Wizard Template Help

[Sepultra]

Currently playing in 3.5 and, instead of a levelup, I might have the opportunity to acquire a +1 (maybe +2) LA template. Lots of **** happened and I'm a little higher leveled than the rest of the party. Any optimization level is fine. Currently level 8 human necro spec wiz (I know it's not optimal).

I know about necropolitan, but as things stand becoming undead isn't doable without the character effectively being lynched by everyone.

So, could anyone point me in the direction of another template that would help? There don't appear to be many that you can take - especially after level 1 - that would be useful.

Currently focusing on battlefield control and debuffs with the odd damage spell to finish things off and I don't expect to be going gish.

Anything from Pathfinder that would apply would likely be accepted as well since the DM has used PF stuff in the campaign already.

Thanks in advance.

Edit:
- I should've explained more clearly that the reason I might be able to take a template instead of a level up is to avoid pulling too far away from the group in levels to keep the group working.

- If there's a +3 template that fits really well then I could try asking the DM if he'd allow me to take it and only suffer for +1 until I can buy it off. I've got a bit of breathing room wrt levels. The nearest party member to me just hit my level (I'm very close to a levelup) and the others just leveled up to two below.

[Korwin]

Saint (BoED) - probably not for an Necro...
Lolth Touched - for the +6 Con
Phrenic Creature - solid choice
Woodling - for the immunities, has +3 LA

[Mr Adventurer]

If it's instead of a level up, I wouldn't take it, personally. The level will nearly always give you more bang for your buck.

[RatElemental]

If pathfinder is on the table and you specialize in battlefield control then Dream Creature might be a pretty solid choice. Gives a grab bag of special abilities that are pretty battlefield control-y with an emphasis on illusions and has really cool fluff. It's also Cr +1, which I think means La +1 when converted but don't quote me.

Broken Soul also gets a few neat tricks like that but has a few very severe downsides. +6 con though.

Fey Touched just generally makes you harder to kill

Runescarred is a nice simple one with few frills. Just gives natural armor and lets you zap dudes.

A Terror Creature is CR+0 and especially fitting fluff wise for a necromancer. Has some neat fear based stuff.

[Sepultra]

Saint (BoED) - probably not for an Necro...
Lolth Touched - for the +6 Con
Phrenic Creature - solid choice
Woodling - for the immunities, has +3 LA

These seem cool. Are there any restrictions on a character with Lolth-touched like alignment change or having to worship Lolth?

Also Woodling is cool. I might ask my DM if I'd be able to take a +3 and just deal with the +1LA until I can buy it off entirely. Are there any other good +3s? The only one I know of that could help a wizard out is Voidmind and I don't particularly feel like becoming an Illithid slave at the moment.

If it's instead of a level up, I wouldn't take it, personally. The level will nearly always give you more bang for your buck.

Sorry, I should've explained it more thoroughly. Basically, the DM doesn't want me being too far ahead in levels and I'd rather not be myself so that it's easier for the group to work together. I appreciate the advice, but it's more a case of letting the group catch up so that I don't pull too far ahead.

Will add both this and the +3 to the OP.

Fey Touched just generally makes you harder to kill

Runescarred is a nice simple one with few frills. Just gives natural armor and lets you zap dudes.

A Terror Creature is CR+0 and especially fitting fluff wise for a necromancer. Has some neat fear based stuff.

Is fey-touched not inherited only?

Runescarred seems like it could be fun, but terror creature is the most interesting. Sadly, I've had no interaction with the negative energy plane as yet and I have no idea if/when I would get to. Long distance/planar teleporting isn't easy in this campaign other than calling.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I appreciate it.

[Quentinas]

Is not precisely a +1 LA template but what about the necropolitan? You would gain undead immunity and if you use negative energy you could heal by yourself

[Zaq]

Maybe you engaged in some kind of weird necromantic experiment and ended up with the Multiheaded template in Savage Species. It could be a failed (or successful!) necromancy-related graft, or maybe it could be a weird possession gone awry and your body reacting to it, or maybe it could be your own soul slightly detaching from itself after messing around with magic jar and similar soul-focused necromancy.

[Rebel7284]

So while templates are fun, if your main goal is to slow down your experience gain for a bit, have you considered picking up a crafting feat? If you can craft items for the party, everyone benefits.

More templates:
- Shadow Walker or whatever that one is that is required for Telflamar Shadowlord is +1 LA and gives some fun teleportation abilities.
- Mineral Warrior hits your mental stats so not optimal, but DR8 isn't bad +1 LA
- There are bloodline levels that you can take. No real consensus on how exactly they affect your ECL, but talk to your DM. Pretty sure Bloodlines can manifest later in life.

[Feantar]

Well, since you're a Necromancer, we could go as close to undead as possible without going over the line. The Half-Vampire template from Libris Mortis is pretty thematically appropriate. It's a +2 LA template, but it's melee focused so I don't know if it should be lowered to +1 in your case. What is useful for you, is that it gives you fast healing 1, +2 Dex and Improved Initiative. You can also get a charm gaze, or a pretty sucky summon - I'd pick the gaze.

Note that this isn't optimized, just thematic. That being said, increasing your initiative by 5 points (or by 1 point and giving you a bonus feat) isn't that bad.

[BaronDoctor]

So while templates are fun, if your main goal is to slow down your experience gain for a bit, have you considered picking up a crafting feat? If you can craft items for the party, everyone benefits.

Seconding crafting feats. Slow down your experience gain, give the party some boons, and add to group power instead of self power.

If templates are the only thing? Thematically Shadow (+2) or Dark (+1) might fit nicely; I'll second Half-Vampire (something awakened your vampiric heritage recently, that's why it hasn't been a thing before. Take the Charm Gaze and you don't have the Blood Dependency drawback.) Voidmind (+3) gets some neat immunities and handy stat boosts. Reflavor it to be undead-ish and it fits into your whole shtick (and adds on immunities to mind-affecting, energy drain, and ability damage/drain). Spellwarped (+3) also fits pretty nice.

Half-Nymph (+2) makes you super-pretty and gives low light vision and pertinent stat boosts without hurting your Con. Draconic (+1) provides a bunch of small benefits.

Dark + Draconic (+2) adds an array of minor benefits that make you more resilient and more sneaky without adding a ton to your casting power (which seems to be the concern for the GM).

[Mike Miller]

As noted, Phrenic is good. I recommend Spellwarped. It may be +3 LA but it doesn't deserve that rating (in my opinion). It is fairly situational, since you get the main benefits by successfully resisting spells with your newfound spell resistance.

[Blackhawk748]

Gonna second Dark Template. It's a great thing to slap on for some useful bonuses

[Sepultra]

So while templates are fun, if your main goal is to slow down your experience gain for a bit, have you considered picking up a crafting feat? If you can craft items for the party, everyone benefits.

Seconding crafting feats. Slow down your experience gain, give the party some boons, and add to group power instead of self power.

I hadn't even considered crafting feats, actually. That's a solid idea. The one problem is that gold in this campaign has been hard to come by to say the least, so I'm not sure I'd be able to utilize it enough to actually slow my progression. Is there any guide for useful, very low cost magic items?
For context, I only got any real gold to spend at 7th level. It amounted to 1k. Not exactly flowing with magic items either atm, but I'll definitely ask about this. Thanks for the idea.

More templates:
- Shadow Walker or whatever that one is that is required for Telflamar Shadowlord is +1 LA and gives some fun teleportation abilities.
- Mineral Warrior hits your mental stats so not optimal, but DR8 isn't bad +1 LA
- There are bloodline levels that you can take. No real consensus on how exactly they affect your ECL, but talk to your DM. Pretty sure Bloodlines can manifest later in life.

Shadow walker seems fantastic, thanks. Will definitely mention it.

Well, since you're a Necromancer, we could go as close to undead as possible without going over the line. The Half-Vampire template from Libris Mortis is pretty thematically appropriate. It's a +2 LA template, but it's melee focused so I don't know if it should be lowered to +1 in your case. What is useful for you, is that it gives you fast healing 1, +2 Dex and Improved Initiative. You can also get a charm gaze, or a pretty sucky summon - I'd pick the gaze.

Note that this isn't optimized, just thematic. That being said, increasing your initiative by 5 points (or by 1 point and giving you a bonus feat) isn't that bad.

Half-vampire would probably be too hard to pull off given the necessity to drink blood from someone. STR is both thematically and mechanically horrific for my char and stealth isn't something he's particularly good at either. It's a nice idea though, maybe I can take something from it if I need to homebrew.

If templates are the only thing? Thematically Shadow (+2) or Dark (+1) might fit nicely; I'll second Half-Vampire (something awakened your vampiric heritage recently, that's why it hasn't been a thing before. Take the Charm Gaze and you don't have the Blood Dependency drawback.) Voidmind (+3) gets some neat immunities and handy stat boosts. Reflavor it to be undead-ish and it fits into your whole shtick (and adds on immunities to mind-affecting, energy drain, and ability damage/drain). Spellwarped (+3) also fits pretty nice.

Half-Nymph (+2) makes you super-pretty and gives low light vision and pertinent stat boosts without hurting your Con. Draconic (+1) provides a bunch of small benefits.

Dark + Draconic (+2) adds an array of minor benefits that make you more resilient and more sneaky without adding a ton to your casting power (which seems to be the concern for the GM).

Shadow creature looks nice enough and Voidmind is something that I'd love if it didn't involve being an Illithid slave. Definitely worth talking about re-flavouring it at least. The immunities might put the DM off, though. It seems incredibly powerful.

Gonna second Dark Template. It's a great thing to slap on for some useful bonuses

Yeah it seems quite fun to play too, honestly.

As noted, Phrenic is good. I recommend Spellwarped. It may be +3 LA but it doesn't deserve that rating (in my opinion). It is fairly situational, since you get the main benefits by successfully resisting spells with your newfound spell resistance.

Spellwarped might be something I could talk to him about as well. It seems to fit the character honestly and it really doesn't seem that strong - unless the aberration typing is more powerful than I realize?

I appreciate all the replies. With all of this I think I've got more than enough to go and talk to the DM about at the very least. The crafting idea is definitely something that's worth talking about if I can actually get my hands on some gold, too.

[Feantar]

Half-vampire would probably be too hard to pull off given the necessity to drink blood from someone. STR is both thematically and mechanically horrific for my char and stealth isn't something he's particularly good at either. It's a nice idea though, maybe I can take something from it if I need to homebrew.

You don't need to drink blood - that's one of three choices you have for half vampire. You either get fangs and have to drink blood, you get a charm gaze, or you get a summon swarm ability. However, seeing the suggestions, I think the dark template is a better option here (refluffing it as something of a half-shadow).

[Ramza00]

Want to throw some Lord of the Rings stuff into your Necromancer?

Take 1 level of the Ghost Template from wizards.com This template allows you to take 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 or 5 levels of the Ghost traditional template and it specifically says you do not need to advance in order to gain greater ghost abilities.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.a...d/sp/20040117a

1 Level of the Ghost Template gives you.

Undeath
Flight 30 feet Perfect
Ethereal and the ability to Manifest and be Incorporeal
+2 Hide, Listen, Search, and Spot checks
Ghostly equipment

----

Take Ghostly Grasp Feat (Libris Mortis) and now you can items as if you were a corporeal being.

Lastly it is from a weird book Ghostwalk but they have a Ring of Manifestation for 10k. This allows a Ghost or other Incorporeal Creature to be Corporeal as long as they wear the ring.

In some 1 LA, 1 Feat, and 10k gold allows you to have Undeath, 30 foot flight perfect when in Ghost Mode, most of the benefits of Incorporeal / Greater Blink if you take off the ring and when you want to be a normal person you put on the ring again.

[RatElemental]

Sadly, I've had no interaction with the negative energy plane as yet and I have no idea if/when I would get to. Long distance/planar teleporting isn't easy in this campaign other than calling.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I appreciate it.

On the contrary, as a necromancy focused wizard you've probably fueled a lot of your spells with negative energy, and as far as I can tell "prolonged contact" doesn't necessarily mean "lived there for a while." Bit DM dependent I know, but worth asking.

[Endarire]

Divine Minion of Thoth seems spiffy for at will free action Wild Shape, and you can heal to full HP every round with this.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Quasilycanthrope gives DR 10/Silver, and some minor shapeshifting that's only good for RP.


I'd say Necropolitan is going to be your best choice, if you can do the following:

1. Switch from Human to Silverbrow Human in Dragon Magic. You'll also need to redo some skills since that loses the one bonus skill point/level, but it adds Disguise as always a class skill. Disguise is important for being a necropolitan, after all. That gives some other benefits, like being able to take Practical Metamagic if you can spontanously cast anything (spontaneous divination ACF).
2. (Optional) Get a Hat of Disguise, it's only 1,800 gp, and you can add on an enhancement bonus to Int later on for the same price as a Headband of Int of the same bonus per MIC p234.
3. Say you were made into a Necropolitan under as many of the following conditions as possible:
   
   • Creator was a Dread Necromancer 8+.
   • Creator had 1+ level of Wizard (Necromancer) with Enhance Undead.
   • Creator had the feats Corpsecrafter, Bolster Resistance, Hardened Flesh, and Nimble Bones in LM.
   • You were created in the area of a Desecrate spell with an evil altar present, and that spell was affected by the Fell Energy Spell metamagic feat in Dragon Compendium.
4. Add the Evolved Undead template in LM for your +1 LA, since Necropolitan doesn't actually have any LA. I would pick Greater Dispel Magic for the 1/day spell-like ability from that, keeping in mind that there's no such thing as having a caster level too low to use a spell-like ability.

[Mike Miller]

Spellwarped might be something I could talk to him about as well. It seems to fit the character honestly and it really doesn't seem that strong - unless the aberration typing is more powerful than I realize?

All the aberration type will give you is darkvision 60ft. It isn't that strong a template unless you are fighting spellcasters most fights and they are casting SR:yes spells on you a lot. Even then, if they beat your SR the template does nothing (other than the stat boosts and darkvision, which are positive things).

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Well, Symbiotic Creature (Savage Species) is kind of my jam, but... my god is that template abusable. Only +1 LA to gestalt yourself with any creature two sizes smaller than you, as long as it's the right type (and the Human Heritage feat can make it the right type in a lot of cases). Definitely ask your DM about it before going through with it, because it a) it's potentially brokenly powerful if used right/wrong and b) the way some parts of it work are unexplained and require DM adjudication.

[unseenmage]

In my sig theres a thread listing every playable creature by ECL. Hope it helps.

[Sepultra]

You don't need to drink blood - that's one of three choices you have for half vampire. You either get fangs and have to drink blood, you get a charm gaze, or you get a summon swarm ability. However, seeing the suggestions, I think the dark template is a better option here (refluffing it as something of a half-shadow).

Oh. I misread that. Makes sense yeah.

Want to throw some Lord of the Rings stuff into your Necromancer?

Take 1 level of the Ghost Template from wizards.com This template allows you to take 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 or 5 levels of the Ghost traditional template and it specifically says you do not need to advance in order to gain greater ghost abilities.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.a...d/sp/20040117a

1 Level of the Ghost Template gives you.

Undeath
Flight 30 feet Perfect
Ethereal and the ability to Manifest and be Incorporeal
+2 Hide, Listen, Search, and Spot checks
Ghostly equipment

----

Take Ghostly Grasp Feat (Libris Mortis) and now you can items as if you were a corporeal being.

Lastly it is from a weird book Ghostwalk but they have a Ring of Manifestation for 10k. This allows a Ghost or other Incorporeal Creature to be Corporeal as long as they wear the ring.

In some 1 LA, 1 Feat, and 10k gold allows you to have Undeath, 30 foot flight perfect when in Ghost Mode, most of the benefits of Incorporeal / Greater Blink if you take off the ring and when you want to be a normal person you put on the ring again.

It's definitely cool, but I *really* don't want to die at the minute.

All the aberration type will give you is darkvision 60ft. It isn't that strong a template unless you are fighting spellcasters most fights and they are casting SR:yes spells on you a lot. Even then, if they beat your SR the template does nothing (other than the stat boosts and darkvision, which are positive things).

Yeah that's what I thought. Thanks. I'll be asking about it. Being warped by performing experiments is really cool in flavour as well.

Well, Symbiotic Creature (Savage Species) is kind of my jam, but... my god is that template abusable. Only +1 LA to gestalt yourself with any creature two sizes smaller than you

Yeah this seems like something I'd rather avoid. A bit too cheesy.

In my sig theres a thread listing every playable creature by ECL. Hope it helps.

Your extended Sig doesn't load for me. I'll check again when I'm on the PC.

[Sepultra]

Also what do people think of Illumian from RoD? The DM said he'd consider letting me take it as a template rather than a race given that the fluff is that a ritual created the race.
Is it as good as it seems?

So far he's said
Dark
Shadow
Shadow Walker
And possibly Illumian
Are on the table. I'll ask about spellwarped too.

Thanks for all the help. It's been great.

[Mike Miller]

Also what do people think of Illumian from RoD? The DM said he'd consider letting me take it as a template rather than a race given that the fluff is that a ritual created the race.
Is it as good as it seems?

So far he's said
Dark
Shadow
Shadow Walker
And possibly Illumian
Are on the table. I'll ask about spellwarped too.

Thanks for all the help. It's been great.

Illumian is good. It isn't overpowered or gamebreaking (unless you listen to specific build advice on the forum, as always). Converting it to a template is odd but it could work. I suppose it depends on how it is converted from a race to a template...

[Sepultra]

Illumian is good. It isn't overpowered or gamebreaking (unless you listen to specific build advice on the forum, as always). Converting it to a template is odd but it could work. I suppose it depends on how it is converted from a race to a template...

That's the biggest hang up. The wiki entry for Illumian states that they're a race created by Magic and their abilities came through rituals. So there would need to be some ritual involved - preferably one that lets my character keep his hair - but I've no idea what or where to start. Any ideas?

At the moment, Dark, Shadow Walker, Spellwarped, and Illumian are the ones I'm most interested in. They seem enjoyable to play and not overly powerful (would almost certainly need to drop the ability score gains of Spellwarped but I'm fine with that).