Help! Clerical Necromancer

[Xellous]

Well I want to create an evil cleric that specializes in summoning and bolstering undead. So Im here to turn to the ENWorld crew to help me min/max this as far as I can. Im not sure of any PrC or feats that go great with this other then the True Necromancer and a few feats from LM. Any help would be greatly appriciated.

 

[Lord Morte]

Necromancer cleric rock Better survivors than non-undead arcane necromancers anyway...

PrC: Master of Shrouds from Liber Mortis. You lose a level of spell-casting but you still get nine levels of spell-casting, extra abilities and your rebuke undead stays up. Especially appropriate if you're using the summon undead spells from LM as one of the pre-reqs for the class is Augment Summoning and one of special abilities grants a bonus on attack and undead to any summoned undead.

Avoid True Necromancer unless you want to add arcane spell casting and all that entails to the mix. Master of Shrouds is much better for straight cleric.

Feats: Aside from the corpse-crafter feats in LM, I'd suggest Extra Turning and Improved Turning from the PHB, Heighten Turning, Empowered Turning and Quicken Turning from LM. That last feat allows you to bolster your undead as a free action Consider Tomb-Tainted Soul so that you don't have to worry about memorising any pesky cure spells to keep yourself alive and Undead Leadership for even more undead minions.

Domains: The real trick. The Death domain isn't actually that good for a undead specialist as the granted ability doesn't help with hordes of undead. It is a fairly good offensive ability but I'd rather have Deathbound (control three times your CL in undead) and Undeath (Extra Turning feat).

Hope that helps. Here's a non-mechanical thought: Buy your necro-cleric a skull mask, a big black cloak and a scythe. Cast air walk. Have a floating cloaked figure with a skull for a face and a scythe

 

[Drowbane]

Necromancer cleric rock Better survivors than non-undead arcane necromancers anyway...

Morte just about said it all. However he neglected Spells! (or I missed that part...?)

Book of Vile Darkness has one in particular that just makes me giddy. Basicly if one of your undead you cast it on is hit... he explodes kinda like a fireball. MWAHAHAHAHA

 

[Xellous]

Thanks for all the help guys. I completly forgot about the BoVD. Ill take a look at it. Master of shrouds is awesome btw but requiring a will save of +5 makes this classes only reachable when you are lvl 6 but the skill reqs require you to be lvl 5. Is this an oversight or intended this way?

 

[Scharlata]

Thanks for all the help guys. I completly forgot about the BoVD. Ill take a look at it. Master of shrouds is awesome btw but requiring a will save of +5 makes this classes only reachable when you are lvl 6 but the skill reqs require you to be lvl 5. Is this an oversight or intended this way?

Hi!
The requirements are:
1.) Alignment: Any nongood.
2.) Base Save Bonus: Will +5.
3.) Concentration: 5 ranks.
4.) Knowledge (religion): 5 ranks.
5.) Feats: Augment Summoning, Spell Focus (conjuration).
6.) Spells: Able to cast protection from good as a divine spell.
7.) Special: Able to rebuke undead.

If you go only "cleric" you must reach those levels before taking the MoS PrC:
1.) -; 2.) 6th; 3.)+4.) 2nd; 5.) Human 1st or Nonhuman 3rd; 6.) 1st; 7.) 1st.

If you blend another class with a good Will save bonus [bard, druid, monk, sorcerer, wizard] into your cleric build you may take the MoS as early as 4th level.
Take a level of wizard for Will +2, take another two levels of cleric for another Will +3 and you may be a MoS at 4th character level.

Enjoy!

 

[mzsylver]

Necro Necro Necro

Check out the Necromancy Domain in the Eberron book. It lets you cast Necromancy spells at +1 caster level and contains such spells as... Ray of Enfeeblement, Command Undead, Vampiric Touch, Enervation, and Energy Drain.

Combine that with Spontaneous Domain casting and you're set!

 

[Slobber Monster]

The Evil domain from the PH is also useful since it raises the CL of all undead-raising spells (they all have the Evil descriptor) and provides Desecrate and Create Undead as domain spells. Desecrate is a must for any serious undead-army raiser.

 

[Xellous]

Again thanks for all the great ideas. Now what about races? I was thinking Assimar but that +1 LA kinda sucks. Are there any +cha or +wis races that dont have a LA?

 

[Zandel]

There is another planetouched race in a dragon mag that has +2 cha..

 

[Lord Morte]

Now what about races? I was thinking Assimar but that +1 LA kinda sucks. Are there any +cha or +wis races that dont have a LA?

Not if I recall correctly, at least not in the core and splat books. Racial bonuses to Charisma and Wisdom are few and far between, I'm afraid. Aasimar would be cool, with the whole goodly paragon gone evil angle, but the LA is a factor. Personally I wouldn't worry about it as the ability bonuses strengthen the primary abilities of the build; spell casting and commanding/bolstering undead. If you don't want the LA then there is no really obvious choice for this build, although dwarf and half-orc are suboptimal due their Cha penalty while the bonus feat humans get would offset the fairly useless Spell Focus (conjuration) needed for MoS.