Velsharoon's Gift Gain Animate Dead, Create Undead, Control Undead.
Land of the Dead Wearer's Necro pets spells can target earth surfaces.
Aumvor's Phylacteries Wearer's damage taken is split with its Necro pets.
Xzar's Reanimation Its killed Necro pets respawn and trigger wearer's next turn.
Leader of the Pack Wearer's conditions are reflected on its minions.
Bohdi's Kiss Wearer's Necro pets apply one offensive Necro spell it knows.
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Explainer
Velsharoon's Gift: Any class can play Necro pets. Necro Pets are Undead (Geist, Ghost, Ghoul, Lich, Skeleton, Vampire, Wight, Wraith, Zombie, ...etc.).
Land of the Dead: Corpses are no longer required when earth is accessible. Does not work on metal surfaces. Handy to prepare a fight, or when player is adventuring in solo.
Aumvor's Phylacteries: Just like Voldemort. Damage reduction: 1 pet = 50%, 2 pets = 66% 3 pets = 75%, 4 pets = 80%, 5 pets = 83%.
Xzar's Reanimation: Immortal Necro pets. When a Necro pet dies, it is respawned and its master immediately starts its next turn. Leader of the Pack: Blessed, Hasted, Enlarged, Reduced, 3x Jump, Feather Fall, Invisible, ...etc. Useful for Rangers, Druids, Necromancers.
Bodhi's Kiss: On hit, apply a random effect of a known Necro spell among: Chill Touch, Inflict Wounds, Ray of Sickness, Blindness/Deafness, Ray of Enfeeblement, Bestow Curse, Vampiric Touch, Blight, Contagion, Circle of Death, Eyebite, Harm, Finger of Death. Restricting your known Necro spells list to the single one you want to apply is a good strategy to get a predictible outcome. When multiple variants are possible, (Blindness/Deafness, Bestow Curse, Contagion, EyeBite), a single one variant is randomly applied. In any case, the master's stats, proficiency, bonuses, ...etc. are used. The Necro pet is a proxy to deliver the Necro spell payload. Immensely powerful if Necro pets are Skeletons using Two Weapon Fighting, as they will deliver several payloads per turn. Moreover if their Master is hasted and uses Leader of the Pack to also Haste its Skeletons.
That seems overpowered. You're essentially a near unkillable tank, with 6x the normal amount of actions available. 12x, using haste. It also doesn't sound like your minions using spells burns up your own spell slots. They just have infinite spells prepared. Additionally, you get all this on top of your normal class
Make it a subclass. Limit the number of undead in your command at once by your level. Have it be a concentration spell where spellcasting through minions is limited. Have the limiting factor be your bonus action. At loss of concentration, undead remain on your side, but can't be commanded. This forces you to either spend an action to regain focus or makes your minions use normal attacks.
Introduce it as a hidden class that can only be unlocked after a specific questline in Bg. Reviving undead is not a well known discipline. It's also too strong for the early levels. If you arrive in Bg3 at level 5 and focus on that quest, you could have it available by level 6. Limit the strenght and amount of undead so you don't outdamage a martial classes' two weapon attacks at that time.
It's balanced if it's roughly one of their attacks in damage, since you still have a whole action left and commanding undead used your bonus action. This also means a necromancer will need an assortment of spells to do damage themselves as a caster. At this point, a preciser concept of the class is needed to divide their potential for melee, tanking and ranged damage. The first question to establish this is who can become a necromancer, and what abilities they retain.
Eldritch knights, warlocks and wizards all have a different angle. Warlocks wouldn't need to lose any of their prior features. Wizards maybe should switch out their spell list to an extend. Eldritch knights are currently underpowered enough that it depends on how much Larian is planning to torture them in the full release.
Along with haste being untransferable and some other minor tweaks (such as set spellslots for undead companions per short rest), it just needs to scale to level better.
Additionally, you get all this on top of your normal class
Maybe a significant malus could balance these items, like :
The wearer cannot attack enemies, but its minions can.
But it would require all those items to be a set, or reflect the malus on every piece.
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It also doesn't sound like your minions using spells burns up your own spell slots. They just have infinite spells prepared.
Necro Spells as a cantrip !
Maybe adding some randomness could balance the intent ?
1d4 chance to apply one of your Necro spells
It is still infinite, but does not apply everytime.
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6x the normal amount of actions available. 12x, using haste
Yep it is a pet build ! Designed for solo adventuring.
Maybe a significant malus could balance these items, like :
When solo adventuring, ...
But it would require all those items to be a set, or reflect the malus on every piece.
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You're essentially a near unkillable tank
Maybe adding some randomness could balance the intent ?
1d4 chance to respawn Necro pets when they die
This way there is a possibility Necro pets die for real.
The problem is, without Necro pets, well, a solo Necromancer would be super brittle, especially if most its prepared spells were designed to enhance pets. If the pets die from an enemy AoE spell like Fireball, it is basically game over.
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Make it a subclass. Limit the number of undead in your command at once by your level. Have it be a concentration spell where spellcasting through minions is limited. Have the limiting factor be your bonus action. At loss of concentration, undead remain on your side, but can't be commanded. This forces you to either spend an action to regain focus or makes your minions use normal attacks.
Introduce it as a hidden class that can only be unlocked after a specific questline in Bg. Reviving undead is not a well known discipline. It's also too strong for the early levels. If you arrive in Bg3 at level 5 and focus on that quest, you could have it available by level 6. Limit the strenght and amount of undead so you don't outdamage a martial classes' two weapon attacks at that time.
I really like the subclass idea !
It is more elegant than a set.
But I'd like to be a Necromancer in early game.
Especially in the crypt on the beach, there is an opportunity to use Command Undead...
And while we are at modifications, why not a quest for Necromancers to become an undead like a vampire or a lich ?
I haven't played it, but pathfinder, wrath of the righteous seems to solve it's lich attainment problem quite well. Liches are incredibly powerful beings. It's on par with mythic aspirations such as becoming a gold dragon.
However, Bg3 doesn't seem like it would let us become something so powerful. The evil side is centered around shadows, curses and false gods. In the trailer, we saw at one point a bunch of zombie like thralls resulting from a flawed experiment. Together with the necromancy of thay, there's enough hints towards necromancy, but it's a game of mortals vs (demi?) gods.
If you want necromancy early game, the necromancy of thay appears to unfortunately be Astarion's quest item. I assume the player could also learn a few "flawed" spells from it, since we have no idea what we're doing. (However, it currently can't be shared...). Alternatively, we could get ourselves cursed in that crypt. The necromancer quest line could give a cure or unlock the subclass.
It's certainly a way to start off with a few inferior spells or heavy maluses. Since you're cursed. Level restrictions apply.
Story wise, it can range from killing and reanimating whatever living companions you brought on accident (curse your greedy, greedy level 2 paws), to healing items harming you... How cursed is too cursed is a wide playing field.
If you want necromancy early game, the necromancy of thay appears to unfortunately be Astarion's quest item.
Yes, the book can be used by either Gale or Astarion, instead of by our main character, but I’m guessing it’s not essential for either of them to complete their personal quests. We already know there are other magical items Gale can consume, and I hope that there would be a lot more in the way of warning signs if Astarion can’t achieve whatever benefit he gets from the book in another way too (assuming he can get more than the speak with dead spell anyway).
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Unfortunately, I believe that book will play a heavy role in Astarion's quest, or at the minimum... What happens to his alignment later. If he can master his vampirism, he will not need the tadpole anymore. Without that, I'm not sure there's a good ending for Astarion.
Be enslaved to the tadpole (very bad), become a fully fledged vampire overlord (worrying), or (near?) cure it altogether? One path seems more consistent with magic mirror option 1 than the others. However, suspiciously, a real vampire could never wish for something as simple as magic mirror option 1 (see his homeland again). Conincidence? Either vampires are not forced to be greedy and evil anymore, against 5e... or something happened to that vampirism.
Every companion (save Lae'Zel) has a tadpole ending, a good ending and a bad ending by that mirror. Somewhere the paths diverge.
Last edited by Silver/; 17/01/2312:37 AM. Reason: Addition
Unfortunately, I believe that book will play a heavy role in Astarion's quest, or at the minimum... What happens to his alignment later. If he can master his vampirism, he will not need the tadpole anymore. Without that, I'm not sure there's a good ending for Astarion.
Well, you could be right of course, but I would be very surprised if the book were essential to achieving a positive outcome for Astarion, at least unless the writing in the full release is changed to signpost this much more clearly. Right now, my guess is that giving him the book can help him get a happy ending (as it could help Gale), but that there will also be alternative ways of getting there if a different choice is made with respect to the Necromancy of Thay.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Maybe. Personally, I find the trope of the op artefact that falls into your hands, but gets mistaken for yet another trinket hilarious.
I don't have enough experience with Larian to gauge whether there will be consequences for mishandling the book. I don't personally want an out for every mistake I made, though. If Astarion has high enough approval, but ursurps his master, it's not like that's a /really/ bad ending. If the book route is a "secret ending", there wouldn't be warning flags, either. It's all just speculation, but I'm very suspicious given the mirror.
Isn’t that an evil book, though? Why would it be required for a companion’s good ending?
I was thinking of a good ending for Astarion in the sense of one he would be happy with, which probably isn't going to be "good" in the moral or alignment sense!
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
I was thinking of a good ending for Astarion in the sense of one he would be happy with, which probably isn't going to be "good" in the moral or alignment sense!
![[Linked Image from i.ibb.co]](https://i.ibb.co/SRPmX4d/bg3-necro-pets.jpg)
