making true necromancer workable

[Darth Stabber]

So true necromancer is nearly universally panned as terrible (and right fully so), even moreso than mystic theurge. Mystic theurge however becomes playable when you add precocious apprentice and archivist (precocious apprentice meets the 2nd level spell requirement with one wizard level, and archivist reduces the MAD). The precocious apprentice trick is debatable, but for the purposes of this thread let's assume it works.

My question is how can I make a true necromancer that won't be embarrassing to play or to use as a frightening foe that won't lead to an anti-climactic finish.

Requirements to clarify
Know (arcana) and (religion) 8
able to cast summon undead II as a divine spell.
able to cast command undead as an arcane spell.
Spell focus (necromancy)
Death Domain
Rebuke undead

Precocious apprentice can give us command undead with one wizard level. I could just add (cloistered)cleric and go from there, but there has to be a be a better way. Any one else have a better idea?

[Giegue]

Do you have acssess to dragon magizene content? If so, then making True Necromancer not suck becomes much easier. First of all, you WILL take academic priest. This feat allows you to reduce MAD by making cleric casting int-based for all purposes except spell DCs. However, since your also a wizard, you don't care about your cleric spell DCs being stinky because you have your wizard side for offensive casting. This makes you effectively Int SAD if you keep your cleric side doing buffs, utility, undead animating and throwing out the rare no-save offensive spell.

With MAD reduced, we move onto our next step, gaining 9th level spells. To do this, you need a special entry. Wizard 3/Cleric 1/Mystic Theurge 2 into True Necro is honestly the best way to get into the class. Use alternate source spell to get into MT early since it's the cleanist and least cheesy way. With this entry, you wind up with wizard 9ths and cleric 8ths by level 20, so you don't actually lose ninths entirely like the class usually does. You can switch cleric and wizard around if you want cleric 9ths, but focusing on wizard over cleric is the better option here since you'll want offensive casting on your 9ths and the reduced MAD from Academic Priest is more "worth it" then cleric 9ths in place of wizard 9ths.

With 9ths level spells in one of your classes achieved, we now move onto the last issue, actually being good at necromancy. True Necro at base is a bad necromancer due to the extreme CL loss it suffers which in turn weakens spells like Animate Dead. There however is a dragon magizene feat, known as theurgic specialist, that fixes this issue outright. You have to be a specialist wizard to take it, but if you do all spells of your specialty school count both your wizard CL and cleric CL in determining the CL at which they are cast. Suddenly you animate and control more undead then anybody except maybe a single-classed dread necromancer. You will also want to pick up both praticed spellcaster for wizard and cleric so your animate dead CL is even more ridiculous.

Hope that helped some.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Use the Dread Necromancer base class in Heroes of Horror instead. You can cast every spell that True Necromancer gets as a spell-like ability, at the same level or sooner than a True Necromancer would get it. You get full Rebuke Undead progression. You get the best Necromancy spells from both the Wizard and Cleric lists. The "True" Necromancer is that in name only, you can easily flavor any character to be the necromancer of necromancers, without using a terrible class whose only attractive feature is its flavor.

[Darth Stabber]

Use the Dread Necromancer base class in Heroes of Horror instead. You can cast every spell that True Necromancer gets as a spell-like ability, at the same level or sooner than a True Necromancer would get it. You get full Rebuke Undead progression. You get the best Necromancy spells from both the Wizard and Cleric lists. The "True" Necromancer is that in name only, you can easily flavor any character to be the necromancer of necromancers, without using a terrible class whose only attractive feature is its flavor.

I know all about DN, I've played them before, they're fun.

The point was to utilize a crappy prc.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

In that case, start out Mystic Theurge, and use a bloodline level (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm) to meet its skill prerequisites at ECL 2 (bloodline levels don't count toward your character level).

Illumian, Improved Sigil: Krau, Cloistered Cleric 1/ Bloodline 1/ Wizard 1/ Mystic Theurge 2/ True Necromancer 14/ Mystic Theurge 2. That ends up with Wizard 17 and Cleric 17 casting, and you're only down by 1,000 xp for that bloodline level, with the benefits of a lesser bloodline. You can retrain or Dark Chaos Shuffle your Improved Sigil feat for Enhanced Power Sigils to have a caster level of 20 in each.

[mattie_p]

Have you considered simply cheating?

Zinc Saucier built four True Necromancers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=276267&page=2) several rounds ago without actually using the class. Maybe one of them will suit your needs.

[Darth Stabber]

Have you considered simply cheating?

Zinc Saucier built four True Necromancers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=276267&page=2) several rounds ago without actually using the class. Maybe one of them will suit your needs.

Interesting, I my look into that, I was trying to use the actual PRC, but there is some potential there.

The only time I've seen the class used with full knowledge of what it was and without irony was to finish out a mystic theurge (achieved early entry to mt via precocious apprentice), but that was a weird case.

[Alienist]

Backport Lesser Animate Dead from Pathfinder.

That way you can get undead minions (that aren't 1 round summons) at level 3. Also, the 25 gp per level expenditure will feel like it's meaningful (it's not, especially if you're anywhere in the ballpark of the WBL limits, but it _feels_ like you're making 'resource management' decisions). Buy your undead minions better armour and weapons (or just recycle the loot from the battlefield, at low levels half the enemies you face are gonna be in chainmail of some form or another)

For roleplaying considerations grab a bag of holding, store your undead in there, and then pretend that it's a 'special' version of a bag of tricks.