Arcane Necromancer?

[Skjaldbakka]

What options are there in terms of feats and PrCs for a necromancer in a world without clerics? Specifically, I want to be able to have undead minions as early as possible.

[Armads]

Pale Master for PrCs, and the feats Corpse Crafter, Deadly Chill, Nimble Bones help your undead become more powerful
You'll get your undead minions at level 7, if you go wizard

[MeklorIlavator]

What options are there in terms of feats and PrCs for a necromancer in a world without clerics? Specifically, I want to be able to have undead minions as early as possible.

Do you have Heroes of horror? Because that has an arcane class called the Dread Necromancer. Libiris Mortis also would have undead feats for necromancers.

[Maerok]

Dread Necro is probably the best bet for an arcane necromancer.

[Black Mage]

Dread Necromancer. Nothing but necromancy, nifty abilities...and you become a lich, for free, at level 20. Oh, and you can wear light armor.

[TSGames]

What options are there in terms of feats and PrCs for a necromancer in a world without clerics? Specifically, I want to be able to have undead minions as early as possible.

I'll assume that you're aware of the ineffectiveness of undead horde masters unless they're made out of pure cheese, and even then a pure arcane build will pale in comparison to almost any optimized build.

That aside: You must have Libris Mortis, it has an entire chain of feats for crafting undead minions, but more importantly, it has "Fell Animate." Maintaining an undead horde is costly, and Fell Animate allows you to kill things and make them come back as zombies or skeletons at no cost, under your control. It's the #1 must have feat for the arcane necromancer, especially at lower levels.

Also, Unearthed Arcana has nifty necromancer specialist wizard variant. It allows you to create an undead skeleton familiar; this combined with the corpsecrafter feat chain can give you a very powerful undead ally. Of course, I don't think it's that effective...mostly for flavor, so take it at your discretion.

[Maerok]

Somehow, in the BoVD, though of course it's not explained by WotC, you can make bone or corpse creatures from either animate dead or create undead (forgot which), and those could prove to make a very effective army as they keep their mental scores for the most part. Dread Necros get access to Undead Mastery (the second version of it from the UA Necromancer variant) which boosts your number of undead by a considerable amount if you have a good caster level and Charisma. I think Charisma-based spellcasting was such a nifty feature since it has a ton of synergy with necromantic abilities. There's less of a case for MAD than with a Wizard or Cleric.

[Tor the Fallen]

There's the feat that makes explosive skeletons, which you could empty out of a bag of holding or something. There's an undead leadership feat, which could be helpful (especially if your DM let you give it bonus corpsecrafter feats ).

Also, Lord of the Uttercold. Basically you're an evoker with the energy sub: cold feat and blast fireballs [iceballs] on your hordes that do 1/2 neg damage, which heals.

[Kultrum]

well your 2 best options are specialist Necromancer and Dread necromancer.
the wizard will get minions earlier, (lvl 7 as opposed to 8)
The dread necro goes on a path that will end in lichdom picking up some very helpful abilities on the way, also they are like a Necro warmage.

[MeklorIlavator]

also they are like a Necro warmage.

Except they are based on a stronger school. I would say that they are closer to the beguiler than the warmage, power wise.

[Kultrum]

Except they are based on a stronger school. I would say that they are closer to the beguiler than the warmage, power wise.

I ment it more as "can cast any spell on spell list without preparing it w/ armor"

[JaronK]

Yeah. Dread Necromancers are the specialist casters that get extra undead minions. Nothing beats them for sheer volume of undead, and they get slightly better quality ones as well. If you want very high quality, consider a one level dip into Necromancer (the Wizard specialist) taking the UA varient that looses as familiar but gets +2HP/HD for all undead you create.

JaronK