What is the most efficient way to do this?
More specifically, this situation: I'm going to be playing a necromancer for an upcoming Skull and Shackles campaign with a good slew of save'r'sucks at her disposal. As we know, many of the particularly nasty necromancy spells hit Fortitude, commonly a high save. Another player is going to be playing my necromancer's twin sister, likely a ninja/something gestalt (possibly slayer).
The build I'm playing is pretty feat-intensive, so I don't have a lot of spare slots open. I've already got the basic Spell Focus and Varisian (Mage's) Tattoo, plus Ship's Mage for an additional +1CL while on my familiar ship.
Between the two of us, we'd like the ability for me to A) raise my save DCs, and/or B) if at all possible, figure out a way for her to hit enemies square in the Fort. Suggestions for synergy?
Sickened or shaken are effective, especially together. Intimidate and dirty trick come to mind.
At early levels, Spell Focus and such will suffice -- plus having a good intimidator will come in handy (look for a Brawler/Monk based on intimidation in your party, it's going to come in handy).
As you level up, you want to use Cause Fear and such (necromancy spells to boot!) to reduce saves before you hit them with the save or suck.
At the later levels, besides the fear spells, you may want to deal some CON damage with something like Rain of Frogs, Excruciating Deformation, Black Spot (fitting!) and such.
Ill Omen has no save though SR can stop it, and forces the target to roll 2 dice on their next d20 roll and keep the worst one. If you get a familiar that can UMD a wand of it right before you cast the spell that helps. At higher level s 5+ they have to roll 3 or more dice and keep the worst one so coordinating with a Witch or Duel Cursed Oracle can go a long way towards landing a save or suck spell.
use neg nevels spells. for each neg level you bestow they loose hp and get a panilty to saves and attacks amoung others.
if you allowed to play evil. id have your twin (yo ucan do so as well but will loose some caster levels if not taking magical knack)grab 2 levels (or more) souldrinker for the negtive level attack(no save on that one) can also b eused via weapon with the condoctive weapon ability.
the full 10 levels of this prc give 8 levels of casting but also gran other nice power so f you think you like them you might take them all.
the neg level is doubled for critical hits for 2 levels and at levle 6 of this prc this attack deal 2 neg levels on a normal hit and 4 on critical. whic hmean that having a keen conductive scimitar will do 2 neg levels on about half of its hits and 4 on the other(asuming you hit only on 10+ roll) this would out right kill most stuff you meet and the nasty ones with really high hd will have gained a hugh panilty to saves after only a few hits.
this ability is also great for 2 other dirty tricks. the free magical crafting and the simingly infinite temp hp.
as summoned monster are normaly effected by negetive level attacks. and for each hit you deal with the negetive attack you gain 1 soul point for each neg level you give.
casting the 1st level summon monster to bring a pony 5 times and killing it via the neg will get you 10 soul points each worht 100 gp for crafting or casting spells. and you can't use more then 1000 gp when you craft each day(the max yo ucan is 1000 base cost\2000 market cost If you increase the craft dc by 5. normaly it is 1000k market cost with 500 gp base cost each day). notice you might need speak with animal or other means to tell the poney to stay still while you drain it(then agian most of them ponies are summoned to walk over trapes so this will be a normal day in the job for them).
the hp trick is close but for it to work you must mind the prc levels you have. as it only work with animals you bring with no less hd then your prc level. or with intelegent summons(but since this one depand on a summon with X2 the hd then the spell levle being cast it is hard to find) the ones i found usefull are the pony(2hd 1st level spell) at up to 2nd levle of this class and a dire tiger (i think 7th levle of summon wiht 14 hd)at the end of this prc.
it work like this. if you have a few min to preper before battle. u summon up an animal(lets go with the pony at 2nd levle of this prc,using a 1st level spell) then drain it .for each level you drain you get a stacking 5 temp hp that last 1 hour. then with the soul points you gained. you recharge the spell you used(it cost 2X level of spell in points to recharge so a 1st levle spell will cost 2 points). then you recast the summon and repeat. in something like 3 min you should be able to do this cycle bout 10 times. that is 50 tmep hp with the oldeast lasting 57 min, and in the end you would have wasted no spell as you recharge the used spell with the last points you got. if you got 10 min that is close to 150 temp hp...you see where this is going to?
last point before going to rest at night you can summon monster to fully charge your soul points for the next day.(as they last till used).
Also plan for uses of Enervation at mid-levels & higher. A couple castings is good prep prior to casting a SoS/SoD type spell.
spell focus necromancy, and DOOM. at level 1. It's been mentioned before, but yes, anything that causes shaken or sickened. Anything that causes CON damage.
Hieghtened spells may be worth it in limited circumstances, but otherwise, bouncing spells might be a decent backup plan vs groups (enemy passes a save? spell bounces to another target.
Problem with cleric necromancers/debuffer builds is at levels 1 to 2 they only have really two or three good spells to debuff/cause problems, unless they also take another spell focus (wasteful, considering you already wanna start building for your later undead minion horde).
But at level 6-8 they start to take off at a sprint vs wizard necromancers, who only really start to come into their own at level 9-12 or so.
As for your ally - not much you can do unless she takes ... mabye a magus? If she can close the distances/ make up for some damage/ take that spellblending arcana to get ghoul touch from the wizzy list, when she can -- better to wait till she can cast level 3 spells, so you get 2 spells out of the deal than one, but if its not possible due to level limitations, then get it quick. Aoe sicken? fort pen synergy? Laughably disgusting puke-pus clouds when she pokes the enemy with her rapier? All good... bad.. whatever.
As long as we're talking about Evil, surprised nobody mentioned Witch with the Gravewalker archetype and the Plague patron. A lot of Hexes are made for debuffing. If you're also a Halfling (which would also be excellent for your Ninja/Slayer sister), even better -- get the Halfling Jinx alternate racial trait and go to town with feats that build upon this. Gravewalker does replace some Hexes with special Gravewalker quasi-Hexes, but the combination of Aura of Desecration and lets you Command Undead, and Possess Undead could also have its uses.