can you help me build a dread necro?

[leegi0n]

I want to build a dread necromancer who is also a Were-Vulture and can:

1. Have the Undead Control abilities of the DN

2. Be strong in melee (with a scythe, if possible)

3. be able to stand alone as a boss fight vs. a group of 8, lvl 18 PCs.


I've never actually built one of these guys and thought it would be flavorful, but frankly don't know where to begin. Any building and/or advice is much appreciated.

[LanSlyde]

I want to build a dread necromancer who is also a Were-Vulture and can:

1. Have the Undead Control abilities of the DN

2. Be strong in melee (with a scythe, if possible)

3. be able to stand alone as a boss fight vs. a group of 8, lvl 18 PCs.


I've never actually built one of these guys and thought it would be flavorful, but frankly don't know where to begin. Any building and/or advice is much appreciated.

Hmm, look into Libris Mortis for Corpse Crafting, pick up a dead walkers ring as well, a rod of undead mastery for double the amount of undead you can normally control, as for melee, don't use a weapon. You get plenty of stackable touch abilities, so just slap them to death. That said, I still don't recommend wading into melee around level 18. By that time, your sitting at the back spamming them with undead. Also, pick up Avascular Mass with one of your Advanced Learnings. No, really, most pissed off necromancy spell I've come across. If you want more details check out this:

http://community.wizards.com/bleak_a...r%27s_Handbook

[Loki_42]

Dread Necros can actually be fairly useful in melee. Grab the corpsecrafter feat that turns your dead into suicide bombers and march into melee ahead of your hordes of low HD minions, grab some way of healing from negative energy damage, and watch as your minions die and heal you. You can also do some fun fear stacking with your aura, which only strengthens you in melee. You can get some good fear boosts even without having to specialize in it.

[Person_Man]

The basic strategy with a Dread Necromancer is to flood the field with weak summoned undead. Have them surround enemies, and if possible Grapple/Trip/Disarm/etc them. This locks them down, allowing your allies to kill them. As an added benefit, they also act as walking meat shields to prevent enemies from getting close to you, can "disarm" traps by walking through them, and can boost any Skill check (and lots of other actions) you make by using the Aid Another action (they only need to make a DC 10 check, and the bonuses from Aid Another stack).

The bane of your existence are enemies that use area of effect attacks. So you or an ally should take the Lord of the Uttercold feat (Comp Arcane) which converts energy spells to 50% Cold (which most undead are immune to) and 50% Negative energy (which heals undead), which allows you to quickly heal your minions while hurting most enemies.

You might also want to consider Imbue Summoning (PHBII), Destructive Retribution (Libris Mortis), Corpsecrafter (Libris Mortis), and Augment Summoning (PHB).

Other then that, the only "mandatory" Feat for a Dread Necromancer is Tomb-Tainted Soul (Libris Mortis), which allows you to be healed by negative energy, which essentially gives you infinite healing and the ability to include yourself in the area of effect of Uttercold spells. (Just buy a magic item or cast a spell that gives you Cold Resistance).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

For this trick, you will probably want the following:

* Either Alternate Spell Source or Southern Magician, so you can get your arcane spells to be considered Divine.

* Divine Metamagic. To be used with Persist Spell. Both of which have prerequsite feats.

* Access to Divine Power through Arcane Disciple feat.

* Whatever corpsecrafter feats you want to beef up your minions with in your spare feat slots.

* Possibly Fell Drain and Fell Frighten if you have feats left over.

Now, here's the fun stuff:

Dread Necro7/Dread Witch5/Dread Necro8

the Combo:

1) DMM: Persist Divine Power. You now have effective full BAB higher HD and in general, can function as a melee class.

2) DMM: Persist Aura of Terror. You pick this up at character level 13 when you hit Dread Necro 8 as your Advanced Learning ability. Basically, it takes your current Fear Aura, boosts everything about it, and makes opponents be forced to make a Will Save that can be particularly obnoxious (and no, you bypass immunities, thanks to Dread Witch, so there is no being immune to it) or be Frightened. Basically, this is passive battlefield control that hits anyone that gets within 15' of you without eating up your action economy. If you already are throwing around fear effects, this can increase it to Panicked, which can induce Cowering which basically means 'you lose'.

3) Another four levels later, at character level 17, Dread Necro level 12, you get another Advanced Learning. Pick up something like Animate Dread Warrior or Skeletal Champion. Both of these lets you make minions with class levels. I don't think I need to go any further there. In fact, if you do drop a party member, you can literally raise him the next turn as your personal minion. This will encourage the rest of the PC's to curb-stomp you and fix their friend. Or at least curb-stomp the corpse of their friend so they don't get killed by him.

Now then, you should also get him a Slaymate to reduce the level adjustment of metamagic on necromancy spells. Doubly so if you decide to pick up Kelgore's Grave Mist and apply things like Fell Drain and Fell Frighten to it. No save, no sr, status effects are fun. And since that gives them Shaken, your aura makes them panicked. Fun combo if you can pull it off.

You may also want a sentient undead minion spellcaster, possibly warlock, who can spam dispel on the party to strip their buffs, since parties that high level tend to buff up quite heavily.