Palemaster Gish?

[foggman]

Hello All,

I have a character concept that involves putting all the palemaster prestige class benefits to use because they are very melee oriented. I'm essentially trying to make a wizard that can hold his own on the front lines of battle with a scythe, while casting AoE spells, using his touch abilities, and surrounded by summoned undead.

I've started out so far by making a human with:

18 Str
10 Dex
12 Con
16 Int
12 Wis
10 Cha

He went first level into fighter for extra better BAB, armor+weapon prof, etc
Now I have 5 levels in wizard to meet the requirements of the palemaster.

I was wondering if anyone had any further suggestions as to how I should proceed at this point now that I'm about to start taking levels in palemaster. Feat ideas? Item suggestions? Tactics?

 

[Dandu]

You don't have to take 5 wizard levels. You can replace one with Spellsword.

Abjurant Champion is good gish class.

 

[foggman]

Hmm interesting. If I took one level of Spellsword I would gain some more hit points, and saving throws? And I would lose the wizard bonus feat at level 5 in exchange. Might be worth it.

Has anyone here ever tried making a Palemaster into a Gish? Any advice on spells?

I guess I should mention that the party I'm playing in may also have a dedicated favored soul. In fact I may be playing both characters.

Thanks guys.

 

[Nifft]

I'm essentially trying to make a wizard that can hold his own on the front lines of battle with a scythe, while casting AoE spells, using his touch abilities, and surrounded by summoned undead.

First off, consider being a Cleric. You get some fantastic touch spells, and you can raise legions of the undead earlier, and you can bolster them with your Turn/Rebuke Undead abilities. Also, you are fantastic on the front lines.

- - -

That said, look into these PrCs for Wizardly dipping:
- Dragonslayer (Draconomicon) - (only take 1 level) grants +1 BAB, +1 spellcasting, and all armor & martial weapons. Works well as a prerequisite for...
- Spellsword (Comp Warrior) - (only take 1 level) +1 BAB, +1 spellcasting, reduces penalty for spellcasting in armor.
- Knight Phantom (5 Nations) - the beefed-up Eberron version of the Eldritch Knight, eventually grants ability to cast in armor + some spiffy bonuses for Phantom Steed, which may be thematically appropriate if you make it look all skeletal or ghostly.
- Abjurant Champion (Comp Mage) - Brilliant for a gish, but doesn't actually do anything for mage armor, which is odd.
- Master Specialist (Comp Mage) - You could enter this after 3rd level. The benefits for a Necromancer are decent.

Cheers, -- N

 

[foggman]

Hey Nifft,

Thanks for all the advice. Yah I know going for cleric is probably the better way to go for a melee necromancer type character, but I have my heart set on playing the palemaster prestige class even though from what I've heard it isn't so great.

I just love the flavor of the class, it just seems some of the benefits are fundamentally flawed for a caster. Thus, my goal is to see if I can make the prestige class work at all as more of a Gish who will hopefully be able to make use of the touch attacks, the +4 strength from the arm graft, the various undead immunities, etc.

The biggest issue I see is obviously hit points with the class being a d4, combined with my starting Con being low because I needed Str and Int to be very high to make this work at all. I've seen the Necropolitan template mentioned as a solution. Does becoming a Necropolitan change all your hit die to d12? Do you reroll your hitpoints essentially? Would this be a good idea or just redundant because I gain most of the benefits from the palemaster levels?

 

[Dandu]

I just love the flavor of the class

Solution: Paste the flavor text of the Pale Master over the flavor text of the Cleric.

 

[foggman]

Well again, I see the benefits of going Cleric, but I'm mostly trying to play by the book, and attempt the challenge of taking the Pale master prestige class in a direction that might be more suited to the benefits it grants the player.

Here are some more details on my character:

Feats so far: Power Attack, Cleave, Weapon Focus Scythe, Obtain Familiar, Scribe Scroll, and Combat Casting

As far as spell casting, I chose to specialize in necromancy for the extra spell slots. I decided to go with Conjuration and Enchantment as my forbidden schools.

My spell list so far includes:
1st level:
Chill Touch - fairly useful in early levels. We play against a lot of undead as well.
Shield - obvious AC boost for when I need to wade into the battle
True Strike - haven't used it much yet, but it should help a lot with touch attacks
Burning Hands - close range AoE
Enlarge Person - makes me or the other warrior huge with added str and range
Cause Fear - Early Crowd Control
Tenser's Floating Disk - Cool spell with lots of uses. Always seems to come in handy
Magic Missle - Staple ranged spell that scales well
2nd level:
Command Undead - Obviously needed if I want to animate undead
Bull's Strength - Big strength boost helping my hit roles
Web - More Crowd Control
Bonefiddle - Just cause it does great damage and is such a cool concept

My obvious picks for 3rd level spells next time I level are Vampiric Touch (prerequisite for pale master) and probably either haste or fireball. Other options being Displacement and Undead Torch

Thoughts??

 

[Dandu]

I decided to go with Conjuration and Enchantment as my forbidden schools.

This is probably not a good idea.

Web - More Crowd Control

Especially when considering that Web is a Conjuration spell.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

What books can you use?

Feats so far: Power Attack, Cleave, Weapon Focus Scythe, Obtain Familiar, Scribe Scroll, and Combat Casting

Get rid of Cleave and Combat Casting, they're just plain awful feats. Get rid of Weapon Focus, there's just a lot better stuff out there. Why Obtain Familiar? Did you trade yours in for an alternate class feature? Familiars really aren't that important, you could also drop that feat...

As far as spell casting, I chose to specialize in necromancy for the extra spell slots. I decided to go with Conjuration and Enchantment as my forbidden schools.

I agree with Dandu, Conjuration should never be dropped, it's too good. Drop Evocation or something. Maybe Illusion if you're focusing on minion armies and melee. Then again, Mirror Image, Displacement, invisibility spells, and Spectral Weapon (god, I love that spell) are very sexy illusion spells for a melee combatant to have.

Thoughts??

As far as whether to go to Wizard 5 or not, consider the Spontaneous Divinations alt. feature from Complete Champion. Lets you swap your level 5 or high wizard bonus feat for the ability to spont. cast ANY divination spell that you know in place of a prepared spell. Especially with Spell Compendium, there are quite a few useful Div. spells for a fighter/mage to make use of. This is assuming you have those two books, of course.

 

[foggman]

mmm yea my bad on the Web spell. Not sure how I missed that.

I'm very new to the pen and paper dnd as you guys can probably tell.

I guess I wasn't sure which schools to prohibit. It seemed like since I was going to have access to undead minions I wouldn't need the summon spells from conjuration. The cloud spells seem really good, but I guess since I will often be in the thick of the action, I thought that could be problem for both me and any minions. Could you guys enlighten me on Conjuration and why its a must have?

Yah I'm not sure on Power Attack and Cleave either. They are awesome in video games but I'm finding that I rarely make use of them in pen and paper...any advice on substitutes?
Obtain Familiar was just the special ability from taking levels in wizard, I guess that's not considered a talent.

Spectral Weapon looks really useful, thanks for pointing that out. I'll check out the Spontaneous Divinations alt feature too.