Working on a bad guy - Necromancer

[Greenfield]

My party has decided to go "visit" a small valley they know of that has, by reputation at least, a Necromancer running things.

My rationale for the bad guy is this:
He needs a place with a fairly stable population so he can feed some of his undead. Many consume Strength and Con, and thus can feed off of a living subject without killing them. Give them a week or so to recover before the next feeding and you can continue this for a long time.

His base of operations, an isolated valley with an unpleasantly healthy monstrous population around it, is limited in size and scope based on a "pyramid" concept: He can only control so many Undead, directly. Powerful Undead can, in turn, control lesser Undead. So the size of his force is limited by his own level and Charisma. The base can't grow much until the peak can climb higher.

So this is the odd situation where the bad guy strives to be a good ruler, and has no "master plan", no evil scheme to thwart.

All of that being said, I'm looking for advice on a build. We're strongly based in PHB and DMG for classes and PRCs, as well as spells and feats, though as DM I'm free to wander a bit farther afield.

Presume a valley with between 2000 and 3000 people, so a total "Undead legion" under his control of maybe 50 to 100.

I'm aiming for a Necro between 10th and 12th level.

What can you guys come up with?

 

[Dandu]

Why not try Dread Necromancer?

 

[Grogg of the North]

10th level Lawful Evil Cleric of Nerull

STATS:
(Assuming Elite Array)

STR 13 -> 14 (at 8th, unless you take this villain to 12th. Then you should bump wisdom two more times instead.)
DEX 8
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 15 -> 16 (at 4th)
CHA 14

Take Death and Trickery for your Domains. Death for "I'm a necromancer!" reasons. Trickery because I like it better than Evil Domain. Plus this will help your villain bluff the PCs.

Feats:
1 Extra Turning - More rebuke attempts!
H Martial Weapon Proficiency (Scythe) - It's your deities favored weapon! Plus NECROMANCER!
3 Improved Turning - Helps Rebuke
6 Skill Focus (Concentration) - To make sure you make that check!
9 Improved Initiative - To not go last.
12(?) Open - Can you use leadership to give your villain a big bad undead cohort? If you can go outside the PHB, look at Libris Mortis. There are some good feats for creating undead (the corpsecrafter chain) and since you're going to evil take a look at the Tomb Tainted Soul feat chain. Being able to heal with your spontaneous inflicts is great. Otherwise pick something that strikes your fancy.

Skills:
You're going to want to max Knowledge (Religion) and Concentration. Spellcraft is important. So is Bluff. Since it's an NPC, I'd go for Bluff over Spellcraft.

As a necromancer, you'll have access to Animate Dead and if you go above 10th level you'll have access to Create Undead. Use Rebuke Undead to gain control of any undead you can. At level 10 you're probably looking at ghouls, wights and shadows. Unfortunately, a ghoul or a wight is not going to be much threat against a level 10 party but they can keep the raiding bandits, orcs and goblins away. Shadows are going to be your big threats against nasty monsters or anything PC related. Wights and Shadows can create spawn and control them. Rebuke the Wights and Shadows and let them take care of their spawn. Also skeletons. Everyone loves some skellies.

That being said, make sure you can get your manor/temple desecrated and any key areas unhallowed as well. If you go up to 11th or 12th level, Forbiddance is going to be your friend. For spell selection, be sure to keep a few prepared cure spells for yourself. Libris Mortis has some Summon Undead X spells to keep in mind.

I went with LE since you are the legitimate ruler of the area. You may be using the townsfolk as livestock but its all for their own good.

"Believe it or not but I consider myself the protector of this realm! These people live in peace. These villages, have they come under harm? Have I come down on these people as some great winged bat and pulled people from their beds? These people are perfectly safe under my rule. I ask nothing but the occasional tribute and taxes and in return I keep them safe."

I would try to make that quote how this necromancer thinks. Yes, I am feeding people to my undead but, it keeps the valley safe. Heck, maybe you go so far as casting spells for your townsfolk to keep them happy. Things like Create Food and Water. And if an ogre happens to wander into the village, then you and some undead show up to deal with it.

Gear wise, the only thing that will help you with your undead is the Phylactery of Undead Turning. However, it would cost the majority of your gear budget and the item states it helps with turning undead not rebuking. I don't see why it can't help with rebuking but I just figured I'd point that out.

Hope that helps!

 

[Greenfield]

Thanks. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

What do you think of Pale Master?

Also, an oddity regarding Cleric's Rebuke Undead ability: There's no duration listed in the PHB. By RAW, once a Cleric Rebukes an Undead, he/she commands them forever. And there doesn't seem to be a limit on how many can be under command at once.

Am I reading that wrong?

 

[Celebrim]

Also, an oddity regarding Cleric's Rebuke Undead ability: There's no duration listed in the PHB. By RAW, once a Cleric Rebukes an Undead, he/she commands them forever. And there doesn't seem to be a limit on how many can be under command at once.

Am I reading that wrong?

"At any one time, the cleric may command any number of undead whose total Hit Dice do not exceed his level."

The bigger problem, and the one you need to address by house rule IMMEDIATELY in the event of a PC evil cleric, is that not only is there indefinite duration, but there is indefinite range. That is, an undead can be in the clerics service and following his orders even if the cleric isn't in the same part of the world. This doesn't sound like a problem and it isn't, until you consider that the PC isn't limited to just ordering around zombies and skeletons. Beware the 'guided undead missile' strategy of lobbing intelligent undead at targets from miles away.

 

[Grogg of the North]

The groups I've been in, and ones I've run, always went with an indefinite duration for use Rebuke Undead to command them.

@Greenfield, I personally love the pale master and really want to play one again. That first level is a bit rough but I, personally, feel it's worth it. The graft and its abilities are great. Bonus immunities are always welcome. And a free cohort! Yay! The only thing that I don't like is the undead armor affinity. There are only a few undead armors and in Libris Mortis they are so expensive! While the Magic Item Compendium brought down the prices for these armors they also gutted a lot of their abilities. I'd personally had preferred if they kept with the way it was in 3.0 were the Pale Master got a natural armor bonus that scaled with class level.

Now, the big thing. You have Animate Dead as a SLA once per day. Which means, you can, with time on your side, raise an army of the dead free of charge. So you can have lots of skeletons guarding your valley. Again, you're going to want to do this in a desecrated area. Command Undead is essentially a charm spell for intelligent undead. I would be careful using that since an intelligent undead may resent you for using that. You wouldn't want a mummy turning on you when you least expect it!

I would probably build a LE Necromancer 5 / Pale Master 5; follower of Wee Jas. She's cool with (willing) undead and so are you. If advancing to 12th level, continue with Pale Master. Grab the Skeletal Minion alternate class feature on the SRD for more necromancy goodness. Then use the obtain Familiar feat to let it scale off your caster level instead of your necromancer level.

For feats, you'll want Corpsecrafter. The entire chain is pretty fun so I would pick up whatever strikes your fancy. I don't know how much you want to grab from Libris Mortis if your group sticks mostly to the PHB. Spell Focus is debatable. There are lot of necromancy spells that are either save negates or the save reduces the effect (1 round vs several; exhausted reduced to fatigued; etc).

Hope that helps!

 

[Greenfield]

I've had a hideously fun and twisted idea, and I'd like to bounce it off of you folks.

Chaotic Neutral Cleric of Nerul (Just to mess with the Paladin's Detect Evil ability). Build and scheme as suggested above. Now, make him a Ghost, using Magic Jar to control a Human host, the "face" the public sees of their lord and master.

This lets me grant him some additional Ghostly powers, as well as raising his hit dice while keeping the CR within a range the party can deal with. It also lets me give the "Cleric" a solid set of ability scores, with no dump stat.

And best of all, it makes him really hard to permanently kill. (Can you say Recurring adversary? Thought you could </Mister Rogers voice>

Backstory: There was a fiendish nest here in this valley, Devils plaguing the countryside. A group of adventurers, including the Cleric, arrived to deal with it. The campaign was long and hard, but they were determined to clear and restore the valley so people could live here. They eventually succeeded in closing the hell-hole, though several died in the final battle.

Two of those fallen came back as ghosts, the Cleric and the party Wizard or Sorcerer (haven't decided yet), and they are still determined to protect this valley. Ongoing "final purpose" to explain why they're here.

So they finally got to "retire and settle down" from adventuring, to claim some open territory and build their keep and attract some settlers. Right out of the books. They just didn't live to see it all happen.

Is that twisted enough?

 

[Grogg of the North]

Nerull is neutral evil so he cannot have a chaotic neutral cleric. You could have them be a cleric of Evening Glory (Libris Mortis) if you want to stay chaotic neutral. This could keep with the "retire and settle down" motivation.

Ghosts can have the Malevolence special attack, which means you don't have to use Magic Jar to control a human host. IIRC, Libris Mortis and The Book of Vile Darkness offer up more rules on possession and determining if there is another person hiding in a host.

 

[Greenfield]

Okay then, True Neutral actually works better. Hard to justify a Chaotic nobleman.

Almost by definition, to be a ruling Noble, you have to believe in the Nobles' inherent right to rule. That's the established order of things, the kind of things that Chaotics have a hard time accepting.

The odd story of this valley is that the Necromancer's title and right to rule are recognized by other realms. They don't like him, naturally, but they can't deny that he earned his title and the right to rule his realm.

As for Libris Mortis and Heroes of Horror: Those books aren't part of the accepted source book set we're using, and while I'm free to reach outside of that set, as the DM, it works better if I can stay closer to core. It's a game-table politics thing.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Clerics cannot be True Neutral unless their deity is. Barring house rules / setting differences. Pathfinder has a TN death goddess that you could maybe copy. But she and her clergy detest the undead. (It's considered cheating. )

Wee Jas is all about law and order. She's also okay with undead that are willingly created. A mage turning himself into a mummy to guard a family crypt is okay. A farmer rising as a wight after being murdered in the night is not. A former adventurer coming back as a ghost to ensure his home's safety would be accepted by her.

With that in mind, you could have your cleric worship Wee Jas. You could even make him/her Lawful Neutral. The undead that serve in his horde are volunteers from the village. The old, the infirm and the lame that still want to do something to protect their home. So once a year, at harvest time, the lord sends out wagons to collect offerings from the village. Foodstuffs, crops and a few volunteers to surge the undead that guard the valley. Have the PCs assist with the harvest collection to make sure that there are no problems. Once the PCs witness a few people saying good byes to their friends and family and getting on the wagons you can sit back and watch the PCs debate what to do next!

I ran something similar in my last campaign. The PCs were trapped in a pocket dimension where they had to visit each season. Fall was harvest themed with a similar event happening. Instead of undead, I think I had the volunteers being turned into candy corn themed golems. It was great. The party split on the Law / Chaos axis and everyone argued over what to do!