I'll break it down by level areas on what you should concentrate on doing. It's not a perfect system, but all the same, it'll get you more comfortable with the class, that way you can find a way to make a system that works for you.

When picking a race, int and wis should be considered seeing this helps necros learn new rituals. Half-elf has the highest, followed by elf, then Human. Dwarves and Orcs are restricted to only Revenants when they get high enough, but still a deadly combination all the same.
Level 1-5: Cx runs. Do cx runs till you drop. Easiest way to gain xp, and also it'll start getting your pocket book together for the future expenses coming your way. After you run cx to death, get some equipment from willim, hopefully a staff or a knife. I drop some weapons and ask him again till I get what I want or it's the 3rd try. After 3rd try, he tells you I already gave you some Equipment.
Dwarf babies are always a plus to kill, as it helps your alignment. Dirs:16n 3 w, all n, nw, n, n, open e, e. Or at least close to there. Kill the babies and then move on to the Park. Kill off Remmy and Temmy to keep alignment and don't be afraid to kill the nuetral wild life around. While gaining xp, work on trying to raise Int and Wis first over any other stat. If it seems so far away but you can raise something else, "WAIT!" cause you'll get the advantages sooner the sooner you know certain rituals.

Level 6-10: The manor would of been a great place to heal for this trick I'm about to teach and if you managed to learn Life Steal early then feel free to test this trick out. From level 6-10 you're going to try to take advantage of free heal while you kill things 10 times your size. Sounds like fun heh? Here's how it's done. Make sure you have the "LIFESTEAL" ritual, not lifedrain, but lifesteal. This ritual allows you to absorb HP from npcs as you fight and give them to you. Go buy some dirt from the alchemist and in Neville, for example, go to Oterim the sage. prepare your lifesteal ritual and wave wand at sage and let the battle begin!
While in battle, you're objective is to fire off all your Lifesteals till your sps runs out, then run away. Go to a heal room, either manor if you are below level 5 or ghost ship heal room. After you heal up, come back and do it some more. When you get your foe almost dead, switch to an offensive ritual like chill touch and finish the job. This tatic is very effective but time consuming. The XP reward is well worth the time and wait though and some people find this more fun then standing behind an undead.

Level 11-15:Time to start earning some extra cash and building skills and making yourself more efficient. I found the Star Caverns a fun place to work a necromancer between mid-levels for the simple fact that the rats die with a well equiped fetch. My fetch I been using is normally just a fetch of Puffy. Anything with 3k value kill xp would be worth fetching. For eq, I used the following:
A platemail (shiny platemail,Orc platemail, even sturdy platemail, just make sure it's a platemail of higher than 2k value)
Silver Shield + (Polished)
Halberd(found on sergeant in Burnham)
and any other misc. eq you can find, i.e. rings, amulets (gammy preferrably) Turkey robe, boots.
Using eq similiar to that above for your fetch, you can simply go Packrat hunting. I found it more fun to take a mid-level ranger with me for full excersion of what can be done in Star Cavern. Use your fetch as a meat shield, cast rots off and on from the back as you work up preferred weapon skills and have your ranger friend pelt and carve meat for you to use for heals along with keeping their wolf fed. The ranger will definatly get more xp than you, but if you're doing the eq selling, you'll come out with more money in the long run. In an hour with effcient killing, you can make about 25k in coins or 45k coins with a ranger. (That's the ranger's coins figured in from selling products made with pelts).

After getting a stable amount of money in the bank, you can dare venture on with higher level kills. If you start to get low in your money, and have time to burn, you can always do this in order to get that account back up. Be wary though, many people get upset when you clear the Starcaverns in less than a half hour :P.

As you gain more INT+WIS, you'll finally get Revenant. Revenant can only wield weapons but make great pack mules. If you party, you could always bash with this combo, but then again, if you know how to do it, you can also tank very well too. Rev's can dual wield a bit better than most undeads. From other necro opionions, (I use liches more so I'm obsolete in rev's)Using a moderate skill in right hand and a easy skill in left hand, the Rev can pound out some heavy hits. Some combos I heard mentioned were Jeweled Dwarvern Rapier+ Flint arrow or maybe even a steel arrow and a flint arrow. With more damage, the Rev can drop foes faster and hopefully won't stay in battle too much to take severe damage. Rapier type weapons are good for rev's seeing they take advantage of the parry defense. A fully armoured Fetch can take more hits from incoming foes, but a rev could drop a foe faster.

There is another way you can play as well though. Once you have Rot in your list, you can outclass a Hit and run mage. This tatic works nice on bringing down a huge kill for you to make an undead. Idea of this tatic, for example, if I used it against Dwarf Paladin. I prepare rot, wave wand at Dwarf, and run west which is the way out. I heal up till I'm prepared to take the hits I know I'm about to get,(watch out for those firey hammers, are we sure he's not a cleric?)then rush in , wave wand once more, check his stats real quick using an alias exa opponent, and rush west again. I guage my progress and prepare for the battle to continue. Lifesteal tatic would work too, and if you got money to burn, buy pots and they will keep you in the battle longer. (Mentals and Neurals.)
Side note: I been stocking up on mentals and neurals (shanni and eldar) for when I log in and start playing. I might even run up to glock and pick up some sunsets too and then decide who I'm going to kill. Once I get to the kill, the battle can go pretty quick. I use rot as my lead off ritual to start the pain, switching to lifesteal only if I'm taking damage (around 80 or varies on npc) then I'll drink pot or nueral to get sps back up, switch to lifesteal, steal the hp from my foe and keep attacking with a staff of my choice. I wail away on the npc using this tatic, trying to save at least 3 pots (hence getting Sunsets, quick hp/sps gain) so I can lich/rev my kill. After that, I form a party, and go out and have fun. Usually need purging after this, especially if I want Mentals and Neuarls to benefit me fully for the price I have to pay for them.

Level 16-up: From the previous you may only still have rev. Rot and Lifesteal have become 2 of your best Rituals, and you may even find pestilence to be a great benefit. Pestilence has it's drawback. It works like a mage's Cloud Kill in a way, cept it stays with the npc and doesn't quit kill all the way in most cases, but it can turn a 9k kill from Good shape to bad shape over its duration, but you also get no xp from that as long as you're not in the room I believe. *not tested* Also Mindkiller has it's perks (recently I found a mindkiller can kill the orc guards to kazrov's castle. Just cast and leave, and 5 seconds later, a corpse is on the ground. Wash rinse and repeat. I mainly did this cause I was seeking Gaius)

But from here on, I only have this for advice, Find your own kill route. This is the one thing most Necromancers won't disclose easily. The only real way to find a good killing route is to follow a necromancer who's always on the move. Party up with them, but alas, that's not to say you'll learn a good route. I find most of my kills are north of tant. Though I travel south on occasions. Other than that, the best thing to do is keep your eyes where the money is and then work on the XP. You'll find having a good party of bashers a good value for you. When creating a party, and you're the tank, it's always best to know what your bashers are capable of, who on most parts already know their job before they join you.

Basher 1 may be responsible for clean up (gathering npc eq) and selling as he passes coins back to the Necromancer to use for heals on the undead.(unless there's a cleric/paladin healing unead, in which case, you'll earn some good profit later on.)
Basher 2 may be in charge of binding, and keeping the Necromancer and Undead bounded, while helping basher 1 if he gets too full.
Basher 3 if mage, might cast helping spells on the party, mainly the undead and the necromancer. Otherwise they're just there to give you extra firepower while bringing down kills faster.
But never forget your job either. Maintain your undead, lead the party to battles and keep everyone protected. Alias your command protect on specific bashers so it's just a button push away to protect them.

Also be aware that if you give your undead way too many commands at once, you increase the chance of it becomging feral. Lag has a way of making your commands stack up and force the undead feral. So be careful. If you know you're lagging bad, it's best to call it quits early than to get hung in a battle and loose half your party cause your undead turned on you all.

These are just basic strategies and ideas you can use to help you do better as a Necro. Necro's are known to be awesome tanks and can exceed massive xp in a short alotted time. Kill route is one of the most important things to a necromancer and it's always in his best interest not to disclose it, for the more who know of it, the less those npcs will be there to kill. Another way to get a better kill route is to explore. Exploring areas you rarely visited on your own and finding all there is in that area, especially what's worth killing, will become more rewarding when it's time to start your party and go out on the hunt.

If this doesn't please your appetite, or you have more tidbits to share on Necromancing and would like them posted here, send emails to [email protected]

Have fun and enjoy your company and may you ever be happy in killing innocent babies. :P