DN full or PrC out

[Amador]

I am going to be playing a Dread Necro in an upcoming campaign and am wondering if Pale Master is worth the lost caster level. This campaign is expected to go epic (30-40 lvls).

So help from the optimizers here at the playground would be great.

[Urpriest]

If you're going Epic, two questions present themselves: first, will your DM make an epic progression for DN? And second, will he make one for Pale Master? An epic progression of either would give tasty tasty epic bonus feats, and so might be desirable.

[Aharon]

Depends on the level you start at. If you start at or above 19th, you don't lose out on anything because of the lost CL, so it wouldn't matter.

Overall, though, Pale Master isn't considered a very strong PrC, perhaps not worth the lost CL.

On the other hand, Dread Necromancer doesn't have a lot of goodies to offer past level 8 anyway (not ever played one, hearsay based on this guide).

[Amador]

My DM is awesome and will work with me to make Epic Progression for anything that doesn't already have one. So, epicness for both DN and PM. Starting level 5.

[Urpriest]

My DM is awesome and will work with me to make Epic Progression for anything that doesn't already have one. So, epicness for both DN and PM. Starting level 5.

Hmm...starting at level 5 means Necropolitan might be fairly tasty (though I might just stick with Tomb-Tainted Soul). This means you don't really need the Lich from the end of Dread Necro, so I'd go with Pale Master, purely for its ability to save you Onyx. A level behind won't be all that painful.

[Silva Stormrage]

Well it would be nice to get some way of animating undead for free if you want to animate a lot of undead. Spell-Stiching yourself after turning yourself into a necromplotian (Spelling, the undead in Libris Mortis), once you hit 19 and can go to 20 you can than just get a true resurrection for lich if you have stayed in DN the entire way. Also this depends on what you want to specialize in, animating dead? Spellcasting? Melee (Some people do this)?

Also on a side note for spell stiching, you can give yourself animate dread warrior from Unapproachable East and get one free solider with class levels (they get penalties to int and cha and are somewhat unintelligent but are awesome) a day with no limit. (Silva is not responsible for DMG related injuries caused by this paragraph). Also if you want to try and convince your dm of allowing this, the flavor text actually says that a necromancer is doing this exact same thing.

Also it does matter if the DM will give an epic progression for DN or not, because if not than I would try getting into walkers of the waste for the Dry Lich template instead, you do lose 2 caster levels but I have found that your undead can help out a lot in combat and you don't need to cast every round to be effective. Also it gives charisma to HP something undead are in dire need of.

I hope this helps.


Edit: Also something I found interesting, there is a prestige class in faiths and pantheons, horned harbinger, that allows you to add your charisma modifier to your caster level for animate dead and create undead/create greater undead. It doesn't progress casting though so only take it epic.

Also is your DM letting the DN's Undead Mastery Class Feature count off caster levels? RAW it is based of class levels and wouldn't advance if you Prestige class out.

[Coidzor]

Well, whaddya wanna do? And remember that the game's going to be different in the various level ranges.

You may consider instead getting 8 levels of DN and then ultimate magusing with wizard or ur-priesting+mystic theurging. Since you're going into epics. But then, mystic theurge epic progression would need to be redone for that to be attractive...hmm.... so ultimate magus is probably better there.