“Usharak sat on a dune of sand. In the distance he could see the walled city of Quantium. The surrounding desert was a gorgeous, rosy hue, and the sky above was filled with colorful clouds carrying the magic-infested water of the Miasmere. He took in the sight with a tinge of guilt. It wasn’t an unusual feeling for him. He always carried this guilt, and it was always heaviest for Usharak when he experienced a moment of beauty and peace. He began repeating the names of those he carried with him like a prayer: ‘Telek, Nishkim, Bozi, Arakuru.’ The list seemed never-ending.”¹

Ready to rise again?

First off, I’m coming in and tweaking things because I’m a subscriber so I got my PDF of Impossible Magic on Monday, so now I have the entirety of this amazing work at my fingertips. Even changed the opening quote! Suffice to say Usharak runs into an old friend of ours, a certain Magus… Anyway, I hope y’all are enjoying the pdf who got it, and I love seeing all the chatter around it on Discord, BSKY, youtube, reddit, etc. So let’s keep talking!

As a reminder, in Part 1 I dug into the final Necromancer from 1st through 4th level, including the new Fatal Methods, revised thralls, Grim Fascinations, and the wonderfully difficult choices awaiting us among those early class feats. Last time while taming the High Seas I snuck back into the crypt to explore some of the 6th through 10th level options by building both Reaper and Puppeteer pirate captains. It was a perfect excuse, I mean reason! There was a ship made of bone right there! What was I supposed to do, show restraint? Not this roleplayer.

So that finally brings us to the high level Necromancer! We’re going from 11th level all the way through 20th, where your Necromancer stops merely bringing a graveyard to the battlefield and starts turning into one. Well, actually they can bring a graveyard too. Oh yes, that’s still available!

In general the distinction between the Fatal Methods becomes even clearer here. The Reaper continues developing into a surprisingly durable martial caster who uses thralls to create openings, fuel defenses, and support their own Strikes. The Puppeteer gains increasingly absurd ways to create, position, spend, and replace thralls while casting some of the strangest occult magic available. I’m interested to see where Magus and Necromancer combos start coming out, especially the comparison builds of which is best as full class and which is best as archetype. Outside of a few feats with explicit prerequisites, a Puppeteer can select something that looks martial, and a Reaper can absolutely concentrate on grave spells. Perhaps death does not like being put into neat little boxes.

Well, coffins are boxes, I suppose. Moving on!

Class Advancement

I’m going to start with the class advancement over these levels with a nice screenshot here:

Levels 11 through 20 haven’t changed since the playtest. Undying Resistance (level 17) is a bit shorter description-wise, but only because now it’s not restating what you got with Unnatural Fortitude (level 11) and that’s that Fort successes are crit successes. Other than that, all the same. The real focus is on feats and focus powers so let’s shuffle over there!

12th Level: The Body Becomes the Thesis

At 12th level, we now have 7 feats to choose from.

Become as Spirit requires the Spirit Grim Fascination. You can pass through unwilling creatures’ spaces as difficult terrain, ignore natural difficult terrain, and gain a bonus to Escape attempts. Whenever you destroy a thrall, you also gain resistance equal to half your level against nearly all damage for 1 round, with force, ghost touch, spirit, and vitality among the exceptions.

I love this as it’s excellent for a Spirit Reaper. You can glide through enemies, get where your weapon needs to be, and gain broad resistance by destroying a thrall during your turn. It is still attractive for a Spirit Puppeteer (especially my own Necromancer Varatin) but the ability to move directly through the enemy line is practically begging for a weapon in hand. I love the haunting aspect I’ll be able to bring to it. The RP of these feats is always so much fun.

Bridge of Graves is brand new and grants the 6th rank grave spell of the same name. For two actions, you create a 10-foot-wide bridge of grave dirt and tombstones that can stretch as far as 120 feet, including up or down at an angle. It has its own Hardness and Hit Points, remains for 10 minutes, and improves in length, durability, and potential width as it heightens. The especially necromantic part is that a thrall standing on or adjacent to the bridge can move to any location along it whenever you command that thrall to Stride. Suddenly your slow-moving thralls have a rapid transit system made out of graves.

This is an obvious Puppeteer option. It can carry your undead pieces across chasms, up toward elevated enemies, along the deck of a ship, or straight through an inconvenient battlefield. Reapers can use it too, but a Puppeteer is more likely to have enough thralls scattered around to turn that bridge into a true undead highway and your enemies right to the Boneyard. Pharasma still likely isn’t happy with you, though.

Endless Return is also new. It improves Inevitable Return by giving you an additional reaction at the start of each turn that can be used only for Inevitable Return. When multiple Small or Medium enemies are dying within 30 feet, you no longer have to choose which death deserves to become a thrall.

Puppeteers want bodies, and this creates more bodies without using actions. That is about as straightforward a recommendation as I can make. A Reaper standing near the front line may also see more eligible deaths and appreciate the extra flanking partners, but this feat belongs near the top of the Puppeteer list.

Grave Focus (was Necrotic Focus) completely refills your Focus Pool whenever you Refocus. Remember that any Necromancer can already destroy a thrall while Refocusing to regain 2 Focus Points instead of 1, so this feat is not as mandatory as it might first appear unless your characters are constantly feeling pressed for time between combat. A Puppeteer built around repeatedly casting grave spells will probably get the most from it. A grave-spell-heavy Reaper can still love it, especially if they are regularly opening encounters with bind heroic spirit.

Reinforced Skeleton requires the Bone Grim Fascination. You gain resistance equal to half your level against one chosen energy damage type and either slashing or piercing damage as it was in the playtest. You also gain a +5’ status bonus to your Speeds that temporarily increases whenever you destroy a thrall to +10’, so a little weaker than the playtest version. I guess playtesters found the Necromancer too mobile with this one.

The Bone Reaper is an obvious match. Resistance, mobility, and martial proficiency all reinforce the character who intends to charge into danger behind a screen of scuttling skeletons. A Puppeteer still benefits from passive resistance and Speed, but this really helps a Reaper survive where they have chosen to stand.

Sanguine Mastery is brand new because it requires the Blood Grim Fascination. You gain bleed resistance equal to half your level, and if an enemy within 30 feet is bleeding, you gain fast healing equal to half your level. Destroying a thrall also lets you inflict or increase persistent bleed damage on a creature adjacent to that thrall by 1 point, limited to once a round. Makes me almost want the Blood Necromancer.

This one has a lovely tension between the two Fatal Methods. A Puppeteer produces and destroys more thralls, creating more opportunities to increase bleed damage. A Reaper is more likely to stay within 30 feet of bleeding enemies and benefit from the fast healing while fighting them directly. Basically, Blood continue...

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