LA Assignment Thread X: New Year, New Management, Same Old Unplayable Monsters

[Thurbane]

A lot of creatures in LM are really only going to be playable in an evil campaign, or where your Undead status otherwise doesn't matter.

I'll agree it's progression options are very limited, though. If you wanted to double down on minionmancy, then Horned Harbinger is probably one of the better options I found. Doesn't increase your CL for SLAs, though. Best you're likely to get is CL 13 using the Practiced Magic feat.

[danielxcutter]

A lot of creatures in LM are really only going to be playable in an evil campaign, or where your Undead status otherwise doesn't matter.

Same goes for most of the previous books we covered, actually. Heck, a good portion of the MM, even.

I'll agree it's progression options are very limited, though. If you wanted to double down on minionmancy, then Horned Harbinger is probably one of the better options I found. Doesn't increase your CL for SLAs, though. Best you're likely to get is CL 13 using the Practiced Magic feat.

And here lies the problem. Well, you could actually probably get CL 14 if an orange prism ioun stone works for your SLAs, but that's about it.

[Falontani]

Atropal Scion, one of the scarier undead beasties out there. Lord/Lady of the Dead is direct advancement, Horned Harbinger works well, but you could even go Necrocarnum with Undead Meldshaper.
I agree that Marshal would work well here, but so would Bard with Requiem, and they could advance into Dirgesinger efficiently.
A level into Cleric, or two into Ur Priest allows you the Bone Knight class which would work well as well. Divine Crusader with the Deathbound Domain would be fine as well.

Honestly it could probably go straight commoner or HD advancement if it got Spell Stitched, which I don't know if that is saying that Spell Stitched is too powerful, or if it just advances the creature correctly.

Finally with its CL 9 it could easily take a level of sorcerer then hop into Effigy Master to boost its minionmancy into a different direction (that would still be immune to its aura and stuff).

All of that is easily done without even considering that it could perhaps wield a weapon.
Crusader/Bard/Marshal + Requiem and Song of the White Raven and you would be a fine melee. You won't beat out another creature that is focused entirely on melee, but you have a horde of undead and a nasty aura to go with it.

Don't forget, undead never get tired, so they can do their performance indefinitely. Add in their fast healing and the fact that Crusader doesn't need rest ever, and you got yourself a character that literally never needs to rest.

LA +2 easily

[danielxcutter]

Atropal Scion, one of the scarier undead beasties out there. Lord/Lady of the Dead is direct advancement, Horned Harbinger works well, but you could even go Necrocarnum with Undead Meldshaper.

Lord/Lady of the Dead still has the distinct downside of being a class that advances your non-existent spellcasting, which you will be nine levels behind on anyways, Horned Harbringer actually could work but still isn't terribly powerful since undead minions don't scale nearly enough to keep up at higher levels(and that's ignoring how long it'll slow down combat), and anyone who suggests Undead Meldshaper clearly never looked at a handbook for anything Incarnum-related since all the ones I've seen spell out how it doesn't actually work since you still can't use your Wisdom to qualify for Incarnum feats.

I agree that Marshal would work well here, but so would Bard with Requiem, and they could advance into Dirgesinger efficiently.

Dirgesinger doesn't progress spellcasting, but I guess you're not losing out on too many Bard spells anyways?

A level into Cleric, or two into Ur Priest allows you the Bone Knight class which would work well as well. Divine Crusader with the Deathbound Domain would be fine as well.

Some of Bone Knight's biggest selling points are giving undead immunities while not actually making you lose your Con score, and unless you totally strip the fluff from it there is no way an Atropal Scion Ur-Priest is getting into that. Honestly, you're arguably better off just going straight Ur-Priest and considering how ridiculous that PrC is that's not exactly a strong argument for the LA of this thing.

Honestly it could probably go straight commoner or HD advancement if it got Spell Stitched, which I don't know if that is saying that Spell Stitched is too powerful, or if it just advances the creature correctly.

Finally with its CL 9 it could easily take a level of sorcerer then hop into Effigy Master to boost its minionmancy into a different direction (that would still be immune to its aura and stuff).

Effigies are horrifically underwhelming, not to mention the cost and time needed to craft one.

All of that is easily done without even considering that it could perhaps wield a weapon.
Crusader/Bard/Marshal + Requiem and Song of the White Raven and you would be a fine melee. You won't beat out another creature that is focused entirely on melee, but you have a horde of undead and a nasty aura to go with it.

Don't forget, undead never get tired, so they can do their performance indefinitely. Add in their fast healing and the fact that Crusader doesn't need rest ever, and you got yourself a character that literally never needs to rest.

LA +2 easily

Yeah, no. Song of the White Raven doesn't count your undead HD for bardic music progress, your physical stats and hit points are going to dismal at best, and half your army's going to be wiped out with an Empowered Fireball or something quite easily anyways.

[Falontani]

I realize my mistake Daniel; and it is due to house rules at my table that I over value undead minionmancy. The main one being, instead of creating a Ghoul, a Wight, a Mummy, etc; the tables I tend to play at simply use the respective templates, or apply the Savage Progression to the creature. Just like how Animate Dead applies the skeleton or zombie template to the creature it is cast upon, a suitable corpse that is applicable to the template gains the Ghoulish Template, the Mummified Template, the Wight Template, etc. But even barring the use of those templates, Create Undead can be used to create Bone and Corpse Creatures, which are powerful undead.

Undead Meldshaper; yes it doesn't give access to the feats, but then the only things that incarnum care about is your essentia count, the soulmelds bound, and what you can do with both of those. Necrocarnate has effectively infinite essentia as long as you can get your hands on fresh corpses, (I believe it was you earlier that was arguing that there would never be a lack of corpses since you wouldn't not be able to kill things by the dozens. Not to mention a rat counts as a corpse...) the build would have 2 chakra binds, and 5-6 soulmelds available.

Empowered Fireball: Average 52 damage. That is not able to kill a 10 HD skeleton on average. If you are carting around a couple thousand 1 HD skeletons, sure an empowered fireball will take them out, but carting around a pair of Fire Giant Skeletons each with (on average) 98 hit points and immunity to fire and cold, will be completely fine.

I won't argue about Effigy Master, due to the ambiguity and degree that DM intervention is required when speaking about Effigy Master (by RAW, there is nothing stating you can't template stack effigies, so a Paragon Fire Giant Effigy costs the same amount as a Fire Giant Effigy).

I see your skepticism; but having (easily) a 32 charisma, gaining a +11 deflection bonus to AC and a +11 bonus to saving throws is powerful defensively. Fast Healing 8, DR 10, and +8 natural armor makes you very hardy. Unless the player tries to get himself killed, or the DM intentionally tries to kill the character, the character is not going to accidentally die. Damage wise you are going to be killed from a bad roll on disintegrate, an ubercharger with shock trooper, or a powerful creature. At ECL 17 (with a +2 LA) you will easily have 98 hit points without any itemization, temporary hit points, or effort. The human wizard with heavy investment will be around 153 hit points. I don't see wizards getting one shot at that level. I don't see why the creature with more defensive capability and 66% the hit points will be.

[H_H_F_F]

I agree that there are powerful paths open to a Scion, and it's definitely powerful as-is. However, I still think with 9 rhd and no way to directly advance its capabilities, +2 is too high. My vote is for LA +1

[danielxcutter]

I realize my mistake Daniel; and it is due to house rules at my table that I over value undead minionmancy. The main one being, instead of creating a Ghoul, a Wight, a Mummy, etc; the tables I tend to play at simply use the respective templates, or apply the Savage Progression to the creature. Just like how Animate Dead applies the skeleton or zombie template to the creature it is cast upon, a suitable corpse that is applicable to the template gains the Ghoulish Template, the Mummified Template, the Wight Template, etc. But even barring the use of those templates, Create Undead can be used to create Bone and Corpse Creatures, which are powerful undead.

Abandon all houserules, ye who enter here!

I should check the Bone and Corpse Creature templates again, but they're not that strong IIRC.

Undead Meldshaper; yes it doesn't give access to the feats, but then the only things that incarnum care about is your essentia count, the soulmelds bound, and what you can do with both of those. Necrocarnate has effectively infinite essentia as long as you can get your hands on fresh corpses, (I believe it was you earlier that was arguing that there would never be a lack of corpses since you wouldn't not be able to kill things by the dozens. Not to mention a rat counts as a corpse...) the build would have 2 chakra binds, and 5-6 soulmelds available.

First of all, no, at best that was Morphic Tide not me so don't put words in my mouth, and second, that's only the case if you're "Genocidal Evil". Which is going to get several paladin orders on your necrotic ass pretty quickly, mind. Corpses are hardly guaranteed, unless you've bribed the DM.

Worse... where are you going to put that essentia, even if you do get access to it? I would like to point out that the number of soulmelds you can shape as well as the amount of essentia you can invest in each of them will be sharply limited because your meldshaper level will be abysmal and you lack Incarnum feats to utilize the essentia you do manage to harvest.

Empowered Fireball: Average 52 damage. That is not able to kill a 10 HD skeleton on average. If you are carting around a couple thousand 1 HD skeletons, sure an empowered fireball will take them out, but carting around a pair of Fire Giant Skeletons each with (on average) 98 hit points and immunity to fire and cold, will be completely fine.

That was hyperbole, and also where are you getting fire giant corpses in the first place? Not every campaign uses them. Even if the DM doesn't intentionally gimp you by denying you corpses of powerful creatures, the very premise of a campaign can impact the viability of necromantic minionmancy heavily; a war between two humanoid races is going to provide far less powerful corpses than one that features a Dracorage.

I won't argue about Effigy Master, due to the ambiguity and degree that DM intervention is required when speaking about Effigy Master (by RAW, there is nothing stating you can't template stack effigies, so a Paragon Fire Giant Effigy costs the same amount as a Fire Giant Effigy).

Pun-Pun is entirely RAW, I believe. Nobody sane is going to let you pull that off in a typical campaign.

I see your skepticism; but having (easily) a 32 charisma, gaining a +11 deflection bonus to AC and a +11 bonus to saving throws is powerful defensively. Fast Healing 8, DR 10, and +8 natural armor makes you very hardy. Unless the player tries to get himself killed, or the DM intentionally tries to kill the character, the character is not going to accidentally die. Damage wise you are going to be killed from a bad roll on disintegrate, an ubercharger with shock trooper, or a powerful creature. At ECL 17 (with a +2 LA) you will easily have 98 hit points without any itemization, temporary hit points, or effort. The human wizard with heavy investment will be around 153 hit points. I don't see wizards getting one shot at that level. I don't see why the creature with more defensive capability and 66% the hit points will be.

And what are you going to do during your turn? Weakly slap people across the face? And 32 Cha isn't hardly getting online that quickly; by the time that'd become viable most people would have finished their prestige class advancements or something.

[Caelestion]

Ding ding ding. Someone’s finally figured it out.

Perhaps, instead of being passive-aggressive, you'd actually state it yourself next time.

Sure, you're ridiculously capable in combat, but you have no solid tools for non-combat interaction outside skill checks...

That's a problem with the monster, rather than the LA system, wouldn't you say? D&D is primarily a combat game, after all.

[Efrate]

You might not be able to have access to graveyards immediately for looting, but you have teleport as a SLA. With any social skill and your CHA bonus you can likely find a location, teleport until you get there, then teleport back.

Also given a standard 4 encounter day, you have enough to animate pretty much everything
you kill. Unless your DM screws you by having all your encounters be oozes, elementals, plants, and summoned creatures, you will get body that you can animate. They also will be reasonably CR appropriate, unless you are fighting hordes of things 32 goblins at cr 6, which your aura just wightpocolypses.

Yes minionmancy can be game breaking and if your DMs stomp on it, but this is kind of the epitome of talk with your DM about kind of campaign. It's not suitable for a hero's save the princess (probably) campaign. But for an undead party or evil party.

Just because advancement is difficult doesnt mean you ignore all its strengths. We explicitly are giving LA to things that wotc decided we should not play as. We also are assuming DMs do not go out of their way to shut a character down.

[Asmotherion]

It's a tank that also has excelent debuffing, and potent minionmancy. Sure, it can animate some Whites, but it's real ace is it's Rebuke Undead; It can effectivelly have access to a lot of feats that use turn/rebuke mechanics (like Divine Metamagic) or to hand pick an army of undead, and control them. Excelent SLAs for minionmancy. Also, did I mention it can fly?

I'm going for +2, and could be persuaded for even higher.

[liquidformat]

It's a tank that also has excelent debuffing, and potent minionmancy. Sure, it can animate some Whites, but it's real ace is it's Rebuke Undead; It can effectivelly have access to a lot of feats that use turn/rebuke mechanics (like Divine Metamagic) or to hand pick an army of undead, and control them. Excelent SLAs for minionmancy. Also, did I mention it can fly?

I'm going for +2, and could be persuaded for even higher.

Unless you are going Ur-Priest or Divine Crusader and PRC domain dumpster diving DMM is probably worthless, even if you are going for either of those two options DMM is still worthless until you are around level 18~. You will probably be better off going more of a paladin style route and using your rebukes to power combat when you aren't leveraging it to control undead.

Yes minionmancy can be game breaking and if your DMs stomp on it, but this is kind of the epitome of talk with your DM about kind of campaign. It's not suitable for a hero's save the princess (probably) campaign. But for an undead party or evil party.

No you are pretty much SOL unless you are in an all undead party that goes to an all undead city to do all your business, get quests and so on. At least you can stop your gaze by wearing some sunglasses so you aren't killing everything that looks at you from the front but that aura is a real problem. Unless I am misunderstanding and the aura can be turned off, this thing is going to cause no end of headaches for any party member that isn't undead and any time you go anywhere that has living creatures you don't want to kill.

So you have two passive abilities that are great in fights against things that aren't immune to them but horrible for day to day activities, a bunch of SLAs that don't scale well, and yes high ability scores but with so many RHD your going to have a hard time really leveraging them. That doesn't sound like a great place to start, sure you are super powerful at level 9 but by level 15 you are struggling to make use out of your SLAs and unless you are jumping right into Tier 0 PRCs your struggling to be useful to your party. Even worse you are a hindrance to the party if you haven't taken care of your still useful abilities. At +2 LA that means you will see play at level 11-20 ignoring epic games and most of your SLAs peter off around level 15 means for half the levels you are playing at you are not performing on par with the rest of the party. That seems like a pretty strong argument that +2 LA is too high. Even at +1 LA I question whether the LA might be a bit high.

[Asmotherion]

Unless you are going Ur-Priest or Divine Crusader and PRC domain dumpster diving DMM is probably worthless, even if you are going for either of those two options DMM is still worthless until you are around level 18~. You will probably be better off going more of a paladin style route and using your rebukes to power combat when you aren't leveraging it to control undead.



No you are pretty much SOL unless you are in an all undead party that goes to an all undead city to do all your business, get quests and so on. At least you can stop your gaze by wearing some sunglasses so you aren't killing everything that looks at you from the front but that aura is a real problem. Unless I am misunderstanding and the aura can be turned off, this thing is going to cause no end of headaches for any party member that isn't undead and any time you go anywhere that has living creatures you don't want to kill.

So you have two passive abilities that are great in fights against things that aren't immune to them but horrible for day to day activities, a bunch of SLAs that don't scale well, and yes high ability scores but with so many RHD your going to have a hard time really leveraging them. That doesn't sound like a great place to start, sure you are super powerful at level 9 but by level 15 you are struggling to make use out of your SLAs and unless you are jumping right into Tier 0 PRCs your struggling to be useful to your party. Even worse you are a hindrance to the party if you haven't taken care of your still useful abilities. At +2 LA that means you will see play at level 11-20 ignoring epic games and most of your SLAs peter off around level 15 means for half the levels you are playing at you are not performing on par with the rest of the party. That seems like a pretty strong argument that +2 LA is too high. Even at +1 LA I question whether the LA might be a bit high.

I don't agree. Even diping pure cleric, it gives great spells to persist, and at low level investmet. I don't particularly see any advantage to going Paladin over Cleric tbh.

[liquidformat]

I don't agree. Even diping pure cleric, it gives great spells to persist, and at low level investmet. I don't particularly see any advantage to going Paladin over Cleric tbh.

Sorry for the confusion I didn't mean taking paladin levels but utilizing your rebuke to power other divine feats like Divine Might and Divine Shield like a paladin often does.

You are investing 3 feats and 7 turn attempts for each casting of persistence and I am not seeing any spells pre level 4 that are worth that investment when compared to other Divine Metamagic feats. Please highlight what early spells you are thinking are worth their bang for the buck as I am not seeing anything.

[Morphic tide]

With regard to Undead Meldshaper, per-Soulmeld cap is dictated solely by your overall hit dice, regardless of class or lack thereof, so the "bag of rats" type exploit works "perfectly", if you consider near-permanently maximizing every Essentia receptacle a good thing.

Meldshaper level is used for a very minuscule number of scaling effects, while the class levels give you your limit of Shaped and Bound Soulmelds alongside Chakras.

Crusader seems the best bet for a progression into something that isn't hideously abusive from White Raven getting a target-rich environment and Divine Spirit self-supplying a lot more endurance across your dudes for being type-agnostic healing.

[Falontani]

I should check the Bone and Corpse Creature templates again, but they're not that strong IIRC.

The creature that you place bone or corpse creature on keeps all their previous abilities, meaning if you turn an enemy spellcaster into a Bone Creature then you have a Bone Creature Spellcaster.

First of all, no, at best that was Morphic Tide not me so don't put words in my mouth, and second, that's only the case if you're "Genocidal Evil". Which is going to get several paladin orders on your necrotic ass pretty quickly, mind. Corpses are hardly guaranteed, unless you've bribed the DM.

I apologize, I remembered incorrectly who had stated it. Genocidal Evil when playing a character that is 'Always Chaotic Evil' and 'seeks power over both life and unlife in an unrelenting bid for domination that only its lifeless tissue is able to sustain.'
It sounds to me like if you are playing an Atropal Scion Genocidal Evil is more than likely in the cards and assumed.
Sure Faerun has several powerful paladin orders, but not every campaign setting does, take Eberron for example. There are 4 factions that would attempt to hunt you down. First off we have The Silver Flame. Great bunch of paladins, whose most powerful statted member is level 20 but can't leave her church with that power, and second most powerful statted member is level 8. Yea, a level 8 paladin and 3 dozen level 1-6 paladins are going to whittle you down if you are alone, but you aren't. You have a party, but more importantly you have that army of mooks that you said are basically worthless. Secondly you have the Ghaashkala, an order of raging orc paladin barbarians (seriously) who as far as I could recall have no statted members and are supposed to be a minor order. You have the paladins of the Sovereign Host who have so much else to do that unless you really overdo it; and even then I think their most powerful was around level 12, which is a suitably difficult encounter, but one that the party should be able to take on. The one order that you would fear is a faction of aerenal elves that hunt down undeath, but they don't have teleportation abilities.... so... Teleport. This is not saying that there aren't campaigns where paladin orders wont hunt you down, but if you are playing an undead, in an undead party, with the DM's permission, then the DM won't go out of their way to obliterate you.

I think there may be a difference with the tables you seem to frequent compared to my own, in that it sounds like your DMs are cruel, capricious, and stomps anything and everything that might mess with the story out of existence.

[liquidformat]

The creature that you place bone or corpse creature on keeps all their previous abilities, meaning if you turn an enemy spellcaster into a Bone Creature then you have a Bone Creature Spellcaster.



I apologize, I remembered incorrectly who had stated it. Genocidal Evil when playing a character that is 'Always Chaotic Evil' and 'seeks power over both life and unlife in an unrelenting bid for domination that only its lifeless tissue is able to sustain.'
It sounds to me like if you are playing an Atropal Scion Genocidal Evil is more than likely in the cards and assumed.
Sure Faerun has several powerful paladin orders, but not every campaign setting does, take Eberron for example. There are 4 factions that would attempt to hunt you down. First off we have The Silver Flame. Great bunch of paladins, whose most powerful statted member is level 20 but can't leave her church with that power, and second most powerful statted member is level 8. Yea, a level 8 paladin and 3 dozen level 1-6 paladins are going to whittle you down if you are alone, but you aren't. You have a party, but more importantly you have that army of mooks that you said are basically worthless. Secondly you have the Ghaashkala, an order of raging orc paladin barbarians (seriously) who as far as I could recall have no statted members and are supposed to be a minor order. You have the paladins of the Sovereign Host who have so much else to do that unless you really overdo it; and even then I think their most powerful was around level 12, which is a suitably difficult encounter, but one that the party should be able to take on. The one order that you would fear is a faction of aerenal elves that hunt down undeath, but they don't have teleportation abilities.... so... Teleport. This is not saying that there aren't campaigns where paladin orders wont hunt you down, but if you are playing an undead, in an undead party, with the DM's permission, then the DM won't go out of their way to obliterate you.

I think there may be a difference with the tables you seem to frequent compared to my own, in that it sounds like your DMs are cruel, capricious, and stomps anything and everything that might mess with the story out of existence.

Are you sure this whole thing shouldn't be blue? I mean ignoring the Thrane a country of 2.4 million is a theocracy devoted to Silver Flame I guess you can take a jab at an elven year old because she is only a level 18 cleric while in the Flame Keep. However, just inside of the campaign setting I counted 5 characters besides Jaela Daran the eleven year old Keeper of flame. Also the typical Silver Flame priest is statted as a level 4 cleric and there are temples of the silver flame in basically every single city in Khorvaire. Eberron doesn't typically try and stat out many people just so it leaves power level up to the DM and table.

[Thurbane]

Is NPC factions potentially curb-stomping monstrous/evil PCs something we should be taking into account when calculating LA?

Seems very counterproductive, since it is going to vary massively on the individual table, campaign and DM.

[danielxcutter]

Fair, but I still don’t think you should assume you’re going to get buttloads of high-CR creature corpses anyways.

[Morphic tide]

Fair, but I still don’t think you should assume you’re going to get buttloads of high-CR creature corpses anyways.

I mean, unless the DM is extremely insistent on not using reanimatable monsters, you do have combat encounters. And you don't need buttloads in the slightest, you just need 3-5 that are solid Skeletons/Bone Creatures to cover your cap and occasional replacements if the party doesn't have the healing to spare.

[Thurbane]

I mean, unless the DM is extremely insistent on not using reanimatable monsters, you do have combat encounters. And you don't need buttloads in the slightest, you just need 3-5 that are solid Skeletons/Bone Creatures to cover your cap and occasional replacements if the party doesn't have the healing to spare.

Agreed. And the nice thing is that you even provide your own Fast Healing aura for your undead minions.

If your main schtick is undead minions, and the DM goes out of the way to make acquiring bodies difficult, then there are bigger issues at play than your LA.

Sure, you might not be able to cherry pick every single specific monster you want to animate, but in the course of adventuring, there should be enough combat encounters to keep you fairly well stocked.

[danielxcutter]

Well, it's a good thing the CL problem can be partially worked around with if you use Desecrate.

How does this compare to a... I want to say Wizard or Sorcerer, but even ignoring the tier differences I think Dread Necromancer might be a better comparison?

[Falontani]

How does this compare to a... I want to say Wizard or Sorcerer, but even ignoring the tier differences I think Dread Necromancer might be a better comparison?

Dread Necromancer and Death Master are the comparisons to undead minionmancy; however they do have spellcasting.

A Dread Necromancer has Animate Dead, but does not yet have Create Undead. The Dread Necromancer's undead pool is larger and his undead are more powerful. His spells add a lot to his versatility making the Dread Necromancer more powerful than the Atropal Scion out the box at ECL 9 10 and 11. Dread Necromancers get Create Undead at level 12. However defensively the Dread Necromancer is far behind. If the Dread Necromancer spent a feat then he can heal himself with inflict spells and charnel touch, but his at will healing (charnel touch) will never match the Atropal Scion's fast healing, and it takes standard action each round to do it. The Dread Necromancer has proficiency in light armor, and even with a +5 Mithril Breastplate (+10 armor, 29,200 GP), Ring of Protection +3 (+3 deflection, 18,000 GP), an Amulet of Natural Armor +3 (+3 NA, 18,000 GP), and lets say a 14 dex for a total AC of 28 which is nearly his entire WBL at ECL 11, the atropal scion will have a +8 natural armor (free), +8 deflection (16 base cha +10 racial, free), and an 18 dex (14 base +4 racial, free) for an AC of 30 without spending any of his WBL on it and still being able to get an armor bonus either through mundane armor, spells, or bracers of armor. The Atropal Scion easily wins in the AC category. Finally the Dread Necromancer gets DR 6/magic+bludgeoning, light fortification, +2 saves vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, and disease, and a +4 bonus on saving throws vs negative energy effects, while the Atropal Scion gets undead traits and DR 10/adamantine. The final class feature that the Dread Necromancer gets is his fear aura, which I personally say compares weakly to the Atropal Scion's Aura and gaze attack.

Overall, I think the Dread Necromancer's spells may put the Dread Necromancer better offensively, but his utility spells aren't all that impressive, and his defense and survivability pales in comparison to the Atropal Scion's.

The Death Master is a slightly more interesting comparison, but long story short, the Death Master is about on par minionmancy wise as the Atropal Scion save for the Death Master's disposable undead companion, his spells are slightly better than the Dread Necromancer's for utility but falls slightly behind in offensive capability, and his defense is worse than both of theirs.

I don't think that the Atropal Scion's spell likes compare favorably to either spellcasting of the Death Master or the Dread Necromancer, but his Aura, gaze, and defensive abilities all are vastly more powerful than the Death Master and Dread Necromancer's non spellcasting abilities. (although we are comparing a creature to spellcasters here).

So the Atropal Scion definitely compares well against them, even lacking any sort of spellcasting at all. Progression wise, Dread Necromancers usually stop taking dread necromancer levels at level 8, and Death Masters either go pure or stopped taking death master levels the moment they qualified for a prestige that progressed spellcasting.

Future Advancement of the Atropal Scion is not as easy as either the dread necromancer nor the death master, but the Atropal Scion can take a cleric or ur priest level and then enter straight into Master of Shrouds which is a decent undead focused minionmancy summoning class. Add a single level of Marshal to that for Aura of Tactics and the Atropal Scion's summoned shadows (which use incorporeal touch attacks, allowing them to hit far above their paygrade, and being incorporeal are still worthwhile in many fights) hit for 1d6+8 str damage.
If the Atropal Scion is in a party with a focused necromancer, then the Atropal Scion can easily take a level in Divine Crusader and them level in Bone Knight to give the Necromancer (or even just himself) a higher undead pool through your Bone March ability. Sure the Bonecraft Armor isn't doing as much for you as it would a human, but your entering the class for the proficiency in armors, weapons, shields, minionmancy, and progressing the Deathbound Domain.

I personally would be able to have fun, and stay relevant compared to another necromancer while playing an Atropal Scion with LA +2.

[danielxcutter]

How much optimization and sourcebook diving do you need to make this viable? I'm not saying this doesn't have a lot more potential than I expected, but Ur-Priest is kind of eh for me and I'm not sure if you can progress your innate Rebuke Undead with prestige classes by RAW.

Personally I'd just go with Horned Harbringer and try to find a way to qualify for Elder Giant Spellcasting, I dunno. Would that work?

[Falontani]

Honestly you could make a decent build out of the Atropal Scion with just core and libris mortis. A single level of rogue, ranger, bard, or even monk to get the hide ranks and you can enter Lurking Terror, combined with Ability Focus you have +5 to the DC of your Death Gaze and hide in plain sight. I believe people have to see you to be affected by your gaze attack, so this would allow you to hide from even allies and only use your gaze attack if you were ready to kill whatever was in sight. The aura does hit everyone, but you don't have to create wights if you dont want to.

Cleric level into Master of Shrouds combined with Necromantic Might and you still have Shadows that hit for 1d6+2 str damage and have fast healing and turn resistance.

+5 RHD into Blackguard and you will be far stronger than a core + Libris Mortis only Paladin of your same ECL. (alternatively just take 2 ranger into blackguard)

Pure Cleric wouldn't be terrible, at level 18 you would have Divine Power, which honestly isn't terrible and you'd still be effective as a minionmancer.

You will never be as powerful as a cleric, wizard, druid, or probably even a sorcerer. But no matter how you advance, you will probably be a good to powerful T3. (if you care about the tiers)

[danielxcutter]

Honestly you could make a decent build out of the Atropal Scion with just core and libris mortis. A single level of rogue, ranger, bard, or even monk to get the hide ranks and you can enter Lurking Terror, combined with Ability Focus you have +5 to the DC of your Death Gaze and hide in plain sight. I believe people have to see you to be affected by your gaze attack, so this would allow you to hide from even allies and only use your gaze attack if you were ready to kill whatever was in sight. The aura does hit everyone, but you don't have to create wights if you dont want to.

Hmm, I suppose you could do worse... wait Bard has Hide as a class skill?

Cleric level into Master of Shrouds combined with Necromantic Might and you still have Shadows that hit for 1d6+2 str damage and have fast healing and turn resistance.

+5 RHD into Blackguard and you will be far stronger than a core + Libris Mortis only Paladin of your same ECL. (alternatively just take 2 ranger into blackguard)

Pure Cleric wouldn't be terrible, at level 18 you would have Divine Power, which honestly isn't terrible and you'd still be effective as a minionmancer.

I personally don't think this thing should be focusing on melee, if only because it has relatively poor physical stats. Especially when there are other things you can do.

You will never be as powerful as a cleric, wizard, druid, or probably even a sorcerer. But no matter how you advance, you will probably be a good to powerful T3. (if you care about the tiers)

Eh, fair enough.

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks you'd really want Divine Vigor when playing one of these? Sure, standard action, but you're primarily going to be a minonmancer and even with your varied defenses your actual hit point total is still going to be low.

[Debatra]

I believe people have to see you to be affected by your gaze attack, so this would allow you to hide from even allies and only use your gaze attack if you were ready to kill whatever was in sight.

I will again point out that creatures with gaze attacks can turn them off unless specified.

[danielxcutter]

I think there's a feat that allows you to only affect a single target anyways.

[liquidformat]

I think there's a feat that allows you to only affect a single target anyways.

Yep I believe it is in Serpent Kingdom, there are also glasses in savage species to let you go all cyclops on people.

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks you'd really want Divine Vigor when playing one of these? Sure, standard action, but you're primarily going to be a minonmancer and even with your varied defenses your actual hit point total is still going to be low.

No I was looking at that as well.

Is NPC factions potentially curb-stomping monstrous/evil PCs something we should be taking into account when calculating LA?

Seems very counterproductive, since it is going to vary massively on the individual table, campaign and DM.

My point was more you are going to have a hell of a time selling loot and getting quests in 99% of campaigns since you are walking death and most people don't take kindly to being attacked even if it is just passively so because they come within 60' of you. The aura is questionably * just because it has to be dealt with somehow or it will literally ruins campaigns. Sure the answer might be throw the shriveled fetus thing in a bag of holding whenever we come across a living thing that we don't want to kill but it still needs to be addressed and handled.

Dread Necromancer and Death Master are the comparisons to undead minionmancy; however they do have spellcasting.

A Dread Necromancer has Animate Dead, but does not yet have Create Undead. The Dread Necromancer's undead pool is larger and his undead are more powerful. His spells add a lot to his versatility making the Dread Necromancer more powerful than the Atropal Scion out the box at ECL 9 10 and 11. Dread Necromancers get Create Undead at level 12. However defensively the Dread Necromancer is far behind. If the Dread Necromancer spent a feat then he can heal himself with inflict spells and charnel touch, but his at will healing (charnel touch) will never match the Atropal Scion's fast healing, and it takes standard action each round to do it. The Dread Necromancer has proficiency in light armor, and even with a +5 Mithril Breastplate (+10 armor, 29,200 GP), Ring of Protection +3 (+3 deflection, 18,000 GP), an Amulet of Natural Armor +3 (+3 NA, 18,000 GP), and lets say a 14 dex for a total AC of 28 which is nearly his entire WBL at ECL 11, the atropal scion will have a +8 natural armor (free), +8 deflection (16 base cha +10 racial, free), and an 18 dex (14 base +4 racial, free) for an AC of 30 without spending any of his WBL on it and still being able to get an armor bonus either through mundane armor, spells, or bracers of armor. The Atropal Scion easily wins in the AC category. Finally the Dread Necromancer gets DR 6/magic+bludgeoning, light fortification, +2 saves vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, and disease, and a +4 bonus on saving throws vs negative energy effects, while the Atropal Scion gets undead traits and DR 10/adamantine. The final class feature that the Dread Necromancer gets is his fear aura, which I personally say compares weakly to the Atropal Scion's Aura and gaze attack.

Overall, I think the Dread Necromancer's spells may put the Dread Necromancer better offensively, but his utility spells aren't all that impressive, and his defense and survivability pales in comparison to the Atropal Scion's.

The Death Master is a slightly more interesting comparison, but long story short, the Death Master is about on par minionmancy wise as the Atropal Scion save for the Death Master's disposable undead companion, his spells are slightly better than the Dread Necromancer's for utility but falls slightly behind in offensive capability, and his defense is worse than both of theirs.

I don't think that the Atropal Scion's spell likes compare favorably to either spellcasting of the Death Master or the Dread Necromancer, but his Aura, gaze, and defensive abilities all are vastly more powerful than the Death Master and Dread Necromancer's non spellcasting abilities. (although we are comparing a creature to spellcasters here).

So the Atropal Scion definitely compares well against them, even lacking any sort of spellcasting at all. Progression wise, Dread Necromancers usually stop taking dread necromancer levels at level 8, and Death Masters either go pure or stopped taking death master levels the moment they qualified for a prestige that progressed spellcasting.

Future Advancement of the Atropal Scion is not as easy as either the dread necromancer nor the death master, but the Atropal Scion can take a cleric or ur priest level and then enter straight into Master of Shrouds which is a decent undead focused minionmancy summoning class. Add a single level of Marshal to that for Aura of Tactics and the Atropal Scion's summoned shadows (which use incorporeal touch attacks, allowing them to hit far above their paygrade, and being incorporeal are still worthwhile in many fights) hit for 1d6+8 str damage.
If the Atropal Scion is in a party with a focused necromancer, then the Atropal Scion can easily take a level in Divine Crusader and them level in Bone Knight to give the Necromancer (or even just himself) a higher undead pool through your Bone March ability. Sure the Bonecraft Armor isn't doing as much for you as it would a human, but your entering the class for the proficiency in armors, weapons, shields, minionmancy, and progressing the Deathbound Domain.

I personally would be able to have fun, and stay relevant compared to another necromancer while playing an Atropal Scion with LA +2.

So what I am hearing from you is in comparison to its two main comparison points dread necromancer and death master it is worse in utility/offensive, similar in minionmancy, and better in defense? Color me convinced I am changing my rating to LA +0

[danielxcutter]

Yep I believe it is in Serpent Kingdom, there are also glasses in savage species to let you go all cyclops on people.

Hah! Really? I wonder what other monsters could use that a lot... medusae would be obvious I guess...

No I was looking at that as well.

Yeah, figures. Considering base Atropal Scions have Lightning Reflexes(which is horrible), you can probably manage it unless you really need something for the prereqs.

My point was more you are going to have a hell of a time selling loot and getting quests in 99% of campaigns since you are walking death and most people don't take kindly to being attacked even if it is just passively so because they come within 60' of you. The aura is questionably * just because it has to be dealt with somehow or it will literally ruins campaigns. Sure the answer might be throw the shriveled fetus thing in a bag of holding whenever we come across a living thing that we don't want to kill but it still needs to be addressed and handled.

Yeah, even if you are Genocidal Evil you might not want that commoner to die now for some reason.

So what I am hearing from you is in comparison to its two main comparison points dread necromancer and death master it is worse in utility/offensive, similar in minionmancy, and better in defense? Color me convinced I am changing my rating to LA +0

I would actually argue that in some ways an Atropal Scion is actually better at undead minionmancy than a Dread Necromancer, now that I think of it.

[liquidformat]

I would actually argue that in some ways an Atropal Scion is actually better at undead minionmancy than a Dread Necromancer, now that I think of it.

Atropal has an easier and cheaper time creating undead out of the box for sure, undead on the cheap is something all Dread Necromancers have to address. However, there are quite a few work arounds out there and the Dread Necromancer can have significantly more undead so I think it is in a better position over all.