DREAD NECROMANCER and TOMB-TAINTED SOUL feat---what do I do?

[moritheil]

This is more of a liability to the player than a help, as the DM will usually subconsciously correct by throwing a little more damage at a player who has the ability to heal himself/herself at will. People do not die of wounds between fights; they die of wounds in fights, and the rate of healing that combo offers is not so astronomical.

 

[Kurotowa]

It also makes combat healing harder. You get left out of the Mass Cure, you can't be hit with an emergancy Heal, and so on. Not that important at low levels, but it makes a lot of difference at high levels.

 

[Tharkon]

This isn't the only one combo for that either.
I don't know at what level you can take Dread Necromancer, since I don't have Heroes of Horror.

Touch of Healing (Complete Champion, p.62) grants a healing touch infinitely usable on all living creatures, given enough time.
Storm Bolt (Complete Mage, p.42) combined with Mechanatrix (Fiend Folio, p.137) allows healing yourself while attacking others.

 

[Wyvernhand]

Dread Necro is a base class, so it can be taken from level 1. If all of the other players put their heads together and think, they can ALL take TTS and the Dread Necro can top EVERYONE up after combat.

But really, infinite or near infinite OOC healing is amazingly easy to obtain. The player is paying a feat and playing a specfic class to get this benefit. The player could just as easily be a Binder (Tome of Magic) and bind Buer to gain Fast Healing 1 all day, and the ability to heal other players for 1 HP/touch as a standard action or 1d8+level as a full round action 1/5 rounds. She also grants you and your allies within 30' full immunity to poisons, diseases, and the Track feat.

Or buy a Wand of Lesser Vigor (CDivine) which heals 550 HP for 750g over 550 rounds (out of combat, this is amazing, in combat, not so much). Alternatively, MIC has the Healing Belt, which heals 2d8 HP per charge @ 3 charges/day for 750g each. A half a dozen belts will heal 36d8 HP damage each day for the same cost as a CL3 Wand of Cure Moderate, but again, will take a handful of rounds, and thus isn't really that amazing in combat. A single SNA IV will get you a unicorn, which has a Cure Moderate + 3x Cure Light wounds, 5 levels of cure for the price of a 4th level spell (spontaneously). The Touch of Healing reserve feat in CChamp and the Draconic Vigor aura (available to Dragon Shamen, or any dragonblooded character with a feat to burn) provide infinite healing up to 1/2 HP.

There are plenty of consumable resources for you to tire your players out. Spells, for one, combat or utility. Also, charges/day from a lot of the stuff in the MIC run low with multiple combats. Really, if you step out of core (or even within core, with CLW sticks), there is almost no reason why a PC should ever start combat with less than full HP. As long as you understand this, and plan for it, its not THAT much harder to balance. A Dread Necro who burned all of his spells is reduced to meleeing or plinking away with his composite longbow if he picked his proficiency right. That alone is worth taking a break to rest and regroup.

Required reading for anyone who gets browbeaten into playing a "healbot" cleric.

EDIT: Holy necromancery Batman! This thread is almost 5 years old!

 

[Ahnehnois]

Any thoughts?

My thought is that out-of-combat healing is not a major balancing factor in most D&D games. Most parties will rest after any legitimately challenging battle and heal up anyway. In some games, you won't even fight frequently enough for battle damage to matter. Obviously you know better than us whether your game works this way.

As others have noted, there are more infinite healing loopholes than just this one, and being quasi-undead has drawbacks. While it does feel a bit cheesy, I don't think allowing it will kill your game. That said, there's nothing wrong with just saying no to the feat if you're uncomfortable with it. Do you really want your PCs to have "tomb-tained souls" anyway?

 

[Tharkon]

Well, out of combat healing can be useful if you just won a fight and are about to bash in a door for the next fight. You wouldn't rest at that point, but free healing (not costing half your daily spells) is very welcome at that point.

 

[Stalker0]

I can say that in our 9th level planescape game the Dread Necromancer was by far the strongest character, weidling an army of undead he could heal to full without issue, as well as healing himself.

He was literally an army of one....except with hordes of undead.

 

[Empirate]

Around levels 8-10, the Dread Necromancer is at his strongest, I'd say. After that, undead creatures that're worthwhile to animate start having a few too many HD. You can't have an "army" that is also composed of creatures which are at all useful then.
When you advance a few levels, you'll probably see Wizard and Cleric leaving the DN a bit behind.

 

[NEXxREX]

iv played dread necros for an entire epic campaign and their awesome but you all are missing the point, dread necromancer.........IS A NECROMANCER.

he relies on being able to hide behind undead or other party members, their more resilient then mages but depending on their con scores they usually dont have that many HP so if they really need to use their charnel touch in combat then their playing the class wrong. cause a wand of cure mod is like what 4.5k for 50 charges and thats if your dm doesnt increase the price which cant be much if he did

the tombtainted soul is just a bonus so he can heal himself as well as summoned or constructed undead (and at lv8 he gets undead mastery so he can have 4+cha mod/hd of undead with animate dead) which is a hell of alot. its more about utility beign able to heal your created undead if nice cause THERES NO OTHER WAY TO DO IT BEISDES INFLICT WOUNDS (so if you blow your spell you got to wait a day or longer depending where you are) and the flavor is nice which if your playing in a good aligned party that doesnt know your evil gets really fun making will saves when your party tries to heal you.

and the healing cap just makes it viable out of combat, but during combat 1d8+ 1 pt evry 4 lvs......i mean cmon its pathetic at higher levels. and the tomb-tainted soul is more useful with negative energy burst for emergency healing of 1d4 per class level in a 5 ft area around you, so surround youself with undead and heal yourself and them.

the charnel touch is just 1 aspect of the class to help you out yeah being able to heal out of combat is nice but the dm can throw thing at you besides damage (ability score damage, paralysis, poison) theres a million things to get around it if you have a creative dm. so in the long run its useful but not as over powered as some of you are thinking its just another class feature to help you play a NECROMANCER....