Dread Necromancer

[AKA_Bait]

I'm going to be starting as a PC in a new campaign and I'm planning on doing the "I'm a friggin necomancer" thing. Thinking about build I can't really come up with much more than just a Dread Necromancer 6... other stuff.

So, suggestions?

Also, I get a free +1 LA. What would be a good race/template for that?

[Ganurath]

Aasimar and Dromites are both LA +1 races with +2 Cha, which is the stat of the one-stat class. I prefer the latter, due to the natural armor. Your first level feat is Tomb-Tainted Soul, because anything else is unacceptable. I'm not familiar with the casting progression (only seen the class in passing) so I don't know if you can make minions yet. If so, put money aside for black onyx.

Funny Note: Some people may note that black onyx is a cheap gem, so animating high HD undead is problematic. Simply point out to the DM that black onyx should be worth more by size in the D&D universe since it's needed by necromancers and such. Supply and demand, huzzah.

[Tempest Fennac]

Dread Necromancers have the same spell progression, HD and BAB as Beguillers (I don't know what their class skills are). Here's a list of DN skills: http://www.devinweb.com/dreadnecromancerspells.htm

[Leadfeathermcc]

You could ask your DM if you could apply the Necropolitan template without the level loss and call it a +1 template. Libris Mortis p 114.

[deadseashoals]

Also, I get a free +1 LA. What would be a good race/template for that?

Anything undead, though I don't remember anything great for +1 LA off hand.

[Tyger]

Necropolitan (from Libris Mortis) does work very nicely, but its the sort of thing that you could always add later. It would save you having to take the Tomb Tainted feat though.

Being undead is a mixed blessing. It means you have one stat that isn't even a dump stat, its just a non-stat. :) And d12 HD with all those snazzy immunities are nice. But! No going into negative hitpoints for you. You hit zero, even once, and that's it, game over man! :)

Take a long look at the Corpsecrafter feats, some of them come in really, really handy.

And of course, animate the biggest, baddest thing as soon as you can. One Huge sized skeleton is worth way more to you that 4 Medium sized ones. A Rod of Undead Mastery will help out with that.

EDIT: Curse you ninjas!!! Necropolitan is nice though.

[Duke of URL]

For race, Aasimar is good, if a little wrong from a "fluffy" sense. If you're going pure DN, you might want Arcane Disciple to expand your spell list, and that's keyed off of Wisdom, not Charisma.

Other Races

Death-Touched: +4 CHA, +2 WIS, -2 CON; DV 60'; chill touch 1x/day; nice and fluffy for a DN

Catfolk: +4 DEX, +2 CHA

Templates

Draconic: +2 STR, CON, CHA; DV 60'; Natural Armor +1

Fire-Souled: +4 CHA, Leadership feat

[Person_Man]

Dread Necromancer is a pretty nerfed class. I suggest that you just be a Wizard or Sorcerer and just call yourself a Necromancer.

The Lord of the Uttercold metamagic feat (Comp Arcane) lets your energy spells be 50% negative energy, and 50% cold damage. It works great when you summon skeletons, and then heal them by dumping Uttercold Fireballs or whatnot in the middle of combat.

For your race, I would be a Skeleton (LA+0) with the Evolved Undead template (+1 LA, Libris Mortis, page 99). This gives you a free spell like ability once per day from a useful list, Fast Healing 3, +2 Str and +2 Cha. Now you won't be nearly as fragile, especially since you can heal yourself and all your minions with Uttercold Energy spells.

[deadseashoals]

Dread Necromancer is a pretty nerfed class. I suggest that you just be a Wizard or Sorcerer and just call yourself a Necromancer.

The Lord of the Uttercold metamagic feat (Comp Arcane) lets your energy spells be 50% negative energy, and 50% cold damage. It works great when you summon skeletons, and then heal them by dumping Uttercold Fireballs or whatnot in the middle of combat.

For your race, I would be a Skeleton (LA+0) with the Evolved Undead template (+1 LA, Libris Mortis, page 99). This gives you a free spell like ability once per day from a useful list, Fast Healing 3, +2 Str and +2 Cha. Now you won't be nearly as fragile, especially since you can heal yourself and all your minions with Uttercold Energy spells.

Dread Necromancers really aren't that bad. They get rebuking and undead creation and control class abilities. It's a much, much more narrow schtick than a wizard or sorcerer, and no, it won't demolish the game or give you real ultimate power, but so what? They have plenty of good stuff to do, they do get 9 levels of spells and neat class abilities.

Skeleton causes you to lose all of your class abilities. However, the Evolved template is a good idea. Necropolitan Evolved would be a great pick for your guy.

[AKA_Bait]

Dread Necromancer is a pretty nerfed class. I suggest that you just be a Wizard or Sorcerer and just call yourself a Necromancer.


Yeah, I know they aren't going to be quite as powerful as a Wizard or Cleric build but I like the flavor and I don't want to overpower the game.

Necropolitan is a strong candidate. If not, yeah, Tomb Tainted is a must., with either Draconic or Death Touched. Not sure which.

Speaking of liking the flavor, any suggestions, short of asking the DM, how I could get Wrack on a Dread Necro's spell list?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Might I suggest this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54264) as a race?:smallbiggrin:

[AKA_Bait]

Might I suggest this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54264) as a race?:smallbiggrin:

Interesting but I think my we as a group (it's going to be an episodic game with a rotating DM) will probably avoid homebrew stuff, especially since we all make it and it would get messy fast.

[ZeroNumerous]

Dread Necromancer is a pretty nerfed class. I suggest that you just be a Wizard or Sorcerer and just call yourself a Necromancer.

Normally, you give great advice. But this I heavily, heavily disagree with. Dread Necromancer is powered by minions, not it's spells. And a Dread Necromancer can get pretty broken, pretty quickly.

AKA_Bait: A template. Get human as your race. Templates: My suggestion is being an Evolved Human Skeleton as Person_Man brought up. Talk to your DM about getting Electic Learning, that will let you switch out the only two Advanced Learnings you get with better spells.

Never take Dread Necromancer past 8th level. At 8th level, PrC into something useful. I personally use Dracolexi to add some utility to my DNs. Alternatively, Arcane Preparation + Mage of the Arcane Order gives you much, much more utility.

On the subject of minions...

Spell-Stitched. Pay other jokers to lose the XP for you. Get a Tiny or smaller-sized Spell-Stitched Undead with the Revive Undead spell stitched into it's body. You never need to worry about dying, because Spell-Stitched don't pay XP or material costs for reviving.

[weezuhl]

Evolved undead template can only be applied to intelligent undead, so no evolved skeleton.

[Maerok]

A Spell-stitched (XP and GP cost) Grave-touched Ghoul (LA +2, worth it I believe, but you turn CE) Dread Necromancer!!!

[RTGoodman]

Speaking of liking the flavor, any suggestions, short of asking the DM, how I could get Wrack on a Dread Necro's spell list?

Well, the Extra Spell feat from Complete Arcane doesn't say that the spell actually has to be one your spell list, and it hasn't been ruled against in the FAQ or anything (as far as I know), so you can technically use it to learn any spell you like (up to one level lower than your highest-level spell known, I think) as long as you meet the prerequisite.

You can find it online, but it's not OGL so I don't want to get in trouble for posting a link to it.

[Ganurath]

Well, the Extra Spell feat from Complete Arcane doesn't say that the spell actually has to be one your spell list, and it hasn't been ruled against in the FAQ or anything (as far as I know), so you can technically use it to learn any spell you like (up to one level lower than your highest-level spell known, I think) as long as you meet the prerequisite.

You can find it online, but it's not OGL so I don't want to get in trouble for posting a link to it.Wait, don't DNs have Advanced Learning? Wrack is necromancy, so it'd be an option if that were the case.

[Dausuul]

Dread necros are hardly nerfed. What with the combination of minions, Rebuke Undead, and a huge array of nasty, nasty debuffing magic, they're very strong contenders. They're easily equal to the Tome of Battle classes, which are the usual measure of "powerful but well-balanced class." Just because wizards are broken doesn't make dread necros weak.

See if you can get your whole party to take Tomb-Tainted Soul. Then you can heal them all after every combat... very useful.

[Fixer]

I designed this halfling necromancer (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dch332f9_18fkrz9ndd&hl=en) for a buddy of mine using many alternative class features. Starts out with an undead minion instead of a familiar and the build progression has many necro feats in it. Just change the race and play around with it if you like. It is designed to be straight necro, with no prestige classes, as the minion gains in power MUCH faster than a familiar does (our campaign has everyone getting maxed HP, which is why the HPs all read maximum).

[Feralgeist]

pff, be a dread necro, their familiars are better. Ghostly visage for the win!! paralyze all who dare look at you, plus a mask for when you want to be anonymous, so you can still go around looking normal in town and people wont scream at you with pitchforks raised. plus, immunity to mind affecting things

[Dausuul]

pff, be a dread necro, their familiars are better. Ghostly visage for the win!! paralyze all who dare look at you, plus a mask for when you want to be anonymous, so you can still go around looking normal in town and people wont scream at you with pitchforks raised. plus, immunity to mind affecting things

Yeah, the ghostly visage familiar is broken. Bonus points if you get the Undead Lieutenant spell (Spell Compendium) as one of your advanced learnings. Cast it on your familiar every morning, and suddenly you don't have to bother taking a standard action to order your minions around; your familiar can do it for you.

[The Mormegil]

I subscribe the Evolved Necropolitan Spellstitched. Absolutely.

[Person_Man]

Normally, you give great advice. But this I heavily, heavily disagree with. Dread Necromancer is powered by minions, not it's spells. And a Dread Necromancer can get pretty broken, pretty quickly.


I disagree with your disagreement.

Having a superior group of undead minions to serve you is great. But can it really compare to CoDzilla? Or lets say he wants to be a spontaneous arcane caster and goes Sorcerer. Can having better undead minions compare to Greater Invisibility, Fly, Polymorph, Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Teleport, ad nauseam.

Certainly, Dread Necromancer is a playable class. When I said it was nerfed, I should have been more clear, and said that it was a nerfed caster. I didn't mean to imply that the Dread Necromancer is like a Monk. But empirically, I think that the crunch is clearly weaker then any other full caster (except for the Healer). And while the fluff is great, fluff can be layered on to almost any build, regardless of crunch.

[AKA_Bait]

Ok. I've seen a bit of stuff on getting out the class and into a PrC at level 8. What are people's thoughts on this?

I'm not sure what PrCs that fit the flavor are going to be much of an improvment. I've seen Pale Master suggested. Others?

[Ganurath]

You said you want to be a Dread Necromancer for flavor reasons. The PrC you enter should most likely match the character's intentions. So, I ask: Why does your Dread Necromancer study necromancy?

Also, another emphasis plug for Dromite as a race. Practical elements aside, a half-necrotized person with an exoskeleton would look awesome.

[Bauglir]

Pale Master is good if you want to survive melee, but that dead level sucks. True Necromancer is also not bad if you prefer minions and spellcasting, but I'd suggest sticking straight Dread Necro if that's what you're into. If you become undead early, be warned that you'll never get the free Lich template at level 20, so a prestige class becomes less of a loss of Dread Necro abilities.

[AKA_Bait]

. So, I ask: Why does your Dread Necromancer study necromancy?


Three reasons:

1. Biology is fascinating. The fact that a few mumbled words and some hand gestures can cause a person to collapse on the floor shreaking in pain or turn around and stab their best friend in the face is awesome. The study of the forms of creatures and the spells that effect them is almost an obsession.

2. Related to the above: He finds the process by which the undead are created entertaining and fascinating. Sort of like the kind of computer programmer that looks at the code of the new game he bought because that's as much fun as playing it. He's the kind of guy that sees an unusal creature and thinks 'what can I make out of that?' or an NPC and thinks 'broad shoulders, strong... maybe a zombie... humm...'. He carries around a tape measure for this reason.

3. He likes to prove he's superior to people. Nothing says 'I'm right' like having the mangled corpse of the person who disagreed with you carrying your luggage.

[Ganurath]

Aside from the basic POWER RAWR complex, it seems your DN has an intellectual side to him. I'm not sure what organizations exist in your campaign, but Paragnostic Apostle from Complete Champion would be a very flavorful PrC. Full casting, retain turning development, and a slew of interesting abilities. I think you might like the interaction between the Summon Undead chain and Call of Worlds.

I just looked down. You said your guy likes minions, so just go for flavorful feats. Might I suggest Complete Arcane's Black Lore of Moil? Since it isn't limited to damaging necromancy spells, you can use it to add some negative energy damage to a lot of those curses, such as 2d6 damage from Wrack.

[Ramza00]

Dread Necromancers 8th lvl ability is based off class levels, thus you DON"T WANT TO PRESTIGE OUT, for if you do that ability never advances. The 8th lvl ability determines the number of undead you control.

[AKA_Bait]

Aside from the basic POWER RAWR complex, it seems your DN has an intellectual side to him. I'm not sure what organizations exist in your campaign, but Paragnostic Apostle from Complete Champion would be a very flavorful PrC. Full casting, retain turning development, and a slew of interesting abilities. I think you might like the interaction between the Summon Undead chain and Call of Worlds.

That's an interesting notion. I wonder if Mind Over Matter and Mortal Coil would work with regard to creating undead... seems like mortal coil at the least would.

One concern with Paragnostic Apostle is that it's only a 5 level PrC though, so I'd have to think about what else to go into if I took it or if I should just go back to DN. If I take the Necropolitan option then I'll want at least one level of PrC since lichform doesn't really do all that much for me.


I just looked down. You said your guy likes minions, so just go for flavorful feats. Might I suggest Complete Arcane's Black Lore of Moil? Since it isn't limited to damaging necromancy spells, you can use it to add some negative energy damage to a lot of those curses, such as 2d6 damage from Wrack.

Thing is, he likes minions, but he doesn't really care about them all that much after the creation stage. I could just as happily for the character concept take Lich Loved and have most of the undead he creates just walking around on their own after he gets bored with them.

[ZeroNumerous]

I disagree with your disagreement.

Having a superior group of undead minions to serve you is great. But can it really compare to CoDzilla? Or lets say he wants to be a spontaneous arcane caster and goes Sorcerer. Can having better undead minions compare to Greater Invisibility, Fly, Polymorph, Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Teleport, ad nauseam.

Ah-ha, but Spell-Stitching can give a Dread Necromancer access to quite a few of the above options. You'd pay out the wazoo for it, but you can hire mooks to lose the XP for you. Want a CoDzilla? Make a Spell-Stitched Zombie Ogre who can cast Divine Favor, Divine Power, possibly Brambles, and then give him a club.

EDIT:
Black Tentacles: DNs have that in class.

Greater Invisibility, Polymorph, Fly, and Teleport can be attained via Spell-Stitching.

Remember, nothing in the template description restricts them to Arcane spells only. :smallamused:

[Ganurath]

take Lich Loved ...Nobody told you the prerequisites for that one, did they? If you want that feat you have to... take after Tsukiko's romantic lifestyle, if you get my meaning.

In any case, the Apostle was the best I could suggest due to my lack of access to Libris Mortis and Tomb of Horrors. Still, it has some fun tricks in there, provided you can get 5 ranks in Knowledges arcana, religion, and one other.

Fun fact: Black Lore of Moil lets you apply the bonus from Backhanded Attack to Save Or ___ spells like Ghoul Touch, Scare, or Panic.

[AKA_Bait]

...Nobody told you the prerequisites for that one, did they? If you want that feat you have to... take after Tsukiko's romantic lifestyle, if you get my meaning.

Not really a problem for that charcter I think. That would be all part of the biological experimentation. :smallwink:



In any case, the Apostle was the best I could suggest due to my lack of access to Libris Mortis and Tomb of Horrors. Still, it has some fun tricks in there, provided you can get 5 ranks in Knowledges arcana, religion, and one other.

Yeah. That might be tougher given the limited skill points but since I wouldn't be PrCing into it until after 8th level regardless (I can grab Wrack with the Advanced Learning then), it shouldn't be too tough.

[Ganurath]

Not really a problem for that charcter I think. That would be all part of the biological experimentation. :smallwink: I can see it now:
Day 23: My hypothesis has been confirmed with rather notable swiftness. Despite having to resort to acquiring a female volunteer from the local cult of Nerull, I have been able to confirm that undead are still able to cause pregnancy, provided that the undead's living form died less than a week prior to seeding. I will now be able to attend to experiments regarding the possibility of the reverse, and shall attend to them personally.Disturbing, yet somehow educational.

[Ramza00]

that spell from unapproachable east makes a great spell to cast on clerics. Make undead clerics which now obey you and cast spells.

Also Rebuking Bone/Corpse creatures. Pick some nice monsters with cool abilities (such as beholders) or pick other spsellcasters that you kill.