High Optimization Necromancer Challenge!

[ShadowFireLance]

Alright, I was aruging with someone, So I come to you all to help me win this arguement!

Rules:

Any 3.5 Book allowed, Any 3.0 with a update allowed, No Dungeon, no Dragon.
Epic Casting is banned.
20th Level Anything, Have fun, 20 levels to work with, Or:
If you want to impress me, Have at it with a 28th Getstalt, Duel Casting PrC's denied.

The Focus of this challenge is: Animateing, and Controling Undead.

Thanks!

[Vaz]

What argument? What exactly do you want to prove or disprove.

[ShadowFireLance]

What argument? What exactly do you want to prove or disprove.

That Necromancers are the best, when compared to Other types of Magi/Cleric/Etc

[Gazzien]

That Necromancers are the best, when compared to Other types of Magi/Cleric/Etc

Necromancer v Cleric of Pelor:

GG, gone. I was under the impression you can't pump turn resistance as fast as they can pump Greater Turning and insta-gibs your whole [Undead] army...

(my 2c, I'm not good at the whole making-an-optimized-20)

[thethird]

I would go with:

Dread necromancer 20 / Binder 8 // Incarnate 5 / Horned Harbinger 10 / Necrocarnate 13

Horned harbinger + Dread Necro gives you a large pool of undead HD (10 + CHA bonus)/level (you probably aren't going to get it higher).

Horned harbinger also gives you animate/create/create greater undead as a spell like ability (so it is cheap)

Incarnate + Necrocarnate Give you a large pool of essentia (potentially infinite) and necrocarnum zombies (which are good) having so many levels allows you to use the necrocarnate ability to harvest essentia as a full round action, that makes it really great, also infinite essentia, yeah, that's cool.

Binder gives you two vestiges to play with, you probably want tenebrous 1 turn undead every five rounds that can be burned with DMM can be great. The other vestige might patch holes in your build adding the power wherever you need it.

---

Edit if this is in a pvp set you might not want to go dread necro, going cleric instead for example, and binding acererak so you are healed by negative and positive energy (it can surprise your opponent if it attacks you with a heal).

[Vaz]

Don't make me pull out my ANYSPELL wu jen incantatrix/archivist/geomancer archmage build. Abd with Gestalt? Oh, hi stp erudite added on to that.

[Silva Stormrage]

The problem with this contest is that it all depends on context for Necromancers. Let me give you an example.

A Level 20 Dread Necromancer with the following items
Rod of Defiance (-4 Turn Resistance)
Lyre of the Restful Soul (-4 Turn Resisistance)
Mace of the Dark Children (+2 Rebuke Level)
Ruby Blade (Relic +4 Rebuke Level)
Netherworld Scepter (+3 Rebuke Level)

Has a rebuke level of 29 and can reduce the turn resistance of any undead by 8. Thus he could animate a 22 level wizard and animate him as a bone creature thus keeping all of his stats and abilities. This DN can have two level 22 wizards actually since the way rebuke undead only checks the HD at the time of the rebuke. So it would take up only 14 out of 29 hd of his cap.

Of course where is he going to GET these level 22 wizard corpses? Thats the problem with necromancy in theoretical builds. It really depends on what corpses you have. And if you can have any corpse than necromancers win as I just showed that you can animate and control people of higher level than you. Those two could just as easily be dread necromancers, give them the items and then they can now control 2 22 HD minions as well...

[thethird]

Gate creatures with the spellcasting that you want?

[Vaz]

The problem with this contest is that it all depends on context for Necromancers. Let me give you an example.

A Level 20 Dread Necromancer with the following items
Rod of Defiance (-4 Turn Resistance)
Lyre of the Restful Soul (-4 Turn Resisistance)
Mace of the Dark Children (+2 Rebuke Level)
Ruby Blade (Relic +4 Rebuke Level)
Netherworld Scepter (+3 Rebuke Level)

Has a rebuke level of 29 and can reduce the turn resistance of any undead by 8. Thus he could animate a 22 level wizard and animate him as a bone creature thus keeping all of his stats and abilities. This DN can have two level 22 wizards actually since the way rebuke undead only checks the HD at the time of the rebuke. So it would take up only 14 out of 29 hd of his cap.

Of course where is he going to GET these level 22 wizard corpses? Thats the problem with necromancy in theoretical builds. It really depends on what corpses you have. And if you can have any corpse than necromancers win as I just showed that you can animate and control people of higher level than you. Those two could just as easily be dread necromancers, give them the items and then they can now control 2 22 HD minions as well...

You've done all that when my anyspell build is hardly considered feat starved (Iron Will gained from Otyugh, Wu Jen for free Metamagic Feat, take Persist at 3, persist clones, then use the Dark Chaos Shuffle on your clones (SLA Miracle, baby) and have them gain every metamagic in the universe; in return, it can just take Leadership, and said Leadership makes an Infinite Psicrystal with Leadership, and each Cohort of the Leadership is a Thrallherd with a Psicrystal, ad infinitum.

[Mato]

Problem with Necromancers is they cannot kill a 10th level PC*.

And when your starting point is "gee I hope we could end in a draw", you're not faring too well.

*See the Magic Item Compendium, page 216, lower right hand side.

[Ernir]

That Necromancers are the best, when compared to Other types of Magi/Cleric/Etc

You aren't proving that with this challenge. You're proving that the collective experience of an internet forum can produce a build that is likely to defeat that cooked up by a lone player under some certain set of controlled circumstances.

Also, you may want to know that the internet hivemind considers Conjurers and Transmuters the best. :smallwink:

[Silva Stormrage]

You've done all that when my anyspell build is hardly considered feat starved (Iron Will gained from Otyugh, Wu Jen for free Metamagic Feat, take Persist at 3, persist clones, then use the Dark Chaos Shuffle on your clones (SLA Miracle, baby) and have them gain every metamagic in the universe; in return, it can just take Leadership, and said Leadership makes an Infinite Psicrystal with Leadership, and each Cohort of the Leadership is a Thrallherd with a Psicrystal, ad infinitum.

Mine had no feats selected (maybe true believer) and no items and was a straight level 20 dread necromancer. I wasn't building the most optimized build in the world. I was just demonstrating that a necromancer can control people higher level than him and thus this contest doesn't prove much.

Also mine does it without infinite loops, I am well aware of the psicrystal infinite cohort chain. Mine actually would get allowed in a game while that would never pass by any DM. TO optimization in D&D isn't HARD you could just as easily build a STP erudite with infinite actions and infinite power points. Congrats it doesn't help the OP at all...


Edit: @ Mato, ya the wraith shirt is slightly annoying. Not quite sure what they were thinking when they made that to be honest. Though also it still isn't technically invincible. You still lose the benefits of the item when you attack and it requires a standard action to activate. Also technically I believe spells can still locate you as hide from undead only functions against extraordinary and supernatural senses not spell like (Not sure if spells granting other sense count as supernatural for rules sake)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I actually made a Dread Necromancer PC quite a while back, around level 15-18 I think. He had a Spellstitched Slaymate traveling with him (his own young daughter, who died from neglect). I had some sort of undead flying mount that they would ride on together.

I had Awaken Undead, used it on a few Cave Troll Skeletons, Arrow Demon Skeletons, and even a Razor Boar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/razorBoar.htm) Skeleton. Note that awakened undead regain all of their feats, skills, and extraordinary special attacks/qualities that aren't dependent on a Con score.

I had a Naztharune Rakshasa with the Umbral Creature template, which dealt ~50 Str damage per round and nobody was ever able to spot it.

I also had a Half-Ironwyrm-Golem with the Curst template from Magic of Faerun (note this does not actually work any more, Lost Empires of Faerun updated the Curst template). Before the 3.5 update, Curst could not be killed or destroyed except by specific means, and Half-Golem made it outright immune to any such means. The 3.0 wording of the Curst turning immunity specified that it was immune to turn and rebuke attempts from clerics and paladins, and since my character was neither of those he was able to rebuke and command it to make it one of his minions. This thing could solo any encounter that showed up, the DM got tired of throwing a single extremely resilient opponent to distract it and just had an enemy caster split the earth asunder beneath its feet, swallowing it, and then close the fissure, trapping it forever.

This character was not fun. A single round of my and my minions' actions took longer than everyone else's turns combined, including all of the opponents. I eventually replaced it with a half-illithid illithid savant monstrosity that could solo an entire game setting. Note most of the party was epic level by this point.

[Vaz]

That Necromancers are the best, when compared to Other types of Magi/Cleric/Etc

That's the OP's argument. I've proved that Necromancers aren't. QED, Argument lost.

Anyspell build is easily available within.

[Silva Stormrage]

That's the OP's argument. I've proved that Necromancers aren't. QED, Argument lost.

Anyspell build is easily available within.

Except you really haven't, the ludicrously simple build I posted could have your build twice as it's minion. The point is that without limiting what corpses Necromancers have its pointless.

And in order to counter the idea of minions you posted a theoretical optimization abuse. If you wanted to prove that necromancers aren't the best because theoretical optimization can make stronger builds you might as well use pun pun as your example.

[Vaz]

Precisely my point. In game; DM says "no you cannot raise that corpse, you are in a backwater woodcutting village graveyard who have experts and commoners only". In Optimization, Pun Pun beats it.

[JoshuaZ]

Problem with Necromancers is they cannot kill a 10th level PC*.

And when your starting point is "gee I hope we could end in a draw", you're not faring too well.

*See the Magic Item Compendium, page 216, lower right hand side.

Somehow I had never noticed that before. That's kind of broken.

[Silva Stormrage]

Precisely my point. In game; DM says "no you cannot raise that corpse, you are in a backwater woodcutting village graveyard who have experts and commoners only". In Optimization, Pun Pun beats it.

Ah got it I misunderstood your point then

[Glimbur]

Somehow I had never noticed that before. That's kind of broken.

If the necromancer isn't undead, and he knows about that item, he could hit a targeted Dispel Magic on it and maybe make you visible to his minions for 1d4 rounds.

It's possible to fight people who are invisible, particularly if you have direction from someone who can see them.

The biggest argument against this item is that it's pretty niche. Very nice against undead, money wasted against anyone else. It is very strong, probably too good. Nice find.