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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Azaar" data-source="post: 21753" data-attributes="member: 1988">Wizard + PrC level, insofar as determining the caster level for animate dead and the create undead/create greater undead.I can, admittedly, make those spells subject to arcane spell failure as a potential balancing act, but what would be the use, since anyone worth his salt won't wear armor and remove the arcane spell failure chance anyway, unless I make a flat arcane spell failure percentage chance in which the spell fails, as well as make it take up a spell slot in the daily preparation.  That is something to consider, especially given a suggestion at the WOTC forums wherein I add the necromantic clerical spells as arcane spells... could add +1 level insofar as determining the spell level (create undead being a 7th level spell instead of 6th level as it is for clerics, for example), and make it not only count as one of your daily prepared spell slots, but also give them a straight arcane spell failure penalty, armor or no armor.Otherwise, as to it being more 'versatile'... I disagree.  Once per day at best, as opposed to a cleric capable of four casts per day (five, if you're Death domain) when creating intelligent undead and focusing on nothing else... doesn't begin to compete, and I won't even go into using higher spell slots for the clerics in determining just how many times each of the create undead/create greater undead spells can be cast by a cleric concentrating solely on creating undead.  This isn't about making a PrC that can out-do the cleric... something that every WOTC forum nay-sayer (who all, without fail, admitted to being cleric players) tried and failed to prove.  The Archetypal Necromancer can't (and shouldn't) compete against a cleric (let alone a Death domain cleric) and expect to win.  It won't happen.  That sort of comparison isn't the focal point of this PrC, and I admit to some surprise at how many choose to automatically compare it to clerics (who have their own balance problems to begin with, from what I've seen and read) and then complain because I give this PrC two whole cleric spells, each castable only once per day, and neither one of them available until higher levels of the PrC.I mean, let's face it:  arcane necromancers got hosed.  Between 2nd edition AD&D and 3E, they lost quite a few spells that had previously been a part of their arcane school.  Most of the spell additions (Tome of Magic, Complete Book of Necromancers, Complete Book of Wizards)... tossed.  The 3E PHB necromancy spells are a hodge-podge of most of the weaker necromancy spells that were listed in the various books concerning spells in 2nd edition.  True, there are some good ones, but those are rarities... exceptions rather than the rule.  There are also the 3E conversion attempts of the Complete Book of Wizards and the Complete Book of Necromancers, but how many people are actually going to use the conversions?  Not many, in all likelihood.Like I've said from the beginning... this PrC is an attempt to re-capture the feel of the 2nd edition necromancers.  Whether it succeeds or not is a question that can't really be answered until it's playtested.  But I just find it ironic that I (and quite a few other arcane spellcasting PrC creators) get hit with our PrCs not subscribing to the 'checks and balances' of another person, while I read clerical PrC creations (or monk, or most any other class, mind you, but clerics tend to stick out the worst in my mind) that are so ridiculously overpowered it isn't funny, yet they're being lauded as some of the best PrCs on the 'Net.</blockquote>

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