What Do You Do With A Ghostly Visage...

[Caelic]

...ear-lye in the morning?

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Seriously--I'm going to be playing a level 8 DN, and Ghostly Visage is the only familiar that makes sense.  (Concept-wise, he's driven by vengeance on those who killed his family, and the visage is going to be the face of his slain brother.)

Now: the Visage already gives some very nice features.  The mind shielding is just tasty, and the fact that it can meld into your body makes it much less of a liability than most familiars.

I plan to have the visage routinely make Intimidate checks in conjunction with my fear aura; given maxed ranks and the racial bonus, he should be able to send enemies fleeing from me without touching any of my own actions for the round.

Undead Lieutenant seems like a nice fit for the Visage; essentially, it's a free boost to the number of undead I can personally control equal to my CL.  On the other hand, as a DN, the last thing I have to worry about is my undead cap--and burning an advanced learning slot on Undead Lieutenant seems like a waste.

So: what other nifty tricks can I do with a Ghostly Visage?  Any suggestions?

[Tshern]

Ability focus on that gaze attack?

[Akalsaris]

Put him in the bilge with the captain's daughter, early in the morning!

*ahem*

Eh, you hit all of the ideas that I had. 

[jameswilliamogle]

The main thing that stuck out in my head about it was that they use your DN level for their abilities, which means that gaze-thingie's save advances as if it had 8 HD, so that's a save DC of 17 instead of 13, which is nice.

Also, you could change up the one feat to something interesting.  I like Ghostly Grasp, but Lifebond, Lifesense, and Ability Focus are all kind of cool (via Retraining, Psychic Reformation, or just "making it fit" story-wise).

I wouldn't focus too much on that gaze attack, though.  You're within 5 levels of that "everything immune to fear" area of the game.

That intimidate idea: don't you have to threaten the opponent?  Do Ghostly Visages threaten?

[Caelic]

That intimidate idea: don't you have to threaten the opponent?  Do Ghostly Visages threaten?

I don't see why not.  It has an attack, and in order for my fear aura to kick in, the opponent needs to be within five feet of me anyway.  (Technically, I suppose the visage would need to move into the opponent's square, but my DM's reasonable enough that I think he'll agree that suddenly watching my face replaced with a corpse-mask with eyes of cold balefire is "threatening.")

I don't want to pour tons of resources into the fear angle, true enough.  For now, it's a nice added ability; what I mainly want to do is figure out how to take advantage of an extra move and standard action per round via the familiar. 

The feats are a good idea, although Psychic Reformation is a no-go.  I'd have to find some other way.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

It can possess people, since it has a pretty good ego score.

[Amechra]

How do you boost that ego score?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Well, it starts off with an ego of 10.  Being a familiar gives it telepathic ability (+1), a couple of special qualities (+1 each), and you could buff it to add on a special attack (+2) or add some mental abilities (+1 ego per point of bonus).  You also gain +4 for being an outsider - celestial attended birth would be optimal, but you mentioned psiref isn't allowed.  

Later on, a cheap "Helm of Comprehend Languages and Read Magic" for 5.2 k will add +2 points.

So for a sixth level dread necromancer, you could have a familiar with an ego score somewhere between 14 and 18.  Which is a rather nifty unlimited use dominate ability.

[jameswilliamogle]

...I'd have to find some other way.

So, remember "Ghost"?  That weird ghost that trains the dude how to "manifest" physically?  That's Ghostly Grasp .  Maybe that happened to your brother in law or whatever.