Dread Necromancer

[Demoquin]

Anyone check ou the Dread Necro from Heroes of Horror? I ask because i wanted to see what you guys thought before i ask my DM to let me try it.

 

[Scharlata]

Anyone check ou the Dread Necro from Heroes of Horror? I ask because i wanted to see what you guys thought before i ask my DM to let me try it.

Hi!

It's a promising starting point for True Necromancer.

Enjoy!

 

[Shin Okada]

I think that is a good class. Seems to be a characterful and strong enough class to be played as a single-class character.

That is, basically, a necromancy warmage. It casts arcane spells without preparation in light armor. And it knows all the spells in it's class list. Most of them are of necromancy school, of course. They will get some nice and powerful class abilities when advance.

The class spell list is rather narrow. But IMHO very well balanced. It has Summon Undead spells from 1st-5th. Those spells are now revised and not broken anymore but still good enough. And necromancy school has a lot of Save or die/neutralized spells. Inflict spells are not bad as attack spells, too. And of course can heal your minion undeads.

 

[rowport]

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...?

 

[Shin Okada]

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.

I think those touch attacks are mainly for flavor. DN gets a lot of other good class abilities such ad DR, fortification and resistances. And still those touch attacks could be a good surprise when an enemy get close to an "Arcane Caster". Those touches ar Su and thus also useful when grappled.

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.

At lower levels, DN can achieve "master of the undead legion" look by summoning undead monsters. DN can cast Summon Undead spells without preparation. And she can have small number of undead guards by rebuking and controlling them. They will hold the line while she casts Summon Undead spells.

DN does not get bonuses on the number of HDs she can animate. But will gets bonuses on those minions' abilities at 8th+ levels.

The only true problem is that they can't cast Desecrate spell. But Arcane Disciple feat may help IMHO.

 

[griff_goodbeard]

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

That's what Spectral Hand is for at least at low level when you're more squishy

 

[Demoquin]

That learning feat will allow you to take any necro spell (arcane or divine) and add it to your spell list ...


Animate Dead i would do to make it 4th lvl down to 2nd lvl ... also having the potential to create more undead ... if you are rich.


how about a Monk 1/ DN 19? to improve on the defence a lil bit and always considered armed?

 

[Shin Okada]

how about a Monk 1/ DN 19? to improve on the defence a lil bit and always considered armed?

DN can wear light armor without arcane spell failure. Unless you have incredibly high Wis, adding a level of monk will only slightly improves your AC against touch attacks.

And, if you really want some defense, you can take Battle Caster feat (from CA) and Medium Armor Proficiency feat. Now you can wear Medium Armor. That means you can wear mithral full-plate.

Basically, multiclassing is not a good idea for an arcane caster, unless you takes the path of some fighter-mage type prestige classes.