[3.5]Help, player wants to play as Arthas the Lich king.

[LansXero]

Ok, one of the groups I run with has recently had an influx of new players, who are mostly unfamiliar with D&D. They are however familiar with fantasy archetypes, mostly through computer games, in particular Warcraft III.

Image for those who arent familiar with the character:
http://imagenes.levelup.com/uploads/news/photos/news_photo_1265150471.jpg

Basically, the guy used to be a paladin, fell to corruption and is now a very powerful undead-controlling warlord. Thats what the player wants to base his character around mechanically, as in, not necessarily the fallen paladin -> evil lord background (blackguard could still be an option if the paladin requirement could be handwaved). Not evil, undeadness optional (very), but main points:

- Heavy armor
- Two handed fighting, swords preferred, weapon choice being relevant
- Magical ability, bonus if frost themed
- Capable of taking damage and dishing it out.

Currently, Id say Swordsage / Warblade with refluffed desert wind would fit geat, sadly we are banned from ToB; so. . . Im juggling duskblade (not heavy armor), warmage (squishy) and. . . well, Im out of ideas. Any help would be apreciated.

[Knaight]

A Psychic Warrior could probably work quite well, unless the XPH is also banned.

[Zeofar]

Have you considered the Paladin of Tyranny/Slaughter variants?

[Tvtyrant]

Dread Necromancer with Lord of the Uttercold (transforms half of any cold damage into negative energy damage) and then apply the necropolitan template to him. He is now immune to cold damage, he heals himself with negative energy, and he can convert all of his spells into cold with Energy Admixture. He is also decent at undead controlling/building, and gets D12's for HD. He is essentially a full casting self healing barbarian :P

[Kylarra]

PsyWar is probably your best bet, heading into Slayer if you prefer full BAB to bonus feats.

[LansXero]

Dread Necromancer with Lord of the Uttercold (transforms half of any cold damage into negative energy damage) and then apply the necropolitan template to him. He is now immune to cold damage, he heals himself with negative energy, and he can convert all of his spells into cold with Energy Admixture. He is also decent at undead controlling/building, and gets D12's for HD. He is essentially a full casting self healing barbarian :P

Lord of the Uttercold is? A feat? Sources would be nice, thanks, this sounds interesting. Also, what kind of casting do they get?

And PsyWar actually seems interesting; its not banned, just no one is actually familiar with psionics at all xD. More info would be handy.

[Golden-Esque]

The most important thing you have to ask the player is what he wants his character to do. Arthas has been associated with a variety of powers over the span of the Warcraft games, and you need to know what he wants.

If your player is looking at the Warcraft III Arthas, then he probably wants a melee character with the ability to raise the undead. I'm not sure if you can get a good melee character with that ability outside of the Blackguard, but the fact that they do get an Undead companion works well for you. In World of Warcraft, Arthas's powers are expanded more to dominion over Frost and Blood (life) as well.

Since you're clearly okay with rebuilding classes to suit this guy's needs, here's what I recommend.

Step #1 - Take the Crusader class in all of its glory from the Tome of Battle. Make Evil a required alignment.
Step #2 - Drop the Stone Dragon discipline. Replace it with a refluffed Desert Wind. If you're looking for something premade, I Got This Name made one called Glacial Chill (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48255) that might be worth looking at.
Step #3 - Drop the White Raven discipline. Replace it with Narrow Bridge discipline (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113982) by JoshuaZ.
Step #4 - Drop the Crusader's Zealous Surge class feature and replace it with the ability to Rebuke or Command Undead, as an Evil Cleric. I wouldn't penalize his Cleric level personally, but if you want him to use it as a Cleric of 2 levels lower, that's your call.
Step #5 - Drop the 10th level Diehard class feature of the Crusader and grant him the Leadership feat, except his followers are undead. In regards to the cohort, use templates for this, so long as the creature's character level does not exceed the cohort's maximum level. Add in that an undead cohort is not mindless and has its own Intelligence scores. For the followers, make them mindless low-level undead (skeletons, zombies, etc) that are permanently under the player's control.

Doing this will get you pretty darn close to the World of Warcraft Lich King. You'll have Frost strikes, Unholy strikes, and strikes that can heal you (Blood). You'll also have moderately powerful control of undead; I'd say the Leadership perk specially makes this class cool :D.

[Kylarra]

What sources are allowed?
PysWar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/psychicWarrior.htm) and Slayer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) can be seen on the SRD.

[Tvtyrant]

Dread Necromancer (Heroes of Horror?) is a Beguiler type caster except with Necromancy; essentially it casts spontaneously from a spell list. Also get turning/rebuking.

Lord of the Uttercold is a feat from Complete Arcane which is just awesome. Unfortunately it needs energy substitution and maybe admixture (I am away from book) but for undead types it heals half of its damage and almost nothing but undead are immune to negative energy.

It can be combined with a feat from complete arcane that heals you from negative energy instead of positive so you can be a cleric or wizard, but at that point you might as well just use it to heal your undead rather than yourself.

Also consider Pale Master from Liber Mortis, which is a prestige class that turns you into an undead very slowly. It also gives you animate dead as a free ability once a day, which overtime is very nice.

[LansXero]

Anything minus ToB / Miniatures Handbook, and also pending DM approval.

I checked out PsyWar and psionics in general and it seems like it fits well; which books should I look for more powers besides those in the SRD? didnt see much dealing with cold, but I admit it was a brief glance.

That crusader rebuild seems very interesting, I think it sums up a WoW-Deathknight base class pretty well. Too bad ToB is disallowed :( but Ill surely look into it for later use.

[Urpriest]

May I suggest the Bone Knight (Five Nations, Eberron)? Clerics make great melee characters, and Bone Knight is an undead-focused prestige class that's very popular with melee-focused clerics. Paladin also works as an entry method, but since clerics get Animate Dead they seem a natural choice. Heavy armor, perhaps the War domain for a Greatsword, fits perfectly.

[Kylarra]

Lord of the Uttercold allows you to change your own spells into uttercold spells, but I don't recall that many [cold] spells on the DN's list in the first place.

[Tvtyrant]

But if you switch any other elemental spell (such as Wall of Fire) to cold then Uttercold applies. So Wall of Fire each round to make a bunch of healing boxes of cold fire that also damage your enemies :D

Or Uttercold Scorching Ray to overcome immunities.

[LansXero]

Dread Necromancer (Heroes of Horror?) is a Beguiler type caster except with Necromancy; essentially it casts spontaneously from a spell list. Also get turning/rebuking.

Interesting, Im away from books atm though (local gaming association has a nice library) so, if you could tell me HD / Armor / Weapon proficiencies that would be great.

[Kylarra]

But if you switch any other elemental spell (such as Wall of Fire) to cold then Uttercold applies. So Wall of Fire each round to make a bunch of healing boxes of cold fire that also damage your enemies :D

Or Uttercold Scorching Ray to overcome immunities.Sure, but neither of those are on the DN's spell list, so you're using up some of your 5 advanced learnings in order to gain blasting spells so you can use them with your feats...

[Critical]

Ebon Initiate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163297) with frost-themed invocations should do quite well, IMO, probably with Frostwrought Scion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167658) tackled on, too.

Also, should probably be a necropolitan from Libris Mortis. :smallwink:

[AslanCross]

May I suggest the Bone Knight (Five Nations, Eberron)? Clerics make great melee characters, and Bone Knight is an undead-focused prestige class that's very popular with melee-focused clerics. Paladin also works as an entry method, but since clerics get Animate Dead they seem a natural choice. Heavy armor, perhaps the War domain for a Greatsword, fits perfectly.

I think this suggestion is the most appropriate. Its undead creation is not excessively dependent on casting. Plus, it has bone weapons and bone armor.

[Tvtyrant]

Interesting, Im away from books atm though (local gaming association has a nice library) so, if you could tell me HD / Armor / Weapon proficiencies that would be great.
Alas I am also away from book, so I can't help you there. I do know it becomes a Lich at level 20, with all of their immunities and abilities.



Sure, but neither of those are on the DN's spell list, so you're using up some of your 5 advanced learnings in order to gain blasting spells so you can use them with your feats...

Right, but you get the ability to damage enemies despite their immunities, you can heal yourself by doing that damage, you can heal your undead minions, and you get awesome flavor from it. It may not be as optimized as a God wizard, but he did say he wanted to make Arthas, and stated he wanted cold powers if possible. This gives cold powers, its undead based, and it heals him if he is necropolitan or Lich. I'm just trying to give the OP what he asked for.

[Kylarra]

Right, but you get the ability to damage enemies despite their immunities, you can heal yourself by doing that damage, you can heal your undead minions, and you get awesome flavor from it. It may not be as optimized as a God wizard, but he did say he wanted to make Arthas, and stated he wanted cold powers if possible. This gives cold powers, its undead based, and it heals him if he is necropolitan or Lich. I'm just trying to give the OP what he asked for.I didn't say anything about optimization, but you're effectively suggesting spending 2 feats to overcome a hypothetical weakness, that only exists if you're spending your advanced learning to pick up spells that qualify for it.

[Psyren]

Psionics could work if you focus on the various stygian powers in CPsi, but it strikes me as a square peg round hole situation. A paladin of tyranny/dread necro/bone knight build is probably best, so long as you use the cha-based pathfinder paladin. (Arthas is forceful, but not very wise.)

[Tvtyrant]

I didn't say anything about optimization, but you're effectively suggesting spending 2 feats to overcome a hypothetical weakness, that only exists if you're spending your advanced learning to pick up spells that qualify for it.

Spending two feats to mass heal your own undead; the overcoming immunities is just a benefit. Wall of Fire is the ultimate healing spell for undead this way; you have them stand in it and it heals them while damaging anyone else.

[Kylarra]

I actually went to look it up and DN can't pick up wall of fire through advanced learning, although the trick with uttercold WoF is kind of amusing since it would heal 4D6+2/caster level to your undead.

[LansXero]

Stygian powers? What are those? I dont see any in the SRD.

by the way, the player(s) will be joining a currently in-progress campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, and start at level 5. Which of the suggested concepts would be more realized (as in, it will have the basic toys to play with then and not in a few levels) at level 5?

[Urpriest]

Spending two feats to mass heal your own undead; the overcoming immunities is just a benefit. Wall of Fire is the ultimate healing spell for undead this way; you have them stand in it and it heals them while damaging anyone else.

Most DN AoE spells already heal undead and damage the living, though. They have few to no energy spells that aren't negative energy, and little to no access to such spells via Advanced Learning.

[Urpriest]

Stygian powers? What are those? I dont see any in the SRD.

by the way, the player(s) will be joining a currently in-progress campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, and start at level 5. Which of the suggested concepts would be more realized (as in, it will have the basic toys to play with then and not in a few levels) at level 5?

There are several powers in Complete Psionic with the word Stygian in front of them that are negative energy focused.

A Dread Necromancer is fun at low levels, but will still be in light armor and really won't be all that great of a traditional melee combatant (they're good with touch attacks at this level, but there isn't much reason for them to pick up a sword, and their base attack bonus is poor IIRC).

Psychic Warrior will be doing its thing just fine, but its thing won't have much to do with undead or cold. You get the sword, armor, and magical powers though.

Cleric can start Animating Dead by this point, and will take Bone Knight next level. Paladin of Tyranny/Slaughter has to be evil, which you expressed reservations about, but is also fine at this level if evilness isn't a problem. Bone Knight is from Eberron, but it fits the fluff so well that as a DM I'd allow it in Forgotten Realms, with a suitable change of allegiance.

[Tvtyrant]

Sweet, then you don't need Uttercold, just play the DN. Of course now I need to figure out how to meet your cold requirement...

Well, there is always just a Cleric with Water domain and the War domain with a greatsword. Make it neutral and get rebuke and it will work.

[Aron Times]

Arthas would probably be a gestalt paladin of tyranny/necromancer, because the being known as the Lich King is actually a soul gestalt between Arthas the Death Knight and Nerzhul the Warlock.

[Hawk7915]

Arthas is probably best built, if Tome of Battle is disallowed, as a Necropolitan Cleric (or Paladin of Tyranny) X/Bone Knight 10/divine gishy Prestige Class Y (Refluffed Ordained Champion being the strongest option, but refluffed Prestige Paladin or even Blackguard aren't necessarily awful).

I think you were on the right path with Duskblade as an alternative, if the "Blood/Frost/Shadow/Disease-channeling armored warrior" bit is more important than the "Commander of Vast Undead Armies" bit to you. A few levels of Blackguard isn't out of the question, granting the charisma-based boosts and Command Undead. Burning a feat on Battle Caster lets them cast in plate, and as far as I know you can even channel Blackguard spells through Arcane Channeling (or use Versatile Spellcaster to swap spell slots between the two). Such a build is mad MAD though.

Fallen Paladin/Blackguard or Knight/Blackguard are serviceable, but not as great as the above options. And as noted, The Lich King as we know him in Wrath of the Lich King would certainly be a gestalt character; that's the only way to explain his insane abilities.

[Prime32]

Pick up Frostburn? Snowcasting, Cold Focus, Frozen Magic, etc...

[Closet_Skeleton]

Evil or neutral Cleric with rebuke undead, cold and undeath domains. According to Crystal Keep Cold is in Players Guide to Faerun and Complete Divine and undeath is in the main Forgotten Realms book.

Core cleric is a painfully simple way to be a figher who can create and lead undead. You don't even need to optimise to be good at fighting, just cast the right buffs. Plenty of strength boosting spells that work well with two-handed swords on the cleric list.

A fifth level cleric can cast animate dead, death knell, inflict spells (spontaneously if you want), bull's strength, cause fear. All good Death Knight abilities. Cold Domain will give him Chill Touch, Chill Metal and Sleet Storm and other cooler spells at higher levels.

Undeath Domain is actually pretty terrible as it just gives you a dull bonus feat and spells clerics get anyway. You might want core death domain instead.

Pestilence domain from Complete Divine is pretty dark.

At level 7 he gets Divine Power and then stops caring that he's not a pure melee character.

[Dralnu]

The uttercold trick can be found here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5584.0):
"The ultimate goal is to cast spells with the Cold Subtype that do half negative energy damage, while you and all your undead minions are immune to cold and healed by negative energy damage. Basically, this is done with Energy Substitution[cold] (a prereq for Lord of the Uttercold) and the feat Lord of the Uttercold. Then you put up Walls of Fire(uttercold) and you and all your minions dance around in them like Homer Simpson at the American Embassy regaining all your hit points every round and inflicting real evocation-style damage on your enemies. It’s hilarious. You can burn lots of feats and be a blaster mage at high levels, or take Beckon the Frozen to get cold-subtyped undead with Summon Undead that you heal with uttercold, but the essential build is two feats (though you are required to be undead or take Tomb-tainrted Soul if you want in on the fun).

For people who like numbers, look at your favorite Evocation modified by a resonable amount of Sudden or Rod-based Metamagic(or even vanilla metamagic). Then imagine your cold-immune undead like Skeletons or cold-Subbed Zombies like Frost Giants taking 1/2th of that damage each round as healing. A simple thought exercise is the 10th level Wizard with a vanilla Empowered Cold-subbed Fireball: average damage to your enemies is 15d6 (52.5 points of damage), with a save for half, and an average of 26 points of healing for every one of your minions. Makes Inflict look like crap, right?

Now, lets play this excercise with a real blaster mage: A 12th level Sorcerer with the feats from Races of the Dragon that drop metamagic costs and speed metamagic and a Rod-Maximised, Twinned Fireball: a flat 120 points of damage with a save for half and a flat 60 points of healing. Thats not even counting a once per day Sudden Empower for an extra 10d6 (35 damage, save for half, and an extra 17 points of healing).

Even if you don't want to be a blaster mage or don't want to sling together complex battle plans involving Walls of Fire(uttercold) to heal your minions and hurt your enemies, the ability to cast a single Wall of Fire after every combat to heal all your minions and perhaps yourself is an invaluable Necromantic aid."

In short, it's a neat trick that doesn't require too many feats to pull off, but it's assumed that you're doing this with wizard, not Dread Necromancer.

I also support the Bone Knight choice. The PrC is a very capable melee with a big undead theme. If the player reeeeally wants a cold theme, I'm sure you can slap that on too with a little digging, maybe in Forstburn.

[LansXero]

Bone knight entering as a paladin seems very fitting; cleric entry would be more castery, but its flexible enough either way. And it starts right at 5 if entered as pally which is great. Thats what Ill probably suggest to him, thanks! :D