Necromancer

Version 0.31: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

This page is about the player background. For the monster, see Necromancer (monster).

The Necromancer is a magician who specialises in the less pleasant side of magic. Necromantic spells are a varied bunch, but many involve some degree of risk or harm to the caster.

Necromancers are magicians who specialise in the less pleasant side of magic - that involving death and the undead.

Preferred Species

Hill Orc, Djinni, Demonspawn, Deep Elf, Vampire, and Mummy are the recommended species if you pick a Necromancer Background.

Starting Equipment

Some species may receive different items based on their unique restrictions.

• +0 robe
• Potion of magic

Available Spells:

• Necrotise
• Vampiric Draining
• Animate Dead
• Agony

Necromancers start with Necrotise memorised.

Starting Skills and Stats

These are adjusted by your species' aptitudes.

• Dodging: 2
• Stealth: 2
• Spellcasting: 2
• Necromancy: 4

Choosing Necromancer adds 7 to your starting Intelligence and 5 to your starting Dexterity.

Strategy

Necromancers have the fairly useful ability to create allies with Necrotise, and later Animate Dead. They have a few conventionally offensive spells, but they aren't the main focus.

Spell Details

Necrotise is a passable offensive spell; one that checks for willpower rather than evasion. The skeletons it creates are rather ineffectual, but can assist in disengaging from battles by swapping with them. Vampiric Draining is most known for its ability to steal HP. The damage is respectable on its own, at least when you first get the spell.

Animate Dead is the Necromancer’s first real snowballing spell, letting them gather up a swarm of allies to assist them in the next encounter they may face. While the damage of most early game zombified monsters is unimpressive, having an out of depth wyvern or hydra at your side can even the odds quite a bit. Recasting Animate Dead will crumble all existing zombies.

While the aformentioned spells work well enough for dealing damage, there always persists some need to "get the ball rolling" to actually start rising the undead, even as Necromancy's offensive spells dwindle. Therefore, Necromancers are encouraged to develop other means of killing. Most often, this will be a simple weapon skill, but low-level ally-sparing damage spells like Frozen Ramparts or Scorch are also excellent.

Agony greatly softens targets by halving their HP, though also relies on a willpower check to succeed, as well being limited to 1 range. It's one of the few level 5 spells left in a starting kit, so it’s a heavy commitment for potentially not a huge reward. Necromancers who found the tools to hone in on their craft (such as Borgnjor's Vile Clutch or Anguish) don't need to rely on Agony, but those who find themselves engaging in melee combat often may appreciate a way to soften very high HP monsters.

Tips and Tricks

• Pain branded weapons rely on necromancy to deal damage; Necromancers will find them quite attractive.
• Necromancers are somewhat restricted in religious choice, as all three good-aligned gods (and Trog) punish the use of Necromancy. Luckily, none of the three major "magic" gods (Sif Muna, Vehumet, and Kikubaaqudgha) are among them.
  • Kiku is an extremely obvious choice for Necromancers. Kiku relies on Necromancy skill, with Ne having a head start in said school. In turn, the god provides on-demand fodder to use necromantic magic on (countering one of the biggest weaknesses of Necromancy), along with a variety of higher level spells. However, both the god and background provide a few redundant spells. Kiku isn't necessary for Necromancers, and picking Necromancer isn't necessary for Kiku, but they have great synergy.

History

• In 0.29, most backgrounds were buffed; all Mage backgrounds gained a potion of magic. Pain and Animate Skeleton were removed and merged into Necrotise, and Animate Dead was reworked to no longer demand corpses and to generate infinite duration allies.
• Prior to 0.27, Necromancers started with the Book of Necromancy; Necromancers received no change to their spell lists.
• Prior to 0.26, Necromancers started with Regeneration. In addition, the removal of food made Animate Dead less punishing to cast. However, both necromancy spells now create much shorter lived zombies.
• Prior to 0.25, Agony was able to target enemies from afar.
• Prior to 0.21, the Book of Necromancy had Control Undead. 0.21 also introduced Borgnjor's Vile Clutch, which was nerfed and removed from the Necromancer start in the following update. The removal of both spells gave Necromancers no way to deal with incorporeal undead using starting spells alone.
• Prior to 0.14, Necromancers started with only 1 level of Spellcasting.