D&D 3.5 Character for a friend's campaign

[Reavent]

Hello there, this is my first post ever on the forums and my friend often comes here for advice, so I thought I would do the same. So my friend is going to make a campaign and I've mulled around with a few character ideas, until I found the Heroes of Horror and the Dread Necromancer. I tell him that I wish to play it, and of course he tell me that pretty much everyone else in the party (we have an evil sorcerer (not sure what hes doing), an evil halfing druid, and chaotic neutral half orc barbarian) will either wont work with my character or maybe out right murder me. Now he suggested not to do the Dnecro and do another idea I had: A bard/marshal to be a support character. So my question is this: Should I stick with the Dread Necromancer, or go with the Bard/Marshal?

[Aegis013]

I see no reason why the other characters wouldn't cooperate with a Dread Necromancer. Did your DM give any other details about it? If everybody is on the evil side of things, seems like a Dread Necro would fit right in.

[Reavent]

Ya it seems like it, but I think my DM either doesn't want me to do a Dread Necromancer because hes telling me how I would pretty much have to play like a wanted criminal, seeing how raising the dead is evil (and I plan on being Lawful Neutral) and I would have every npc wanting to kill me, or hes jsut warning me, I'm not to sure

[Aegis013]

I honestly don't see how this is that big a problem. Get a portable hole and stuff some corpses in it for use outside of town areas or whatever. There's no reason you couldn't run into a LN Dread Necro on the street and have a morning chat with him and walk away with no idea that he can raise the dead.

You may want to seriously talk to your DM about it. But if he's adamant, it's probably better to stay away from the Dread Necro.

[Reavent]

Ya I plan on talking to him about it, and I totally agree, but he's was all "You're a necromancer, people will want to kill you for what you do!" And of course I say say, but they wont know Im a necromancer till I reveal it. But if he is adamant about it, and dread necro is out the window what of my other character idea? I thought about it while I was working really and reading up on the marshal.

[Aegis013]

Sadly I'm not super familiar with marshal class, but as a support role, and considering your groups alignments, you will likely be viewed as expendable, but between a sorcerer, barbarian and druid, the only skill set not well covered is skill-monkey. So bard/marshal might be a good addition. Although I might throw in a level of Factotum for Inspiration and all the skills.

[Reavent]

Ya I'm not to familiar with Marshal or Factortum. And ya, we don't really have a skill monkey and I really don't like being one. Nor do I like being viewed as expendable DX.

[Aegis013]

Factotum is from Dungeonscape. It's basically the ultimate skill-monkey class, imo. One level makes all skills class skills, a pretty sweet deal.

[Reavent]

Wow, all skills as class skills? Damn that's interesting XD

[onemorelurker]

Be a different kind of necromancer. You'll still get to do most of the things a Dread Necro can, and you'll have utility spells for pretending to be some other kind of Wizard or Cleric.

[Icestorm245]

Onemorelurker brings up an interesting point. What's the difference between a Dread Necromancer and a Necromacy specialized Wizard? Or even a Cleric who focuses on Necromacy? Dread Necro gives you very little you couldn't already get playing a wizard/cleric. An interesting thing to do, actually, is play a Wizard 10/Ur-Priest2/Mystic Theruge 8. You get both 9th level arcane and divine spells, and can thus be the ultimate Necromancer, raising and creating dead whenever he wants.

[Reavent]

Wow I never thought of that actually. And with divine and arcane spells, I can do alot more than dread necromancer can do, though becoming a lich at 20 at no cost is pretty nice.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, technically, it's 1 level of Factotum + the Able Learner feat that gives you all skills as class skills, forever more...

[onemorelurker]

Wow I never thought of that actually. And with divine and arcane spells, I can do alot more than dread necromancer can do, though becoming a lich at 20 at no cost is pretty nice.

Speaking of liches if you don't go the Dread Necromancer route, don't become a lich. Liches are cool and flavorful, but the +4 LA is crippling for spellcasters. You can, however, look at Walker in the Waste from It's Hot Outside, a 10-level PrC that turns you into a better kind of lich.

[Heatwizard]

Should I stick with the Dread Necromancer, or go with the Bard/Marshal?

Marshal is a class that's 2 levels long; past that and you're not really getting returns that are worth the level investment. You may want to look into Bard/Warblade or Bard/Crusader. There's also nothing wrong with just being a plain ol' Bard, they're no slouches.

[Randomguy]

Dread necromancer's can be neutral by balancing evil acts (mostly spells and raising dead) with good deeds and intentions. Try that.

Have your character wear white robes and tell people he's a sorcerer/cleric to avoid suspicion.

Try to avoid raising or summoning any dead until your chararcter is relatively well liked by the rest of the party.

Two of the other players are evil, and ones chaotic neutral. They'd be liable to murder you no matter what class you pick.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'd definitely recommend the Walker in the Waste option if you're going divine only (if I recall correctly, the class has a divine pre-req).

Combat-wise, the Bard/Warblade would be fun; who doesn't love ToB for melee goodness? It also nets you IHS for the (inevitable) party meltdown. What, doesn't everyone's evil parties eventually turn on each other?:smallbiggrin: