An Undead Druid

[Magemakeboom]

Hello all!

Got a question for the playground. Looking at revamping a druid lich. But I want him to have the ability to animate dead to create minions. Apart from the Blighter or Ur- Priest, what is a way to accomplish this without having to rely on magic items? He is around level 12.

[eggynack]

If you don't feel tied specifically to animate dead as a spell, you can pull off necromancy to a reasonable level natively. Good options include wild shape stuff like myconid sovereign (MM II, 154) and yellow musk creeper (FF, 190), and spell stuff like animate with the spirit (CV, 52) and blackwater tentacle (Storm, 114) to trigger the wightpocalypse. It's not the best stack of necromancy in the world, but it's pretty good

If you do feel tied to animate dead as a spell, then you can access that pretty easily by picking up one of the cleric domains that grants it. The best method for doing that, for my money, is taking a level of holt warden (CC, 84), granting a pile of slots which can be filled with domain spells (and which are normally just filled with plant domain spells), and then taking a level of contemplative (CD, 30), granting a bunch of spells to fit into your domain slots. It's a great combo, that.

[Magemakeboom]

thanks for the ideas! Much appreciated

[Inevitability]

Extra spell. Be sure to take the 2nd-level version of animate dead.

[jordan.k93]

There's a PRC in Complete Divine called "Blighter" or something similar which is literally just an evil ass druid who wants to summon undead and destroy nature.

It even gets skeletal wild shape!

Found it:
http://dndtools.eu/classes/blighter/

[Eox]

You might be interested in the Siabrae ( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/siabrae-cr-2) template from Pathfinder. And it's a requirement that you make at least one Grisly Bear joke.

[Sian]

There's a PRC in Complete Divine called "Blighter" or something similar which is literally just an evil ass druid who wants to summon undead and destroy nature.

It even gets skeletal wild shape!

Found it:
http://dndtools.eu/classes/blighter/

Given that OP allready mentioned it, and its certainly a class thats completing for 'worst Prestige class' ... nah ...

[eggynack]

Given that OP allready mentioned it, and its certainly a class thats completing for 'worst Prestige class' ... nah ...
It is pretty awful. However, speaking of things with the word blight in the name, talontar blightlord from unapproachable east isn't an altogether awful prestige class, at least on a one or two level dip. Adds a lot of that necromancer druid flavor, and it can actually take the place of holt warden in the holt warden+contemplative combo. It's a much worse class than holt warden, because of those frigging prerequisites, but it does the job and adds some flavor to the overall build.

[malonkey1]

Extra spell. Be sure to take the 2nd-level version of animate dead.

Keep in mind that this only works via a very loose reading. Most DMs will not abide by such a reading (I do, but many don't).

[Werephilosopher]

Maybe get a friendly wizard or sorcerer to spellstitch you with animate dead. As an added bonus, you won't need to prepare it or spend onyx since it'll be a spell-like.

[Thurbane]

The Fell Animate metamagic feat on damaging spells can raise Zombies.

Domains that add Animate Dead include: Death, Necromancy and Undeath.

As noted above, Extra Spell may not work. FWIW, the "official FAQ" for 3.5 specifically says Extra Spell cannot grant spells that aren't on your spell list.

[KingAtomsk]

Druid into Ur-priest followed up with Walker in the Waste is a great and flavorful build. Druid also has some ACFs to help qualify (Heat Endurance I believe) and to improve flavor (sandskimmer or w/e it's called). Ur-priest gets you cleric spells to cover the animate dead line and WitW makes you a lich as its capstone. Make sure you take corrupt wild shape too

[atemu1234]

I personally favor the domain idea but...

How will one roleplay an undead druid? That's like an undead servant of Pelor.

[Pan151]

I personally favor the domain idea but...

How will one roleplay an undead druid? That's like an undead servant of Pelor.

Is the god you serve specifically anti-undead?

If yes, you first find a different god.

If no, then you roleplay as any non-undead druid with the same god and personality - whatever it is that you and/or your god and/or your allies wants you to do, being undead simply helps you do it better and without minor inconveniences such as dying of old age. Also, you don't need to cut down trees for burning wood or kill plants and animals for food anymore, so being undead is just another way of helping out nature.

[eggynack]

I personally favor the domain idea but...

How will one roleplay an undead druid? That's like an undead servant of Pelor.
Unlife is simply another stage in the life cycle. Not a constant presence, but not an unnatural one either. Creatures are born, they live, they decay into nothingness, and then they can return to life. Denying one type of energy, negative as opposed to positive, is the truly unnatural thing. The druid, in returning things to unlife for his own purposes, is merely another scavenger, recycling and re-purposing that which is dead.

And, in the end, can anything that is this fundamental a part of the world, something happening all around us, be truly considered unnatural? Many druids place an arbitrary division between what parts of the world are part of the natural order and what parts are not. You do not. You stand taller, seeing the interconnectedness of all things, and you know in your heart that this is nature. This is life, or unlife as the case may be, moving and fighting and raw.

[ShurikVch]

Eberron...

The Blood of Vol...

Dip in Contemplative (or Divine Agent) for the Death (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/clericDomains.htm#deathDomain) domain...