True Necromancer: Good builds?

[Xuldarinar]

Lets face it. The PrC is generally considered to be garbage, but what I want to know is if there are any builds that it can shine with.

[Mage keeper]

This is the only way you can cast nine level spell with true necromancer:
-cleric3/necromancer focused specialist1/mistic theurge2/true necromancer14
you take precocious apprentice to cast command undead at first level and
in this way you can cast 9 level cleric spell and 8 level wizard spell.

[eggynack]

I can't really imagine a build existing that would be better than a character going at necromancy with a straight classed cleric. The class just gives you a bunch of stuff you'd get anyway through normal class stuff, so it all comes down to a theurge's ability to necromancy, and a theurge's ability to necromancy is rather limited. There's just not much there, and what is there is bad. If there were some marginally useful unique ability, that'd potentially be another story, but as is the class basically just runs around yelling about how bad it is.

[Karnith]

Pretty much the only reason to ever actually take levels in True Necromancer is to abuse the caster level increases. This is probably best accomplished by having a way to stack your caster levels from your arcane and divine casting combined with early entry tricks to minimize your casting losses. A level in Yathrinshee (from Player's Guide to Faerun) to get that class's Necromancer ability will let you do this for your necromancy spells, as will the feat Theurgic Specialist (from Dragon Magazine 325). Take note that maximizing your caster level like this is very feat-intensive, so the builds work best if flaws, Chaos Shuffling, worshiping Elder Evils, and other ways to get bonus feats are allowed.
So, one basic builds would probably look like (Lesser) Drow Wizard 1/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 1/True Necromancer 4/Yathrinshee 1/TN 10, using Precocious Apprentice to cheat into Mystic Theurge. You normally need to delay Yathrinshee until level 10 because of the feats required; take it as early as possible if you have some means of getting extra feats early. You'd also want to take Practiced Spellcaster on both sides of your progression to maximize your CL. You'd end up with 7th-level spells on your Wizard side and 8th-level spells on your Cleric side at 20th level, with a caster level of 46 (assuming that you can get Necromantic Prowess to apply after Practiced Spellcaster) for Necromancy spells. Also, it bears mentioning that if your DM is slavishly devoted to the written fluff, Kiaranselee doesn't offer the Death domain and hence you can't actually take levels in Yathrinshee and True Necromancer.
With a few alterations to the previous build, you can get 9ths at the price of a lower CL and fewer TN levels and abilities. Drow Wizard 1/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 1/True Necromancer 5/Yathrinshee 3/Mystic Theurge 7 gets you 9ths on your Cleric side and 8ths on your Wizard side, with your CL for Necromancy spells at 41.

And, yes, removing True Necromancer levels did improve the build, to the surprise of precisely no one.
If you can get something like Southern Magician allowed and have access to Dragon Magazine, you can use Theurgic Specialist instead of Yathrinshee to stack your caster levels, and go Wizard 3/Cleric 1/Mystic Theurge 1/True Necromancer 14/Mystic Theurge 1, which ends up with Wizard 9ths and Cleric 8ths. Taking into account Practiced Spellcaster on both sides, you end up with a caster level of 47 for Necromancy spells (again assuming that you can get Necromantic Prowess to apply after Practiced Spellcaster).
Or you can be a NecroCheat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272556) and enter from Sha'ir, which gets silly fast.

[Mage keeper]

With yatrinshee you have problem, the first level doesn't give you progression in cating so it's better if you take theurgic specialst

[Karnith]

With yatrinshee you have problem, the first level doesn't give you progression in cating so it's better if you take theurgic specialst
That's true, but many DMs blanket-ban Dragon Magazine content.

Also, Theurgic Specialist requires 3 levels of Wizard and 1 level of another spellcasting class, which rules out Precocious Apprentice-based early entry. That means that you need to find some other early entry trick to avoid crippling yourself, and most of the other ones are less solid RAW-wise and/or are from frequently-banned sources. I gave the example of Southern Magician, which to the best of my knowledge is the next-best choice after Precocious Apprentice, to qualify early, but that's un-updated 3.0 content, setting-specific, and tied to a particular race. There's also Alternative Source Spell, which is more Dragon content and could run up against minimum caster level problems, and then there're the Earth Spell/Sanctum Spell/DMM: Heighten Spell/Versatile Spellcaster shenanigans, which will probably get you slapped.

[Zombulian]

Sha'ir breaks things like this. Using THE CHEAT (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272556)

[Karnith]

Sha'ir breaks things like this. Using THE CHEAT (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272556)
One problem with the NecroCheat is that it can't hold its spells for very long (an hour, I think?), because it only has one Sha'ir level and its mechanic for preparing spells is very silly. Also, I already posted that. STOP STEALING MY IDEAS!

[AMFV]

Use Southern Magician, then you only need one level of any divine class to qualify since Summon Undead II is also available from the Wizard list. That makes it much more tolerable.

Whoops: Ninja'd.

[Kennisiou]

Before abusing "the cheat" make sure that your DM counts Sha'ir as actually casting the domain spells as though the were divine, rather than counting them as arcane castings of divine spells (I know that's how I've rules the one Sha'ir I've ever had played).

[Xuldarinar]

A simple question, how do we define "Access to the Death Domain"?

Is it they must fully possess the Death domain (like a cleric)? Can arcane disciple (Death) qualify (any arcane spellcasting class)? If you just have all the spells of the death domain as spells you can learn or as spells known do you qualify (like an archivist)?