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Giegue
2010-02-10, 06:35 PM
I am planing on making a Dread Necromancer class for 4e but am wondering how I should tackle the whole animation of undead and rebuking. the 4e books I have have no rules for rebuking(but they DO have it for turning.) or undead creation.

I am thinking about making the undead animation abilities into rituals and as for Rebuke I'm planing on having it work like turning except instead of damaging undead it makes them your servants on a hit, and on a miss it will either do 1d5 damage or something else I have not thought up of yet that's more on flavor with rebuking.

Anyway, do you think that undead animation and rebuking could even work at all in 4e?

RebelRogue
2010-02-10, 06:46 PM
Invokers have the power to Rebuke Undead, but it's thematically different from the 3.5 power of the same name. As for the animation of undead, 4e really wants to put focus on your character, not your 1000 skeletal minions. Therefore Class Features than grant you more than a single companion is generally non-existant. You can refluff the spirit companion (shaman), animal companion (ranger) as undead or get an undead familiar (arcane classes). Hordes of zombies is not really doable AFAIK, though.

Edit: However, I think there's a chance the Shadow power source may introduce characters with flavour similar to a dread necro.

Yakk
2010-02-10, 06:55 PM
You can summon a creature as a daily power, and you can call this 'animate dead'.

You can have a familiar, a spirit companion or a animal companion. You could even steal the feature, or refluff it.

Generally, companions like that end up using your action budget to act, and burn your resources when damaged.

I could see building a class that had summon spells as encounter powers, but that starts getting abusive really quickly (as they turn into HP sponges).

AgentPaper
2010-02-10, 06:57 PM
Go for summoner wizard, re-fluff all the summoning abilities into summoning undead stuff. You could also do similar with the druid, which I hear is a better summoner overall anyways.

For rebuking, I think the best you can get is to hybrid to cleric, which has a handful of summons that can also be re-fluffed, change all the keywords from Radiant to Necrotic, and either use turn undead as-is, or ask your DM if he can make a homebrew Rebuke Undead feature, perhaps something like this:

Channel Divinity: Rebuke Undead
Encounter * Divine, Implement
Standard Action Ranged 10
Target: One undead creature.
Attack: Charisma vs Will
Hit: You gain control of the target and dictate it's actions each turn (save ends).
Aftereffect: The target is stunned (save ends).
Miss: The target is stunned (save ends).
Special: The target can make a single saving throw to end this power's effects immediately after coming under it's effects.

illyrus
2010-02-10, 07:05 PM
If you really want to use them as rituals, re-fluff the figurines of wondrous power (and Dragon recently had an article with paragon and epic tier versions) to be undead minions and mounts. The big advantage is you're getting to save on daily item uses so I'd probably make them a 3 healing surge + gold(equal to the half the item) cost to summon and 1 healing surge a day to maintain (where spending the healing surge would refresh it's base hp + give it a healing surge value). I'd have the ritual cost the other half of the figurine of wondrous item's cost.

It will end up being more expensive (assuming they get killed) but they would last for 24 hours a surge and not burn your daily item uses.

Giegue
2010-02-10, 07:10 PM
That rebuke looks quite similar to what I had in mind, actually. As for the summons, I most likely will make them somewhat similar to the druid, but I want the dread necromancer to be more then just a summoner. Summons would just be one trick in his arsenal, as he would also have other necromantic powers in the vein of what a dread necromancer was in 3.5. Fear effects, drains, necrotic damage and perhaps even save or die spells/death magic as a daily if I can think of a way to make it work.

As for the ritual, could be interesting, and as for the cleric refluff idea, I'm already doing that with the Ur-Priest, though the Ur-Priest will be using charisma and intelligence instead of charisma and wisdom, since my fluff for ur-priests is not exactly the same as 3.5(Their art is more based on study and learning how to steal from the gods in an academic sense, thus, more intelligence focused then wisdom focused.)

RebelRogue
2010-02-10, 07:15 PM
Channel Divinity: Rebuke Undead
Encounter * Divine, Implement
Standard Action Ranged 10
Target: One undead creature.
Attack: Charisma vs Will
Hit: You gain control of the target and dictate it's actions each turn (save ends).
Aftereffect: The target is stunned (save ends).
Miss: The target is stunned (save ends).
Special: The target can make a single saving throw to end this power's effects immediately after coming under it's effects.
That looks fine overall, but I don't see why the special is necessary. Personally, I'd change the Hit to just the normal Dominated status (save ends) as it's using current rules for a more streamlined power.

Asbestos
2010-02-10, 07:21 PM
Goodman Games made a necromancer class so that might save you some time at the cost of either money or internet piracy (not cool, man)

The class needs some minor tweaking at a base level (the build specific features need a tweak) and the summons need to be changed from clunky conjurations to actual summons (does wotc not include the summonig keyword in the license?) and some very minor tweaks for flavor would be nice (change source to arcane so they can grab familiars).

I didn't find any of these alterations difficult and would gladly walk you through them in more detail if you desire.

Giegue
2010-02-10, 07:24 PM
Ok, whats the name of the book this class can be found in? Also, PM me the edit help please.

BobTheDog
2010-02-10, 07:28 PM
One concept you might steal is the "[something] Monkeys" figurine of wondrous power in a recent dragon article. Basically, you can summon 3 monkeys (yup, those three) that are weaker than a single summon, but all 3 can act on the same "budget" (so if you spend a minor action to cause them to move, all 3 monkeys can move etc.). This could probably be worked into daily powers. So you might work a system where you have some permanent minion(s) (like beast companion/spirit/familiar already mentioned) and temporary ones by means of daily powers and/or magic items.

Question just popped into my mind: is it possible to get Beast + Spirit + Familiar all in the same character? (even if limited options of them)

Asbestos
2010-02-10, 07:29 PM
Ok, whats the name of the book this class can be found in? Also, PM me the edit help please.
Will do when I get to an actual comp, this is all iTouch right now.

AgentPaper
2010-02-10, 07:48 PM
That looks fine overall, but I don't see why the special is necessary. Personally, I'd change the Hit to just the normal Dominated status (save ends) as it's using current rules for a more streamlined power.

Dominated! That's what I was trying to remember. I almost thought there wasn't a standard status effect for this, which is why I didn't use it. And the special is just to keep this from being an uber-powerful save-or-die against solos and such. Even now, if you hit, you're guaranteed at least one round of stun.

Edit: Thinking it over, I'd actually change that to stun on a hit (save ends), no effect on a miss, and a feat that makes it so you dominate on a hit instead of stun, and no special save.

RebelRogue
2010-02-10, 07:57 PM
Dominated! That's what I was trying to remember. I almost thought there wasn't a standard status effect for this, which is why I didn't use it. And the special is just to keep this from being an uber-powerful save-or-die against solos and such. Even now, if you hit, you're guaranteed at least one round of stun.

Edit: Thinking it over, I'd actually change that to stun on a hit (save ends), no effect on a miss, and a feat that makes it so you dominate on a hit instead of stun, and no special save.
Maybe let it be dazed and then dominated if the save is failed? This protects the solos, but not unreasonably so. It really seems a little too situational to be worth the Feat. Dominated is a powerful status effect to put on enemies, but since it's use is limited to at-will attacks it's still not unreasonably strong.

Mando Knight
2010-02-10, 08:51 PM
For rebuking, I think the best you can get is to hybrid to cleric, which has a handful of summons that can also be re-fluffed, change all the keywords from Radiant to Necrotic, and either use turn undead as-is, or ask your DM if he can make a homebrew Rebuke Undead feature, perhaps something like this:

There's a Rebuke Undead Channel Divinity power for the Invoker, in PHB2.

AgentPaper
2010-02-10, 09:05 PM
There's a Rebuke Undead Channel Divinity power for the Invoker, in PHB2.

Ah, so maybe take invoker as the other half of the wizard hybrid, instead of cleric then.

Asbestos
2010-02-10, 10:18 PM
Ok, whats the name of the book this class can be found in? Also, PM me the edit help please.
Massive PM sent, hope it helps.

Holocron Coder
2010-02-10, 11:04 PM
Personally, for the whole undead-horde aspect, I'd go with two things:

1) Automatically and forever get a single undead 'pet' a la the ranger setup.

2) At least one daily per daily-level consist of summing a horde of weak undead minions (3-10 skeletons) or one undead brute (1 zombie ogre). Different powers, of course.

The rebuke conversation you have going seems to be in the right vein, so I'll leave that alone.

Other abilities would focus on melee and short range necrotic attacks.

Overall, the class may actually fit best into the shadow power source. Alternately, arcane, of course.