cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/50533811

I've been thinking about the necromancer since getting my book and I think theres a lot of serious potential in the class.

Thralls strike with your spellmod which leads to many shenanigans including:

Instant flanking with puppeteer (create thrall lets you command them to strike)

Aiding yourself, esp. through gunslinger's Fake Out! https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3161

Essentially being a legendary striker like gunslinger, operative, and fighter, but with delayed progression

The subclasses are interesting, but I think the top two are definitely Spirit and Blood. Blood helps you heal so you aren't a burden on the party. Spirit converts thrall damage to spirit damage, which is extremely nice if you get a Shining Symbol https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=3109

The potential for the class is immense, as said, you are essentially a legendary striker (via thralls) with legendary spellcasting at the cost of less spells. The big issue is its hard to modify your thrall's damage.

Some archetypes I think will be good with necromancer:

Marshal: go dread marshal to buff spell and thrall damage

Beastmaster/Cavalier/Undead master/Captain : A nice, pale horse would be useful as necromancers are actually quite strapped for actions. They have tons of reliable 3rd actions and most spells will cost 2 actions and a mount will give some mobility. Sharpshooter follower would be great too, ask your dm if they can be a skeleton.

Commander: There's a lot of synergy in the low level tactics and feats. I wouldn't say to go too hard on the dip here. The tactics that stand out to me are Passage of Lines https://2e.aonprd.com/Tactics.aspx?ID=5 and End It! https://2e.aonprd.com/Tactics.aspx?ID=9. Passage of lines has pretty good use cases, you can put a thrall behind an ally to yoink them from harms way. Imagine if you use 'ready an action' to make the passage of lines to go off once an enemy is winding up for a strike, poofing your ally. Commander also has some choice feats, especially DEFENSIVE SWAP https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7798, which lets you sacrifice a thrall to take no damage from an attack. That one has immense potential and is an extremely strong effect on a necromancer. I think plant banner https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7796 also has utility use for keeping your allies up.

Gunslinger: As said, you can lean into an aid build and go gunslinger for fake out. This is an extremely effective way to crit enemies early in the game, I would go gunslinger if my party was short on strikers. I don't think the other feats are very worthwhile, I'd probably take defensive armaments. We don't really want to be striking ourselves (only through thralls), a gauntlet bow will suffice for fake out. Plenty of ancestries help facilitate aid bonuses.

Bellflower Tiller: Tiller's aid https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=933 gets you something similar to Fake Out at a much later level.

Spellcasting archetypes like Hedge Mage and Wizard: These let you diversify your spell choices a little. There are many great new spells and I will share my idealized necromancer spell list here in the future. However, Hedge Mage is a new archetype and really stands out. I'll let the dedication speak for itself

At level 14 they also get community needs, which is an interesting way to steal an upcasted fireball or heal spell on some classes.

When it comes to ancestries, you'll have a wide variety of choices. I think the best ones for necromancer will be ones that help buff aid.

Human: Is a top tier choice just for natural ambition https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4478 to grab Reach of the Dead, possibly one of the best feats in the game and gives necromancer insane flexibility. It also has a number of feats that buff aid, especially Cooperative Nature https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4475

Elf: Has a lot of movespeed and flexibility if you do not have a mount.

Nagaji: Has a good aid feat.

Skeleton, Corpsefulk Heritage, Revenant background, Dhampir: Negative healing lets you take advantage of Necromancer's mastery of life and death AOE harms easily and it also means you are unharmed by your necrotic bomb

Starfinder has some interesting options too

Skittermander (funny) : Has overly helpful https://2e.aonsrd.com/feats/1191-overly-helpful

Formian: good aid abilities at 1st and 5th, additional reaction https://2e.aonsrd.com/feats/1449-called-to-help

Vlaka: increments aid bonus by 1, or 2 on a crit https://2e.aonsrd.com/feats/219-gifted-mentor Kinda nuts, especially if you get cooperative nature from another ancestry.

Shirren: free reaction for aid https://2e.aonsrd.com/feats/345-eager-assistant

Skittermander: one free action prep for aid https://2e.aonsrd.com/feats/361-helping-hand

I will share my spell and feat suggestions on necromancer soon.