Hunter of the Dead

[atomn]

Hi everybody,
What do you all think about the Hunter of the Dead PrC's fifth level ability? To paraphrase, any undead killed by a 5th level HotD (by either weapons or magic) are completely destroyed forever. It sounds pretty nifty and useful, but would it really have much effect in a game? I ask because I wanted to make an undead killer and 5 levels of HotD really takes away from spell casting ability. Thanks for any opinions!

 

[javcs]

Vampires and liches.
Keeps 'em from coming back to hit you later.

And it keeps necromancers from re-raising as zombies or skeletons other undead you took out earlier.

 

[atomn]

Vampires and liches.
Keeps 'em from coming back to hit you later.

And it keeps necromancers from re-raising as zombies or skeletons other undead you took out earlier.

So that power would negate that whole "find and destroy the lich's phylactery" thing in order to destroy it? That's pretty slick, I imagine.

So you'd consider it worth the lost levels of cleric?

 

[javcs]

That's what it appears to be, your DM might well disagree, though.
Your DM might rule that the vampire or lich got a level check to see if they can attempt to come back.

Is it worth the cleric level loss? Depends on the campaign, in an undead heavy campaign, it's probably roughly equivalent, though the loss of spells, turning attempts, and caster levels won't be fun. It's probably best if there's another cleric in the party - that way there's less in the way of lost higher level cleric spells.
You might want to stay for six levels, for the extra turning feat for free and another use of smite undead, along with one 3rd level spell slot.

 

[atomn]

Cool, thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Shadeus]

I can't quite remember the pre-reqs for HoD, but I think there's a +5 BAB, which means a level 7 cleric will qualify. I would stick with being a cleric. Level 9 cleric = disrupt weapon which is the same thing and several levels faster. You can carry around a scroll of it if you really want to get it early.

The HoD is really only good for going up to the undead and hitting them hard. Their turn progression doesn't continue which means turning will quickly become useless for them.

Stick to cleric, get a phylacrety of undead turning, +1 sacred shield, Improved Turning, and you can turn undead as a cleric 7 levels higher. Also if you get a high enough turn check, you can destroy undead, so that too is another way to wipe out vampires and liches. (Although with +4 Turn Resistance, it's not very likely.)

 

[atomn]

Ah, I hadn't seen that spell before. You're probably right then, not really worth it. Thanks!

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I do not really think the this PrC is usually a good choice unless you are primarily a melee-focused Fighter/Cleric type or a Paladin, or you are in a campaign swimming in undead, or killing a specific Lich is a long-term campaign goal.

Remember that you need to make the killing blow. Is your party really going to hold off finishing a Lich for a round so you can make the killing blow? What if you fail your first try?

If you are going to do this, do not just make a normal Cleric and take HotD levels instead of Cleric levels. Build a PC that a highly competent toe-to-toe asskicker in the first place. Even a straight Cleric can work for this role if you build him that way from level 1. A melee Cleric that does not cast direct attack spells and intends to pick up non-caster other levels can make do with a starting 12 or 11 Wis, and thereby has some room to pump up Str and Con.

 

[Shadeus]

I do not really think the this PrC is usually a good choice unless you are primarily a melee-focused Fighter/Cleric type or a Paladin, or you are in a campaign swimming in undead, or killing a specific Lich is a long-term campaign goal.

Remember that you need to make the killing blow. Is your party really going to hold off finishing a Lich for a round so you can make the killing blow? What if you fail your first try?

If you are going to do this, do not just make a normal Cleric and take HotD levels instead of Cleric levels. Build a PC that a highly competent toe-to-toe asskicker in the first place. Even a straight Cleric can work for this role if you build him that way from level 1. A melee Cleric that does not cast direct attack spells and intends to pick up non-caster other levels can make do with a starting 12 or 11 Wis, and thereby has some room to pump up Str and Con.

That's good advice. Take 5 levels of paladin and qualify at level 6. You get the great Cha so you have lots of turning attempts. You will never use them to turn undead though. Use them to fuel Divine Might (for the non-undead encounters) and Sacred Vengeance (+2d6 to each attack against undead).

If you just want to kick butt on undead in general, you are better off sticking with straight cleric. Take the Sun domain and get Sunbeam and Sunburst (both of which are nasty against undead).

 

[Nyeshet]

While I believe you are right about it slaying a Vampire (ie: preventing it from becoming mist upon falling to 0 hp and seeking a place to heal), I don't think it would slay a lich - not unless the killing blow was struck upon the phyllactery. There was an advanced lich a while back that had multiple phyllacteries. The Hunter of the Dead might be able to slay that lich by destroying only one of its phyllacteries.

The problem is that the lich's life is not stored in their body (unlike a vampire and most other creatures). It is stored in the phyllactery. In effect, I tend to think of liches controlling their bodies from afar as if via some from of remote control. If their body is slain, well, the life force was not in it to begin with.

For all non-liches, however, you are right. It the last blow - the strike that decreases the hp to 0 - is from a Hunter of the Dead (level 5+), then the undead is permanently destroyed.

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I've always wondered. Why do you suppose the PrCs with those few spells and miniscule spell lists are treated in such a way? Why not have it grant, say 3 or 4 levels of casting as a cleric (levels 2, 5, 8 or levels 1, 4, 7, 10)? Why not have the Assassin gain a similar number of levels as an arcane caster? In the end it would make it much easier to deal with PrCs like this. By the level they gain any casting, most of it is so low in level as to be borderline useless anyway. This way it could perhaps aid in the casting level and spells known of whatever class they needed to access the PrC in the first place - or a thematic appropriate class (such as cleric for HotD).