Cleric Necromancer Build Help

[Flick Montana]

Hello, everyone! My board game group decided we might want to try a D&D one-off and see how it goes. I personally haven't played since AD&D about 20 years ago, so I'm doing my research, but I'm up to my neck in build guides and lore and Libris Mortis, etc and I need some human feedback!

I have built a character in PCGen (Pathfinder), but our DM only knows 3.5 and I'm hoping things will translate well enough.

I have always enjoyed clerics and summoner spellcasters (especially necros). It appears as though the cleric actually makes a pretty great necromancer so I'm trying to put one together. What I really want, for lack of a better comparison, is a World of Warcraft Death Knight with the Undead specialization. I don't want to be a tank, but I do want to provide front line support through spells and still be able to take some hits myself. Primarily, I want to have a small group of the undead under my control (I'm not looking to control an army, more like 2 or 3).

This is what I have so far:

Human Cleric lvl 1

STR - 12
DEX - 7
CON - 13
INT - 8
WIS - 17
CHA - 15

Deity
Urgathoa

Domains
Undead Subdomain
War Domain

Feat
Command Undead
Selective Channeling



I've read about the Bone Knight PrC and it sounds interesting if my DM will allow it. I'm not a min/maxer, but I want to be fun and viable. Knowing my DM, the story will be way more prominent than combat. Is this something that you think will work?

Thanks!

EDIT: I'm also wondering if Master of Shrouds would be a good fit.

[Westhart]

A few points
1. Clerics in 3.5 are different from the PF versions, as they get turn or rebuke undead
This source:
http://www.d20srd.org/
is helpful, although the information sometimes has a mistake. In addition here is a helpful guide to necromancers (one of the few I could find ><) http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444597-The-Necromancer-Handbook

2. Clerics get 2 domains offered by diety, there are no "subdomains". I believe the undead style domain would be undeath

3. Bone Knight is a nice class IMO, just ask your DM if he/she will allow it even though it is ebberon specific (off the top of my head I believe it is the zombies that are really ebberon based)

4. Master of Shrouds: I have heard from a power stand point this class isn't great, and I have not played that one so you'll have to ask someone else, sorry!

Hope it helps (somewhat) :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

So are you building this for a 3.5 game with the plan to convert that character? 'cause things will be rather different then: for one, there are different domains and different domain abilities in 3.5, and 3.5 also has a different channeling (Turn Undead) system. That would make your domain choices, feat choices and basically all the character choices null - but no matter the edition, a Cleric Necromancer is indeed amazingly powerful.

In 3.5 I'd make the following choices:
- Deathbound Domain [Spell Compendium] - increase your Undead Control Pool so pretty natural, right?
- Divine Magician [Complete Mage] - loses you your second domain but allows you to pick Necromancy/Abjuration/Divination from the arcane list every level. The big one is Command Undead on the 2nd level; you can exceed your control pool and Command Undead the things you lost control of essentially keeping an even greater army of undead around. Other good spells accessible this way include Animate Dread Warrior [Unapproachable East], Magic Jar, Contact Other Plane & co.
- Choose Rebuke Undead (of course).

Then you could use your feats on the Corpsecrafter-line [Libris Mortis] to enhance your undead further, and then eventually become Necropolitan [Libris Mortis] on level 3 to affect yourself as an undead creature with negative energy and all the available enhancements. Bone Knight and Master of Shrouds are both good at what they do, but Bone Knight is more of a warrior Cleric and Master of Shrouds is specifically a shadow summoner so neither is really perfect for your given plan here, though both fit the theme and are strong enough (but lose casting which is a bummer since your Animate Dead pool is related to casting, and your spell levels speed up the acquisition of higher level Animate spells too). Few PRCs do overtly much for the undead control aspect but plain Cleric is very, very strong in this regard. And those options are of course possible, if not amazing. Neutral casty Cleric options with full Rebuke advancement include Paragnostic Apostle [Complete Champion] and...that's about it. Deadgrim [Magic of Eberron] is a 4/5 advancement class but mostly anti-undead, and most of them are mostly about turning. Death Delver [Heroes of Horror] has Rebuke but it's a separate progression and True Necromancer [Libris Mortis] is way worse than plain Cleric.

[Flick Montana]

Sorry for the long reply time.

To clarify, I had already crafted this character for a Pathfinder group that fell through. I wanted to adapt it to a 3.5 campaign (I'm still pushing to try 5e since we have some brand new people and I think it would be easier for them).

We are an extremely RP heaving group of people, so I am also concerned with my melding into the group. It's not an evil campaign, so I'm going to be more in the neutral realm. I'm wondering if maybe I should stop trying to build to a perfect ideal that might not be possible and commit to either Bone Knight or Master of Shrouds. Maybe I'll base my decision on what others are playing and what role we need to fill.

Thanks for the links and the suggestions. You've given me a lot to think about!