric 4. This is especially useful for spirit guardians since you may opt to run between enemies eating opportunity attacks if you're going death blender. But either way your concentration checks will be amazing.

You could play a Spores Druid with a level of Wizard. That way you have unlimited access to both spell lists, as wizards can learn all spells from scrolls. The temporary hitpoints from Spores Druid makes the character rather tanky and the Thorn Whip helps you force enemies into melee. You could even try something like Spores Druid 6/Cleric (Light or Tempest)5/Wizard 1. That way you can add guardian spirits to the mix.

Warcaster is definitely a must have, tho I'd probably forget about wielding a martial weapon if you're a necro wizard, it'll do you no favor's. I posted a Necromancer build not long ago if you wanna check it out.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=917312#Post917312

Otherwise I'd go war cleric if I'm dead set on hand scythe and summoning undead, but no where near as fun as Wizard spells in my imo and multi classing is a bad idea for spellcasters, you'll miss out on powerful spells later on. There's also warlock, they can learn raising undead and can use spears and halberds.