Arcane Tradition: White Necromancy

White Necromancy

Beginning when you select this tradition at 2nd level, whenever you gain a wizard level, you can replace one of the wizard spells you add to your spellbook with one of the following cleric spells of your choice or any cleric cantrip. The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

If you add all of the spells below to your spell book that are available to you at your level, you can instead add any spell from the cleric list instead. The spell must still be of a level for which you have spell slots.

Any cleric spell you gain from this feature is considered a wizard spell for you, but other wizards can’t copy cleric spells from your spellbook into their own spellbooks. Charisma is your casting ability for all spells gained from this feature.

White Necromancy Cleric Spells

Rebuke Death

At 2nd level, as an action, you can touch a creature and allow it to spent a hit dice to heal. You then take damage equal to the amount the target heals for. This damage cannot be reduced in any way except through the Enduring Sacrifice class feature.

If the damage would put you at 0, the healing received and damage taken are reduced to leave you at 1 health instead.

Life Bond

At 6th level, you may create a bond between yourself and another living creature within 90 feet as a bonus action. You may have a number of bonds active equal to your proficiency bonus.

At the start of each of your turns, if any creature that is bonded to you is missing twice your proficiency bonus or more hp, you may, as a free action, cause the bonded creature to heal an amount equal to your proficiency bonus and you take damage equal to your proficiency bonus. This damage cannot be reduced in any way except through the Enduring Sacrifice class feature.

The amount the target heals and the amount you are damaged increases to twice your proficiency bonus at level 10 and triple your proficiency bonus at level 14.

This bond continues until the bonded creature dies, you fall unconscious, the distance between you and the creature exceeds 90 feet, or if you end it as a free action.

Necromancer's Sacrifice

At 10th level, when an ally within 60 ft. is hit by an attack or fails a saving throw, you can, as a reaction, magically transfer the resulting wounds and/or effects to yourself instead of the target. You are affected as if you were hit by the attack or failed the saving throw and you take all of the damage and suffer any additional effects that the original target would have. If this ability is used against an effect that also targets you or includes you in its effect, you suffer the effects for yourself and the ally, potentially taking damage or suffering other consequences twice. This damage cannot be reduced in any way except through the Enduring Sacrifice class feature.

You can use this ability a number of times equal to your charisma modifier. When you finish a short or long rest, you regain all expended uses.

Enduring Sacrifice

At 14th level, you have grown accustomed to enduring the pain that others go through. You now have resistance against all damage that you take as a result of your Rebuke Death, Life Bond and Necromancer’s Sacrifice class features.

Credit: Artzombi3 (https://www.deviantart.com/artzombi3/art/White-Necromancer-300360211)

Change Log

First, I would really like to say thank you all for giving this a look over. I am really happy to see any comments or feedback you may have. If you decide to play this and have any feedback at all, please don't hesitate to send me a message on reddit. I would love to hear about how it functions in actual play! Thank you so much!

v1.0

• This is the first public publishing of the White Necromancy Wizard Tradition and I am using this space to explain my own concerns and what my ideas were.

• Inspiration: What was it inspired by?
  • This is very heavily inspired by the White Necromancer class realesed for Pathfinder 1e by Kobold Press. In PF1e, it is a stand alone class, but in transitioning it to dnd5e, I decided the arcane tradition for the wizard would be the most interesting way to incorporate it.

White Necromancy

• This feature is designed to allow the wizard to gain access to the divine spell list via poaching spells from the cleric list. At early levels they're restricted pretty heavily, but if they invest into cleric spell acquisition, they unlock the full list which is a very powerful tool.
• To keep this balanced, I have moved these spells to all use the wizard's charisma score for casting the cleric spells instead of doubling up on intelligence so they have to choose which to focus on instead of being too full-fledged and versatile. This was also done to more accurately reflect the original class being a charisma caster.

Rebuke Death

• This ability serves as a good introduction to the white necromancy theme of transferring pain from your allies to yourself. You channel energy through your life force to cause the target to heal with their own hit dice.

Life Bond

• This is arguably the most iconic ability of the white necromancer class. It creates a tether between the white necromancer and several allies, allowing them to passively heal their friends' wounds while focusing on using direct healing on themselves without running into the fray.
• This ability scales with proficiency to increase it's effective healing and keep it feeling relevant throughout the entire game.

Necromancer's Sacrifice

• Similar to Rebuke death and Life bond, this is a faster rendition, allowing you to directly take the damage instead of having to heal them afterward

Enduring Sacrifice

• This is overall just a mastery of what you do, allowing you to more efficiently direct the necromanctic energies through yourself and into you allies.