So I'm playing a Tainted Scholar

[Alex12]

Or rather, I will be. Specifically, I'm playing a Necropolitan Dread Necromancer, and planning on going into Tainted Scholar when I hit level 6. The character specifically believes that the universe is made of the dreams of a dead god, and only by channeling negative energy can the god be kept sleeping. This may or may not be true, but probably not.

There's some catches, though.
The DM imposed an entirely reasonable 2-book limit per person, as well as anything in the SRD (except flaws), PHB 2, Cityscape, and Complete Scoundrel. Spell Compendium is specifically prohibited. My class and race choices already lock my 2 books to Heroes of Horror and Libris Mortis. I'm fine with that.
We've got a pretty large party, so the DM has prohibited Leadership, Cohorts, and similar abilities, at least for combat. He's also discouraging minionmancy and summoned monsters. I understand his reasons for doing this, and am not planning on doing it much in combat.
Per the DM, we're not going to be doing all that much in the way of combat. We'll probably be staying in or around the environs of a single large city, so mass slaughter probably won't be looked on kindly.
The DM is one of my friends, and the other party members are all either my friends or their friends. I don't want or plan on backstabbing them.
The big one: I don't want to be overwhelmingly powerful. I mean, I kind of do, but I don't want to be too powerful outside one specific niche (namely murderizing living things) This is part of the reason I'm going DN, rather than wizard (well, that and infinite free self-healing from level 1. And I prefer the flavor of DNs).

I'm looking for some advice on choices. We're still in the early levels (I'm a bit lower than the rest of the party, since Necropolitan) but he's planning on taking it to 20. My first-level feats are Positive Energy Resistance and Mother Cyst. I've got some ideas sketched out, but I'd love to hear the Playground's opinion.

As a side note, any good ways ways to buff corruption? TS spells key the saves off corruption, and casting spells doesn't increase that. I'm not worried about the functionally limitless number of spells I'll get from stratospheric depravity (and throwing loads of weak spells isn't bad, per se) but higher saves would be appreciated.

[kkplx]

All ability score penalties and costs that you think you'll get to ignore will automatically deal Cha damage. Just fyi.

[Alex12]

All ability score penalties and costs that you think you'll get to ignore will automatically deal Cha damage. Just fyi.
Er, how?
I mean, undead are explicitly immune to the downsides of high taint.
Sure, if I use the "Contact other plane" ability and blow the roll, then my stats decrease, but I'm not seeing anything about Cha damage in the class description.

[NoACWarrior]

To buff your taint limits you want a higher wisdom and constitution score.

If you simply want godly save DCs then pump constitution (but as I say below this is risky).
If you want tones of spells pump wisdom.

Note that if your corruption score goes too high you immediately die.
Also note that if your depravity score goes to high you immediately go crazy.

As a DN you have alot of save vs damage / suck and a few save or die spells. In combat save or die spells with a Tainted scholar is one of the best options to play (except if you have a ton of mooks to deal with), especially vs BBGG or BBEG who isn't immune to a death affect. There are other spells which lead to death - or permanent out of action status, but you'll need to use advanced learning on these necromancy spells (wrack is a great save or paralyze spell, and so is clutch of orcus). Theres a fun necromancy spell called backbiter which can kill the charger by reflecting its damage.

If you are looking for more in your face options or gish options, take arcane strike when you can - if you can get a persisted weapon like spell you can combine it with sacrificing your spells for a stronger melee attack option (especially vs mooks).

I'm surprised that the DM doesn't want you to use summons, but then again after playing a summoner I can understand why (too much upkeep).

You might want to take spell focus to add +1 DC to all of your necromancy school spells, and then take greater spell focus - but with a con score of 28 your save DCs for level 1 spells will be around 40ish anyways.

[Divayth Fyr]

I'm curious how would he go on having that Con score when a Necropolitan ;) And why would he even care about any taint limits when being undead...

As for corruption - carry some Abyssal Blackgrass (HoH p. 68) in a pot and willingly fall the saving throw? If you had something that could take it, the Touch of taint feat would be great...

[NoACWarrior]

I'm curious how would he go on having that Con score when a Necropolitan ;) And why would he even care about any taint limits when being undead...

As for corruption - carry some Abyssal Blackgrass (HoH p. 68) in a pot and willingly fall the saving throw? If you had something that could take it, the Touch of taint feat would be great...

Ah shoot missed that point haha... but don't undead have set corruption scores equal to thier HD or something like that? For the longest time I was thinking the best TS was a CN alive human.

[Divayth Fyr]

Ah shoot missed that point haha... but don't undead have set corruption scores equal to thier HD or something like that?
That is a matter of debate. The book does state that:
Creatures with the Evil subtype and undead creatures are immune to any negative effects from taint. They automatically have effective corruption and depravity scores equal to one-half their Charisma score, +1 for undead
Which is interpreted by people as being a base from which it can only go higher or a static level. However even with the second reading one could argue that this is the general rule, trumped by the specific rule of Tainted spellcasting class feature stating that "Each time you cast an arcane spell, you must make a Will save (DC 10 + spell level) or increase your depravity score by 1."

[icefractal]

Since you're trying to avoid Minion-mancy, and the DN has a big Undead pool that would otherwise go unused, how about building yourself an undead mech suit? By which I mean, make one badass undead, as strong as you can find, hollow it out, install a window, and ride around inside it. Or make two, and keep one in a Portable Hole as a backup in case the first one dies.

If you want to avoid extra actions in combat, you can have it not attack (or only attack when you're not casting anything), and just enjoy the enhanced movement and durability. And if you're running low on spells and don't want to burn resources, just close the window and have it smash things while you (slowly) heal it from inside.

[Alex12]

Just played our first session last night. Went pretty well, and I'm pretty much resigned to playing the party powerhouse, given that I'm both the only arcanist and the only full caster.

We've got an urban ranger with Wis and Cha of 6 and 8, respectively, a swordsage played by a first-time D&D player (he picked swordsage because the DM's beginner classes list didn't appeal to him), a homebrew swashbuckler who uses Cha for just about everything and fights using Iajutsu focus, and a tweaked and ACF'ed evil paladin of Sobek. They all start at level 2, while I'm at level 1 to pay for Necropolitan.

Story starts with a big party on an airship (called the Pietanic, so you know how this will end). Normally, this sort of thing is only for members of the ruling houses and other rich/famous people, but there was some kind of contest/giveaway thing (paid for by the Lady Gagaa of House Dwemer. Yes.) and a bunch of not-rich, non-House people got golden tickets to go for free. Free food and drinks, dancing, that sort of thing. Thing is, we weren't allowed to bring weapons, armor, or most of our gear with us. I've got my spell components pouch, paladin's got his holy symbol, and otherwise everyone's just got clothing. The swashbuckler tried to sneak a dagger on with Sleight of Hand, but failed and got it confiscated. We also don't bring any cash because everything's free.

Swashbuckler is new to the town, and is socializing and trying to seduce women. Despite his 16 Cha, he's failing. The swordsage is similarly socializing, but doing it better despite his 10 Cha. Untrained Craft(sandwich) check rolls really high, and he uses an amazing sandwich as a conversation-starter with a generically noble woman. He toasts the sandwich with the maneuver that ignites your weapon. Swashbuckler Sleight of Hands up a butter knife in case something happens.

Ranger is off antagonizing the guards by doing things like asking dumb questions (and getting frisked hard enough to lose 1 hp) and trying to climb the engine room (before getting pulled off the wall and landing hard enough to lose 1 hp).

Paladin (who is nobility of some sort, but we don't know this IC) is mingling.

I find a golden-ticketed student mage and start making small talk about magic school and such. We go to the engine room to see if we can look at the magic flying the thing (who knows, maybe we'll learn something), but there's a guard who says it's employees only, so we head back.

As I walk into the ballroom, swashbuckler and swordsage are just finishing up an impromptu show of juggling and using flashy Desert Wind maneuvers. Ranger is off in the corner or something. Paladin is about to head to the Lady Gagaa to introduce himself.

There's an explosion. Gagaa's guards pull out backpacks, grab her (in the "we're your bodyguards" way, not the "we're abducting you" way) and run.

Paladin goes to investigate, and asks for magic assistance to evaluate damage and maybe help out. Swashbuckler gets an insane roll to convince him he's got magic, and goes. I, knowing I'm unqualified, go to try to find safety. Swordsage, followed by Ranger, heads off to the kitchens for reasons I don’t remember.

I see blue smoke billowing from the engine room area, and see the Lady Gagaa and her bodyguards jump off. I go to the engine room because with that much smoke, breathing and visibility might be difficult, and I’ve got Lifesense and am undead, so I can maybe help out. I cannot. There’s nobody alive, but I do see what a good knowledge(arcana) roll tells me is some kind of magic mineral residue called obsidium that apparently indicates some kind of explosive. I bug out and, knowing that my first-level undead self with 12 hp is unlikely to survive the impact from the ship crashing, go to the kitchen because there’s presumably parachutes there for the staff. We all enter the kitchen at the same time. There are parachutes, but some fondue pot or something spilled and killed the kitchen staff (apparently it’s really hot cheese). Everything’s a mess, and there’s a huge puddle of still-molten boiling cheese surrounding the 10 chutes on a hook.

I don’t want to walk into that dangerously hot cheese, but I need a parachute. So I use the one spell in my arsenal that’s useful right now. Summon Undead 1. Evil spell, so *ding* depravity point, since I ignore the will save and it costs me nothing to use that particular variant rule. I have the skeleton appear right next to the parachutes, grab as many as it can, and toss them to me. DM rolls a d10 to see how many it can throw, and a d2 to see how many I catch. 10 and 2, respectively, the rest are on the ground near me. However, this apparently triggers something. The magic from the engines exploding apparently did something to the cheese, and it forms into a calzone golem. That’s a bit of a blast from the past, since the first session I ever ran for the group that this group grew out of was Something’s Cooking.

Now, my first reaction is to run, since necromancy isn’t great against Constructs at all, but then Swashbuckler does something. First, he tries to flip up some kind of implement- DM allows it with a DC15 Cha check because it’s a swashbuckler-y thing to do. He ends up with a ladle. Drops it, gets in close, whips out the butter knife he pocketed earlier, and attacks. Iajutsu focus roll 26. +4d6 damage. Rolls decently. Deals something like 20 damage with a literal butter knife. Okay, maybe we can take this thing. DM honestly wasn’t expecting us to try and fight, but he’s got the thing’s stats.

So we ultimately manage to kill it (I contribute with more summoned undead that last for one round each- *dingding* two more depravity) though Swashbuckler is briefly put into the negatives before Paladin uses Lay on Hands. There’s another explosion, we manage to escape (Swashbuckler grabs some calzone golem parts, I grab a proper knife in case we run into anything else, then we jump. Chutes deploy properly, and we land in the bay outside the city. They swim safely to shore and I walk along the bottom to the same. We level up and go our separate ways. I take care to note that I summon another skeleton to spend the spell before resting to restore. Current depravity: 13. Current HP: 20. Current defenses: DR2/magic and bludgeoning, positive energy resistance 10. Spells per day: 5 level 1s.

Current favorite line: "Cut him some slack, he's playing a character with higher Charisma than he has in reality."

All in all, I’m looking forward to the campaign.