[PrC] Need help making Archivist/Dread Necro cohort

[blargney the second]

A PC in the campaign I DM just took Leadership at 9th level, and for story reasons his cohort will be a mark of justiced ex-PC cultist of Vol. He's a human dread necromancer/archivist with very good knowledge skills. I would really appreciate some help coming up with a hybridizing PrC for him.

House Rules:
- All skills are class skills and +2 skill points/level for everyone.
- This archivist uses Charisma for bonus spells rather than Wisdom, and takes -1 to Will saves.
- He has Tomb-Tainted Soul as a bonus feat from a ritual that was performed on him.

Concrete goals:
- full dual casting progression (he's the only spellcaster in this group)
- d6 hit dice, good Will saves, poor BAB
- 13 level PrC (8-20, entry requires dread necro 4/archivist 3)
- secondary character, so simple to run and no extra creatures (familiar, animated corpses, etc)
- buffs allies as an archivist and debuffs enemies necromantically
- exploits save debuffs caused by his intimidating hexblade leader

Some random ideas for abilities:
- start with Arcane Hierophant and modify from there
- grab necromantic presence from True Necromancer
- apply necromantic presence as bonus to dark knowledge against undead
- continue lich body progression (DR, fortification, lichification as capstone)
- stack with DN levels for rebuking undead
- use rebukes to fuel buffs/debuffs (metamagically? take 10 on knowledge?)
- extra dark knowledge uses/day, different abilities added?

I look forward to hearing any thoughts or suggestions!
-blarg

 

[blargney the second]

This is my first time foraying into the House Rules dominion... are things usually quiet around here, or is this just an uninspiring topic?

 

[rgard]

This is my first time foraying into the House Rules dominion... are things usually quiet around here, or is this just an uninspiring topic?

Hi, it is an interesting challenge. As the PrC is very focused for two classes, maybe our efforts here would be best served if we try to build a generic theurge PrC that allows us to plug in what special abilities we want.

I'm not a huge fan of the original Mystic Theurge PrC as I think it is too weak compared to the Arcane Heirophant, Eldritch Theurge and other later theurge type PrCs. So I envision this generic, plug 'n play theurge PrC would replace the original Mystic Theurge.

I'm away from home this week dealing with some family issue and will have limited time and internet access to help with this, but I should be able to contribute something more substantive next week.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[blargney the second]

That's a neat idea. Perhaps a way to go about it would be as a spell school specialist. A Focused Mystic, if you will.

Prerequisites: Spell Focus or specialized wizard, 4 or more arcane spells castable in that school including one of 2nd level, able to cast 2nd level divine spells, turn or rebuke undead.

There'd be a different suite of class abilities for each school of magic, using turn attempts to fuel some of them. And maybe some extra benefits for specific divine class features like domains, wild shape, archivist's lore, or what have you.