True necromancer PrC

[montoya]

I am eventually going to run an epic campaign eventually and intend on using the true necromancer prestige class from the Libris Mortis book for one of my villains. Whats the best way to build him? Do I do cleric/wizard 3 levels each then put the 14 levels of TN? I was thinking of making him level 25 so for the other 5 levels what would be a good filler? Also Any special equipment suggestions? He will of course be a summoning madman with hoards of undead what other feats do you suggest other than augment summoning? Thanks for any help!

I'm new to epic levels been playing 3.4 for 7 years and our group decided we should try an epic campaign since we felt we earned it lol.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

True Necromancer is a terrible class, and it's a lot easier to make a strong necromancer without ever touching it. Exhibit A (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13398974#post13398974)

That said, for an epic level game a Wizard 1/ Cleric 2/ Mystic Theurge 3/ True Necromancer 14 casts spells as a Cleric 17 and as a Wizard 16 at 20th level, so he can get Epic Spellcasting at level 21. I'd give him more Mystic Thurge after that to cap his spells/day and continue advancing his caster levels. Definitely include Practiced Spellcaster twice pre-epic, and the Corpsecrafter line of spells in LM is decent if he'll have a lot of minions. Destruction Retribution is particularly effective for throw-away minions, as they'll blow up and injure the PCs while healing nearby undead when destroyed.

[Karnith]

True Necromancer is really not very good, but epic levels actually mitigate one of its biggest problems. Even an intended-entry TN (Wiz 3/Cleric 3) can get 20th-level casting by 25th level through Mystic Theurge.
Epic levels? You mostly just need Epic Spellcasting.
Other options to consider: Theurgic Specialist (from Dragon Magazine #325) or a one-level dip in Yathrinshee (Player's Guide to Faerun) can let a character stack caster levels from both casting sides for the purpose of Necromancy spells, which can be pretty strong. Skeleton Dragons and Zombie Dragons (Draconomicon) are some of the strongest undead to raise with Animate Dead, as they don't suffer from the HD caps that normal Skeletons and Zombies do and retain some special abilities. Awaken Undead (Spell Compendium) gives undead minions Extraordinary abilities back, which can be quite strong.

[Phelix-Mu]

Really glad I've never had to run a campaign for any of the resident necromancer experts on this forum. As per an iconic archetype of wizard (or cleric), the many, many options out there eventually sift out a huge number of really, extremely optimal options (like minions that heal other minions when they die, while hurting nearby enemies...that's like minion^3).

[montoya]

Is it possible to make a necromancer who summons 20HD creatures?

[Sception]

There is a ton of great content for necromancy in 3.5, it's a big part of why I enjoy the system despite it's many glaring bugs and flaws.

Anyway, the True Necromancer is a terrible prc ... for Player Characters. For NPCs, it's actually fine, if a bit work intensive on the DM's part for all the spells you've got to familiarize yourself with. The main flaw of the True Necromancer is that they end up several levels behind where they should be in caster progression, in exchange for very cool abilities, of extremely dubious utility. For instance, they get a desacrate aura. That's awesome and cool. But desecrate is a second level spell, so... yeah. They gain early access to create undead and create greater undead... but those spells generally aren't very strong compared to ye olde animate dead, which they delay access to for ages, and they can't even control the undead they make, which makes the abilities worse than useless for PCs. They gain access to both the divine and arcane spell pools, bu these spell pools don't complement each other for necromancy very well. There's like two meaningful necromancy spells that arcane casters don't already get (deserate and unhallow), and like one that divine casters don't get (command undead), and they're all really low level spells that aren't too hard to duplicate through other means. Their rebuking is good, but that only gets you so far. And for this, they dramatically delay their access to higher level spells, basically ending up as functionally several levels lower than they really are.


But that's only a PC problem. NPCs, especially big bads, can simply be given arbitrary extra levels until they have access to the spells they need to be threatening, and the undead they create can serve them because they're monsters in the same bad guy army, and I never once herd of a DM who wondered how it was game play mechanics an orc warboss or Dark Elf priestess used to control their allies.

I mean, if you want to power the build up a bit, you can throw in some Ur Priest or something, but seriously, its an npc, just give it more levels if you think it needs them.


If this were a lower leveled game, I'd recommend using a dread necromancer or Death Master for your big bad instead. Both are a bit more manageable. But at high or epic levels, your big bad really wants access to the full pool of arcane and divine spells if you don't want to get ganked by PCs with access to the same, so yeah, True Necromancer is a go to option there, and just arbitrarily give them whatever extra abilities and resources they need to fulfill their role within your campaign. Don't forget to give them a suitable undead template while you're at it. I recommend a swarm-shifting Lich, with multiple Evolved Undead templates stacked on. Don't forget that they can arbitrarily give themselves the Fiendish template with, what was the spell? Vile death? Something like that. Also, each indiviual piece of equipment they carry should be host to a different powerful haunt-shifted undead spirit. And don't forget the corpse crafting feats, particularly corpse explosion. The PCs can start encountering powerful undead creatures bearing an unknown wizard's arcane mark that are randomly much tougher than they expected and explode when they die long before they even hear the name of the lich creating them. It can be like a mystery thing they have to hunt down the answer to.


Anyway, due to the arbitrary nature of npcs, there's not really much point to worrying about optimization. Just add power until it 'seems right'. For an epic or near epic campagin, keep adding power after that until you are absolutely sure it's 'way too much', because the PCs will surprise you, at least provided they're not all T4 or lower (not that there's anything wrong with those classes, they just don't ever start doing the kinds of ridiculous things other the other classes do at those levels).

Now, if you wanted to talk PC Necromancy, then we'd have something to really sink our teeth into. Again, 3.5 is simply glutted with fantastic (and not so fantastic) options for necromantic badassery. I don't think I've ever played another game as friendly to necromantically inclined players.

[montoya]

Wow thanks Malisteen! Some great ideas for feats. Also which book is the swarm-shifting Lich in? I'm still trying to iron out the overall campaign arc, while the big baddie will be the necromancer Im thinking if I want to involve devils and demons as well....And epic campaign should shake the very balance of Faerun!

[Urpriest]

Is it possible to make a necromancer who summons 20HD creatures?

In general, necromancers don't have much of a focus on summoning, and the HD of summonable creatures has little to do with their power.

[gorfnab]

Dread Necromancer might be worth looking into (Handbooks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214212) Here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10037.0)).
Also here is a Necromancer Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5584) that has a nice listing of feats, some items, and other information for necromancers.

[montoya]

Dread Necromancer might be worth looking into (Handbooks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214212) Here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10037.0)).
Also here is a Necromancer Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5584) that has a nice listing of feats, some items, and other information for necromancers.

Also a good class....However as Malisteen pointed out this is for an NPC baddie so true necromancer fits what I'm looking for, and as DM I can give him DM boosts to his levels and feats. Still DN is worth looking into.

[sideswipe]

True Necromancer is a terrible class, and it's a lot easier to make a strong necromancer without ever touching it. Exhibit A (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13398974#post13398974)

That said, for an epic level game a Wizard 1/ Cleric 2/ Mystic Theurge 3/ True Necromancer 14 casts spells as a Cleric 17 and as a Wizard 16 at 20th level, so he can get Epic Spellcasting at level 21. I'd give him more Mystic Thurge after that to cap his spells/day and continue advancing his caster levels. Definitely include Practiced Spellcaster twice pre-epic, and the Corpsecrafter line of spells in LM is decent if he'll have a lot of minions. Destruction Retribution is particularly effective for throw-away minions, as they'll blow up and injure the PCs while healing nearby undead when destroyed.

you cannot enter mystic theurge that early as it states in the prerequisites that you need second level divine and arcane casting. meaning that min level is 7. unless your dm is nice enough to allow precocious apprentice in CAr as "second level arcane casting" then min is level 5 with wizard 1 cleric 3

[montoya]

Another question, I can stack templates right? I intend on giving him the lich template, what else works well with that?

[Sception]

You can stack different templates on top of each other, just pay attention to the prerequisites of the templates to make sure they don't conflict, and to the thematic nature of what the templates do to make sure they make sense together. A few templates can even be stacked multiple times on themselves, and I recommend doing that multiple times with the 'evolved undead' template from, iirc, Libris Mortis for any near epic level undead BBEG.

At the very least, I recommend Lich, Fiendish (which the lich can grant himself with a spell), Swarm-Shifter: Dust (Libris Mortis), Fiendish (which as a high level undead caster he can give himself with a spell), and the Complete Arcane template for undead with spell like abilities that can be applied by arcane casters to undead creatures via a feat (and an overpriced exp investment, but again, for npcs you don't care).

Also, don't forget that high level necromancers also love the polymorph line (for gods sake, don't pick trans as a barred school), since PAO basically allows them to turn any corpse into any other corpse (with stacked template!) that they can think of (ie, research/knowedge check) before animation via Animate Dead (or more likely Plague of Undead at those levels). Having those spells known also gives the caster some nasty options during any climactic confrontation. There's a reason why shapeshift is so feared.


Of course, there's also the much lower spell, Magic Jar, which allows the caster to steal another creature's body for extended durations while maintaining all of their casting abilities. Note that, for his mindless undead servants, the caster could simply order them to voluntarily fail their save, granting the powerful necromancer a huge and durable body while their real body lies with the crystal focus in an adamantium coffin somewhere.

And, of course, there's Astral Projection abuse. AP being a necromancy spell, after all.

Also don't forget that skeletal and zombie dragons have their own templates in the Draconomicon, both far better than the regular templates and explicitly constructable by the regular animate dead type spells.

Also, make sure you brush up on epic spellcasting in the DMG. There's a great effect there for creating literally any undead. There's a holdover typo from the previous version that was never errata'd which effectively lowers the number of hit dice of undead a caster can control, but since your the DM you can just arbitrarily fix that by tying it to the usual animate dead pool.

Which, as a dual caster with double access, will be huge. I mean, RAW one could argue that the animate dead spells from both sides of your casting would use the same pool, with the size of the pool set by whichever version you cast last, but the DMGII shows that that clearly isn't the design intent, so since you're the DM you can go with the intent.


Also grab the Undead Lieutenant spell from the spell compendium. Ups your total undead control pool while giving undead allies the ability to control any of your undead as though you were giving the orders.


Also remember that the easiest way to provide a buffer against rebuking is to have yourself and your important undead allies always surrounded by piles of lesser undead, since rebuke checks go from smallest HD to largest. I recommend hollowed out dragon carcasses infested with swarms of zombie bats and insects, or giant and dragon skeletons, their rib cages carrying barrels of zombie rats (or children). Of course, all of these undead would be created via corpse explosion, so any nearby rebuke attempts would heal up your undead while providing a nasty shock to undefended living targets.


Then again, you can expect that epic level heroes going up against an undead army are going to be immune to negative energy and negative levels, so yeah, it's the usual dispel magic / rocket tag game of epic level ridiculousness. Just be sure you're up on the tricks so you can use them yourself.


I myself am not really up on those tricks - epic level gaming not being something I'm really familiar with - so that's stuff I wouldn't be able to help with.

[Tacoz]

I played a True Necromancer once, and had a nice combo, with Tomb-Trainted Soul (http://dndtools.eu/feats/libris-mortis-the-book-of-the-dead--71/tomb-tainted-soul--2930/), and Energy Substitution(Cold) (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/energy-substitution--880/)for Lord of the uttercold (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/lord-of-the-uttercold--1791/) and a ring of cold resist, and he only summed/used Skeletons, that have immunity to cold! =)
It was nice to just cast a fireball on one self, and ones skeletons and one self got healed and the others only get dmg! xD

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

you cannot enter mystic theurge that early as it states in the prerequisites that you need second level divine and arcane casting. meaning that min level is 7. unless your dm is nice enough to allow precocious apprentice in CAr as "second level arcane casting" then min is level 5 with wizard 1 cleric 3

An Illumian with the Krau sigil (racial ability) and the feat Improved Sigil: Krau gets to treat two 1st level spells as 2nd level spells. Plus the Krau sigil acts as a +2 version of Practiced Spellcaster for every class you have, so both of those are at full caster level starting out.

Another way to do it is with Sanctum Spell. That's a +0 metamagic feat that makes a spell count as being Heightened by one level when you cast it inside your designated sanctum. As long as you have the potential to return to your sanctum and cast a 1st level spell as a 2nd level spell you'll still qualify for it, just like a character with no more spells for the day remaining has the potential to rest and prepare spells will still qualify for it.

That's two ways that cost you only a single feat to qualify for Mystic Theurge with less than three levels in both your arcane and divine class.

[Coidzor]

That's two ways that cost you only a single feat to qualify for Mystic Theurge with less than three levels in both your arcane and divine class.

Indeed. Have to have early entry shenanigans for Mystic Theurge to be worthwhile at all.

I wonder if it would've been better to make it something more like Feat + 3rd level arcane and 1st level divine OR 3rd level divine and 1st level arcane instead...

[montoya]

When I make the NPC I will go ahead and post it for some input. I'll use DM "levels" but I want it to be legit.

[Sception]

normally true nec loses about five levels of casting from both classes, iirc. as a result, I'd recommend making him five levels higher than you otherwise would. Put the levels in mystic theurge. If you were a PC dead set on theurge or tru nec you'd want to bother with early entry tricks, but, again, this is an npc, so its easier to just give him arbitrary extra levels instead.

Just be aware that between five bonus theurge levels and multiple templates, his 'official' CR is probably going to be a eight or so higher than what it really is, however. Since, again, true nec is like throwing five levels away, and lich, while fluffy and cool, isn't really 4CR worth of challenge higher than an epic level caster already would be.