Questions about True Necro. and Ur-Priest

[Nebt Bhakau]

I'm confused by a couple of things about the qualifications for these prestige classes. I humbly beseech those with rules knowledge exceeding my own for help. Comments, clarifications, baseless accusations always welcome!

1.) Ur-Priests require "Spell Focus (evil)". I thought you could only take spell focus for a school, not for a domain/descriptor. What does this mean?

2.) In the True Necromancer writeup, what exactly is meant by "access" to the Death domain? If I can cast a death domain spell as a divine spell without having chosen Death as one of my domains, do I count as having access?

3.) Also in the True Necro writeup, one of the requirements is "...ability to cast divine spells, including animate dead." Does this mean that I must be able to cast animate dead as a divine spell? How does Southern Magician affect all this?

Thanks in advance for any help you might offer!

 

[green slime]

1.) Ur-Priests require "Spell Focus (evil)". I thought you could only take spell focus for a school, not for a domain/descriptor. What does this mean?

You are correct. the description of Spell Focus in the PHB explicitly says spell focus applies to schools. This proves the Ur-priest to be either a) a munchkin, or b) an NPC. Seriously, not all PrC text are so "adherent" to the rules as it should be.

2.) In the True Necromancer writeup, what exactly is meant by "access" to the Death domain? If I can cast a death domain spell as a divine spell without having chosen Death as one of my domains, do I count as having access?

You must have the domain. Death.

3.) Also in the True Necro writeup, one of the requirements is "...ability to cast divine spells, including animate dead." Does this mean that I must be able to cast animate dead as a divine spell? How does Southern Magician affect all this?

Well, I cannot see how "Ability to cast divine spells, one of which must be animate dead,..." can be construed to mean anything else other than that you must be able to cast it as a divine spell.

Southern Magic is, IMO, a particularly bad example of writing. It shouldn't even exist. What exactly does "The actual source of the spell's power doesn't change, nor does its means of preparation." mean?

IMO, it means that a sorcerer casting a divine version of animate dead would 1) have to have animate dead on his list of known spells, 2) still casts the divine variant as a spontaneous spell, 3)suffers no arcane spell failure 4)it still counts as a arcane spell.

 

[Scharlata]

1.) Ur-Priests require "Spell Focus (evil)". I thought you could only take spell focus for a school, not for a domain/descriptor. What does this mean?

The Ur-Priest from the BoVD, where it appeared first, requires a prerequisite named Malign Spell Focus [page 49]. This feat added +2 to the DC for saves versus any of the character's spells that have the evil descriptor. The Complete Divined Ur-Priest requires a prerequisite named Spell Focus (evil) [page 84] [and which is a General feat despite it's missing descriptor]. This feat adds +1 to the DC for saves versus any of your spells that have an alignment descriptor that is your own alignment [and in that case: evil]. The bonus doesn't stack with bonuses from any other Spell Focus feat.

2.) In the True Necromancer writeup, what exactly is meant by "access" to the Death domain? If I can cast a death domain spell as a divine spell without having chosen Death as one of my domains, do I count as having access?

No, because there are prestige classes that mention your case specifically. If your True Necromancer just had to be able to cast a single spell from the death domain, that would be mentioned explicitly.

3.) Also in the True Necro writeup, one of the requirements is "...ability to cast divine spells, including animate dead." Does this mean that I must be able to cast animate dead as a divine spell?

Yes, you have to.

How does Southern Magician affect all this?

Hmm? I'm lost, sorry.


Kind regards

 

[Nebt Bhakau]

Thanks for the page reference. I completely overlooked that feat in Complete Divine. D'oh.

Regarding question 2., above, and its answers: Master of Shrouds from Defenders of the Faith seems to imply that 'access' to a domain means the abillity to cast a spell from that domain. If this is so, it would be especially good news to people who cast divine spells but don't have domains per se, such as the shaman and shugenja from Oriental Adventures.

And regarding question 3, I don't know if I will ever understand Southern Magician. Is there anyone who can translate the wording of that feat into something meaningful? If I cast animate dead from my arcane spell list and use Southern Magician to make it divine, am I casting a divine spell or not?

 

[ruleslawyer]

Southern Magician is just badly-written and shouldn't exist. The feat has relatively insignificant benefits if you read it restrictively (IOW, being able to cast arcane spells with no chance of ASF and being able to cast the very few spells that have advantages depending on whether you use the arcane/divine version, like true seeing, in the more optimal form), and is totally broken if you use an interpretation that allows an arcane caster to simulate "ability to cast x-level divine spells" (or vice versa) for purposes of qualifying for a PrC. The short answer is that I wouldn't allow it, but the rules don't militate in favor of a particular interpretation.

 

[Seraph of Babel]

I'd say a wizard with Southern Magician feat (from Races of Faerun) can make his arcane spells divine as stated literally.

"The actual source of the spell's power doesn't change..."

I'd read thus: If the origin of the spell remains unchanged by the feat, e.g. gods (clerics), faith/inner force (mystics), arcane bloodline (sorcerers), etc. If you're a FR cleric and your god died, the "arcane" spell from SM is not going to help you, i.e. complete loss of spells.

"...nor does its means of preparation."

If you cast spells on the fly like a sorcerer, you still do. If you normally cast prepared spells, you still need to prepare it.

As for using it to qualify for a PrC, well, it's really the DM's call. But with regards to true necro, I don't see a point with the feat. True necro allows you to stack your wiz and clr levels for necro spells. If you are a pure wiz and used SM to qualify for it (let's say DM is ok), then you miss out on the necromancer class feature.

 

[Nebt Bhakau]

Thanks for the input everyone. I've come to the following conclusions:

1.)There is a feat called Spell Focus (evil), I just missed it.

2.)"Access" to the Death domain means that you have 'Death domain' written somewhere on your character sheet. Otherwise, this requirement is redundant, as the True Necro is already required to be able to cast animate dead as a divine spell. This means that shamans and shugenjas are just S.O.L. when trying to qualify for this class.

3.)Southern Magician doesn't really do anything.

4.)I sincerely hope that True Necromancer appears in a revised form in Complete Arcane. The requirements should read "The ability to cast animate dead as a divine spell and the ability to cast vampiric touch as an arcane spell" or "the ability to cast 3rd-level divine spells and 3rd-level arcane spells" or anything, really, so long as it isn't vague and confusing.

 

[sledged]

4.)The requirements should read "The ability to cast animate dead as a divine spell and the ability to cast vampiric touch as an arcane spell" or "the ability to cast 3rd-level divine spells and 3rd-level arcane spells" or anything, really, so long as it isn't vague and confusing.

"The ability to cast 3rd-level divine necromancy spells and 3rd-level arcane necromancy spells" would probably be most appropriate. In addition "must not have necromancy as a prohibited school" might be needed considering it's possible to be able to cast 3rd level arcane necromancy spells and still have necromancy as a prohibited school (exempli gratia the Incantatrix from PGtF and the Wizard of High Sorcery from DLCS)

 

[HellHound]

While I also hope the True Necromancer gets a rebuild in Complete Arcane, there is a necromantic prestige class that combines arcane and divine spellcasting in our recently released Secrets of Theurgy PDF. I originally wrote the class for the revised version of Necromancer's Legacy, but I began to take issue with how it broke one of the design rules of the Mystic Theurge (being that the MT only has 10 levels, thus no one can manage to get level 9 arcane and divine spellcasting in 20 character levels*). Thus I figured out a way to enforce the design basis of the Mystic Theurge and still create the Lord of Undeath, a prestige class for necromancers who can cast both arcane and divine necromantic spells, including animate dead.

---
* this of course can be worked around using the Ur-Priest as your divine spellcasting class, but that's always been a problem with the Ur-Priest - and one that I can't work around as a d20 writer as the Ur-Priest is not open content.

 

[Spatula]

The Death domain requirement is redundant. Elsewhere in DotF it is mentioned that if you can cast any spell from a domain, you are considered to have access to that domain for the purposes of entering a prestige class.