Allow Wizards and Sorcs to cast animate dead at level 3

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

...Talir, I am not really sure that was what you meant, but the idea of bardic necromancers made me think of a Grateful Dead concert held during the Zombie Apocalypse...

Goblin Sapper: I totally agree, but then I am a cranky old diehard from the time where Gygax set forth that healing was necromancy and that Resurrection was just about the ultimate expression of the necromantic art. *grumble grumble*

I had a Bardic Necromancer, and he kicked ass. Valorson Volkson, you shall be missed!

[The Boom King]

Anyone rememember that creeper the Scholar? He was a bard to start out with, wasn't he?

[Divine Intervention]

Negative spells are tough, surely you remember orgeribbit and his magic?

[GoblinSapper]

Negative spells are tough, surely you remember orgeribbit and his magic?

Hasted enervations for pvp, yeah. Though Ogrebitt was an extreme example.

[Drakill Tannan]

Also note it was only for PvP, not PvM.

[ScottyB]

The original suggestion/discussion (lower spell level of Animate Dead for sor/wiz) can only be achieved with hakpaks, as far as I know.

[Drakill Tannan]

The cleric domains allow for spells to be adquired at lower levels, if you can tweak a class to have any feat, why not add a wizard-only domain that gives animate dead at level 4 and artifically gving it to wizards?

[Nihm]

Negative spells are tough, surely you remember orgeribbit and his magic?

He mostly used spells such as Icestorm, Imp Inviz, Acid Breath and Acid Sheath, actually :P

[Garem]

The original suggestion/discussion (lower spell level of Animate Dead for sor/wiz) can only be achieved with hakpaks, as far as I know.

Perhaps it can be emulated.

What about through extra feats?
PC Tools?

[MAN ON THE RUN]

As in, provide a crafting menu option for level 3 spellslots and above that state turn an appropriate necro spell into animate dead, pick it (IE, Vampiric Touch or Negative energy burst.), and get rid of the scripts upon picking it, and use the animation one.

[putrid_plum]

You're all crazy necromancery is one of the best schools out there and the most fun and powerful wizard I ever played was a necromancer and this was BEFORE all the sweet animation changes.  Wizard get amazingly powerful necromancery spells that if used right with some sort of brain, I mean you are a 18-20 int character??, can shine on all quests and pvp and RP!!

So what they have to wait to L9 to get animate undead, I know for a fact if you focused on it you would gain the ability to do it, trust me on this one.

[ScottyB]

The cleric domain system is unique to clerics and designed to allow clerics to memorize any defined spell (independent of any spell progression tables/class level specifications) at a particular level. Wizards have no equivalent system, and giving them a domain feat will not grant them access to spells. Otherwise a multi-class cleric/wizard would be able to prepare domain spells under either/both of their classes.

Allowing wizards to choose a feat that casts Animate Dead 1/day would be possible, but stand out. It's just weird. It wouldn't consume one of the wizard's spells learned when they level, it wouldn't take up one of their spell slots when they memorize spells (and would be a nightmare to emulate), and it's the only spell-as-feat proposed. Necromancy is unique in that it isn't an opposed school for any spell school, but the other schools (evocation being the other exception) are, and if they were also given spell-as-feat options then they'd be ways to get around school restrictions.

I don't think we should waste our time developing a new subsystem all over one spell; the suggestion is also thematically controversial in that arcane casters are supposed to be worse at manipulating life and death because that's, y'know, the realm of the gods. Only the most powerful wizards begin the "steal" their secrets and their (figurative) thunder. Not everyone agrees with that, but no one's going to put in the work as a side-project if there's a chance they'll be told not to implement it, or upset people who don't like the change in the status quo.

[Barehander]

It's possible to script widgets with spell uses that also eat a specific prepared spell. Whether or not you want to do this is another matter, but it's probably the simplest way to emulate custom spells.