Talk:Undead Master (5e Class)
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This class is inspired by these two posts: Of Undead and Understanding, Of Undead & Understanding: The Dead Exodus. You could argue it is some sort of a port of the Pale Master General Prestige Class, combined with a Deathwalker Alternate Class from 3.5.
A detailed examination and my thoughts:
Spellcasting:
Its Spellcasting, there is nothing much to say really. The spell list so far is a modified wizard list, overall I would think its worse.
Necrotic Liege:
More or less the selling point, indefinite controll over up to 10 CR worth of undead. You could do this with normal spellslots though, it is just easier to track, and doesnt require the spellslots. You need to do the roll, your Charima will probably not be high, and the strongest minions you can get are mummies and wights. The mindless undead ignoring you is nice, but useless in a party, since your allies will still be attacked.
The Find X being undead is both nice flavour, and lets them be affected by your other features.
Tough as Bone:
Con save proficiency is great, advantage in resisting/Immunity to diseases and sleep effects is nice, but diseases are somewhat rarely used. Not needing to sleep is also nice, but has limited use, since you still need to rest, so probably only to keep watch.
Harvest of Death:
Up to 3 cast of animate dead for free per long rest are great, but you still need the corpses, same goes for the single cast of create undead. That they are by default under Necrotic Liege is nice, but if you got enough time, you could sooner or later get them there anyway.
The special armor is wonderful, allowing you to hit 14 +3 +3= 20 AC, as well as 20 Spell save DC and +12 spell attack modifier.
Necrosis:
3d8 +5 touch attack with a 2 round paralyse on con save is okay for a caster, the permanent undead is nice, but still needs you to get into melee and to time it right. The arms will most likely bring you some issues in the RP though.
The extra HP, and the +X to hit and damage for your undead is great, a necromancy wizard gets it 4 levels earlier though.
Learned Necromancer:
+Int mod on spells that deal necrotic, cold, force, acid or poison damage is great, but it is leaving out fire, electric, thunder and radiant. A lot of the best blasting spells deal one of the latter, and again 4 levels later than an evocation wizard.
Eternity begins:
Creature type undead offers some advantages and disadvantages considering healing magic and other stuff that is specifically against undead. Immunity to the poisoned and exhaustion conditions and poison damage is nice.
No need to eat, drink or breath, you stop aging and magical aging has no effect are okay narative powers, that wont really have much of an effect on the actual game.
The appearance change might bring some complications in the RP again.
The extra HP, HP max being fixed are great since you only have d6 hit points.
The extra AC and saving throw bonus for undead are great.
What's dead may never die:
1 HP/round is nice, but nothing game changing, same with the body parts reattaching. You will have access to much stronger healing magic/items by now.
The escape part is also nice, but it is also something you dont really want to even use, and if the enemy can see invisibility, it is over anyway.
So overall you got:
- Spellcasting, with a somewhat worse wizard spell list
- Controll of 10 CR of undead
- Zombies and skeletons ignore you
- Immunity to disease and sleep
- Con save proficiency
- 3 free casts of animate dead
- 1 free cast of create undead
- a light armor breastplate +3
- +1 to Spell save DC and Spell attack modifier
- melee spell attack with 3d8 +Int mod damage and a con save 2 round paralyse, with a possible permanent CR 1/4 undead
- +level HP and +1/2 proficiency to attack and damage rolls of your undead
- +Int mod damage on somewhat inefficient damage type spells
- Undead creature type
- Immunity to poison, exhaustion and age
- spooky looks
- +level HP
- HP max cant be reduced
- +1/2 proficiency to your undeads AC and saves
- regenerate 1 HP/turn if you have at least 1 HP, reattach limbs
- Escape option
I have no idea if this class can even be balanced. The amount of undead you can control is game breaking. By that I dont neccessarily mean too strong, since a single AoE can wipe out a lot of the undead, but because controlling them would be impossible in a resonable time frame. Even with the proposed formation rules, there will still be a lot of bookkeeping, no matter who does it.
Then again, a normal necromancy wizard with 'Animate Dead', could control 143 skeletons or zombies with spellslots, and a Mummy Lord (CR 15, with an Intelligence of 11) indefinitly, plus any amount created through 'Finger of Death'.
Compared to the Undead Master, this would be 40 skeltons/zombies indefinitly, 128 with spellslots, 17 with Harvest of Death, and any amount created with 'Finger of Death' and Necrosis.
In conclusion, if you want, you can break the game with either class.
I would argue that this class might be around the same power level of a normal necromancy school wizard, with stronger features, but less versatility/flexibility and a somewhat worse spell list (for example, no wish).
--Celepito (talk) 15:49, 6 October 2019 (MDT)
My thoughts: I think that the Undead Master should be more limited in spells. Obviously, it should have access to lower-level spells like magic missile, but at higher levels, it shouldn't have access to all the spells of a wizard because of its other features, similar to a druid, and simply removing wish doesn't do that. Controlling half your level worth of undead, not to mention stat bonuses, can equate to a medium or hard encounter for the party, and it becomes overpowered when you can just stand in the back and fireball all your attackers. A spell list that looks more like the Cleric or Druid spell list, but themed more towards the class would probably be more balanced, or just making them a half-caster to bring the focus to managing undead and spell slots. Also, there are no subclasses. What's up with that?
--Xineohp8 (talk) 08:35, 2 September 2020 (MDT)
Currently in a bit of a DnD mood again, so I'll take another look at this. I have been made aware of some rules that can help alleviate the amount of entity management this class needs, and your thoughts about the spell list seem rather valid to me, so I'll see how I will trim it down a bit.
