Specialist or generalist wizard if going into dread witch?

[silverwolfer]

What do you folks think, should I do a school focused wizard if going into dread witch, or a generalist one?

[Phelix-Mu]

Hmm, I actually used a draconic sorcerer as a base.... I am guessing that specializing may yield some good benefits, especially as Dread Witch doesn't eat up that many levels, allowing you to dip into multiple other areas to compensate for any lack of utility from specializing.

Which class feature of dread which are you focusing on? There are some pretty cool, if slightly complicated and circumstantial abilities in that PrC. The bonus to Intimidate is super awesome.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Bard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252815#4), preferably one of the savage type.

[silverwolfer]

Am focusing on the fear per spells and auras, I am also using dreadful wrath feat to aid in keeping folks away.

[Phelix-Mu]

Hmm. Well there are a bunch of cool variants for specialist wizards in Unearthed Arcana. Might bear looking at them. You need not specialize in necromancy, but can't ban it, obviously. A lot of the necromancy focused stuff is very much undead-centric, which might not be your flavor. For instance, I would suggest Master Specialist, but that PrC is excellent, but would do little for a necromancer that didn't intend to use undead.

I would recommend Fearsome Necromancy (Complete Mage), but it seems to explicitly not stack with anything, so not particularly useful, especially if you will be investing substantially in spells that will do much worse. But might synergize well with the Dread Witch class features. You will probably already have Spell Focus (necro) anyway, so could be good.

Intimidate op isn't easy for a wizard, but Dread Witch really makes it tempting to try. One of the enchanter variants gives it to you as a class skill, and for sorcerer/dragontouched it can be acquired with red dragon heritage (updated in Dragon Magic) through Draconic Heritage feat. But that's 2 feats just to use intimidate, which is powerful, but not as powerful as your spells. Imperious Command (Drow of the Underdark), however, can make Intimidate into a powerful tool, especially when combined with Never Outnumbered skill trick.