Help building a nonstandard Dread Necromancer.

[Sachiru]

The 16:

[spoiler]1. What game system are you running (D&D, Call of Cthulu, Palladium, GURPS, etc.), and if applicable what edition (Original, Classic, Revised, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, etc.)? D&D 3.5

2. What 'type' or variant of game will it be (i.e. "Shadow Chasers" or "Agents of Psi" for d20 Modern)? What is the setting for the game (eg. historic period, published or homebrewed campaign setting, alternate reality, modern world, etc.)? Standard 3.5 D&D, perhaps with injury rules.

3. How many Players are you looking for? Will you be taking alternates, and if so, how many? 2-3

4. What's the gaming medium (OOTS, chat, e-mail etc.)? Forum!

5. What is the characters' starting status (i.e. experience level)?
Level 9, see later...

6. How much gold or other starting funds will the characters begin with?
100,000 gp, you've found some cool loot in a lot of places.

7. Are there any particular character classes, professions, orders, etc. that you want... or do not want? What are your rules on 'prestige' and/or homebrewed classes? Go for being Vampire or Celestials. Anything goes. I'd look kindly on someone using the The Knight in Shining Armour homebrew class by Samm.

8. What races, subraces, species, etc. are allowed for your game? Will you allow homebrewed races or species? 'Prestige' races or species? Any flavour of Celestial or Vampire.

9. By what method should Players generate their attributes/ability scores and Hit Points? 5d6b3, or 40 point buy. Roll twice and pick the best.

10. Does your game use alignment? What are your restrictions, if so? Any! Just not Evil. :smallcool:


11. Do you allow multi-classing, or have any particular rules in regards to it? Yes, fine. Don't get crazy though. No XP penalty

12. Will you be doing all of the die rolling during the course of the game? Will die rolls be altered, or left to the honor system? Roll on the Forum, I will make some secret rolls.

13. Are there any homebrewed or optional/variant rules that your Players should know about? If so, list and explain them, or provide relevant links to learn about these new rules.
We may be running Injury Rules, other than that:
Do not count up to 12 degrees of Level Adjustment and Racial Hit Dice. If you have less, buff yourself up with the difference in Outsider/Undead Hit Dice, with bonus feats, for every level of difference.

So Each hit dice:
Outsider: d8; 8 Skill points, Full base attack, all good saves, bonus feat (Any)
Undead: d12; 8 Skill points, Full base attack, good will save, Bonus feat (Any)

14. Is a character background required? If so, how big? Are you looking for anything in particular (i.e. the backgrounds all ending up with the characters in the same city)?
Not terribly long. It would be liked. RP is essential.

15. Does your game involve a lot of hack & slash, puzzle solving, roleplaying, or a combination of the above?
As said in the original thread, gothic and horrific. YAY! Happy me! A combo of all three.

16. Are your Players restricted to particular rulebooks and supplements, or will you be allowing access to non-standard material? What sources can Players use for their characters?
All WotC BOOKS. Not Dragon Mag. thats all.[/spoiler]

The concept:

[spoiler]A Vampire Dread Necromancer or Warlock. Half-fiend if possible. Stat rolls are:

(5d6b3)[15]
(5d6b3)[17]
(5d6b3)[11]
(5d6b3)[12]
(5d6b3)[16]
(5d6b3)[14]

The Dread Necromancer I'd like to build ideally focuses on spellcasting and magical effects, and should be known for Magical Bullet Spam or its equivalent. I'm facing mostly demons, archons and gods. Please Help?

[/spoiler]

[jameswilliamogle]

Could you clarify this please:
Do not count up to 12 degrees of Level Adjustment and Racial Hit Dice. If you have less, buff yourself up with the difference in Outsider/Undead Hit Dice, with bonus feats, for every level of difference.

Does this mean ECL 12, or that you get to be L9 and have an additional HD+LA of up to 12 (ie, ECL 21 character)?

[TheEndIsNear]

There is the Vampire lord tempalte that has 0 LA! There are also other campire templates that would be nice or even evolved undead.

[Sachiru]

Could you clarify this please:
Do not count up to 12 degrees of Level Adjustment and Racial Hit Dice. If you have less, buff yourself up with the difference in Outsider/Undead Hit Dice, with bonus feats, for every level of difference.

Does this mean ECL 12, or that you get to be L9 and have an additional HD+LA of up to 12 (ie, ECL 21 character)?

Level 9, and additional HD/LA/HD+LA (Max of 2 Templates) of up to 12.

[JaronK]

Yikes.  With that house rule you could be a Sharn (9 total ECL) with the templates of your choice (Shadow could be fun, as would Phrenic) and blow everything away.

But Vampire really hurts as a template.  I wonder if there's some other way to get a similar concept without the steep LA.  If not... meh, you don't need to break the DM's game.  Use Imperious Command because it's awesome and it fits.

JaronK

[Rebel7284]

Sharns do indeed make vampires poop their pants.

I think crystal keep has a bunch of half-undead races from various dragon magazines, so a lower LA vampire is possible.  Busy with work to look it up now though.

Edit: Vampiric Dragon is only LA+5.  Go go Kobold abuse!

[RobbyPants]

But Vampire really hurts as a template.  I wonder if there's some other way to get a similar concept without the steep LA. 

Half vampire form Libris Mortis isn't so bad, but it's also definitely vampire-lite.  I like the at-will Charm option, but you can take the fangs/blood drain option if you really want to feel more like a vampire.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Lesser aasimar / half-celestial transition class 1/ Lich 4/ Demilich 8?

That's a total of LA+13 instead of +12, but it's worth it.

[fuinjutsu]

Hmn, free LA?  Use the deepening darkness or Light to Daylight trick to get into paragnostic apostle at level 3, and thus bump all your advanced learnings up a level.

[jameswilliamogle]

Just add 12 HD of plant.  What else do you need?

I'd recommend adding a template that has gets racial SLAs with the Magic in the Blood feat.  You're already thinking about Half-fiend; this is a great start!

Necropolitan Forest Gnome
Half-Fiend (+4)
Dread Necromancer 8
feats
Magic in the Blood <- makes all your half-fiend SLAs go to 3 / day.  You may never even need to cast a spell.\
And what else matters?

Alternatively, you could do:

Necropolitan Gnome
Phrenic + Half-fey
Magic in the Blood
double the number from above.

I'm recommending Necropolitan here b/c the vampire really isn't very good.

[Sachiru]

Hmn, free LA?  Use the deepening darkness or Light to Daylight trick to get into paragnostic apostle at level 3, and thus bump all your advanced learnings up a level.

Not familiar with how this works. Could you please explain this a bit?

Also, templates and races must be themed against undead, demons, devils, celestials or vampires. Otherwise I'd go Sharn.

[Sachiru]

Just add 12 HD of plant.  What else do you need?

I'd recommend adding a template that has gets racial SLAs with the Magic in the Blood feat.  You're already thinking about Half-fiend; this is a great start!

Necropolitan Forest Gnome
Half-Fiend (+4)
Dread Necromancer 8
feats
Magic in the Blood <- makes all your half-fiend SLAs go to 3 / day.  You may never even need to cast a spell.\
And what else matters?

Alternatively, you could do:

Necropolitan Gnome
Phrenic + Half-fey
Magic in the Blood
double the number from above.

I'm recommending Necropolitan here b/c the vampire really isn't very good.

Hmm. I like the concept. Could you recommend better templates to fit in with Magic In The Blood?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Unseelie fey (dragon compendium)

Given a LA of +0 by mistake, but it's there in print nonetheless.

[dna1]

vampire isnt really worth it for the ecl. your end up being much stronger with the extra class levels

[The_Mad_Linguist]

vampire isnt really worth it for the ecl. your end up being much stronger with the extra class levels

Yeah, but they're free.

[dna1]

ahh. his rules was kind of long so i didnt really read them carefully. ya if you get a bunch of free la then sure vamps decent.. but otherwise i would advise against it 

[Widow]

13. Are there any homebrewed or optional/variant rules that your Players should know about? If so, list and explain them, or provide relevant links to learn about these new rules.
We may be running Injury Rules, other than that:
Do not count up to 12 degrees of Level Adjustment and Racial Hit Dice. If you have less, buff yourself up with the difference in Outsider/Undead Hit Dice, with bonus feats, for every level of difference.

So Each hit dice:
Outsider: d8; 8 Skill points, Full base attack, all good saves, bonus feat (Any)
Undead: d12; 8 Skill points, Full base attack, good will save, Bonus feat (Any)

Okay, stop right there with that.  Notice number 13 gives you a bonus feat for each HD you take.  Also notice that each HD gives you skill points, are you capped at character level 9 for skills or based on your HD??  Why not go the other direction and take minimal templates and a lot of HD.  Lets say you stick with Vampire 5/ HD 7/ Dreadnecro for 9 class levels.  That nets you 7 bonus feats and alot of BAB.

Now lets say you are willing to venture away from the dread necro, you just want some undead, not an army.  What about playing a slyph.  Now you are an outsider with 4HD and a +5LA, but you have spell casting equal to your Racial HD +4 as a sorceror.  Add three more HD as in example 3, the race states it gets the extra spell casting from racial HD, so you get full bab, a starting spell caster level of 11, 3 bonus feats, and alot of skill points.  Maybe you can then dump all 9 class levels into your favorite spell casting PrC (which PrC depends on your skill caps).  Since some homebrew is allowed, maybe just ask the DM if your slyph casts dread necro spells instead and still dump 8 levels in the base class to get the huge undead army. 

A sharn would be similar, but with a caster level of 7 in both sorceror and favored soul.  The sharn would also be fun to add the multiheaded template to, nothing like perfect weapon fighting and 9 arms.

Or another option would be to go with a really, really high ECL creature.  You get to ignore 12 HD/LA for free, why not pick something beefy, keep all the HD, and drop all the LA.  For instance, what about a Half-fiend illithiad (only 1 level of half-fiend, see below).  Drop the 8 points of LA and 4 HD, you can keep the other 3 HD.  Take whatever you need to enter the Illithiad savant right away.  Or play an Black Etherguant with 1 level of Half-fiend.  Drop the 4 LA, and 8 of the 17 HD.  You get nice stuff including 17 levels of wizard spell casting.


http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031010a

Personally I would really use this opportunity to try to get early PrC entry if the skill caps are unlocked, especially if you were just going to jump out of dreadnecromancer anyway.  I would love a sharn or sylph:

Base HD 4 +5 LA/ 3 Bonus HD followed with Incantrix 10/Dweomerkeeper 10 for levels

Any other ideas for instant PrC's with or without level locked skills?

The demilich was also a nice idea, but requires 21 levels in a spell caster class plus the lich template for entry.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Isn't there some sort of weird vampire mind flayer?

That sounds cool to play.

[Sachiru]

13. Are there any homebrewed or optional/variant rules that your Players should know about? If so, list and explain them, or provide relevant links to learn about these new rules.
We may be running Injury Rules, other than that:
Do not count up to 12 degrees of Level Adjustment and Racial Hit Dice. If you have less, buff yourself up with the difference in Outsider/Undead Hit Dice, with bonus feats, for every level of difference.

So Each hit dice:
Outsider: d8; 8 Skill points, Full base attack, all good saves, bonus feat (Any)
Undead: d12; 8 Skill points, Full base attack, good will save, Bonus feat (Any)

Okay, stop right there with that.  Notice number 13 gives you a bonus feat for each HD you take.  Also notice that each HD gives you skill points, are you capped at character level 9 for skills or based on your HD??  Why not go the other direction and take minimal templates and a lot of HD.  Lets say you stick with Vampire 5/ HD 7/ Dreadnecro for 9 class levels.  That nets you 7 bonus feats and alot of BAB.

Now lets say you are willing to venture away from the dread necro, you just want some undead, not an army.  What about playing a slyph.  Now you are an outsider with 4HD and a +5LA, but you have spell casting equal to your Racial HD +4 as a sorceror.  Add three more HD as in example 3, the race states it gets the extra spell casting from racial HD, so you get full bab, a starting spell caster level of 11, 3 bonus feats, and alot of skill points.  Maybe you can then dump all 9 class levels into your favorite spell casting PrC (which PrC depends on your skill caps).  Since some homebrew is allowed, maybe just ask the DM if your slyph casts dread necro spells instead and still dump 8 levels in the base class to get the huge undead army. 

A sharn would be similar, but with a caster level of 7 in both sorceror and favored soul.  The sharn would also be fun to add the multiheaded template to, nothing like perfect weapon fighting and 9 arms.

Or another option would be to go with a really, really high ECL creature.  You get to ignore 12 HD/LA for free, why not pick something beefy, keep all the HD, and drop all the LA.  For instance, what about a Half-fiend illithiad (only 1 level of half-fiend, see below).  Drop the 8 points of LA and 4 HD, you can keep the other 3 HD.  Take whatever you need to enter the Illithiad savant right away.  Or play an Black Etherguant with 1 level of Half-fiend.  Drop the 4 LA, and 8 of the 17 HD.  You get nice stuff including 17 levels of wizard spell casting.


http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031010a

Personally I would really use this opportunity to try to get early PrC entry if the skill caps are unlocked, especially if you were just going to jump out of dreadnecromancer anyway.  I would love a sharn or sylph:

Base HD 4 +5 LA/ 3 Bonus HD followed with Incantrix 10/Dweomerkeeper 10 for levels

Any other ideas for instant PrC's with or without level locked skills?

The demilich was also a nice idea, but requires 21 levels in a spell caster class plus the lich template for entry.

I like the idea with the Sylph and the minimal LA idea, and the dread necro isn't really a requirement (a cha-based spontaneous spellcaster is the requirement), BUT

What races, subraces, species, etc. are allowed for your game? Will you allow homebrewed races or species? 'Prestige' races or species? Any flavour of Celestial or Vampire.

If there is any way for me to achieve the above (Half-Fiend Sylph, for instance), I'm cool with it.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

It's probably the big block of text and people skimming...

Anyway, turns out that unfortunately the vampiric illithid from LoM has a LA of --.  Very sad.  You could probably get it from just adding the LA and HD, but it's kind of too high that way.