Necromancer Wizard Build Assistance

[AMFV]

Howdy I’ve been working on a character recently and I’m not really sure what direction to take it, basically I’m having option paralysis at this point. The concept is an Elven Necromancer type character who’s been guarding a library for thousands of years. Which fits well with the group concept at this point which is basically “geeks in a dungeon”. I’m also making him good, he views resurrecting the dead as “recycling”, and making him very chipper and happy, since emo undead are so played out.

The other members of the party are a Malconvoker Archivist, and a Factotum. I will probably finish taking all five levels of Paragnostic Apostle, and after that I’m not sure exactly what to do, my feats are fairly strapped at this point. Although I could be persuaded to move skills around as needed.

Here is a link to the character as he stands now: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=682155

The only thing I’m certain of is that I intend to take Uncanny Forethought at level 9, other than that basically anything is fair game, and any suggestions would be much appreciated. For the necromancy angle thus far, I have a flesh stitched familiar and elven generalist, Lord of the Uttercold, the Deathbound domain power (Wizard level 5), and a Ring of Lesser Desecration, that should pretty much fix me up as far as that goes.
Anyways, any advice for geeky librarian Wizards? Also if anybody could help me come up with necromantic parodies of chipper songs that he can sing while he works, that would be much appreciated.

[Silva Stormrage]

Any particular reason you want the deathbound domain power? Its vastly overstated in my opinion. Get a rod of undead mastery from libris mortis instead, it works much nicer. The spontaneous divination ACF might work better for the character.

Any particular reason you want a spell stiched familiar? It tends to be fairly poor IMO. If you just want an undead familiar thought that makes sense, try maybe getting the Ghostly Visage as a familiar option if you took improved familiar? Dread Necromancer's get it as a familiar.

Also what type of wizard are you going for? Ray? Debuff? Minionmancy? I noticed you seemed to go for uttercold route right now but you said everything is fair game so I wasn't sure how much you cared about going uttercold assault.

For rays and metamagic stacking try to get a slaymate minion or get one trapped in a pendant or the like. It has an aura that reduces metamagic for necromancy spells (So empower is only +1, etc). That plus split ray and enervation and arcane thesis makes enervation a deadly deadly weapon.

Minionmancy you should probably have corpse crafter, yes you can't create undead right now but you will want it right away instead of waiting till 9th. As I said above rod of undead mastery is also incredibly nice. Destructive retribution is fun but not as good if you don't have a way for free undead.

For future prestige classes, hm. Palemaster is always one of my favorites, you lose a caster level but gain free animate undead 1/day and some other benefits, though as you are undead you lose out on some of the benefits.

Spell stiching yourself is always a good option, also you may want the deadman's ring to make up for the fact that you can't cast desecrate.

[AMFV]

Any particular reason you want the deathbound domain power? Its vastly overstated in my opinion. Get a rod of undead mastery from libris mortis instead, it works much nicer. The spontaneous divination ACF might work better for the character.

Any particular reason you want a spell stiched familiar? It tends to be fairly poor IMO. If you just want an undead familiar thought that makes sense, try maybe getting the Ghostly Visage as a familiar option if you took improved familiar? Dread Necromancer's get it as a familiar.

Also what type of wizard are you going for? Ray? Debuff? Minionmancy? I noticed you seemed to go for uttercold route right now but you said everything is fair game so I wasn't sure how much you cared about going uttercold assault.

For rays and metamagic stacking try to get a slaymate minion or get one trapped in a pendant or the like. It has an aura that reduces metamagic for necromancy spells (So empower is only +1, etc). That plus split ray and enervation and arcane thesis makes enervation a deadly deadly weapon.

Minionmancy you should probably have corpse crafter, yes you can't create undead right now but you will want it right away instead of waiting till 9th. As I said above rod of undead mastery is also incredibly nice. Destructive retribution is fun but not as good if you don't have a way for free undead.

For future prestige classes, hm. Palemaster is always one of my favorites, you lose a caster level but gain free animate undead 1/day and some other benefits, though as you are undead you lose out on some of the benefits.

Spell stiching yourself is always a good option, also you may want the deadman's ring to make up for the fact that you can't cast desecrate.

Well the idea behind the Deathbound domain power was to have a little bit more versatility in general, also thematically appropriate. I'd like to be able to do at least some minionmancy without over investing in it when it becomes less useful at higher levels.

The plan is to spell-stitch myself, but I can't just yet, on account of not being able to cast spells of high enough level. I could theoretically pay somebody else to do that, but I'm already fairly cash strapped, so that will have to wait till I can cast the higher levels myself.

The reason I grabbed Uttercold is to have a method by which I could heal my own minions without them turning into piles of money that I blew on what effectively would turn into a charged item. Originally the goal was complete minionmancy, but that's kind of shifted at this point. Mostly I'm fairly flexible with goals.

I do have a Ring of Lesser Desecrate which I believe is superior to Deadman's Ring in that it grant's all the benefits of Desecration instead of just the +2 HP/HD.

Given that I'm good and chipper I would like to avoid a slaymate, as sub-optimal as that may be, given that that's just too serious a topic for a ancient half-crazy necromancer who goes around singing show tunes, since we've got the whole good thing as well.

Sadly that also puts Pale Master out without some kind of GM fiat, I'd rather not get too deeply invested in Metamagic if I don't have some other way to reduce it or get the feats for free.

The spell stitched familiar was almost entirely fluff, also it's only of the only ways to buff the HD you can control as a wizard, when you combine that with Elven generalist it's a pretty reasonable increase in controllable hit dice. But again it's mostly fluff, the same as the Collegiate Wizard feat and the Speak Language ranks.

[Silva Stormrage]

Well the idea behind the Deathbound domain power was to have a little bit more versatility in general, also thematically appropriate. I'd like to be able to do at least some minionmancy without over investing in it when it becomes less useful at higher levels.

The plan is to spell-stitch myself, but I can't just yet, on account of not being able to cast spells of high enough level. I could theoretically pay somebody else to do that, but I'm already fairly cash strapped, so that will have to wait till I can cast the higher levels myself.

The reason I grabbed Uttercold is to have a method by which I could heal my own minions without them turning into piles of money that I blew on what effectively would turn into a charged item. Originally the goal was complete minionmancy, but that's kind of shifted at this point. Mostly I'm fairly flexible with goals.

I do have a Ring of Lesser Desecrate which I believe is superior to Deadman's Ring in that it grant's all the benefits of Desecration instead of just the +2 HP/HD.

Given that I'm good and chipper I would like to avoid a slaymate, as sub-optimal as that may be, given that that's just too serious a topic for a ancient half-crazy necromancer who goes around singing show tunes, since we've got the whole good thing as well.

Sadly that also puts Pale Master out without some kind of GM fiat, I'd rather not get too deeply invested in Metamagic if I don't have some other way to reduce it or get the feats for free.

The spell stitched familiar was almost entirely fluff, also it's only of the only ways to buff the HD you can control as a wizard, when you combine that with Elven generalist it's a pretty reasonable increase in controllable hit dice. But again it's mostly fluff, the same as the Collegiate Wizard feat and the Speak Language ranks.

Ah missed the ring of lesser desecrate.

You might be able to get a refluffed slaymate. Actually as a little companion a sanctified slaymate would be a very appropriate familiar for this type of wizard. I would imagine a sanctified slaymate would act somewhat like a normal little girl. Might be worth checking if your DM will allow it, sanctified does remove the whole necromancy metamagic thing but eh it fits better.

One option for at will healing is from MMIV and is the Necrosis Carnex. The problem once again is fluff as its an undead creature bound together by multiple corpses. But your character does like to recycle and it has an at will touch attack that heals undead.

Deathbound domain doesn't really boost your undead HD cap whatsoever though. It only increases the cap if you can animate all the creatures you want at once and it doesn't stack with the Rod of Undead Mastery, and a 10k item is much cheaper than a feat.

A cheap way of getting decent metamagic especially with an uttercold wizard is empower spell + easy metamagic (empower), its two feats but it makes empower only a +1 which is pretty good for low cost.

[AMFV]

Ah missed the ring of lesser desecrate.

You might be able to get a refluffed slaymate. Actually as a little companion a sanctified slaymate would be a very appropriate familiar for this type of wizard. I would imagine a sanctified slaymate would act somewhat like a normal little girl. Might be worth checking if your DM will allow it, sanctified does remove the whole necromancy metamagic thing but eh it fits better.

One option for at will healing is from MMIV and is the Necrosis Carnex. The problem once again is fluff as its an undead creature bound together by multiple corpses. But your character does like to recycle and it has an at will touch attack that heals undead.

Deathbound domain doesn't really boost your undead HD cap whatsoever though. It only increases the cap if you can animate all the creatures you want at once and it doesn't stack with the Rod of Undead Mastery, and a 10k item is much cheaper than a feat.

A cheap way of getting decent metamagic especially with an uttercold wizard is empower spell + easy metamagic (empower), its two feats but it makes empower only a +1 which is pretty good for low cost.

I actually had missed both the Necrosis Carnex and the Rod of Undead Mastery, that's probably worth trading out Deathbound domain for something else, although I probably won't be able to afford a 10k item for another four or so levels. Although that should be fairly easy at that point.

I had also been considering spell stitching my familiar, which is probably a good bet and a way get a few extra spells out of him, also it would help considering the distance I'm required to keep from him for Elven generalist.

Do you think it would be better to focus on Minionmancy or Uttercold with resources? Since both are possible at this point without any detraction in my functioning as a standard wizard.

[AMFV]

Ah missed the ring of lesser desecrate.

You might be able to get a refluffed slaymate. Actually as a little companion a sanctified slaymate would be a very appropriate familiar for this type of wizard. I would imagine a sanctified slaymate would act somewhat like a normal little girl. Might be worth checking if your DM will allow it, sanctified does remove the whole necromancy metamagic thing but eh it fits better.

One option for at will healing is from MMIV and is the Necrosis Carnex. The problem once again is fluff as its an undead creature bound together by multiple corpses. But your character does like to recycle and it has an at will touch attack that heals undead.

Deathbound domain doesn't really boost your undead HD cap whatsoever though. It only increases the cap if you can animate all the creatures you want at once and it doesn't stack with the Rod of Undead Mastery, and a 10k item is much cheaper than a feat.

A cheap way of getting decent metamagic especially with an uttercold wizard is empower spell + easy metamagic (empower), its two feats but it makes empower only a +1 which is pretty good for low cost.

I'm not sure if the Easy Metamagic is kosher, given the source, although that sounds like a good deal. I may look into that, I'm considering using empower rods with residual metamagic, since that could work out really well, and since focusing more on debuffs and/or damage will avoid stepping too much on the Malconvoker's toes.

[DruidAlanon]

Is there any way to buy undead grafts from someone? Bodak's Eye, Mohrg's Tongue, mummified eye, even vampiric fangs may be interesting additions.

Tainted Scholar PrC?

[AMFV]

Is there any way to buy undead grafts from someone? Bodak's Eye, Mohrg's Tongue, mummified eye, even vampiric fangs may be interesting additions.

Tainted Scholar PrC?

I imagine Undead Grafts could be available, I hadn't really done too much looking into them, as I'm already cash strapped as a mid-level wizard, although for higher level play they might be workable.

Edit: I forgot to ask, are they any of the Undead grafts you see as being particularly useful to a caster type, I don't recall if they just grant the abilities of the monster or have other unique stuff.

Tainted Scholar would be interesting, but since the DM is kind of newish, I'm not sure if I want to try to involve the complicated set of rules that taint involves. Also I don't see the game as thematically that horrory, although it's definitely a good backup option to at least bring up.

[RaviStrife]

Looks like an interesting build so far. I love the idea of a chipper necromancer.

Why am I not seeing Corpsecrafter (feat) in your build? +4 strength is a pretty big deal on every undead you raise...not to mention the extra hp.

I like the idea of Uttercold being used to heal undead. Have you considered picking up IceLance from SPC ? 6d6 Ice damage at your level is nothing to sneeze at.

[AMFV]

Looks like an interesting build so far. I love the idea of a chipper necromancer.

Why am I not seeing Corpsecrafter (feat) in your build? +4 strength is a pretty big deal on every undead you raise...not to mention the extra hp.

I like the idea of Uttercold being used to heal undead. Have you considered picking up IceLance from SPC ? 6d6 Ice damage at your level is nothing to sneeze at.

Mostly I avoided Corpsecrafter on account of not wanting to overinvest in animating which is less awesome at higher levels. Although I may switch Deathbound domain power for that if it's more relevant, I've not played a necromancer before so I'm not sure if it will be.

Icelance is pretty awesome, although since half is piercing damage I'd wind up not being able to use it to heal undead, although I might switch it out for something else.