I was wondering if I would see a discussion of the Dread Necromancer here!
Personally, I think the class has great style, but I wonder if it is a bit underpowered. My two main concerns:
1. To really get the most out of the various touch effects, the DN will have to be up close and personal more than any arcane caster would ever want to do- even the Warlock and Warmage are able to stay at range. The d6 HD is better than d4, but not great nevertheless.
2. The spell components for Animate Dead are not reduced/eliminated. Given that the class' main schtick is having undead hordes act as servants, I would really have expected it to be easier to create undead.
What say you, ENWorld? Am I just wrong here, and the class is balanced as-is? Again, I really like the flavor and the abilities- I just worry that it will have a low rate of survivability.
PS - To help out with the d6 HD problem, I considered multiclassing, but losing caster levels is even worse with the DN than most arcane classes- like the Warlock, losing access to higher-level abilities *really* weakens the DN. I guess taking the armor casting feats from Complete Arcane might help... hmm...?