Undead Class Help

[ChaosandNeutrality]

I am currently preparing to jump into an extremely undead heavy 3.5v campaign setting that a friend of mine is the DM for. The party consists of the following:

11 human Paladin
5/5 human fighter Cleric
7/3 human ranger rogue (favored enemys undead)
11 sorcerer

What I'm after is an Undead class that specializes in hunting the living. Essentially a LifeHunter if you will. I've combed through the Libris Mortis and several other compendium books but i haven't found anything that really peeks my interest. Since the party specializes in hunting the undead my characters entrance adventure is ironically characterized by us being hunted back.

My default is going with a combination of vampire spawn and a ranger/rogue vampire leader, but i kinda wanted something a little more impressive.

sorry if this is convoluted and messy, forums arent my strong suit

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Try Book of Vile Darkness?

It has:
Cancer Mage - Disease and poison-based PrC, entry heavily depends on your backstory prior to becoming undead, since you must have been harmed by a disease and a poison previously to enter. Probably not the most powerful option, especially since the required feats don't help an undead much, but who wouldn't enjoy pretending to be a disciple of Nurgle (Warhammer reference)? Doesn't require or grant any spellcasting despite the name, though it offers a slew of Sp and Su abilities.
Lifedrinker - Vampire PrC, name sums up the theme.
Mortal Hunter - My personal favorite. Focused ranger-like class for slaying/infiltrating humanoids and other "mortals" (not outsiders, fey, constructs, or undead, but everything else). Requires being an outsider (some undead are outsiders, AFAIK) and it gives the most benefit if you have spell-like abilities to enhance with the Mortalbane feat required to enter.

 

[irdeggman]

Be careful if you are trying to run an undead PC in a party that contains a paladin and a ranger with favored enemy (undead).

Most undead have evil alignments (and I'm pretty sure almost all of the prestige classes from Book of Vile Darkness have evil as a prerequisite).

A paladin will not tolerate having an evil party memeber around (code of conduct and all of that).

A ranger with favored enemy (undead) will be "uneasy" around an undead, and the undead would most certainly be uneasy around him.

If your PC becomes "good" then he will no longer meet the prequisites for any prestige class that required him to be "evil" and will thus lose all class benefits until he again meets the prequisites. (See Complete Warrior pg 16).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Libris Mortis is nice book, and has a few prestige classes for undead, including a Lurking Terror and Master Vampire that might fit your needs. Worth another look perhaps.

Complete Adventurer has several classes that might fit; ghost-faced killer comes to mind.

 

[Runestar]

Are you looking for an undead monster race to play as a PC, or an undead npc to pit against your party? Sorry, but I thought your post was not very clear, and irdeggman made me wonder if I overlooked something.

Undead monster classes also have the drawback of extremely debilitating LAs, which serve only to cripple your PC to the point of uselessness.

If you need an undead adversary, then you are really spoiled for choice, IMO. I don't even know where to start...

 

[Shin Okada]

Undead monsters tend to have fewer total hps than the other creatures of same CR, because they don't have Con. So, you must be careful not giving too much class levels of small hit dice (say, d4) classes.

One of my favorite combination is incorporeal undead + Warlock levels. Incorporeal undead tend to have trouble handling material components and focuses. But invocations only have somatic. Flying incorporeal undead can unleash Eldritch Blasts and Invocations out of the range of Turning Undead. Also, being incorporeal negates one of the biggest weak-point of the warlock class (neutralized if grappled).

Be careful if you are going to use Vampire (Spawn). Though their stats seem to be good as melee combatants and sample vampires in MM are melee types, they are in trouble if PCs strongly presented a Holy Symbol or a Mirror.

Also, you must expect that PCs are using Magic Circle against Evil, maby almost always on, when playing an undead-heavy campaign. That will negate Domination ability.

 

[Shin Okada]

Oh, and subtle, rogue type classes (including Assassin, Ninja, Ghost Faced Killer, etc.) work rather well for an undead. Many undead creatures have bonus to Hide and Move Silent. And some can move through walls and/or take gaseous form to go through a small key-hole. As undead creatures don't sleep, the can wait for the right time and strike the PCs, make some swift and nasty attacks (CDG, maybe?) then run away.

 

[Dredan]

I am currently preparing to jump into an extremely undead heavy 3.5v campaign setting that a friend of mine is the DM for. The party consists of the following:

11 human Paladin
5/5 human fighter Cleric
7/3 human ranger rogue (favored enemys undead)
11 sorcerer

What I'm after is an Undead class that specializes in hunting the living. Essentially a LifeHunter if you will. I've combed through the Libris Mortis and several other compendium books but i haven't found anything that really peeks my interest. Since the party specializes in hunting the undead my characters entrance adventure is ironically characterized by us being hunted back.

My default is going with a combination of vampire spawn and a ranger/rogue vampire leader, but i kinda wanted something a little more impressive.

sorry if this is convoluted and messy, forums arent my strong suit

This is just a suggestion for you, your party or your DM, but there is a campaign setting that is in print called DREDAN Realm of Metal & Myth. It is 3.5 OGL compliant and the main enemies in the setting are Undead. This specific race of undead also has 3 prestige classes built into the setting that players can play. This is a Sci-Fi fantasy setting that can support 3.5 characters who are fantasy type characters such as wizards, pally's and it mixes in the Sci-Fi aspect. Its a full blown setting with over 75 different worlds PC's could start a campaign in, some of these worlds are nothing but complete ran over with Undead known as the VOID, other worlds are populated with Giants, dragons, elves, Illithids, Githyanki, Githerazi. The setting comes with new spells and feats that are positive and negative energy based because the whole material plane is nested between the negative and positive planes. New items, deities the whole works. I will give you a quick preview of the prestige class I think you would like..

VOID Dredan Knight
Undead commander, with animate dead, dominate monster abilities plus a few other neat things.


Level Base attack bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Special
1st +0 +0 +0 +2 Torso upgrade, Negative Aura, Detect Living1 0 -- -- --
2nd +1 +0 +0 +3 Rebuke Undead 1 --
3rd +1 +1 +1 +3 Dominate Person 1/day
4th +2 +1 +1 +4 Animate Dead 1/day
5th +2 +1 +1 +4 Dominate Person 2/day
6th +3 +2 +2 +5 Aura of the VOID 1 1 7th +3 +2 +2 +5 Dominate Monster 1/day
8th +4 +2 +2 +6 Spell Burst 1/day 30’ radius
9th +4 +3 +3 +6 Dominate Monster 2/day
10th +5 +3 +3 +7 Spell Burst 2/day 50ft radius


Enjoy, the book is available via PDF or it can be ordered. If you have any questions you can email me from the website. I am the author and publisher of the campaign setting. We play the setting now using Pathfinder rules and our current characters are all currently 3.5 fantasy characters meeting these things for the first time. Check out Dredan - Realm of Metal & Myth

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Undead monsters tend to have fewer total hps than the other creatures of same CR, because they don't have Con. So, you must be careful not giving too much class levels of small hit dice (say, d4) classes.

I thought all of an undead creature's HD were d12, precisely because of lack of con score? Even the class level HD...

 

[Runestar]

I thought all of an undead creature's HD were d12, precisely because of lack of con score? Even the class level HD...

Only if the template explicitly states that all current and future HD are upgraded to d12s. Otherwise, they remain the same. They lack a con score because they lack a metabolism, not because the designers deemed it necessary to balance their ability to roll d12s for hp (since dragons get d12s and the benefit of a high con score).

For example, look to the mummy cleric npc in the MM. It gets only d8s for its cleric HD, rather than d12s all the way. This means that a ghoul wizard18 would have 2d12+18d4 for its hp, rather than 20d12. Contrast this with a gravetouched ghoul wizard18, which would roll 18d12 for its hp, since its entry specifically makes such a provision.