The Baron's Guide to Being a God (aka Necromancer)

Step One: Clan
Well Step one is always pick a Clan that can do Necromancy. Yes I know you can take it as a Merit but 5 points? That's fucking stupid.

Seriously, pick a Clan that that has it as an inherent power rather than buying it out of Clan, it's just better. Always. Don't be a chump. Your choices boil down to 2 Clans with a bit of flavor thrown in to make your butt hole burn when you poo...or maybe that was the Thai food. Eh. Sooooo.....

Cappadocian and Giovanni.

Both have advantages and weaknesses. Obviously being a Cappadocian: Samedi is the best choice but I'll give the others the benefit of the doubt. For now.

Giovanni: So Giovanni to start as they're the most common. I won't go into role playing tips or background, just read the link if you're interested in that. So Giovanni start with Dominate, Potence, and Necromancy: Sepulchre Path. Now starting off here you have to decide, do you want to be a, to quote popular gaming, Necromancer or a Death Knight.

Necromancers are going to Focus on Social Attributes and Occult Skill to get a larger Necromancy Test Pool. You can raise other stats to make you a more well rounded character but that's later, this is character creation. You'd also want to spend your merits on more paths of Necromancy and maybe even the Bloodline Premascine Merit (4 point merit) giving you access to Necromancy: Mortis Path.

Death Knights are going to focus on being a beat stick with some Necromancy to supplement their bag of tricks, so focus on Physical Attributes and the Brawl Skill to beef up your ability to smash in faces. You're going to want the Mook Merit (2 point merit) to give you the remaining physical disciplines of Celerity and Fortitude.

Keep in mind while building your character the XP costs using the table on page 107.

Step Two: Generation
Generation is important ( pg 100 & 101 ) as it determines your Attribute Pool, Elder powers, Techniques, etc...

Low Generation: Now being a lower generation like say 6th has advantages as you can drop a 6th point into your occult or brawl skill along with your already maximized Attribute score of 15 giving you an impressive test pool of 21. You also get access to as many elder powers as you can purchase, which if you chose Death Knight can make you a strong, fast, and tough mother fucker like so other. Alas Necromancy itself has no elder powers so it's not as much of a bump if you chose Necromancer.

The down side to a low generation character is you lose access to techniques which provide some impressive and fun abilities and everything is expensive as all hell. You'll get stupidly powerful but its a kind of powerful you get by playing the long game. You want to be around long enough for all those bad ass powers to get there otherwise you'll feel power starved.

High Generation: Higher generation like say 10th or lower you get everything fairly quickly as everything is cheap as all hell. Multiple skills can be maxed out even in character creation. You also get the cheapest access to techniques. Lastly you can, given the right merits and flaws even take less damage from the sun but that's not going to help you as a user of Necromancy so I'd avoid it.

The down side is of course lack of access to any elder powers at all. Secondly your test pools are going to lower. A 10th generation with max skills is going to have a maximum test pool of 15. For a Death Knight your opponents are going to be resisting your punches on a Physical + Dodge test, which can plus armor be as high as 25. Necromancers will be facing a potential defensive test pool of Willpower + Social which can be as high as 22.

Eighth Generation: I personally consider this the sweet spot as it gives you access to an elder power, techniques (even if at slightly higher cost), and a respectable maximum test pool of 18. Stuff is slightly more expensive than a 10th generation but not as expensive as 6th.

Step Three: Skills, Techniques, Elder Powers, Paths of Enlightenment, Merits, etc...
Skills: Obviously you're going to focus on Occult for Necromancers and Brawl for Death Knights. Dodge is always a good choice as it'll keep you from being killed. Awareness is helpful, so is lore, computers, etc... It all depends on what kind of character you're going to make.

Techniques: (pg 225) So if you can take techniques there are a bunch to choose from, my personal favorites might require you to dip into a non class discipline. Just remember the common disciplines( Auspex, Animalism, Celerity, Dominate, Fortitude, Obfuscate, Potence, and Presence) can be purchased up to the 3rd level on character creation so if you like some you can spend the points to make sure you can get it at character creation or soon after.

My personal favorites are Second Wind (pg 231) and Will to Survive (pg 232), but you may have your own.

Elder Powers: So if you can take elder powers there are quite a few good ones, unfortunately Necromancy itself doesn't get Elder Powers. It sucks but we get rituals instead so...ummm...woo?... Of the other Elder powers you have access to some stick out in the excellence and others depend are your play style.

For the Death Knight style the elder Potence powers are just great Force (pg 219) and Flick (pg 220) let you punch shit harder or from a distance. Celerity gives you more actions with Quickness or lets you throw things for more damage with Projectile (both on pg 214). Fortitude lets you take a bigger beating with Personal Armor or heal aggravated wounds with blood Repair the Undead Flesh (both of pg 216). Thanatosis if you took Samedi, gives you Corrupt the Flesh (pg 223) which kills mortals and weakens vampires.

Necromancers have a more limited play style when it comes to elder powers available in clan. Presence can give you Love and Paralyzing Glance which can be good to keep you from being attacked. Obfuscate can let you hide something even not on your person Cache and get in a surprise round of actions with Phantom Hunter (both on pg 218). Auspex, if you took Cappadocian, offers the best options for elder powers as it gives you the ability to spy on people with Clairvoyance and the ability to throw mind bullets with Psychic Assault (both on pg 213).

Paths of Enlightenment: So Giovanni get Path of Death and the Soul cheaper than most ( 2 pt merit pg 255) which will basically let you be a bigger bastard than normal as long as you're being a bastard for the reason of studying death and the soul. Path of Power & the Inner Voice ( 3 pt merit pg 258) is also very useful as you can do whatever you want, even the mot vile things imaginable, if it's to increase you personal power. Choose carefully as you will.

Merits: So obviously Merits are important. With only 7 points available these are gold. As listed earlier Mook (2 pt merit pg 240) is great for a Death Knight if you're Giovanni, Necromantic Expertise/Insight (1 pt merit pg 240/246) grants you an additional path of Necromancy (except Mortis is you're Giovanni). Arcane ( 1 pt merit pg 248) is a good general Merit as it prevents cameras from recording you, which if you chose Samedi is VERY useful. Versatile (3 pt merit pg 253) is also great as it gives you 2 focus in either Physical, Social, or Mental.

Necromancy: Paths, Rituals, and Making the dead your bitch.
So see the previous article for Necromancy if you want a break down of the whole path, this will just be focusing on the choice bits and they ways they can be used to treat the system like a 4 dollar fillapino hooker.

The Sepulchre Path:
Well this path has some good and some meh.

Level 1 Witness Death: lets you see, hear, and talk to ghosts. Useful, especially later on.

Level 2 Torment: Lets you beat those ghosts when they're insolent. Again useful later on.

Level 3 Summon Soul: Good for a temporary NPC wraith to do your bidding. Even better if someone important has died and become a wraith as they now work for you an as a retainer literally can't lie to you. Their secrets are now your secrets. Also real good for being a spy as wraiths can see and hear the real world but can't be seen except by those who can see ghosts like other Necromancers, Mediums, Mages, etc...

Level 4 Bind Soul: Like Summon Soul except it makes it a permanent relationship rather than temporary, also with the focus you can have as many wraiths bound to you as your Occult skill so up to 5 or 6 permanent Wraith NPC's. Great spies, even better if you can bind important people like former rivals, the recently killed power players, etc...Vampires rarely become wraiths but if they do, wooo boy that's a font of information like no other. Occult wards can keep them out of a location but thats about it, and even then they can loiter around and watch and report everything.

Level 5 Soul Stealing: By and far the most useful and excellent power here. Necromancy test, fail and you get to pull your victims soul out like Shang Tsung, leaving the body defenseless. Now they can spend 1 willpower to stop it (3 if you've got the focus and I STRONGLY suggest the focus) but it makes it harder to resist next turn and since most people only have 6 willpower at max, a few rounds and boom a poor defenseless body laying on the ground ready to be killed, incapacitated, set on fire, etc...

The Bone Path:
Lots of Meh, but Zombies!

Level 1 Eyes of the Dead: You can look at a corpse and know how it died, or change how it appeared it died. Good for masquerade breaches by idiots and Brujah.

Level 2 Destroy Husk: Obliterate a corpse or a zombie. Doesn't work on undead. Again good for cleaning up messes.

Level 3 Shambling Hordes: Make Zombies! As many as your Occult skill. With the focus they have Potence and Fortitude. Mother Fucking Zombies man. Solid free guards, good for Walking Dead cosplay.

Level 4 Morbidity: Heal your zombies or make your wraiths tougher for the night. Zombies can be made to look human with this power. Useful when combined with level 5.

Level 5: Deaths Puppetry: You can take over the body of a corpse or zombie and ride around like a suit while your real body falls into a coma like state. Plus side, if zombie body dies you just return to your body. Also corpses and zombies aren't damaged by the sun so if you can stay awake, walk around in the sun.