Making an Enemy Necromancer with a twist- need help!

[Naoki00_]

Hello everyone and thank you for taking a look here to any that post :smallsmile:

Alright so here's the deal, I've made a series of enemy NPCs for the party I'm DMing for to fight in a sort of gauntlet, but now I'm having a very hard time creating the actual end boss encounters character, this is a high level campaign and the 'boss' will be 18th level, MAX ECL 22 if racial things are added

I've never actually made a Necromancer OR a healer (I know weird right?, I just never played the cleric or many evil guys in games) before, and to be entirely honest I don't know if I have the time to deal with how many spells and such a pure caster of such a high level would have, but then I have to go and make my life even harder by wanting it to end up being a corrupted healer, and once they beat them have all the negative energy turn on it's head and them be a healer again to interact with in other story based ways, or even follow them for a short bit if they convince them. The concept is that the healers mind and power was tainted and deluded to the point they began raising the dead as "just doing their job" and 'healing' them, all well and good but how exactly would I be able to flip their powers methods relatively easily? I know I could make two characters in a sense, but that takes time I don't always have to work with -_-

So is there any ideas or build advice that you oh knowledgeable community can offer me in this?

To get possible specifics out of the way as well, any book is open, Dragon Magazine possibly as well, 18th level (max 22 ECL) with high power level as the party is rather optimized, needs to at least be humanish in race (or at least LOOK like it, but I can just say their human and the racial bonuses are the magic's work if need be and the race is too awesome...I'm the Dm after all lol), and the environment that the party will be facing this character in is a large former warzone from hundreds of years ago, wide open area covered in graves.

[Silva Stormrage]

Several options let me try to help as Necromancy has always been one of my favorite schools of magic.

Classes:
Dread Necromancers: DN's are my favorite class, they are fairly easy to use out of the box and the boss can be a level 18 DN and be pretty effective. As a note they can have a LOT of animate dead minions. So a lot of those graves will be pretty empty.

Clerics: Also good but lack a couple of the wizard's and DN's spell versatility. Make a cloistered cleric and trade out knowledge domain for the divine magician ACF in Complete Mage. It lets you add a divination, abjuration or necromancy spell to your spell list. Very useful for adding things like enervation, magic jar, or my personal favorite black fire.

Wizard/Sorcerer: Standard, they tend to have poor minionmancy though. Their necromancy is more debuff and less negative energy/healer. Probably not what you want.


Here is a useful link for wizard necromancy spells if you want to use wizards/DN's advanced learning/Cleric's Divine Magician: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869142/Treantmonks_guide_to_Necromancy:_Gods_Tools I find it a good reference

For your special case of wanting the creature to be redeemed after his death and go back to being a healer I think you would need to switch characters. A relatively easy class is Cleric. Simply because they can just switch what spells they prepare each day. Have him no longer prepare negative energy/necromancy spells. Another option is to make him a dread necromancer and then switch him over to the same level of healer.

General Tactics: Necromancer's do not fight alone. Even wizard's have zombie dragons to engage in melee. Have some way of countering death ward as that is a very annoying spell for a necromancy. An unhallow effect on the graveyard also is very effective.

For particular tactics I can help a bit more if I have the party composition and how high op you want.

[Malachei]

Dread Necromancer is an excellent suggestion.

For encounter design: For a high-level end-fight, make sure to make it memorable beyond the enemy stats. It would be interesting to have a unique locale. If you want to fight in a temple, crypt, mausoleum or similar classic necromancer place, make sure to have the location affect the fight.

For instance, a maze-like system walls would greatly help incorporeal undead minions of the necromancer.

For a high-level necromancer, some minions could be:


Angel of Decay
Boneyard
Dread Wraiths
Deathbringer
Mummy Lords
Undead Giants


I'd suggest to include a mix of minions, to challenge the various party members (i.e. a meat shield to block the BSF, incorporeal undead that can hunt the wizard and rogue, etc.).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If said Dread Necromancer uses the typical tricks, his minions have a pretty hefty bonus to HP/HD. There's also a spell he can pick up from Advanced Learning...

Animate Skeletal Champion.

Basically, it applies a template to a dead guy. Keeps all the martial skills and classes. Plus a hell of a lot harder to kill.

Now, if that creature was, say, some form of Ubercharger or Gatling Tripper build in life...

[Malachei]

If you want an evil twist, have the necromancer use a simulacrum or a minion effectively disguised as himself, with an Interplanar Telepathic Bond, while he sits on the Ethereal Plane and watches the fight.

If the PCs know how powerful their enemy is, they might as well decide to launch a full-blown offense on him, investing their best spells etc.

Of course, for a similar effect, you could also use a mind-raped ice assassin, or astral projection, but that's lame.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you want an evil twist, have the necromancer use a simulacrum or a minion effectively disguised as himself, with an Interplanar Telepathic Bond, while he sits on the Ethereal Plane and watches the fight.

If the PCs know how powerful their enemy is, they might as well decide to launch a full-blown offense on him, investing their best spells etc.

Of course, for a similar effect, you could also use a mind-raped ice assassin, or astral projection, but that's lame.

Sounds like a concept from my Joker Bard.

"We're sorry, but your BBEG is in another castle..."

[Malachei]

Sounds like a concept from my Joker Bard.

"We're sorry, but your BBEG is in another castle..."

I don't know your Joker Bard. Where / what is it?

For the OP:

As it seems the area has been a battleground, the Boneyard fits even better, and perhaps you may want to consider:


A Corpse Gatherer
A Charnel Hound
A Deathshrieker
A few Plague Spewers

[Malroth]

THIS

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5496158

Is sheeky's original post on the Joker Bard. Essentially the concept was to create someone who can repeatedly challenge but eventualy loose to a high level "Batman" Wizard. Essentially what he does is sow chaos everywhere the wizard isn't protecting. Working by proxy the Joker bard brainwashes or diplomances people into destroying the things the Wizard cares about and then vanishes to become yet another face in the crowd when The heroes show up to perform damage control. Some really nice use of Bard abilities makes the Joker impossible to find, Impossible to determine when he's lying and make a new villian of the week out of anyone he meets.

[Naoki00_]

thank you everyone for the replies!, I appear to have been a horrible person and left something highly important out of the equation... :smallmad: on me for typing things at 2 AM.

I do love the suggestions and probably will take the DN idea since it seems the most logical, but with everyone talking about spells and such it needs to be addressed that I forgot the party lay out for this campaign....we're all weird.

weird as in, no one is a full caster, and the classes that everyone are actually based partly on the shinigami of Bleach fame (melee focused, can do some cool manuever like stuff so many times a day, and have some spells). Because they fill so many small holes, each of the 4 players took a 'role' themselves, one has a sword able to heal instead of damage (it only works on an ally, so no undead harming on it and this works as long as he has it, thus how they heal up after a battle, but they have very little in combat healing) and Cure mod-wounds a couple times a day. the others are usually beatface with one having lightning bolt and the other having fireball as spells to help that along. their other spells are all communication and social in nature to assist in helping stay connected or keep people on their side. They are similar to tome of battle classes, able to reliably wade in and out of melee with some other options. the high damage, AC, saves, and their powers being mostly extraordinary in nature though as well as their tactical choices though make them more then a match for full casters..but they don't have access to magic like that.

again, I am horribly sorry for forgetting something THAT important, I must have been more spacey then I was aware.