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View Full Version : [D&D 3.5e, PEACH] Dread Necromancer Variants



Fable Wright
2011-02-06, 10:05 PM
So, we all know that the Dread Necromancer is supposed to be the best class for being an undead warlord, right? It's full of combat abilities, such as damage reduction, touch spells, negative levels with a touch, self-healing... and a crappy attack bonus. They're supposed to create all-powerful undead armies, what with abilities like Undead Mastery... and that's all they have. Let's not forget about the capstone, though- you get to become a lich, the most powerful and devastating undead creature known to man, right? But you have to suffer through more or less 10 dead levels to get there. Let's face it, no one actually ever played a level 20 dread necromancer outside of a gestalt game, and even then it's probably pretty rare, what with all the multiclassing and prestige classes. However, it's an epic class, and a lot of people like to play as them, especially in the early levels when they are awesome. So, I propose an idea: Give the Dread Necromancer so many variants that you can actually play them from levels 1-20 without sucking or PrCing out before 20th level. Here are a few of my own design. Feel free to PEACH them or suggest your own!

Battle Necromancer:
In war, the only thing that matters is death. How to make it someone else who dies, how to prevent your own death, how to prevent your friend's death, and how to keep your homeland from dying. Even the bravest warrior, when they go out to fight for their country, feels the fear of death. It is an inevitable event, and everyone fears it. Even the most atheistic warrior, when they march out, says a small prayer to a god of death in their heart of hears, be it Nerull or Wee Jas. While many become beacons, bringing back warriors from the brink of death and possibly from beyond the veil, or becoming avatars or mass death and destruction with just a few mumbled words and odd gestures, the true masters of the battlefield are those who wield in their hands the power of death themselves. Few necromancers feel the call to arms to join the battlefield, but those who do become the most feared warriors on the battlefields. They are surrounded by their element, corpses of their allies in abundance, their tools not shunned and feared, but embraced. They become the most powerful and feared warriors on the battlefield, winning glory and respect. They are the Battle Necromancers, hardened warriors who wield death itself as their weapon, bringing death to all who oppose them.
Hit Die: d8
Base Attack Bonus: As Cleric
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: At 1st level, a Battle Necromancer gains proficiency with all simple and martial weapons, and all light and medium armor.
Class Features:
The Battle Necromancer, unlike other Dread Necromancers, doesn't cast arcane spells- instead, they channel the energy of their god with them in battle. Battle Necromancers cast all Dread Necromancer spells as Divine Spells. In addition, the Battle Necromancer adds Desecration to their spell list as a second-level spell, and Animate Dead as a 3rd level spell. However, their increased physical prowess and divine backing comes at a cost- namely, their flexibility in spellcasting. At 1st level, a Battle Necromancer learns 3 1st-level spells off of the Dread Necromancer spell list. At each additional level, the Battle Necromancer may learn another 3 spells of a level they can cast off of the Dread Necromancer spell list. In addition, the Battle Necromancer gains less spells per day than the normal Dread Necromancer- Subtract one spell per day from each spell level that the Dread Necromancer can cast spells from.

Speaker for the Dead:
There are those who, instead of becoming more like the dead themselves, are able to speak with them to obtain guidance. While some have the power to speak with the dead through magic, you are blessed with the power to see and talk to the recently departed, rather than becoming more like them.
Class: Dread Necromancer
Replaces: If you gain this alternate class feature, you do not gain the mental bastion special ability, or any further improvements of this ability.
Benefit: At 4th level, you gain the Spirit Sight feat (Heroes of Horror page 124), even if you do not meet the prerequisites. You may substitute your charisma modifier instead of your wisdom modifier to calculate the number of minutes after death you may speak to a spirit. At 14th level, you may raise your effective charisma score by 4 for the purposes of interacting with spirits in this way- you may speak with the spirits an additional 2 minutes after death, and you gain a +2 bonus on all charisma checks made towards them.

Master of the Undying Legion
You are no lesser necromancer, just handing out death to those who deserve it. You are an artist, one who sculpts life out of death, one who can turn useless remains into a form with a purpose, crafting an army from the dead. Your skill is so great that you radiate an aura of death around you, able to breathe new life into the useless husks around you with no more than a thought. However, this power comes at a cost; it takes much energy to permanently raise a corpse from it's grave, and power it to fight, and only a blood tie with someone is enough to guarantee their loyalty. For each warrior that you raise from the grave, you are also forced to spill some of your lifeblood, gifting your life to those beyond in exchange for their service.
Class: Dread Necromancer
Replaces: If you select this alternate class feature, you do not get Scabrious Touch or any further improvements on that ability.
Benefit: At 6th level, you gain the power to raise a number of undead followers under your control. Calculate your leadership score as if you had the Undead Leadership feat (including the +2 bonus for attracting undead followers), using your Dread Necromancer level instead of your character level. Each week, you may animate a number of undead followers whose effective character level are equal to or less than the number of followers of their level. For example, Sha'irak the Dread Necromancer has a leadership score of 18 with this ability. In a single week, she may animate up to 35 undead whose effective character level is 1 or less, up to three undead whose effective character is two or less, one undead whose effective character level is 3, and one undead whose effective character level is 4 or less. You may possess no more undead with this feat than the maximum number of undead you can create in a week; for example, Sha'irak cannot possess more than 35 undead whose effective character level is 1 or less at a time with this feat, even if she is able to animate more undead with effective character levels 1 or less than this number, until some of her followers have died off. You animate followers in this way as a standard action, targeting as many corpses as you desire within 30ft, as long as their total effective character levels is no more than your Dread Necromancer level. Each time you use this ability, you take damage equal to the total effective character level of the undead you raise. However, there is a benefit to sharing your blood with the dead: Rather than using traditional, expensive onyx for reanimating the dead, you may substitute your blood; when you cast Animate Dead, you may take 1d6 points of damage per HD of undead being raised rather than pay the material component.

Necromancer Reborn:
While some necromancers seek to shield themselves from the energy they wield on a regular basis, you instead embrace it and become one with it.
Class: Dread Necromancer
Replaces: If you select this alternate class feature, you do not gain negative energy resistance at 9th level
Benefit: You have become so attuned to death and the dark energies of necromancy that upon the next time you die, you reanimate yourself. At 9th level, the next time you reach -10 HP or less, instead of dying you may choose to activate this power and reanimate yourself. If you do, 1d4 rounds later, you rise again as a Necropolitan (Libris Mortis page 114). You gain the Necropolitan template, and recalculate your hit points accordingly. You lose a level as normal for performing crucimigration. After using this ability, your hit points are restored to 1/2 their full norm. You are not treated as an undead raised by you for the purposes of feats and abilities.

Necromantic Study
Creating undead is an art unlike any other. While many believe that it just consists of creating a hole to the negative energy plane within a corpse, it is much more than that. It's weaving a complex tapestry of nodes and leylines, criss-crossing the body like nerves and blood vessels, pumping life through them. Through your intensive study of the undead, however, you have made breakthrough after breakthrough in recirculating the energy. While many have little to no visible effect, by powering the undead through less conventional means, the amount of power that can be achieved is almost beyond imagination. When you use your own blood to raise your minions, you can add vestiges of your own power to them, enhancing their speed, strength, persistence... or almost anything you dedicate yourself to.
Prerequisites: You must have the Master of the Undying Legion alternate class feature in order to obtain this alternate class feature.
Replaces: If you select this alternate class feature, you do not gain the Light Fortification special ability that you would normally gain at 10th level, nor later improvements of that ability.
Benefit: At 10th level, you may apply the benefits of one feat that has Corpsecrafter as a prerequisite whenever you create an undead using your blood as a material component. You must meet all the prerequisites of the feat to be able to take it. Your Undead Mastery special ability counts as the Corpsecrafter feat for the purposes of prerequisites for these feats. You may change the feat you select every time you create an undead. At 17th level, you may apply the benefits of an additional feat with corpsecrafter as a prerequisite to undead created using your blood as a material component. You may select a feat that you already possess with corpsecrafter as the prerequisite when you use this ability; if you do so, double the granted bonus. For example, if you possess the Nimble Bones feat, if you select to apply that quality to undead you create with this ability, the undead gets a +20ft boost to base land speed and a +8 bonus on initiative checks. However, possessing this ability does not count as possessing any feats with corpsecrafter as a prerequisite for the purposes of prerequisites for other feats or prestige classes.

Warriors Undying
The dead make good soldiers. They can't disobey orders, never surrender, and don't stop fighting when a random body part falls off. Such is the opinion of the common man. They keep fighting beyond exhaustion, can march throughout the night, and fight forever, never stopping. This is not true for the common necromancer. The dead are fragile beings, unable to heal, and far too easy for a cleric to destroy with but a single turning. This is not so for you. By tying your life force and neverending font of necromantic might to the undead around you, you have achieved much where others have failed: You have created the perfect servants, eternal warriors who fight for their masters without letting death slow them down, and even the most powerful of clerics cannot destroy your warriors.
Class: Dread Necromancer
Replaces: If you select this alternate class feature, you do not gain the Mental Bastion special ability at fourth level, nor later improvements on that ability.
Benefit: The undead around you are tireless and powerful, able to fight after when they would be utterly destroyed, and able to heal where other undead cannot. Each undead ally within 30ft of you gains fast healing equal to 1/4 your class levels (round down). In addition, you may target any undead creature within 30ft of you with spells with a range of touch, even if they are not adjacent to you. Finally, whenever an undead creature within 30ft of you would be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, you may spend a Dread Necromancer spell slot of any level to give them regeneration 0 for a number of minutes equal to the spell level before the damage is dealt. They lose their immunity to nonlethal damage while they have this regeneration. At 14th level, you gain the ability to receive basic mental input from undead you have created. You are constantly aware of what each undead you have controlled is experiencing, though only in basic terms, and you may give them commands even if they are out of earshot. In addition, you may target each undead creature you create may be targeted with spells with a range of touch, regardless of the actual distance between you, and whenever an undead creature you created would be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, you may spend a Dread Necromancer spell slot of any level to give them regeneration X for a X minutes,where X is equal to the spell level, before the damage is dealt, regardless of the distance between you.

JoshuaZ
2011-02-07, 12:47 AM
The idea is nice and some of these are good. However, there are balance issues with some of these since the abilities are things that you still get at 20th level for free anyways (for example light fortification is made obsolete by the lich template). So a DN 20 with Necromantic Study is strictly better than a generic DN.

Fable Wright
2011-02-07, 11:40 AM
The idea is nice and some of these are good. However, there are balance issues with some of these since the abilities are things that you still get at 20th level for free anyways (for example light fortification is made obsolete by the lich template). So a DN 20 with Necromantic Study is strictly better than a generic DN.

It's also made obsolete by the Necropolitan template, which a character can get as early as level 3, and which will soon stop decreasing a player character's level. After a little while, there will no longer be a penalty for that, and the necropolitan has left the class because there are no more class features that benefit him. All in all, it's up to the DM, but honestly, there are few Dread Necromancers who level past level 8 in their careers due to the sudden lack of class features. The Lich capstone ability might as well not be there due to the lack of people who get that far in the class. In essence, the only people who are likely to stick it through to get the capstone are the people who take these abilities, rendering the point fairly moot.

Fable Wright
2011-02-07, 08:36 PM
Bump.
One hundred and thirty views, and 1 person comments? Seriously? Can I please have some feedback?

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-07, 08:42 PM
Can't give much, actually, except to say that most of these variants seem kinda underwhelming, flavor-wise. They just don't pop out to me.

Fable Wright
2011-02-07, 08:47 PM
Can't give much, actually, except to say that most of these variants seem kinda underwhelming, flavor-wise. They just don't pop out to me.

I was mostly trying to get them out there, but it's somewhat hard to think of really good flavor texts for all of the abilities. That, and I'm making them to just work with any generic setting; it's really hard to add flavor when it's intended to just work itself into any setting, and alternate class features and feats really have little flavor they can provide. I'll see what I can do to make them more flavorful, though.

Dead_Jester
2011-02-07, 09:09 PM
Crunch wise, these look pretty good, although you could try to make them more defined (maybe include more abilities per variant) so that they represent defined archetypes. You could also combine some of them together (like Master of the Undying Legion and Necromantic Study, as they are both focused on minions).

Right now, the best is the battle necromancer, even if I always believed that the Dread Necro should have had 3/4 bab all along...

Fable Wright
2011-02-07, 09:29 PM
Crunch wise, these look pretty good, although you could try to make them more defined (maybe include more abilities per variant) so that they represent defined archetypes. You could also combine some of them together (like Master of the Undying Legion and Necromantic Study, as they are both focused on minions).

Right now, the best is the battle necromancer, even if I always believed that the Dread Necro should have had 3/4 bab all along...

Thanks. Chaining variants does seem like a cool idea; it can add in a connection between them to help define an archetype more. (I was kinda hoping that other people could provide feats for other archetypes... >.>) I suppose that by adding flavorful downsides I could improve both the fluff, and add in new abilities at the same time, but it's kinda hard to do that and keep the balance...

Also, I just renovated the fluff (and mechanics, a bit) of Master of the Undying Legion. Opinions?

Dead_Jester
2011-02-07, 09:34 PM
(I was kinda hoping that other people could provide feats for other archetypes... >.>)

I could try to work a few out in my spare time ...

Also, I like the new fluff, it fits the archetype better.

Fable Wright
2011-02-07, 09:45 PM
I could try to work a few out in my spare time ...

Also, I like the new fluff, it fits the archetype better.

Thank you very much. :smallbiggrin:

Also, fixed Necromantic Study to fit more with the Master of the Undying Legion, and gave it a more unique mechanical ability. Thoughts?

Fable Wright
2011-02-08, 07:24 PM
Added the Warriors Undying alternate class feature to the list. I'm a little concerned about the balance issues with it, as you can completely prevent an undead from dying, but I tried to balance it with the fact that the undead still doesn't heal naturally, and can still be taken out of commission from a fight for a while. Input on the ability would be really nice...

Gideon Falcon
2011-02-14, 10:30 PM
Excellent work. I like these. Of course, Destruction Retribution is the reason why REAL Necromancers have low-level cannon fodder.

Thump
2012-07-30, 05:38 PM
I do like this, a lot. However, possible shenanigans with Master of the Undying Legion and Warriors Undying. The Undead Leadership + fast healing for Undead could, by possible RAW, mean that if one were to become a Necropolitan or an undead, they would also be eligible for the Fast Healing and Regeneration ability. Also, see powerful undead cohort. The fast healing could pretty much negate the cost of raising undead with blood (1d6 per HD). If you had average HPs at level 10, you would have an assumed 70 HP. This said, you could raise up to 10 HD of undead as a standard action safely, without risk of dying. You would have fast healing 2, so if you took average damage (35), you would heal this within roughly 15-17 rounds, or basically 1-1/2 to 2 minutes.

Necropolitan can be obtained by, as previously mentioned, replacing Negative Energy Resistance with Necromancer Reborn. While you do lose 1-2 levels, which means as early as level 3, the stuff you get for it more than makes up for what you lose, since you will catch up quickly.

Dead_Jester
2012-07-30, 05:55 PM
http://www.novarata.net/Thread_Necromancy.jpg

Oddly fitting for the thread...