Salvage My Character... if possible

[wormwood]

I've been playing a True Necromancer for a couple of years now and I'm getting tired of being gimpy. It's pretty much a running joke in the party that they could do X if only they had a real wizard, or they could do Y if only they had a real cleric. Some of these things have been sorted out by the addition of a wizard and cleric to the party. I knew this build was weak when I picked it but I liked the flavor. Unfortunately, I made a lot of very poor choices along the way and made the weak character even worse. I want to keep the character, despite his issues

Just FYI, the DM has approved re-training so I can swap feats when I level up next. Pretty much any WotC books but BoED and BoVD are good.

I'm looking for advice on retraining or just things to do going forward. The DM has said that he plans to take us into epic levels with this campaign (which means I might actually catch up eventually). So... any suggestions?

Here's where I stand at the moment:

necromancer 3/cleric of velsharoon 3/true necromancer 9
str 11, dex 13, con 14, int 19, wis 18, cha 15

Skills: concentration, know religion, know planes, know arcana, spellcraft, and spot (cross-class) are maxed or close to it. some other skills have a few ranks.
our dm uses spot a LOT. it's necessary.

Feats: Skill Focus (spellcraft), Fell Drain, Corpsecrafter, Spell Focus (necromancy), Practiced Caster (wizard), Practiced Caster (cleric)

Domains: Undead, Death

items of note: ring of freedom of movement, mithril buckler, studded leather +2 with no asf (slightly better than twilight enchantment), headband +2 int and wis, cloak of resistance + 2, tons of scrolls and wands

[Lady Tialait]

I would change out a few of my feats for more Corpse Crafter feats. as for the Wizard levels look into Dread Necro, that is if Heros of Horror is available. if not see if you can beg your DM for a little help from the Unearth Arcana for the Varient Necromancer. Also if you want to start takeing Mystic theurge it will help your casting ALOT..but other then those suggestions I see no problems.

[cupkeyk]

Get Precocious Apprentice (Summon Undead II) and drop two cleric levels OR Precocious Apprentice (Command Undead) and drop two levels of wizard. Then get only enough Dread Necromancer levels before the second group of two levels of True Necro where you get only spellcasting progression in one of your two classes. I think its 5 levels or six? Then get Mystiuc theurge for the rest of your levels. With twenty levels you have Cleric 4 Wizard 1 True Necro 5 Mystic Theurge 10 OR Cleric 1 Wizard 4 True Necro 5 Mystic Theurge 10. You can then decide if you will have CL18 in either wizard or cleric and CL12 in the other.

[wormwood]

I've considered dropping Fell Drain (it's pretty useless but I like the flavor) for a corpsecrafter feat. Heroes of Horror is available and I considered just rolling up a Dread Necro as a replacement character. I don't think the DM will let me replace the necromancer levels with Dread Necro... too big of a change going from an int based prepared caster to a charisma based spontaneous one. The same goes for the necro variant. I used my familiar an awful lot at lower levels, he's not likely to let me drop it. From here on out, taking MT won't help my caster levels but I can definitely see if he'll let me re-train those levels as MT instead of True Necro.

If I can convince him to let me, I'll definitely try swapping a feat for Precocious Apprentice and retraining a couple of levels.

The biggest issue is that the character has been around for the whole campaign and I don't know how big of a change the DM will allow. I've talked to him about dropping the guy entirely and rolling up someone who doesn't blow. He seemed sad about that, since my character is one of few originals in the game, but was willing to go with it. I'll see what he says about this stuff.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[killer4571]

get the mouther cyst feat and take the cyst spells and find some bug creatures to control perminantly then ley them say well if only we had a clericwhen there is a hydra or somthing fighting at your side

[icefractal]

Actually, Fell Drain can be pretty useful, but only with the right spells - Magic Missile, Produce Flame, or Decomposition, for instance. The advantage is that there's no save against the negative level, so low-level spells that do a small but irresistable amount of damage go well with it.

That said, another Corpsecrafter feat may serve you better in this case.

Edit: Thinking about it, switching to a straight Dread Necromancer might not be a bad idea. Certainly, your undead-army skills would be superior. And while you couldn't heal others, you could heal yourself (with TTS) and your minions at will. This would be less retraining and more a total swap, but thematically it's the same character - see if the DM would be cool with it.