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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Takhisis" data-source="post: 5313948" data-attributes="member: 89689">Thanks. I was not aware of the eratta and either are the people I play with. I'm sorry for not knowing about it, so thanks again for alerting me. As for DMs that allow third party content, I've seen plenty of them, though that dose not mean I don't believe you. On the contrary, I don't expect every DM to allow this class and I understand that for every laid back DM out there there is also a DM who wants to stick to the books. All of this in the end, depends on your DM, but the point of this thread is not to say "If you want to play an arcane necromancer, play a death master." Rather the point is "The myth that arcane necromancers are inferior is foolish BECAUSE of the Death Master." While I will definitely admit that a wizard is inferior as a necromancer when compared to a cleric, for the kind of DMs you play with there is always the Dread Necromancer, and while there are issues with it's spell list, the DN is actually, at least in my books, the best NECROMANCER in the game. In early levels a DN kinda sucks and is more gish then necromancer, but once they hit level 8 they outshine even the cleric and, yes, the death master due to their undead mastery ability.  The only issue with DNs is their botched spell list, though if your DM is not a total "by the books" type then he/she should at the least let you have magic circle to make use of those Planar Binding spells. In fact, if you are nice enough and they are willing to work with you, then he/she may let you even fix some of the other spell list issues the DNs have such as the double death ward, lack of desecrate and Animate Dead as a level 4(though for some thats a minor point. For me it's a big deal, though.)Oh, and since DNs have high charisma, if you mannage to get one to epic there are some nice epic feats that you can take that deal with, well...necromancy. Zone of Animation comes to mind...However, I am not sure these feats are actually real since I first learned of them from the Neverwinter Nights PrC pack, which included them plus a lot of 3.5e classes, spells, feats ect..But anyway, as I said, I'm not trying to say that you HAVE to play a Death Master to be a good arcane necromancer and I'm sorry if the OP came off that way. The point was to dispel the myth that Arcane < Divine as far as necromancy goes, using the Death Master as the means to dispel that myth. Why not do it with a wizard? Well...a Wizard is still a sup-par necromancer who relies more on conjuration spells then actual spells of the necromancy school, but that dose not make him bad. He's still a Tier 1 and still stronger then the DN on a purely powergaming level, but the DN, Cleric and Death Master all make better necromancers then him because they have acssess to the key spells that a wizard lacks. They get inflict spells to heal their undead minions, desecrate(sans the DN) to power them up, all the nice save or die spells like destruction and slay living that the wizard lacks. The only thing the wizard has on the cleric is his debuffs and like spells, and a cleric can obtain many of those "arcane exclusive" spells via domains. The wizard, however has no way at all to gain access to any of the inflict spells, desicrate and other key clerical spells he lacks unless he becomes a Mystic Theurge or takes the arcane disciple feat. The former of which is not the most optimal PrC there is and can be rather stinky unless you use some weird and cheesy tricks which most DMs would say no too.(Alternate Spell Source, Illumian abuse and the Ur-Priest Class come to mind.) Arcane Disciple is an ok feat, but it forces you to put some points into wisdom, a traditional dump stat for wizards. So if you are in a tight point buy having to spend points in a dumb stat will detract from your more important stats and that can become an issue.  However, if your DM is generous with point buys and usually gives 32 or more points to work with, Arcane Disciple can be somewhat helpful. I would use it to take the undeath domain, personally. It gives you Desecrate, Animate Dead as a level 3, and all the higher level spells don't matter since you get them on your own spell list. This is a good thing, though, because it means you only are forced to have 13 wisdom since Desecrate and Animate Dead are not offensive spells(and thus don't need to worry about save DCs.) and you don't need access to the higher level spells since they are all on your list and you can learn them the old fashion way. As for healing your undead, that's a bit tricker. You won't get inflict spells unless you become a theurge type character, and ever since they got rid of some spells like Negative Energy Burst wizards  have far less options  in the healing of their minions. There is however, one way, but it's extremely feat intensive and forces you to use evocation spells, and evocation is usually the first school specialized wizards put to the axe. I am of course speaking of the "uttercold assault necromancer" who uses the energy substitution(cold) and Lord of the Uttercold feat to turn all his blasty evocation spells into cold spells which also do negative energy damage and thus heal their undead. This is actually, the only thing necromanticly that the Wizard dose BETTER then the cleric. They can simply go around with their undead, blasting everything and healing their undead at the same time. Add in Fell Animate for even more fun. However, despite the effectiveness of the "Uttercold Assault Necromancer" it takes a while to get there and is fairly feat intensive, which means you have less feats to spend on stuff like metamagic and corpsecrafter goodies.</blockquote>

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