Undead Slayer

[TheLooker]

Does anyone know of cool prestige classes, abilities, or feats that are really awesome against undead? Possibly a fighter based prestige class for hunting undead. Thanks.

[Fouredged Sword]

Paladin? Cleric?

Cleric dip into Prestige paladin?

[Madara]

Look in Libris Mortis. That has everything you need for fighting or being undead.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Cleric into Radian Servant, possibly with some Morninglord thrown in there. A Greater Turning with a Phylactery of Undead Turning, Circlet/Mask of Persuasion, Rod of Defiance, Scepter of the Netherworld, Ephod of Authority, and the Glory domain is almost guaranteed to outright destroy any undead opponents that aren't strong enough to cause an outright TPK.

[Kyberwulf]

Hunter of the Dead, it was in Defenders of the Faith. I don't know how Viable it still is, or if they remade it.

Edit, just looked it up, look in the Complete Warrior book.

[vhfforever]

Knight of the Raven from the Ravenloft book does a good job of it, as well.

[Amoren]

I had a pretty effective cleric/prestige paladin/knight of the raven/radiant servent of pelor build, using dynamic priest and a houserule so that a lawful good paladin of pelor could take RSoP. Was fun, and boy will undead hate you.

For straight fighter, the feats from expedition to castle ravenloft would still be a boon, since it makes you immune to a lot of undead abilities.

[Psyren]

Anti-undead specialists:

Cleric - RSoP, hands down.
Druid - Master of Radiance
Rogue - Skullclan Hunter
Paladin - Hellreaver (works just as well on undead as fiends!)
Fighter - Uh... er... hm.

[Madara]

Fighter - Uh... er... hm.

Fighter- Multi-class into a class with class features.

[Keld Denar]

Hellreaver doesn't do that bad. Only one ability (the capstone) is really geared toward outsiders. Everything else works fine against any evil foe, or is personal/ally related.

[Cespenar]

I'll be the weird one and go with Illumine Soul, a prestige class for Soulknives aspiring to be undead hunters.

[Khedrac]

Cleric into Sacred Exorcist can also work very well.

[only1doug]

Just as a thought, have you seen the wraith's woe equipment set from Magic Item Compendium, very useful for fighting undead.

[Private]

Also, I feel like Rangers with Favored enemy: Undead are pretty good, since it is such a broad category. Then you just build your Ranger as you see fit and he can hold his own.

[Thurbane]

When I ran EtCR, I let the group generate PCs starting at 6th level (or so) that were designed around destroying undead.

This taught me a few things:


Direct damage spells and Power Attack is very effective against a lot of run-of-the-mill undead, due to their lack of Con bonus to HP.
When you really tweak Turn Undead with feats etc. it can make all but the highest HD undead (or those with serious Turn Resistance) a very short and boring encounter. Turn-chase-destroy-rinse-repeat.
There really isn't much in the way of a pure melee Undead Slayer type PrC...virtually all rely on Turn Undead and/or spells. Nothing of much use to a straight Barbarian or Fighter type, unless I failed my Search of the books.


...anyhow, kinda OT, sorry.

[Psyren]

When you really tweak Turn Undead with feats etc. it can make all but the highest HD undead (or those with serious Turn Resistance) a very short and boring encounter. Turn-chase-destroy-rinse-repeat.

Rules Compendium 146 has a sidebar about this, and how boring turning can be for both sides when played straight. It gives some suggestions for alternate turning, such as applying a -4 penalty to all the affected undead's rolls, forcing a will save if any of them want to attack the turner, and even applying a 1 round stun that bypasses stun immunity. This might be a useful variant that keeps the battle interesting without hosing optimized turners.

[Amoren]

The Destroy Undead ACF from... Expedition to Castle Ravenloft might also work. I believe it turns regular turning/destroy into 1d6 per turning level, or some such. So it goes from mass fear/death, to mass 'oh god the burning'.

[Psyren]

The Destroy Undead ACF from... Expedition to Castle Ravenloft might also work. I believe it turns regular turning/destroy into 1d6 per turning level, or some such. So it goes from mass fear/death, to mass 'oh god the burning'.

This approach is a big nerf though, because HP damage doesn't lower monster effectiveness. Under the old system, chasing off a vampire or mohrg can save the fighter's life, but simply damaging them won't do anything unless they are near death already. And the cleric himself is also still in danger if he is, say, surrounded by undead (unless, again, those undead are already near death.)

This doesn't fit mechanically with the archetype of the devout holy man striding into a crypt and being untouchable by the horrors lurking there.

This is why I favor the debuff/stun/can't attack turner approach, as it causes less problems than fearing the undead in all directions, keeps them in the fight at least somewhat, and protects the priest more thoroughly than a mere AoE damage effect would.

[Igneel]

I'm currently playing a Deadgrim (Magic of Eberron) which is a pretty neat PrC for fighting undead. Basically a 5 lvl class that slowly turns you into something closer to a undead in order to make you more immune to what the undead can do to you. 4/5 spellcasting continuation, full BaB, minor bonuses against poison, paralysis, stunning, diseases, death from massive damage, Favored Enemy (undead), immunity to sleep effects, death effects, and energy drain effects (at 3rd lvl), at 5th can use a turn undead to deal critical hit damage when threatening... But because I'm playing in a game where the BBEG controls undead, the DM ruled if I took 5th level (which makes you turnable/rebukable/harmed by negative energy as well) that I would become a NPC as soon as the BBEG saw me. =P Still pretty good.