Necromancer Help

[WanderinCourier]

So I'm going to be a DM in a couple months so I’m putting together a lot of different things, playing on things I like and things I know how to do well. I've been reading a lot of various books to learn about different classes, races and such.

So the help I need is a build for a Necromancer who is going to be the big rival to the party if things go to plan (My luck they will think of something amazing and kill him the first time they meet him and I’ll have to re plan everything but that’s ok lol)

So my question comes to you guys how does one create an optimized Necromancer, as I’ve never had the opportunity to play one before I’m not sure the best feats/ build he should have. I want him to be a character that grows with the party so as for a long while, I'm hoping to get him strong enough to beat them but not to kill them and vice versa. Especially early game.

[OldTrees1]

Well since you are the DM your optimization question depends heavily on the PCs in the party. (which you not know until they make characters later)

I am most familiar with the Undead Army type of Necromancer so that is what I will be describing. The Necromancer can control undead via several different control pools. Each with important characteristics.

First there is the Animate Dead spell pool. This is the weakest pool because it controls the weakest kind of undead in the smallest numbers. However in some ways it is the most important since it is the creator pool. Most optimized necromancers would push this chore off to their Corpsecrafter cohort since most of the ways to buff undead during animation are suboptimal on a main character like a BBEG. The animation should be conducted by a Wizard 1 / Dread Necromancer 8(Heroes of Horror) with Corpsecrafter feats(Libris Mortis) within an altar boosted Fell Energy(Dragon Compendium) Desecration spell.

Second there is the Command Undead spell pool. This is the primary BBEG army pool because it controls a vast number of basic undead. Each casting of Command Undead will control 1 mindless undead for days equal to your caster level. By using the spell 3 times a day every day and using a Lesser Chain Metamagic Rod(Complete Arcane) this increases the pool to [1+caster level] undead/cast * 3 casts/day * [caster level] days. Also there is no HD limit so each mindless undead can have as many HD as you want(provided you find a suitible corpse and your Corpsecrafter apprentice can animate it). This should give your BBEG enough undead to afford the PCs avoiding the majority of them.

Third there is the Rebuke Undead pool. Clerics and Dread Necromancers get easy access to this pool. This pool is not as large as either pool above but it can be used for nonbasic undead. This is where you control utility undead like an Incorporeal undead for scouting, a Slaymate(Libris Mortis) for metamagic reduction, and other such utilities.

Fourth there is the Leadership pool. No further comments needed.


Another thing I recommend for Necromancers is to become immune to destruction. There are many paths to resilient immortality that is not defeated by a poor encounter with the PCs. Lich is the most famous but 3 levels of Ghost(https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a, you are not requires to take all the levels) will give you a level check to avoid destruction when slain.


As far as feats/build. I find the Dread Necromancer class is strong enough without being too strong and is full of flavor and thematic gifts. For feats I would focus on making the necromancer impressive enough in battle that they are not outstaged by their undead. Again flavor/thematics is probably a better investment here to achieve the impact.

[Grek]

Are you planning on using a Dread Necromancer, a Cleric Necromancer or a Wizard Necromancer? They all play quite differently.

Also, what levels should he show up at?

[WanderinCourier]

Ok this is where my incomplete knowledge comes in and the reason I spend so much time on this site. I'm not surte what your meaning with the different types of NEcormancer's or what books i need to be checking out to learn more about each kind...

[Alex12]

Ok this is where my incomplete knowledge comes in and the reason I spend so much time on this site. I'm not surte what your meaning with the different types of NEcormancer's or what books i need to be checking out to learn more about each kind...

There are three basic classes that work for necromancers. Cleric, Wizard, or Dread Necromancer. Cleric and Wizard are from Core, obviously, while Dread Necromancers are from Heroes of Horror. Personally, I like Dread Necromancers, but that's just me.

In terms of books, there's a few books you'll want to check out in particular. Libris Mortis is an absolute must-have (pay particular attention to the Necropolitan template, as well as Corpsecrafter and the feats that have it as a prereq. If you don't want your necromancer to be undead himself, there's also Tomb-tainted Soul, which is a feat that makes him heal with negative energy and get hurt by positive energy.). Heroes of Horror contains Dread Necromancer, and has some other stuff that's interesting for undead.

While I disagree with some of the assertions it makes (IMHO Dread Necromancer 20 is viable, especially considering the undead pool increaser only keys off Dread Necromancer levels) http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5584 is a good starting point.

[Grek]

What Alex12 said. There's three classes that make for good Necromancers, and the sort of character that you end up with depends on what class you use to do your necromancy.

Dread Necromancers starts out with the ability to rebuke undead, the ability to heal undead, light armour, a weapon and a short list of arcane spells that they can spontaneously cast from. As they progress, they gain the ability to blast their surroundings with negative energy, get a familiar and slowly become more and more undead-like. The Tomb-Tainted Soul feat is vital, since the Dread Necro can channel negative energy and that feat lets you be healed with negative energy.

Cleric Necromancers get heavy armour and divine magic and a much better spell list. Just like the Dread Necromancer, they get access to Rebuke Undead. Unlike the Dread Necromancer, they're a preparation caster. The major reason to be a Cleric as a necromancer is that you get access to Animate Dead two character levels early, and you get Desecrate (which boosts the effectiveness of your undead) automatically. Clerics also get a bunch of buffing spells. Cleric Necromancers are definitely to go to option for when you want a big army of skeletons.

Wizard Necromancers don't get any armour, don't get any good weapons and have prepared arcane casting, which is the most restrictive casting method available. To make up for this, they get much, much better spells than either a Dread Necromancer or a Cleric would get. Wizard Necromancy starts out with fear spells, ability drain and fatigue, but quickly moves into more potent curses and eventually into weird and unique spells like Magic Jar or Clone at high level. You probably won't have an undead army worth mentioning and that's OK.

[OldTrees1]

Ok this is where my incomplete knowledge comes in and the reason I spend so much time on this site. I'm not surte what your meaning with the different types of NEcormancer's or what books i need to be checking out to learn more about each kind...

Necromancy is a broad field. The stereotypical necromancer is the undead army necromancer(a necromancer that focuses on minions) however there is also
the hand of death necromancer(a necromancer that focuses on lethal spells/metamagic typically save or dies)
the source of fear necromancer(a necromancer the focuses on fear effects)
and probably a few more but those are the big ones.

Books:
Heroes of Horror(Dread Necromancer)
Libris Mortis(the entire book)
Player's Handbook(spells, Cleric and Wizard)

[Alex12]

What Alex12 said. There's three classes that make for good Necromancers, and the sort of character that you end up with depends on what class you use to do your necromancy.

Dread Necromancers starts out with the ability to rebuke undead, the ability to heal undead, light armour, a weapon and a short list of arcane spells that they can spontaneously cast from. As they progress, they gain the ability to blast their surroundings with negative energy, get a familiar and slowly become more and more undead-like. The Tomb-Tainted Soul feat is vital, since the Dread Necro can channel negative energy and that feat lets you be healed with negative energy.

Cleric Necromancers get heavy armour and divine magic and a much better spell list. Just like the Dread Necromancer, they get access to Rebuke Undead. Unlike the Dread Necromancer, they're a preparation caster. The major reason to be a Cleric as a necromancer is that you get access to Animate Dead two character levels early, and you get Desecrate (which boosts the effectiveness of your undead) automatically. Clerics also get a bunch of buffing spells. Cleric Necromancers are definitely to go to option for when you want a big army of skeletons.

Wizard Necromancers don't get any armour, don't get any good weapons and have prepared arcane casting, which is the most restrictive casting method available. To make up for this, they get much, much better spells than either a Dread Necromancer or a Cleric would get. Wizard Necromancy starts out with fear spells, ability drain and fatigue, but quickly moves into more potent curses and eventually into weird and unique spells like Magic Jar or Clone at high level. You probably won't have an undead army worth mentioning and that's OK.

I will point out that Dread Necromancer does have an easy and fairly widely-accepted set of minor fixes for their poorly-edited spell list (for example, Death Ward is listed as both a third and fourth-level spell for them) that puts Animate Dead at the level Clerics get it.

I also forgot about the Death Master from Dragon Compendium. It's got rebuking, wizard casting (though it's got its own spell list that doesn't have anything non-Core in it, so you can't learn, say, Summon Undead), an undead version of an animal companion, and some other interesting tricks (Animate Dead at level 3. Let that sink in for a moment), but in terms of sheer numbers of undead, Dread Necromancer has it beat.

[gorfnab]

These handbooks may be of some use:
Revised Necromancer Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2733)
Dread Necromancer Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?214212-Reanimated-Dread-Necromancer-Handbook) and Dread Necromancer Advanced Learning (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10037)