little help here, please

[Fruchtkracher]

Well I have two questions which do not really have anything in common so i didn't really find a fitting headline...
well anyways:

First thing, in a game I'll soon participate as a player (finally after a looong break) I wish to play a necromancer, more specifically a dread necromancer from heroes of horror. Are there any ways to make that character sufficiently powerfull? Undead are, the way it seems, rather weak with a low base attack bonus, few hitpoints etc.. The feats from libris mortis seem rather powerfull, especially with dozens of low-level skelletons. Or perhaps I'm thinking wrongly here ...
Any tips, other feats, specific creatures to undeadify or similar help is definitely welcome.

The second thing is, in a different game, one that I dm, I have a kind of problem player. Not the way he plays or acts etc. makes him a problem, he isn't even too much of a powergamer. He's playing a bard, the highest magicusing char in the group (oO) and yet he way too often manages to grease my encounters to death. The rest I can handle, but grease is too much for me (well I haven't dmed too often as you can probably guess).
So again, any help is definitely welcome, and I don't simply want to ban grease :/

[valadil]

The second thing is, in a different game, one that I dm, I have a kind of problem player. Not the way he plays or acts etc. makes him a problem, he isn't even too much of a powergamer. He's playing a bard, the highest magicusing char in the group (oO) and yet he way too often manages to grease my encounters to death. The rest I can handle, but grease is too much for me (well I haven't dmed too often as you can probably guess).
So again, any help is definitely welcome, and I don't simply want to ban grease :/

Use enemies with 5 or more ranks in balance. If you insist on using perilous terrain, make sure your guys can push PCs through the grease too.

[Fruchtkracher]

Use enemies with 5 or more ranks in balance. If you insist on using perilous terrain, make sure your guys can push PCs through the grease too.

Sadly I fear there aren't too many enemies at level 3-4 with 5 or more ranks in balance, are there?

[root9125]

First thing, in a game I'll soon participate as a player (finally after a looong break) I wish to play a necromancer, more specifically a dread necromancer from heroes of horror. Are there any ways to make that character sufficiently powerfull? Undead are, the way it seems, rather weak with a low base attack bonus, few hitpoints etc.. The feats from libris mortis seem rather powerfull, especially with dozens of low-level skelletons. Or perhaps I'm thinking wrongly here ...
Any tips, other feats, specific creatures to undeadify or similar help is definitely welcome.

You will suck for 6 levels. You will spam undead, they will die after briefly providing a flanking bonus to the fighter, you'll spam undead again. Then, suddenly, you can summon an Allip! DC 16 save-or-lose every round! And it's area-effect! And it doesn't affect YOU! It's pretty awesome. My DN NPCs murdered a Level 9 party with that.

Also, if you don't have an issue with murdering commoners ("the best of them could be called evil-tolerant", remember), you can have a HELL of an undead army by level 5. It'll need to be refreshed daily... but what are commoners for, anyway? :D

[Elfin]

But you can give them balance ranks - the stats in the MM are just standard feat/skill point allocations. You can always feel free to change their selections.

[root9125]

Sadly I fear there aren't too many enemies at level 3-4 with 5 or more ranks in balance, are there?

Make some. :) You're the DM, go ahead and arbitrarily assign them. If your people fight enemies with class levels, it's REALLY easy. If not, there are definitely monsters with balance. It's not like everything you ever fight will be big and hulking and clumsy.

[Fruchtkracher]

But you can give them balance ranks - the stats in the MM are just standard feat/skill point allocations. You can always feel free to change their selections.

okay now I really feal stupid -.- Sorry I didn't think of that, as simple a solution as it was

well, second question aswered satisfyingly, now only the first one remains open.
Additionally, what other spells except controll undead and summon undead do I have to get undead before I can cast animate dead at lvl 8 DN?

[root9125]

okay now I really feal stupid -.- Sorry I didn't think of that, as simple a solution as it was

well, second question aswered satisfyingly, now only the first one remains open.
Additionally, what other spells except controll undead and summon undead do I have to get undead before I can cast animate dead at lvl 8 DN?

Whatever you pick up with advanced learning, and / or Fell Animate or Fell Drain metamagic.

But honestly, you don't need more. You are going to be the commander with the sacrificial minions. Trap on the door? Minion opens it. BBEG attack? Minions rush him and hopefully stall him a brief time.

[tyckspoon]

For the Dread Necro, don't try the army-of-undead thing. It really just doesn't work mechanically, although Dread Necros can get a lot closer to it than almost anybody else who is operating within the rules (exception- Retributive Destruction + a source of cheap expendable very low HD undead + equally cheap AOE damage. Swarm your opponents with exploding undead cats or something and then pop them all with a Fiery Burst.) Instead, you want to find one or two of the highest-HD creatures you can control and animate them as bodyguards. Various Giants work well, the old standby Dire Lion/Tiger is still pretty handy as a zombie, dragons are awesome if you can use the Skeletal and Zombie Dragon templates in Draconomicon (they're fairly lame as normal skeletons and zombies, tho. Too much HD for too little return.) Otherwise, incorporeal undead are cheesy as hell and can safely kill almost anything.

For Grease, in addition to just giving some of your enemies ranks in Balance you can usually manage it with some tactical modifications. It's a very small-area spell unless metamagic is used; use a few more enemies than you usually would and spread them out a bit. It shouldn't be hard to arrange it so that Grease can catch no more than two opponents at a time (it follows that you may need a more open combat area than you may usually use). Use ranged attackers; crossbow users and spellcasters don't care whether they're prone or standing. Use some more mobile opponents who can penetrate the party's front line and make it harder to target a Grease without also catching one of the party.

[jiriku]

Behold, the necromancer's handbook.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...p?topic=5584.0

And a guide to effective undead.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...hp?topic=181.0

The advice in those two links comes from people much smarter than me.



To expand on your grease issue, flying enemies are helpful. Even at CR 2-5, you can find a number of flying opponents in the various monster manuals, including dire bats and spider eaters (both of which also make great mounts, BTW). Aquatic enemies also bypass grease, and boggy, swampy environments would negate it (if you're standing in three feet of water, the grease is floating about your hips but your feet are planted firmly on the ground underwater). Also, extremely dextrous animals like lions, tigers, cheetahs, etc will do ok even without ranks in balance. And there's no reason among intelligent monsters than an NPC in a non-greased square adjacent to his buddy in the grease effect can't spend a standard action to haul him out of the area of effect. Additionally, you can mitigate the effects of grease simply by using many weaker monsters in place of a few powerful ones. One grease spell will shut down a CR6 troll, but against four CR 2 bugbears who are spread out, it's not likely to incapacitate more than 25% of the enemy force.

[oxybe]

step 1) grab the feat in libris mortis that allows you to heal with negative energy. sure the cleric's cure spells & the healing potions will hurt you... but you have infinite healing on demand, it's just slow.

step 2) corpsecrafter (tougher undead, +2 str, +2HP/HD), and destruction retribution(1d6/2HD negative damage in a 10ft burst when destroyed). maybe nimble bones if you want them moving around

step 3) now, this is cheezy (you'll see the pun later) and will require GM OK, but get the pipes of the sewers. it attracts swarms of rats (see i promised a pun) instead of summoning them, so they don't disappear when they die. so kill the 18 HP swarm. grab a rat corpse and create a zombie rat. repeat until you have the max amount.

alternate: ask a chicken infested minion for help.

alternate #2: fishing for hobos. no one will miss them. grab knife, go crazy.

step 4)
lots of attacks or high ground speed : skeletons
one big attack OR alternate movement method (flight/swim/ect...) : zombie

[ericgrau]

The second thing is, in a different game, one that I dm, I have a kind of problem player. Not the way he plays or acts etc. makes him a problem, he isn't even too much of a powergamer. He's playing a bard, the highest magicusing char in the group (oO) and yet he way too often manages to grease my encounters to death. The rest I can handle, but grease is too much for me (well I haven't dmed too often as you can probably guess).
So again, any help is definitely welcome, and I don't simply want to ban grease :/

Monsters that make their reflex saves. Larger numbers of monsters to overcome its small AoE. Monsters that save and simply walk out of the grease. And if they fall, just eat the -4's and fight prone rather than ending up in an endless get up and fall again loop. You're not denied dex while prone either, btw. Or provoke the AoO's and crawl away, probably out of the grease, before standing up. A crawl moves you 5 feet as a move action and provokes in the starting and ending square (but at least it's just for 1 turn). I find grease isn't all that great when you just ignore it or work around it, and stronger when you have some kind of strange urge to "beat it" by standing up again and staying in it.

[Fruchtkracher]

Whatever you pick up with advanced learning, and / or Fell Animate or Fell Drain metamagic.

But honestly, you don't need more. You are going to be the commander with the sacrificial minions. Trap on the door? Minion opens it. BBEG attack? Minions rush him and hopefully stall him a brief time.

But just because I know some spell doesn't mean I can cast it yet, so I'm still stuck having to wait to eight level to animate dead, if I'm not mistaken. What ways are there around that?