I got this character idea of a bard who uses their music to perform necromancy. Is there any way to do this without homebrewing?
#Is there any way to make a Bard Necromancer?
fleet shuttle
balmy drum
I got this character idea of a bard who uses their music to perform necromancy. ...
Bards get a few ncromantic spells, including raise dead and resurrection.
swift dome
☝️ Also Magical Secrets exists
balmy drum
All bards get Magical Secrets
and Lore get Additional Magical Secrets
Which gives access to any spell.
fleet shuttle
What is Magical Secrets?
balmy drum
Learn a spell from any class.
fleet shuttle
Oh, that's cool
swift dome
Animate Dead is also gained from the Golgari Agent background
Though if I were to do this myself I'd get Summon Undead through Lore Bard since it's much more table friendly than the classic Animate Dead
fleet shuttle
What is the difference between the different ways to raise the dead?
swift dome
I could go on a bit of a tyrade, but the long and short of it is:
Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection - you're bringing someone back to life as they were, sentience and all. Generally considered good, though some don't like it as they believe that when you resurrect you're messing with the natural cycle.
Animate Dead, Danse Macabre, etc. - you're animating a corpse under your control. It has limited autonomy and is generally considered evil. It is also not really table friendly as you're controlling a lot of weaker monsters. You also need to properly equip them yourself. In the case of Animate Dead you pretty much have the skeletons/zombies forever assuming you reassert control.
Summon Undead - You call forth a singular powerful spirit that's ready to go. It's concentration, lasts for an hour but it's much more table friendly
hidden pier
you could also consider multiclassing if you wanted to start with the classic Bard but wanted them to move into something different, like taking a level in cleric (death, grave domain) or two levels in wizard (school of necromancy, war magic)
it would maybe be more of an RP focused shift than a mechanical one but its always an option 🙂
swift dome
Yeah, mechanically you're pretty much kneecapping yourself if you go for the Wizard
Death cleric is good for 1 level though. Grave is the exact opposite to a necromancer, lol
hidden pier
ah ur not wrong lol
serene orbit
Also, you can flavor spells to be more necromantic or dark.