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View Full Version : Neutral Necromancer Cleric Build(3.5 Pathfinder)



Perducci
2009-08-24, 04:45 PM
I'm going to begin play with a group that plays Pathfinder(spare the comments about it). The group needs a cleric. Rather than playing the typical heal/buff bot, I want to play a necromancer type that can also heal my allies when needed. Basically a slighly disturbing, morbid cleric who isn't evil...just a little...well liking to play with the undead.

First of all, I don't even know if it's possible. Clerics aren't my strong point.

Second, core only please.

Third, Level 5.

Basically what I'm asking is how do I build this and what sort of equipment should I get?

Thanks in advance.

Starbuck_II
2009-08-24, 06:49 PM
I'm going to begin play with a group that plays Pathfinder(spare the comments about it). The group needs a cleric. Rather than playing the typical heal/buff bot, I want to play a necromancer type that can also heal my allies when needed. Basically a slighly disturbing, morbid cleric who isn't evil...just a little...well liking to play with the undead.

First of all, I don't even know if it's possible. Clerics aren't my strong point.

Second, core only please.

Third, Level 5.

Basically what I'm asking is how do I build this and what sort of equipment should I get?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, a Neutral Cleric could work. Channel Positive energy to heal allies, but cast undead spells.
As long as you don't choose to affect your undead: they will be fine.

The reverse works too, but prevents spontaneous curing for emergencies.

Either way buy a Cure Light Wound Wand as soon as you can afford it for after battle healing.

ColdSepp
2009-08-24, 06:56 PM
Per the Pathfider SRD, Create Undead is still an [evil] spell, so using it may cause an alignment shift, depending on the DM.

Emy
2009-08-24, 07:02 PM
Per the Pathfider SRD, Create Undead is still an [evil] spell, so using it may cause an alignment shift, depending on the DM.

Solution: cast some [good] spells to balance it out.

Here's one thing: aside from taking the deathbound domain, you really don't need to focus on necromancy to be a damn good necromancer as a cleric. You may want to just plan a decent cleric that can do everything you want to, then fill in the holes with stuff like Corpsecrafter. I've been playing an over-specialized cleric necromancer recently, and have been regretting it a bit.

acesmith
2010-09-30, 12:38 AM
I play with a great necromancer cleric in my group. His solution to healing was to channel negative energy, but choose Irori for a deity, because he gives the healing domain, so at 6th level, all of his healing spells were automatically empowered. (his characters trying to find purity of body through undeath, or something like that.) You'll have to wait a level, but that shouldn't be too bad. you just have to remember to prep healing spells. Also, remeber, having undead buddies will make it so that you wont have to heal your real friends as much. And channeling negative isn't that bad, because when you channel to heal undead, it has no effect on your living friends.

Also, one thing he likes to do is use channel smite with a converted inflict spell. Does pretty good damage.

So, as far as feats go, the ones I know he has are Command undead, selective channel(to not heal enemy undead),Channel smite, Improved channel (for the command undead and channel smite), skill focus: perception (not needed, but, since hes half-elf, his character has an ungodly high perception). not sure what else.

Hope this helps.:smallsmile:

Benly
2010-09-30, 12:45 AM
Personally I like Bones Oracles. They can be good-aligned and still get Animate Dead as a bonus spell.

(Is APG considered core these days? I never remember.)

Hague
2010-09-30, 12:46 AM
There's a Feat from Player's Guide to Eberron: Mastery of Day and Night. It spontaneously maximizes all your cure and inflict spells. Though, it's balanced around having to do something in the game to learn the feats.

Coidzor
2010-09-30, 02:03 AM
Yeah, other than the natural spell casting, the main choices of domain and rebuking vs. turning are less potent/pivotal, unless one is focusing on just casting spells from the necromancy school, in which case domain choice and worshiping a non-good deity are most important.

The main thing domain choice gives is expanded spell list and allows more powerful elite undead that can be animated (the importance of using desecrate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/desecrate.htm)when you're making dem minions, yay for essentially free extra HP) by increasing the control cap (though I think the domain that synergizes with that is non-core, so in core it might just let you get your max HD of controllable animated dead in one casting).

I'd recommend magic domain due to all of the items that lets you use in addition to free identify once a day without being a cloistered cleirc.

Maybe knowledge or trickery, I dunno, not gonna have a whole lot of skillpoints for the new class skills though.

Now, rebuking, rebuking is mostly for snagging trap-fodder or starting an ever-expanding army of shadows/wights. It's nice out of the box but not very powerful unless one devotes significant resources to getting a high turning/rebuking level (which is do-able but a large expenditure of resources for an unreliable return) due to the large number of HD and turn resistance liberally given to undead.

In core, I don't think there are many ways to increase turning level beyond Improved Turning (which is one level and costs a feat, so... not really worth it by itself).


...Command Undead, I'm not sure if one can grab that as a cleric, but it's nice for basically making an additional unintelligent undead yours. (since it's days per level it'd basically allow you to make more than your control pool of bruiser/elite undead(though, for practical reasons, best not to awaken these ones, so best for things like hydra zombies/skellies)

I guess you could make a comparison between command undead and rebuking, where command is absolute control over nonintelligent undead and charm undead on intelligent ones whereas rebuking is absolute control over a limited pool of undead that can only have so many HD.

As far as alignment goes, casting good spells should help, though the rest is really up to you and your campaign. Who are you fighting and how do you treat the non-plot/antagonist NPCs?

So, yeah, you can maintain a neutral alignment easily. If you only cast evil subtype spells very sparingly, like, say, only when you need to create your undead minions in the first place and you treat others in a mostly good manner, you could even run the risk of being a tarnished good.

Since you're level 5, you could possibly negotiate with the DM to have maintained the skeletons of one or two appropriately CR'd creatures that you would've likely encountered earlier in your character's life. Could even look up the price for hirelings and food and water to see if you could afford a special trip to go hunt down any beasties if he really wants to make you pay for it.

More likely, you should set some of your WBL aside for the black onyx you'll be using to animate your first created minions. You might want to talk to your DM about the creatures populating the world/the area you're starting in to determine likely candidates to keep an eye out for.

Equipment: Well, you'll want a magic primary weapon and magic armor at the minimum. If mobility on the battlefield to get to people for emergency healing is important to you, you might consider a significant investment in +1 mithril breastplate.

Basic adventuring gear, your share of rope, backup/utility daggers and a club and sling for good measure. If you're going to be a ranged support character, a ranged primary weapon.

A couple of scrolls of potentially useful spells but not really the sort of thing you've have prepared that day. Like remove curse/disease for those emergencies that just can't wait like vargouilles.

tangent:

Since you want to keep undead you awaken around for awhile and even bring them back after their destruction with the spell that does that, you don't even need to have awaken undead on your spell list, since an item will do fine.

Considering you pay 25 gp per HD (so... y'know, max of 500 gp per undead animated with the most Racial Hit Dice) which is still half of the cost per hit die of an effigy construct and more value than most construct minions without the attendant risk of hit point damage from losing them that the cheaper constructs carry, it's not really bad to pay the material component to get undead, and if awakening them, you'll want to choose a balance between Racial HD, stat bonuses, and bonuses(such as subtypes like Fire) and their potential to gain class features from leveling.

I think Awakened Undead basically act as things with RHD and LA 0...Core only, so, hey, don't even need to worry about that.

I think if you just make bone creatures instead of skellies right off the bat (some confusion here over whether they can be made with animate or if it requires create), you can jump right into having multiple demi-cohorts at about 5th level when you get animate dead.

Wizards have to either get the fell animate metamagic at level 5 or wait until level 7 to start minionizing, so by spells alone, your cleric should have the leg up.

Benly
2010-09-30, 02:35 AM
Oh, that reminds me of something important for Pathfinder necros that sets them aside from 3.5 necros: Bloody Skeletons. They are in the Pathfinder SRD (actual SRD material, not just the pfsrd site with a bunch of third-party stuff), they can be made with Animate Dead for twice the usual cost, they have fast healing and unless killed with a blessed weapon they will stand back up an hour after they're defeated. This has the potential to save you a lot of money in lost minions. Get a Bag of Holding, toss in any defeated skeletons after the fight, and dump them back out good as new an hour later. It helps make up for how much harder it is to get free or discounted Animate in PF core.

You can also make Flaming Skeletons (nice damage aura but I'd rather have Bloody unless the DM lets you stack the templates), Fast Zombies (somewhat better than regular zombies but I'm not sure they're actually better at anything than Bloody Skeletons are except for mount duty) and Plague Zombies (pretty much worthless for PCs).