Need help creating a 3.5 gestalt character. Artificer/something

[Styxx223]

Hey, I'm building a character and the plan is an artificer, I'm thinking of either Dread Necro or Cleric. I like the idea of a necromancer and the GM is willing to work with it (Going as far as planning to let me build my own dungeon with custom traps etc) My GM has allowed the use of the Lost Tradition feat and of stacking magical artisan and extraordinary artisan. Please feel free to make any offerings. My sort of plan is to have some low tier skeletons for the dungeon along with my other minions (Constructs from Artificer and other monster races gained via rp or purchase, I have a sweet idea for a gelatinous cube pitfall trap) I don't know if I'm missing any important details here, I'm planning on being a human for the bonus feat. So I guess my question is what class is best paired with Artificer to be a necromancer as well?

[thethird]

What level are you starting at? What's in your party? That combination sounds like something that will hog a lot of play time (not that it won't be fun).

Personally I think that dread necromancer is going to be giving you better results that a cleric. The biggest downside from a dread necromancer to a cleric necromancer is missing some spells that would help you and that can be done with scrolls from the artificer.

[Jervis]

Hey, I'm building a character and the plan is an artificer, I'm thinking of either Dread Necro or Cleric. I like the idea of a necromancer and the GM is willing to work with it (Going as far as planning to let me build my own dungeon with custom traps etc) My GM has allowed the use of the Lost Tradition feat and of stacking magical artisan and extraordinary artisan. Please feel free to make any offerings. My sort of plan is to have some low tier skeletons for the dungeon along with my other minions (Constructs from Artificer and other monster races gained via rp or purchase, I have a sweet idea for a gelatinous cube pitfall trap) I don't know if I'm missing any important details here, I'm planning on being a human for the bonus feat. So I guess my question is what class is best paired with Artificer to be a necromancer as well?

If prestige classes are allowed then Chameleon is amazing since it lets you swap out which of the magical artisan feats you’re using daily as well as grab weird feats like craft moving portal, portal master, Craft rod, the graft feats, etc. Since you’re going human anyway might as well grab Able Learner since chameleon’s floating bonus feat pays itself back in spades. Probably worth it even if it’s just a two level dip for the feat since artificer on one side can fend for itself. Besides that Factotum for all the skills and Int synergy is amazing. Psion to give some psionic item versatility might be useful but probably isn’t worth it unless you want to do the stupid thing and take Thralheard + Undead Leadership + Leadership on your psicrystal for maximum free labor on your dungeon. Wizard eventually gives underwarden for making a dungeon for free but making a wand of it is probably cheaper. Cleric + Bone Knight makes one of the best undead army spam builds out there

[Styxx223]

What level are you starting at? What's in your party? That combination sounds like something that will hog a lot of play time (not that it won't be fun).

Personally I think that dread necromancer is going to be giving you better results that a cleric. The biggest downside from a dread necromancer to a cleric necromancer is missing some spells that would help you and that can be done with scrolls from the artificer.

We have a character who's plan is to stack swift hunter/swift ambusher to make the ultimate creature in so far as precision damage and a muscle cleric who has almost 30 strength and is using it for. And we're starting level one

[Curbludgeon]

A Divine Anima Mage build comes online quickly, particularly since one could use the 4th level Artificer Bonus feat for the prerequisite metamagic.. Binding Tenebrous helps add the Necromancer flavor. Since two of the other characters are leaning towards frontline supremacy one might as well lean into hanging back.

[thethird]

We have a character who's plan is to stack swift hunter/swift ambusher to make the ultimate creature in so far as precision damage and a muscle cleric who has almost 30 strength and is using it for. And we're starting level one

Given that you have a party I wouldn't too much go into minionmancy, that will give you very long turns as opposed to other people's turns.

But since this is what you asked for advice wise let's try to look at options and what would be best.

- Actually raising undead, as an artificer you can do this from lvl 1 by crafting a scroll for animate dead from a death master (2nd lvl spell). So you are going to be carrying undead around pretty early.

- Prestige classes, you probably aren't going to prestige around on the artificer, that means that if you prestige around it's going to be on the other class. Dread necromancer isn't a big fan of prestige classes any way. That means that cleric might be the way to go if you want to get prestige classes. Do you want prestige classes?

- Feats both the artificer trying to trick things into cost reduction, and the necromancer trying to make their undead better want several feats. If you want a prestige class then you will also want feats to meet the prerequisites for that prestige class. Meaning you want more feats. Do you want prestige classes?

- What are your stats? If you have a cleric with 30 strength on the party you probably aren't too shabby yourself. Do we really need lost tradition to play around with our stats or can we be relatively MAD? Note that you will still want some charisma as it will be determining your UMD and Turn Attempts, and some Intelligence for it will impact most of your crafting skills / skills in general.

- Can you be an undead? Is being a necropolitan an option? Can you be a pimped out necropolitan? For example, were you turned a necropolitan in a desecrate altar? Was whoever turned you into a necropolitan an 8th lvl dread necromancer? Had he the corpsecrafter feats? You probably owe that guy a lot, so that guy is probably your boss.

- Can you spell stitch down the line? The template calls for a wizard or sorcerer doing it, so it probably is okay with arcane magic, i.e. a dread necromancer, but not divine magice, i.e. a cleric.

[Athan Artilliam]

Why not go with a Tome of Battle class & take White Raven maneuvers? Be a warlord of steel commanding a small army of Homunculi & Golem?

[Maat Mons]

Since Artificer is all about preparation, maybe gestalt it with something all about spontaneity.

[Athan Artilliam]

Since Artificer is all about preparation, maybe gestalt it with something all about spontaneity.

Artificers build armories for that

[RandomPeasant]

Since Artificer is all about preparation, maybe gestalt it with something all about spontaneity.

Personally, I'd probably go Beguiler. Artificer really suffers at low levels (you need to make a DC 20+ UMD check to do anything in combat, and that's just not happening), and that's exactly when Beguilers shine the most. It also has the same stat priorities you do, can go PrC where Artificer doesn't particularly want to (Mage of the Arcane Order and Rainbow Servant are classic choices), and has some specialized magic items it wants.

[Styxx223]

Given that you have a party I wouldn't too much go into minionmancy, that will give you very long turns as opposed to other people's turns.

But since this is what you asked for advice wise let's try to look at options and what would be best.

- Actually raising undead, as an artificer you can do this from lvl 1 by crafting a scroll for animate dead from a death master (2nd lvl spell). So you are going to be carrying undead around pretty early.

- Prestige classes, you probably aren't going to prestige around on the artificer, that means that if you prestige around it's going to be on the other class. Dread necromancer isn't a big fan of prestige classes any way. That means that cleric might be the way to go if you want to get prestige classes. Do you want prestige classes?

- Feats both the artificer trying to trick things into cost reduction, and the necromancer trying to make their undead better want several feats. If you want a prestige class then you will also want feats to meet the prerequisites for that prestige class. Meaning you want more feats. Do you want prestige classes?

- What are your stats? If you have a cleric with 30 strength on the party you probably aren't too shabby yourself. Do we really need lost tradition to play around with our stats or can we be relatively MAD? Note that you will still want some charisma as it will be determining your UMD and Turn Attempts, and some Intelligence for it will impact most of your crafting skills / skills in general.

- Can you be an undead? Is being a necropolitan an option? Can you be a pimped out necropolitan? For example, were you turned a necropolitan in a desecrate altar? Was whoever turned you into a necropolitan an 8th lvl dread necromancer? Had he the corpsecrafter feats? You probably owe that guy a lot, so that guy is probably your boss.

- Can you spell stitch down the line? The template calls for a wizard or sorcerer doing it, so it probably is okay with arcane magic, i.e. a dread necromancer, but not divine magice, i.e. a cleric.

To answer all your questions/concerns in order
First of all while I am doing some minionmancy my plan is one or two undead that are very strong and using the rest of my basic units (The bloody skeletons and whatnot) to guard a base.

I don't really plan much on prestiges, I was originally going to build towards bone knight but decided against it

My stats are 20 18 18 16 16 14, most of the reason the other guy has a 30ish strength is because the gm allowed a really strong race for him.

I might be able to talk my gm into letting me set that up but it's unlikely.

GM would probably let me spell stitch myself

[thethird]

To answer all your questions/concerns in order
First of all while I am doing some minionmancy my plan is one or two undead that are very strong and using the rest of my basic units (The bloody skeletons and whatnot) to guard a base.

I don't really plan much on prestiges, I was originally going to build towards bone knight but decided against it

My stats are 20 18 18 16 16 14, most of the reason the other guy has a 30ish strength is because the gm allowed a really strong race for him.

I might be able to talk my gm into letting me set that up but it's unlikely.

GM would probably let me spell stitch myself

With those stats no need to go undead really, nor is there any need to pull any feat that will make your casting stat change.

Can you take flaws? You are going to be wanting feats, and if you can take flaws those will help.

If you are going artificer // dread necromancer (which is what I would do) at first level you will want tomb tainted soul. Given that your gm seems to have okayed magical artisan shenanigans you probably want either extraordinary artisan (reduce GP) or legendary artisan (reduce XP). At third level take magical artisan (whichever artisan feat you took at 1st lvl) and then at fourth take whichever feat you didn't pick at first as your bonus feat and use your sixth lvl feat to get magical artisan applied to that. That should give you as much cost reduction as you will probably ever need. It will certainly make it viable to equip whatever undead you decide to keep as bodyguards.

At 7th lvl you are going to get a familiar from dread necromancer, grab a ghostly visage and be ready to spellstitch it. If you can pull spellstitching spells from your artificer you can do some very nice shenanigans here, go wild. Look for animate dread warrior, as soon as you can spell stitch it as it will greatly improve the quality of your undead.

From there you've got some more options on your feats. I would consider craft skull talisman as one of your artificer bonus feats, it's probably thematic and you probably can craft a skull talisman while it's still attached to a skeleton or otherwise. I like putting kelgore's grave mist (cold damage per round and fatigue) on small skeletons and necrotic skull (negative levels for living things, or temp hp for undead things) on medium skeletons. Animate beyond your control and just let them on a closed room. Consider having some homunculus with enough ranks on UMD to activate scrolls of control undead to grab control of those kind of skeletons and move them if needed.

Another option for feats is the corpsecrafter line, if you go that way though ask if the dread necromancer undead mastery can count as corpsecrafter, as it's basically the same.

Another spell to keep in mind is haunt shift, this will allow you to turn undead into animating force for your items. Use haunts for everything you would like to automate in your dungeon (or in your life). You want a door that opens itself, haunt it. Haunt everything. You will have the undead to spare and you will be able to craft stuff. Make stuff with moving parts so undead can move them. Make stuff out of different undeads.

Try to get your hands on a slaymate, they are VERY useful.

[Styxx223]

With those stats no need to go undead really, nor is there any need to pull any feat that will make your casting stat change.

Can you take flaws? You are going to be wanting feats, and if you can take flaws those will help.

If you are going artificer // dread necromancer (which is what I would do) at first level you will want tomb tainted soul. Given that your gm seems to have okayed magical artisan shenanigans you probably want either extraordinary artisan (reduce GP) or legendary artisan (reduce XP). At third level take magical artisan (whichever artisan feat you took at 1st lvl) and then at fourth take whichever feat you didn't pick at first as your bonus feat and use your sixth lvl feat to get magical artisan applied to that. That should give you as much cost reduction as you will probably ever need. It will certainly make it viable to equip whatever undead you decide to keep as bodyguards.

At 7th lvl you are going to get a familiar from dread necromancer, grab a ghostly visage and be ready to spellstitch it. If you can pull spellstitching spells from your artificer you can do some very nice shenanigans here, go wild. Look for animate dread warrior, as soon as you can spell stitch it as it will greatly improve the quality of your undead.

From there you've got some more options on your feats. I would consider craft skull talisman as one of your artificer bonus feats, it's probably thematic and you probably can craft a skull talisman while it's still attached to a skeleton or otherwise. I like putting kelgore's grave mist (cold damage per round and fatigue) on small skeletons and necrotic skull (negative levels for living things, or temp hp for undead things) on medium skeletons. Animate beyond your control and just let them on a closed room. Consider having some homunculus with enough ranks on UMD to activate scrolls of control undead to grab control of those kind of skeletons and move them if needed.

Another option for feats is the corpsecrafter line, if you go that way though ask if the dread necromancer undead mastery can count as corpsecrafter, as it's basically the same.

Another spell to keep in mind is haunt shift, this will allow you to turn undead into animating force for your items. Use haunts for everything you would like to automate in your dungeon (or in your life). You want a door that opens itself, haunt it. Haunt everything. You will have the undead to spare and you will be able to craft stuff. Make stuff with moving parts so undead can move them. Make stuff out of different undeads.

Try to get your hands on a slaymate, they are VERY useful.

We're allowed to take a feat and we do pathfinder feat progression, at level one with our homerules I'll have four feats including flaws and human. At the moment I'm running with Extraordinary Artisan Tomb-Tainted Soul Magical Artisan Lost tradition, GM let me do magical artisan onto Extraordinary artisan because they technically can due to wording.

[thethird]

We're allowed to take a feat and we do pathfinder feat progression, at level one with our homerules I'll have four feats including flaws and human. At the moment I'm running with Extraordinary Artisan Tomb-Tainted Soul Magical Artisan Lost tradition, GM let me do magical artisan onto Extraordinary artisan because they technically can due to wording.

What's the point of lost tradition? You are going to have a 20 or 18 in intelligence or charisma (and viceversa) at that point what need is there for lost tradition. Put the 20 on charisma and go to town with your 18 in intelligence, infusions are good and you will get plenty already, but since you are going to be supplementing them with spells there is no big need for it.

The thing is that extraordinary artisan was errata-d to not be an item creation feat, not that I like to remember that.

[Vaern]

Artificers get to craft items without having access to the prerequisite spell.
Archivist can learn any divine spell from any spell list, granting that they have a scroll of said spell to copy into their book.
Use your artificer half to scribe spells from the druid, paladin, ranger, cleric (+domains,
), etc. spell lists, then add them to your archivist spell list to freely cast them as needed.

[Jervis]

Artificers get to craft items without having access to the prerequisite spell.
Archivist can learn any divine spell from any spell list, granting that they have a scroll of said spell to copy into their book.
Use your artificer half to scribe spells from the druid, paladin, ranger, cleric (+domains,
), etc. spell lists, then add them to your archivist spell list to freely cast them as needed.

Doesn’t work, archivists specifically scribe divine spells not spells from divine spell lists, Artificer is explicitly neither arcane or divine. Warlocks could do it though

[thethird]

Doesn’t work, archivists specifically scribe divine spells not spells from divine spell lists, Artificer is explicitly neither arcane or divine. Warlocks could do it though

Note that because it's gestalt and the rules of cooperative crafting it could craft a spell cooperating with itself to make it work. Gestalt has some fun consequences. It still can work with an artificer and an archivist scribing the scroll together.