Zombie Master OverPowered?

[Yael]

Zombie Master is a prestige class found on the Ultimate Prestige Classes Volume 2, p 145.

Its class features include undead ranged healing, and empowering your undead by 50% on HDs; however, there's something that makes me think this class might be not that balanced... Oh, I know, maybe it's because of full spellcasting proggresion, level 6th entry, Army of Darkness (4 times your HD on undead controll,) the capacity to change any spell to spontaneously cast animate dead, the capacity to "revive" his slain undead just by using another animate dead, oh and that don't-you-dare-to-turn/rebuke-my-undead ability he gets by level 2nd... Let's say that you enter Cleric with the Deathbound Domain for a +1 (or +2 depending on your DM) times your HD on controlling undead. This is just insanely good for an actual Zombie Master...

PD. I know I used all of its class features here, I guess they are all worth mention.

I think this class is OP, what about the rest of the playgrounders?

[Muggins]

I don't own Ultimate Prestige Classes 2, but I do own the first one. It's a third party book from Mongoose publishing.

Suffice to say, expect claims of "duh, third party content is broken." I'm afraid I can't provide anything else.

[OldTrees1]

I do not have UPC so I have some questions:
1)Empowering undead HD
Does this increase their cost to your undead HD pool?
Does it only affect basic undead (animated via animate dead)?

2)Army of Darkness
Is this similar to a Rebuke Undead control pool?

3)Anti turning
Does this give turning immunity or merely turn resistance?


All in all it sounds powerful (but not OP) for a Tier 3 caster character. Most of those class features are wasted on caster characters living up to Tier 1-2 benchmarks.

[Yael]

I do not have UPC so I have some questions:
1)Empowering undead HD
Does this increase their cost to your undead HD pool?
Does it only affect basic undead (animated via animate dead)?

2)Army of Darkness
Is this similar to a Rebuke Undead control pool?

3)Anti turning
Does this give turning immunity or merely turn resistance?


All in all it sounds powerful (but not OP) for a Tier 3 caster character. Most of those class features are wasted on caster characters living up to Tier 1-2 benchmarks.

1. According to the class feature entry, at your choice, undead you "create" are animated with "50% more HD than the normal zombies of the size class" plus a +4 profane bonus to Strength.

2. Yeah, it is raising your "times your HD" from 2 to 4 (Horde is aqquired at level 1st, and it raises your "times your HD to 3, Army of Darnkess replaces Horde from 3 to 4 times your HD.)

3. According to the entry, the zombie master can bolster its undead in order to prevent them from turning or rebuking (or to even cancel a successful turning or rebuking) as if he were a negative-energy-channelling cleric of three times his zombie master level. Hope that helps.

[OldTrees1]

1. According to the class feature entry, at your choice, undead you "create" are animated with "50% more HD than the normal zombies of the size class" plus a +4 profane bonus to Strength.

2. Yeah, it is raising your "times your HD" from 2 to 4 (Horde is aqquired at level 1st, and it raises your "times your HD to 3, Army of Darnkess replaces Horde from 3 to 4 times your HD.)

3. According to the entry, the zombie master can bolster its undead in order to prevent them from turning or rebuking (or to even cancel a successful turning or rebuking) as if he were a negative-energy-channelling cleric of three times his zombie master level. Hope that helps.

Edit:
I might have found it. Is it 5 levels long and have these skill prereqs (Skills: Knowledge (undead) 8 ranks, Heal 5 ranks)?
If so then it is not OP.
1st level:
[X]Animate dead now controls 3xcl(class feature upgrade) instead of 4xcl(default).
[X]Gain a Rebuke undead ability that can only be used for bolstering undead. The effective cleric level = 3x class level and does not stack with other classes and is only truely useful at ECL 8-14 (straight Cleric is better at the other levels).
2nd level:
[X]You can reanimate undead via more gems (nice but not worth this class so far)
[X]healing (waste of an action) has reach
3rd level:
[X]A basic undead can be raised with 50% more HD. This is not overpowering. At best it keeps basic undead useful for a couple more levels.
4th level:
waste of space
5th level:
[X]Your animate dead is no longer nerfed. It now does its normal 4xcl.

Honestly it is not worth it. The good undead army necromancers already have Rebuke Undead and do not deserve to suffer the nerfs to animate dead. If you can start with all 5 levels and have nothing better to take then it is worth considering for the 3rd level ability but the rest is pretty weak or actually harmful.

[Yael]

Edit:
I might have found it. Is it 5 levels long and have these skill prereqs (Skills: Knowledge (undead) 8 ranks, Heal 5 ranks)?
If so then it is not OP.
1st level:
[X]Animate dead now controls 3xcl(class feature upgrade) instead of 4xcl(default).
[X]Gain a Rebuke undead ability that can only be used for bolstering undead. The effective cleric level = 3x class level and does not stack with other classes and is only truely useful at ECL 8-14 (straight Cleric is better at the other levels).
2nd level:
[X]You can reanimate undead via more gems (nice but not worth this class so far)
[X]healing (waste of an action) has reach
3rd level:
[X]A basic undead can be raised with 50% more HD. This is not overpowering. At best it keeps basic undead useful for a couple more levels.
4th level:
waste of space
5th level:
[X]Your animate dead is no longer nerfed. It now does its normal 4xcl.

Honestly it is not worth it. The good undead army necromancers already have Rebuke Undead and do not deserve to suffer the nerfs to animate dead. If you can start with all 5 levels and have nothing better to take then it is worth considering for the 3rd level ability but the rest is pretty weak or actually harmful.

Oh, I could get used to constructive criticism (though is not my work there); nice to know, I'm actually pretty new to the game (in optimization) so I saw this PrC and thought it would be stronger than straight Cleric on this area.

Thank you all~~

[OldTrees1]

Oh, I could get used to constructive criticism (though is not my work there); nice to know, I'm actually pretty new to the game (in optimization) so I saw this PrC and thought it would be stronger than straight Cleric on this area.

Thank you all~~

It is not your fault. It was written to be impressive.

If your DM is flexible you could ask for Horde and Army of Darkness to be changed to 5x and 6x respectively. With those changes it becomes a worthy prestige class for a cleric playing in a tier 3 group. With those changes the first 3 levels are a viable addition to a Dread Necromancer (after 8th level of course).

However since you liked the prestige class, you might want to look at the well balanced Dread Necromancer class(in Heroes of Horror). It is not as strong as Cleric(which possesses literally game breaking abilities) but it is a better undead army necromancer and is much more flavorful. It also has a much better version of Horde/Army of Darkness that it gets at ECL 8.

[Yael]

It is not your fault. It was written to be impressive.

If your DM is flexible you could ask for Horde and Army of Darkness to be changed to 5x and 6x respectively. With those changes it becomes a worthy prestige class for a cleric playing in a tier 3 group. With those changes the first 3 levels are a viable addition to a Dread Necromancer (after 8th level of course).

However since you liked the prestige class, you might want to look at the well balanced Dread Necromancer class(in Heroes of Horror). It is not as strong as Cleric(which possesses literally game breaking abilities) but it is a better undead army necromancer and is much more flavorful. It also has a much better version of Horde/Army of Darkness that it gets at ECL 8.

Will do. TY.