Mr. Pyro's page

I would just play the standard blaster arcanist build then throw necromancy on top. Necromancy the undead raising part takes little to no character build investment. Just take command undead and animate dead as spells and your set. Blasting on the other hand takes tons of feats and class features to pull off

Fair enough, I won't need to sink much into to Necromancy, and if I play a Human, I can essentially negate sacking into Command Undead, so I'll just need to build for a Blaster.

Throwing a weapon is a nice trick the universalist gets, but if you want to play a blaster you are going to want school understanding (admixture subschool) to change the element when necessary.

Those are impressive stats but warmage is about blasting, necromancer about debuffs and minions - neither concept wants especially to be a gish as I understand it. Plus the pportunity to play an arcanist with maxed int and cha would appeal to me at least.

Very much so, I was thinking of doing 1 level dip to sorcerer for the bloodline exploit, but wasn't sure what I wanted it to be. So I suppose I should figure a solid concept for it, and since it will be an evil campaign, Necromancer would be the way to go. I could always do an 1/8/1, Sorcerer, Arcanist, Agent of the Grave PrC respectively, but that's to much multiclassing for me (though I'd be willing to give it a shot)

I would look at some of the more "gish" Exploits

Arcane Barrier
Arcane Weapon
Dimensional Slide
Potent Magic
School Understanding (IMO better than the various attacks, universalist is better than you might think)

Obviously you are looking at "5" different important Attributes---All but Wisdom, Int/Dex would be the two I am most concerned with

I don't mind building for MAD, and I agree, but I'm not sure I see your point for the Universalist. Stats are rollrd and would be (From highest to lowest)

18, 18, 16, 14, 13, 12 (One was originally a 9, but my one reroll got me another 18!), so it wouldn't be hard to build a gish of sorts.

So, has anyone tried building a Warmage/Necromacer-esque Arcanist? I've been toying with a few ideas between game sessions, and this was one of the more interesting ones, so, does anyone have any thoughts on how I might build something akin to this? 10th level would be the goal for this build.

An Arcanist 9/Sorcerer 1 with Bloodline development would have the Bloodline Powers of a 10th level sorcerer. Arcanist 19/Sorcerer 1 would have the Bloodline Powers of a 20th level sorcerer.

Thank you for the quick response. So it works how I thought it would, I just wanted to be sure. So it works similar to the Winter Witch PrC.

So, I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly, (maybe just dumb). I did a little digging but I couldn't find anything asking this specific question or giving very much information in the regard.

"If the arcanist already has a bloodline (or gains one later), taking this exploit instead allows her arcanist levels to stack with the levels of the class that granted her access to the bloodline when determining the powers and abilities of her bloodline." So, does this mean that if you have a 9th level Arcanist w/ 1st level Sorcerer you'd effectively be a 10th level sorcerer or even 20th level in addition to your abilities from being an Arcanist? (if you were to reach that point)?

So, we still have a week to the campaign, and what I've come up with so far is a Witch (Gravewalker/Hex Channeler) 6/Agent of the Grave 4, since my plan is to eventually become a Dread Lich anyway and because of this nice little thing regarding the Gravewalker's Bonethrall, "The witch can control up to 1 HD of undead creatures per caster level", means I loosing no HD on my beautiful minion, and I can control up to 52 HD worth undead Via spells like Animate Dead.

My build so far (Rolled Stats w/ 4d6 drop lowest) (Got lucky with two 18's)
Human
HP: 20 + 6 (Con) = 6 (FCB)

Str: 14
Con: 12
Dex: 16
Int: 20 (18 + 2 from Race)
Wis: 13
Cha: 20 (18 + 2 from level boost)

I have yet to throw my Feats or Hexes around, and right now I only get 1 selectable Hex since I lost 3 of them to Alternate Class features and I'm thinking about sacking that Hex for an extra 1d6 channel so it can be 2d6 Vs 1d6. (It can only be increased vis sacrificing Hexes gained through Witch levels, not Extra Hex)

Edit: I have a total of 6 feats, 5 from level, 1 for racial, and our DM allows a special Feat that can pretty much be used for a special ability, some affect for the character, or an item or two depending on how powerful they are. (We usually run High-Powered campaigns with numerous Homebrew monsters to keep us on our toes, and numerous puzzles and other horrifying traps and things)

Thoughts, concerns, ideas?

I also need to select something, or multiple things, that can total up to 10 HD. My DM is allowing me to select whatever I want (Even intelligent undead), with his permission. He's approved an Autumn Horror or even a Grave Knight, but I'd still like to get some thoughts or opinions.

Additional Edit* A Gravewalker get's Animate Dead as a 6th level bonus spell. I also now realize that I only get 9 HD worth of Undead, because I lost a CL for the first level of Gravewalker which gets no boost to ECL.

Grave walker witch is so fun to play. Its not so good for the classic "army of the dead" sort of necromancer. However! it excels at having one or two fairly strong undead at a time. never underestimate the ability to take control of a 1HD undead hawk for scouting only to pop back to your lovely 9HD undead Monstrosity when things get ugly.

Sounds like you've done this before, any recommendations? I'd love to do a Dhampir with this, but it's offlimits because of... Certain events I may have caused in game.

Are those two archetypes compatible?

I have no build to propose, but the gravewalker certainly looks viable.

Yes, Gravewalker replaces 1st, 4th, and 8th level Hexes, along with the usual Familiar, while Hex Channler, replaces 2nd level Hex. I know it will be costly Hex wise, so most of my feats will be sunk into buffing Hexs or other stuff. I generally don't build anything other than Pyro Glasscannons, and I hear Arcane Necromancers can be more difficult to build than Divine ones.

Edit* grammer and punctuation.

So, my last character in one of our running evil campaigns was killed saving his lover, who has now taken residence with some Necromancers, wishes only to bring her lover back from the grave, and also make an undead army or bodyguards. Very thematical stuff. I will be playing her now.

Would a Gravewalker/Hex Channler witch make a viable Necromancer? Human, 10th level. Is it possible to work towards Lichdom with this build?

Yes, it was mostly for flavor although I'm not against replacing, however, I'd like to keep Ratfolk as my race choice. What you've posed is an interesting thought, I'll double through andblook at both.

The Ratfolk gets a bonus discovery every 6 levels per favored class bonus so I do already get an additional one, would an extra discovery be worth it? Good to know.

We'll be doing a pirate campaign, and I'm going to be a Plauge Bringer Alchemist (Ratfolk Archtype), who will be the groups poison and beer crafter, my focus for combat will be poison and bombs, and alchemical archery.

8th level
5 feats (Houserule everyone gets a bonus at 1st to be on par with Humans)
33,000 gp budget
13,11,13,16,17,18 are rolled stats w/o race adjustment, to be placed still.

All thoughts, ideas, concerns and critiques are greatly appreciated, along with any and all help.

Sincerely, Mr. Pyro.

Edit* All books and 3PP are open, Homebrew at GM'S discretion.