Death Master by RAI....is it worth it?

[Giegue]

As the title asks. by RAW, the death master is more powerful then the wizard. This means that no sane DM will allow the RAW interpretation of the Death Master. While I have played the class with only it's own list and not full wiz/sorc list access before, I never got into high levels in those games and as a result have serious doupts about how good a necromancer the Death Master can be. At low levels, the Death Master is basically the best necromantic class. However, at higher levels, the RAI death master(as in forced to use just it's own list) doesn't get key spells like Awaken Undead and as a result I fear it may fall behind as a necromancer.

However, friends told me that Awaken Undead is not 100% needed to be a good necromancer, and that even by RAI the death master makes a good necromancer. However, I want your opinions. Without wiz/sorc list access, is the Death Master a good necromancer-type character? Further, since the Death Master really doesn't use wisdom, can a Death Master still be a good necromancer WITHOUT the use of Arcane Disciple?

So, does anybody have opinions on these questions and concerns?

[Aegis013]

What is a Death Master? Can you provide a link? I suspect it's homebrew.

[eggs]

It's a full prepared caster with a good spell list. Even without full wizard spell access, it's a beast.

[Giegue]

It's not homebrew. It's from the Dragon Magazine Compendium, which is a sourcebook that's either 3rd party or legit wizards maternal, depending on what your DM says.(It has the wizards logo all over it, but the material itself was created by Pazio.....so it's status as legit wizards material or 3rd party is often contested and basically comes down to your DM's view on it.) It's a fullcaster, with prepared arcane casting and it's own spell-list that is arguably good enough to make the class tier 1. Raw power is not my concern, though. My concern is how viable the class is as a NECROMANCER, which is what it was made primarily to do.

[Aegis013]

It's not homebrew. It's from the Dragon Magazine Compendium, ...stuff

I see... the one book I don't have. Sorry about that.

[eggs]

My concern is how viable the class is as a NECROMANCER, which is what it was made primarily to do.
Early Animate Dead is awesome, but without giving it splatbook support, Death Master lacks a lot of tools that make the Wizard, Cleric and even Dread Necro good at what they do. Animate Dread Warrior, Black Sand, etc.

I'd call the Dread Master a competent necromancer. More so than a core Cleric or Wizard, but meaningfully less than either once splatbooks come into play (assuming the Dread Master doesn't get its name scribbled into the various spell entries).

[Psyren]

It's better than a Wizard at minionmancy, but I wouldn't say that makes it more powerful than a wizard in general. For instance, they lack some pretty basic utility until later levels like flight, teleportation, and planar travel. They do get quite a few toys Dread Necromancers don't get however, e.g. Phantom Steed and Desecrate.

As far as how good it is at Necromancy - well, unlike a Dread Necro it is MAD, so it has that going against it, and Dread Necros have much higher control/animation limits due to Undead Mastery. So I would put it slightly below DN if necromancy is your goal. But if what you want is a more general caster with strong necromantic skills, DM may be the way to go.

[Giegue]

Yeah. What I mainly was looking for was something that was good at minion-mastery but not as tightly focused on it as the Dread Necro. I still want to be able to do the generalist stuff a wizard can, but also want to be good at minion-mastery, so I thought that it would be a good class for that. Also, while I know "play a cleric" I have a very low RL wisdom score and as a result prefer cha or int to wisdom as my casting stat for RP purposes.

Also, by RAI, the wizard is probably slightly stronger. However, when I said the Death Master was better then the wizard, I was referring to the RAW reading of the class which basically states that it can get access to the ENTIRE wiz/sorc list in addition to it's own, which basically makes it a wizard with actual class features and access to a healthy amount of cleric-only spells.

[Psyren]

Oracle of Bones, maybe? Shouldn't be hard to convert it from PF, and it can do a lot more other stuff than DN can. Cha-based, gets Rebuke and Desecrate, and getting Deathbound and Undeath onto it would be a cinch.

[Giegue]

Yeah, but I don't want to do that for two reasons: A) Pathfinder is not 3.5e. I don't know how frendly a DM would be to a backwards port so I want to avoid that if at all possible and B) Oracle is a SPONTANEOUS CASTER with SPELLS KNOWN. I was kinda hopeing for more versatility then that. If I'm going to be spontaneous caster and have an absurdly small spell list why not just play a Dread Necro instead?

[A_S]

Is the RAW argument for having Wizard spell access the entry under "spellbooks" where it says they "function in all ways as a wizard's spellbooks?" If so, I don't think that cuts it, even RAW; the "spells" class feature clearly says "the death master can cast the spells given on the death master spells list." So seems to me that a DM could scribe wizard spells, but never cast them, by RAW.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Between RAW and a couple of splats, you can scribe literally any spell into a spellbook. That doesn't mean you can cast any spell that isn't on your class list.