Necromancer Build - any help?

[Shard O'Glase]

I've never like the fact that they made evil clerics better necromancer than a specialist necromancer. They fixed a lot of that with 3.5 though, by putting a lot of the create undead spells in the sorc/wiz spell list.

it doesn't bother me much when its a evil deity cleric, it doesn't bothe rme at all when its a death god based cleric, it bothers me though that a neutral cleric of nature, or someother fluffy bunny like neutrality is a beter necro than a necromancer.

Still yes 3.5 made the wizard a vialble choice for a necro. Personally though I'd never go specialist, I'd just be a generalist who happened to cast more necro spells than other types of spells. Giving up 2 schools for any school heck no. But for those who highly value the flavor of specializiton and or the extra spell per level go for it.

And heck if your talking armies of dumb undead, the wizard makes a better necro than the cleric. That 2nd level comand/control undead spell lasts for days. A bunch of 2nd and 3rd(extended)slots devoted for that twice a week can create a sizable force in no time at high levels. This will allow you to bypass that pesky hit die limit put into animate dead. Especially considering its based on a individual undead and not hit die worth. Heck 40ish 10hd+ skeletons aint a bad mook force to slow and hassle your opponents.

 

[Nightfall]

Shard raises some good points. Course I honestly don't care about nature deities. I prefer ones that are more inclinded to be vindicitive, like sea goddesses!

 

[Olive]

it doesn't bother me much when its a evil deity cleric, it doesn't bothe rme at all when its a death god based cleric, it bothers me though that a neutral cleric of nature, or someother fluffy bunny like neutrality is a beter necro than a necromancer.

I agree with this, and it's why I'd like to draw up more complete spell lists for my clerics, based on each spell, rather than just allowing domains to handle the customisation for me.

 

[LGodamus]

malarky on all that...you dont need prcs and you definately dont need some stinkin cleric...you need the necromancer base class from secret college of necromancy...it is set up to do nothing but be the best necromancer...period. But thats all you can do with it....but if you want undead turning and all the good arcane and divine necro spells you got it....

 

[Nightfall]

LG,

While I appreciated GR's effort, I felt that making a base class THAT strong was just an excuse to abuse MORE than just your players. Sadly I've not use that book but I will say it's a decent GR book.

 

[Olive]

While we're on the subject of Necromancer core classes, what did people think of the ones in that recent Dragon?

 

[Nightfall]

Olive, was that in Dragon 315 or 314?

 

[Shard O'Glase]

haven't seen any necro core classes yet, I'd be interested in that so I might have to pick up a dragon mag. And at least look through the book previously mentioned.

What I really think they should do though is something similar to monte cook's arcana unearthed spells. In that he had 3 levels of spells for each spell one cast at 1 level lower 1 cast at the norm level and 1 cast at 1 level higher. For D&D though I'd instead like to see a normal spell and a spell cast by a specialist wizard and domain spell of a cleric.

For example: animate dead 3rd level cleric/4th level wiz/sor.

Spell as normal text here.

If cast by a necromancer or a cleric with the death or undead domains this spell doesn't require a material component and they can create and command up to 6hd per level of undead instead of the normal 4.(don't remember exactly what animate undead does now in 3.5)

With somehting like this a specialist actually has some flavor built into the mechinics, and it gives a reason to be one. Heck take away 3 schools if that's what it takes. Though I'd likely prefer a lack of a bonus spell per spell level and the need to pick to opposition schools where you either couldn't cast learn spells or you cast diminshed versions.

Sort of like adding yet another paragraph to animate dead that said. If necromancy is an opposition school, the material components are twice as expensive and you only animate/control 2/hd worth of undead per level.

I'd much prefer this to 9 new core classes the necro, the abjurist, the enchanter, the illusionist etc.

 

[Nightfall]

Shard,

The core class necromancer in Secret College, has their own spell list as well as A LOT of spell-like abilities. It's almost like a super-charged necromancer specialist with few/no draw backs. (Well other than can't be good.)

 

[LGodamus]

nightfall thats not exactly true......They get less castable per day than a wizard and a ridiculously restrictive spell list...they are really only overpowered on paper...much like a monk ...I have used them as both villains and PCs and they still arent any stronger than a cleric...except in dealing with the undead.