Master Specialist Necromancer?

[GlorinSteampike]

Hey all so I'm making a pretty derpy Wizard for a friends game. He has a bunch of noobys wanting to play evil characters for their 4th or 5th campaign. Surely this won't turn into GTA 3.5. I decided to make a Necromancer Specialist who uses Fell Animate and maybe later Fell Drain, and get an Undead familiar. I want to be more of a mass minion summoner than creating powerful Undead with cool abilities(except maybe for the boss fights).

So the title question, is Master Specialist Necromancer worth it? The abilities didn't jump out too much at me, especially the debuff Esoterica. The turn resistance seems neat, but I don't see the DM utilizing turning undead so much as holy flames spells that will just wipe them out.

Also, just to clarify with Fell Animate I can still control 4HD per caster level of Zombies, but can only make up to 2HD per caster level from any singular casting(ie my level 5 wizard fireballs 20 people, he still only gets 10HD of Zombies) correct?

[Doc_Maynot]

You could go with Dread Necromancer, very well made class, high tier 3. And take undead leadership at 6th level for that massive undead army. Maybe offer to just have it as a secondary cap for the zeds you raise instead of just instantly gaining abunch of level 1/2 zeds, if you want to be nice. Class never has a dead level, very nice abilities and for the capstone you become a Lich.

[MirddinEmris]

Master Necromancer is very good, i can tell you from first hand experience. Minor Esoterica will not only buff your's undead Turn Resistance but their saves also (which are usually very weak for undead - they've got tons of immunities but is something can affect them, it usually will), so they wouldn't fall from first cleric or other caster you'll meet. Moderate Esoterica is basically mini-version of Death Ward and is always good if you aren't undead yourself. Major Esoterica combined with Uttercold Assault tactics will make your minions nearly unkillable (if you can't kill them in one turn, you can't kill them). Plus two free feats (one of them is prereq for Archmage), boost to CL and early entrance make it a very sweet PrC

Also think about persuade other players to play undead characters and all this will work on them also.

[Ansem]

You could go with Dread Necromancer, very well made class, high tier 3. And take undead leadership at 6th level for that massive undead army. Maybe offer to just have it as a secondary cap for the zeds you raise instead of just instantly gaining abunch of level 1/2 zeds, if you want to be nice. Class never has a dead level, very nice abilities and for the capstone you become a Lich.I disagree, after lvl 8 you hardly get any gain anymore except a worthless lvl 19 feat craft wondrous item which you can get at lvl 3. and some DR. What I like to do for a minionmancer is DN8/Pale Master 10, the fact you can create free undead is well worth it together with Necrotic Presence and Might everything of you gets a decent bonus in combat and if you become undead yourself you gain those as well (which is a damn +2 on attack and save rolls for a feat is good I'd say?)
Lich isn't worth the 20 levels when you can become a far better undead from lvl 3 already (Necropolitan with spell-stitching and undead feats) or become something else which doesn't raise your ECL too high, like vampire.
Spellgifted Necromancy (since that's all you'll cast), get a Scythe with spellstoring and keen. charge it with a lvl 3 inflict spell and use your first Advanced Learning to learn Rigor Mortis, a damn good debuff. Completely immobalize and enemy and then Coup de Grace them with your fully loaded scythe. And don't forget the Spell focus and Spell penetration feats for Necromancy. Maybe weapon focus (touch attacks) would serve good as well.
Taking Nerull as a deity grants free proficiency with Scythe if I remember or it was that at start of the class you can choose proficiency for one weapon.

[Fable Wright]

I disagree, after lvl 8 you hardly get any gain anymore except a worthless lvl 19 feat craft wondrous item which you can get at lvl 3. and some DR. What I like to do for a minionmancer is DN8/Pale Master 10, the fact you can create free undead is well worth it together with Necrotic Presence and Might everything of you gets a decent bonus in combat and if you become undead yourself you gain those as well (which is a damn +2 on attack and save rolls for a feat is good I'd say?)
Lich isn't worth the 20 levels when you can become a far better undead from lvl 3 already (Necropolitan with spell-stitching and undead feats) or become something else which doesn't raise your ECL too high, like vampire.
Spellgifted Necromancy (since that's all you'll cast), get a Scythe with spellstoring and keen. charge it with a lvl 3 inflict spell and use your first Advanced Learning to learn Rigor Mortis, a damn good debuff. Completely immobalize and enemy and then Coup de Grace them with your fully loaded scythe. And don't forget the Spell focus and Spell penetration feats for Necromancy. Maybe weapon focus (touch attacks) would serve good as well.
Taking Nerull as a deity grants free proficiency with Scythe if I remember or it was that at start of the class you can choose proficiency for one weapon.
You get some slow progression, admittedly, but Enervating Touch, Fear Aura, and Negative Energy Burst all are advanced every level of Dread Necro. Also? Enervating Touch is amazing. And you don't need Pale Master to become an Undead, you just need to Spellstitch yourself as a Necropolitan with a high enough Wisdom boosting item on. It can net you not only Animate Dead, but Animate Dread Warrior with no XP cost. Rigor Mortis is a bad spell for Advanced Learning, as Ghoul Touch is already on your list, and being paralyzed does make you helpless. Also, with your free weapon proficiency of the class, you should probably take a bow, as you really don't want to get into melee at early levels, and at late levels, a Scythe is only good for showing off. (Which you don't need proficiency to do, as you couldn't hit people with it anyways. And delivering a stored level 3 spell really is not worth going into melee.) Also, if you do stick it out for 20 levels and you're a Necropolitan, all you have to do is kill yourself, have your friendly cleric True Resurrect you, then cash in your XP to go from level 19 to 20 and become a Lich. Admittedly expensive to go through the Spellstitching and cash for True Resurrection, but still cheaper than making a phylactery, and a drop in the bucket at level 20.

[GlorinSteampike]

Well the idea isn't a very typical necromancer. I really want to utilize the damaging spells to create a horde of, well I'll just say it, bad zombies.

The DM is pretty new and we're just using mostly core + complete I just found out. So I doubt necropolitan and Dread Necro are gonna be allowed. I don't want to become a lich nor would he allow it before level 20 anyways.

This is a very noob friendly game so I'm not looking to just go total immune unstoppable summons. I'm looking at mostly using zombies to lock people up and assist each other for guaranteed hits. Maybe if I could boost them to cause a debuff/poison attack type deal? Or maybe a way to augment them for grappling purposes would be cool.

Also, it says that Zombies must be given easy tasks at first and they have no intelligence, at what rate could they improve at all? Do they gain experience and class levels? I found a template but I don't trust it from DanDwiki....

[Fax Celestis]

Have you looked at the specialist necromancer variant in UA (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#necromancerVariants)?

[GlorinSteampike]

Have you looked at the specialist necromancer variant in UA (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#necromancerVariants)?

Wow thats actually... exactly perfect. I saw in a list of ACF I could trade familiar for an undead familiar and brushed it off assuming it just changed my animal familiar into and UD version. But I don't really care too much about the bonus Necro spells since I'll be trying to blast things to get minions(it'll look much less 'cheesy' in the DM's eyes :smallwink:) Getting UD type bonuses is cool since he probably won't let me go full UD even if I really wanted to. And augmented summoning for UD is pretty neat. Thanks a lot! :D

[Fax Celestis]

Wow thats actually... exactly perfect. I saw in a list of ACF I could trade familiar for an undead familiar and brushed it off assuming it just changed my animal familiar into and UD version. But I don't really care too much about the bonus Necro spells since I'll be trying to blast things to get minions(it'll look much less 'cheesy' in the DM's eyes :smallwink:) Getting UD type bonuses is cool since he probably won't let me go full UD even if I really wanted to. And augmented summoning for UD is pretty neat. Thanks a lot! :D

No problem.

Also note that the first and third variants (Skeletal Minion and Enhanced Undead) work together: you are, after all, creating an undead creature via your Skeletal Minion class feature, so Enhanced Undead should apply.

[GlorinSteampike]

Of course of course. The only thing left would be to find a way to make a caster undead minion. Ideally I'd like an undead Cleric-type cohort and My warrior-familiar and I the Caster behind the scenes to lead a small army of peons.

And actually, getting undead followers with UD Leadership with intelligence scores who can maybe manufacture things/casters who could even create scrolls and small magical items would be like, the grand scheme of things. Never dabbled in necromancy before though