Warlock Necromancers equal to other necros?

[Warlocknthewind]

I love warlocks, I love necromancers, I love dissolving ignorance weather it be yours, or my own thick skull, but doing research for a campaign involving cultist devoted to King Necro himself, Orcus, I came to the conclusion that warlocks could so anything a dread Necromancer could do, better, potentially sooner with a high enough UMD, with greater versatility at the end of the day.

-Decieve Item
-Utter-Cold Blast
-Imbue Item

With those, you do everything the Dread Necromancer does (using their spell list for scrolls and wands :smalltongue: ) and a half negative energy damage EB is still better than Charnel Touch, can be itinerary with Eldrich Glaive or at range to boot!

After discovering this I have no idea why somebody would play a Dread Necromancer over a Warlock to achieve the minionmancer/rebuff skulls & blood fluff character.

I would like the Playground to prove me wrong, show me that Dread Necromancer is a viable class still!!

[Grod_The_Giant]

Rebuke Undead; native access to higher-level necromancy spells (include the summon undead line, for when you need minions in a hurry); infinite healing from level 1 rather than level 16. Oh, and turning into a lich as a class feature.

[Coidzor]

So what magic items are you using to mimic the dread necromancer's advantages when it comes to their increased cap on animate dead? Their class feature which means they only take corpsecrafter if they want the other feats in the chain?

What about Rebuking, how are you getting your Rebuke on?

[lsfreak]

Well, dread necros aren't built just around animating for one thing. They've got other things they can do as well, just as warlocks do. A warlock-based necromancer and a dread necro-based necromancer will look very different because each has a very different set of spells/invocations available to them. But since the dread necro gets their entire spell list, they're a lot more flexible within the spells they have. No need to choose one of 12 invocations ever, you get what, 60-some? 70-some? spells as you level. That provides a lot of the more situational stuff, plus covers some major bases that warlocks can't without spending extra resources (such as providing death ward). Also, since dread necros get the ability to add necromancy spells to their list, they can grab some of the better animation spells - most notably, imo, Animate Dread Warrior from... Lost Empires of Faerun, I believe.

Dread necros get a higher number of hit dice controlled when casting animate dead starting at 8th level - in fact, likely more than double the amount, and triple or quadruple the amount at high levels. Their undead are innately tougher, stronger, and more agile as well from the same ability for no investment, and can still benefit from desecrate and all the corpsecrafter feats that a warlock could (though the +4 Str from Corpsecrafter is ignored, the +2 hit points is still added on).

Dread necros get rebuke undead, which gives them a separate pool of undead to control. This is especially important because it lets you get control over things like shadows that you can't just animate. EDIT: Plus lets you burn uses for Devotion feats or Divine feats, if they're of interest to you.

Among the spells they get are summon undead spells, which gives you access to a further set of undead beyond just zombies and skeletons.

In addition, warlocks have to wait until very high levels to get Utterdark Blast, while dread necros have a way of healing their undead from the first level of the class. Granted once you hit 16th level warlocks do it better, but that's a long time to wait to get any healing at all.

[AmberVael]

In addition to everything Grod said...

Your argument essentially boils down to the warlock being able to do everything the dread necromancer can, plus utterdark blast. The ability you cite for accomplishing this is UMD and the imbue/deceive item combo.

There are issues with that.

1) You need to be level 12. Until this point, you gotta buy all the items you want to use.
2) Once you are level 12, you no longer have to rely on shops and loot hoards having the items you want! Instead, you just need to spend xp, gold, and a day for every scroll you want. What a bargain, right? Scrolls are pretty cheap, of course... but if you really want to match the dread necromancer, you need to be able to match them spell for spell, right? So be prepared to expend about thirty scrolls every day. Don't worry, after a couple of weeks of adventuring you'll only need a year of downtime to restock.
3) You aren't a spontaneous caster. You make a scroll, and that's what you have. You must anticipate what you will need, and have it prepared. If you don't have a scroll, you don't have it and won't have it for a while, probably. Unlike the wizard, you can't just wait to rest and fill an open slot, you need a special place to make your nifty scroll. Meanwhile? Dread necromancer has whatever they need whenever they need it.
4) Speaking of your three hundred plus scroll collection, you need to store that somewhere. Also have it somewhere accessible when you need it. Best bet? Handy haversack. Cheap, gets out whatever you're looking for quickly... and takes a move action. Hope you don't mind never being able to move during fights, between this and eldritch glaive.

Also, there are other disparities. Like the Dread Necromancer having twice as many if not more minions at a time, due to Rebuke Undead and Undead Mastery. Also, Undead Mastery means all their undead are stronger.

[Warlocknthewind]

Well my hypothesis was shattered into a bagillion bits, thank you! level 16 seems like a rediculous waitibg period before even capable of healing minions.. I kinda like the imagery of opening of the haversack to see a small library of scrolls come spewing out when needed, but the expense looks like it'd get a bit out if hand for some obscure cult to be able to fund. I had intended for them to have the entire corpscrafter tree, but to assume a Warlock would rake those feats where the Dread Necro wouzldn't would be silly.

I wasn't entirely certain on the RAW about the number of undead you can create + rebuke, but with that solidly doubling the number, or potency of their minions to far surpass the warlock's own enterage. Adaptability of spells I'll take with a grain of salt, I've seen very clever warlocks use their invocations to a much greater effectiveness than the sorcerer's spells, if only because he needn't worry about slots. Of course, there really should be some invocations with more und when you get to Dark ones, but who does that terribly often?

Thank you Playgrounders, my player's wails of pain and suffering will quickly be cut short by a Charnel Shush on their lips by a host of Dread Necros, not insolent warlocks.

Or.. oooh. Eldritch Theurge with Dread Necro, or more Eldritch Disciple of Orcus? I still like the idea of people selling their soul for greater power, so BBEG's still going to be a Warlock (An unspoken qualification) to be the head of the cult, being closest to dead without his/her soul.