I need some help here, I've got a player playing in my campaign and thought I'd post here to see if theres a way to enhance a CN gnome necro's effectiveness until he can cast the big necro spells (contagion, enervention and the like)
He played the necro as a favor to me, and I feel I may have railroaded him into a genuinely weak class. My group isn't into to many "rules supplements" and I'd thought I'd ask here if therewas some obvious low level necromancy spell functions that I'm overlooking.
I need some help here, I've got a player playing in my campaign and thought I'd post here to see if theres a way to enhance a CN gnome necro's effectiveness until he can cast the big necro spells (contagion, enervention and the like)
He played the necro as a favor to me, and I feel I may have railroaded him into a genuinely weak class. My group isn't into to many "rules supplements" and I'd thought I'd ask here if therewas some obvious low level necromancy spell functions that I'm overlooking.
I noticed this with Necromancers even at something like 7th level. They seem to have little thats really good at actually killing the player characters (and by extension they would presumably have it tough with the DMs rightous hordes, though here they can at least team up with the other players to help with the kill). They can scare them, damage their stats etc. but they can't really kill them - not with pure Necromancer spells anyway.
Command undead. The danger isn't the necro... it's all those skeletons and zombies he's collected in adventuring to gain those levels, or through animate dead scrolls. Look to Filge in the module "The Whispering Cairn". Filge himself hangs back and casts touch spells (chill touch, ghoul touch) through spectral hand and lets his undead minions do the work. Ghoul touch is particularly nasty against spellcasters. Paralyzed = coup de grace from the skellies.
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The Sunless Citadel adventure had a magic item that would enhance the necro a bit. A whistle that when blown over a grave in darkness would animate 1 corpse, could be used once a week and the zombie would serve the owner until destroyed. User could only control 2 creatures that way at a time. I think the animate dead ability was at caster level 5 or something. Also wands could help.
Necromancers are creepy, not dangerous. Its the undead he/she controls that are dangerous.
BTW the whistle was priced around 2500-3000 gp so it wasn't that big of an item and could be given out at a low level.
FH
having played a low-level necromancer, i have some tactical ideas for your gnome friend.
1) ray of enfeeblement. this can change the scope of a battle extremely quickly.
2) spectral hand. with its upgrade to 4th level or below, this is a powerful 2nd level spell in conjunction with many of the most powerful touch spells (bestow curse, ghoul touch, vampiric touch). if he(?) is 3rd level, make sure this is one of the spells on the list.
3) chill touch. sure, only 1d6 damage, but 1 str possibly, as well, and a touch per level. combined with spectral hand, it has a medium range. pain in 1st level spell.
4) depending on what schools are prohibited for this gnome, look into what they have. mage armor and shield are always good, magic missile, acid arrow, true strike (with ray of enfeeblement, this can hurt, if the player rolls well, or has empower or maximize)... it actually is quite like playing any other wizard. just remember to play to the strengths of the characters spell list.
i hope i helped,
tog
Thanks for all the advice, the party has swung to a majority good alingment, so he has to be discreet about getting scrolls, wands, and the like or face the stake.
Its ironic that the specialist class in D&D that gets so much press in online MMORPGS kinda gets the shaft in the house that started it.
Here is the Necromancer Handbook that I wrote. It should have everything you'll ever need.
Someone already touched on the Command Undead tactic, but I really want to point out the power of this. With a day per level for duration and no limit to the amount of HD that can be controled, your necromancer is going to want to make a lot of scrolls of command undead and set up a day, basically, to just renew these things, then take out a walking horde of corpses. Cut down on costs by finding a tomb, crypt, or even just a hole in the ground to throw them in (this also helps him be discreet) when he doesn't need his lifeless army, so he doesn't ahve to keep burning spells/scrolls to have them always under control. Let them be feral in the hole, then just Command them when needed.
The ideal situation would be something like a cell block with either metal bars or solid metal doors with a looking hole in them so that the necromancer can have line of effect without having to worry about getting hurt by his "minions" while casting. This should give him the "oomph" he needs.
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Setting your 'not into too many "rules suppliments"' aside for a second... The Libris Mortis has a Summon Undead spell that works just like the Summon Outsider which can be helpful. Pop! Here's a summoned Skeleton or Zombie to help even the field.
Also, I agree with The Other Guy, Ray of Enfeeblement can be very, very useful.
thanks gav!
i was using alot of necromancy, combined with judicious use of evocations, conjurations, and transmutations in combat. as a specialist wizard, it really does fall to what schools are prohibited that makes your character fill a niche. i was primarily a combat wizard, with interesting, spooky necromancy effects to work with. not my original intent, but it needed to become that way for the group to survive. incidently, only my necromancer and the party monk survived to the point our group has gotten to from first level...
tog
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Setting your 'not into too many "rules suppliments"' aside for a second... The Libris Mortis has a Summon Undead spell that works just like the Summon Outsider which can be helpful. Pop! Here's a summoned Skeleton or Zombie to help even the field.
Also, I agree with The Other Guy, Ray of Enfeeblement can be very, very useful.
The summon undead spells are also in the Spell Compendium. That book has a large number of additional necromancy spells, and might provide a little more bang for the buck than Libris Mortis.
The Libris Mortis is really good, however. If you're into PrCs, it's got several, particularly the True Necromancer, that are just great. Also, tons of good necromancy and undead-themed spells. The Necrotic Cyst feat/spell chain is just creepy, and the Corpsecrafter feats will make your undead amazingly powerful (with bonuses to Str, Hp, AC, an extra 1d6 cold damage per hit, and the ability to explode ina burst of negative energy when destroyed- it makes even a room full of zombies scary, but will eat up almost every feat slot you have). There's also the Fell Metamagics that do some interesting things like bestow negative levels, add fear effects, drain Strength, and even cause foes slain by spells to rise as zombies and skeletons.
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I will note that the Libris Mortis Summon Undead spells are based on 3.0 skeletons and zombies, which makes them rather useless IMO.
If there's any Libris owners who don't also have the Spell Compendium, I'll take the risk of posting the correct undead here:
1st: Human Skeleton, kobold zombie
2nd: Owlbear skeleton, Bugbear zombie
3rd: Ghoul, troll skeleton, ogre zombie
4th: Allip, ghast, wyvern zombie
5th: mummy, shadow, vampire spawn, wight
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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The Libris Mortis is really good, however. If you're into PrCs, it's got several, particularly the True Necromancer, that are just great. Also, tons of good necromancy and undead-themed spells. The Necrotic Cyst feat/spell chain is just creepy, and the Corpsecrafter feats will make your undead amazingly powerful (with bonuses to Str, Hp, AC, an extra 1d6 cold damage per hit, and the ability to explode ina burst of negative energy when destroyed- it makes even a room full of zombies scary, but will eat up almost every feat slot you have). There's also the Fell Metamagics that do some interesting things like bestow negative levels, add fear effects, drain Strength, and even cause foes slain by spells to rise as zombies and skeletons.
Now that you mention it, my comment about the spell compendium being a better bang for the buck than librum mortis, the book specifically oriented towards necromancers and their black art, is pretty non-sequitor.
Here is the Necromancer Handbook that I wrote. It should have everything you'll ever need.
I found your line that 'the Mystic Thuerge is a dog with fleas' interesting. I take it you don't like that class.
The low level necromancer (levels 1-2) should be using spells to protect himself and stay alive. Give him a crossbow and be done with it. The spells will come in time.
Here is the Necromancer Handbook that I wrote. It should have everything you'll ever need.I found your line that 'the Mystic Thuerge is a dog with fleas' interesting. I take it you don't like that class.
Considering the profound lack of synergy between arcane and divine magic, and the fact that being a MT means that other people have cohorts who are better than you.....yeh, it bites.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Considering the profound lack of synergy between arcane and divine magic, and the fact that being a MT means that other people have cohorts who are better than you.....yeh, it bites.Here is the Necromancer Handbook that I wrote. It should have everything you'll ever need.I found your line that 'the Mystic Thuerge is a dog with fleas' interesting. I take it you don't like that class.
And the greatest irony is that everyone thinks the class is overpowered and for munchkins only.
I completely agree. The MT is not a good prestige class.
Considering the profound lack of synergy between arcane and divine magic, and the fact that being a MT means that other people have cohorts who are better than you.....yeh, it bites.Here is the Necromancer Handbook that I wrote. It should have everything you'll ever need.I found your line that 'the Mystic Thuerge is a dog with fleas' interesting. I take it you don't like that class.And the greatest irony is that everyone thinks the class is overpowered and for munchkins only.
I completely agree. The MT is not a good prestige class.
I am plotting your demise as we speak, with the help of both commune and greater scrying. I also plan to have several ironic cleric/wizard spell combos ready.;) Although, my char is pretty much known solely as 'the spell guy' and the other party members only have a druid for magic. The rest of the party is mucle and cunning. The half-dragon minotaur serves only as a wall of flesh between me and pain. Although the amount of party healing I have to do because he wants to play 'got your FACE' is cutting into my ultimate power.
I agree with the above poster that the sheer number of options of a Mystic Theurge, if played properly, makes them very poswerful. However, there are some ways to deffinately NOT play them, in my opinion, though Farewell2Kings may differ with me. DON'T be a sorcerer going into the class! You already have more spells per day than you can use. Plus, it's obvious you want options, so go wizard for the unlimited number of spells known and faster progression for god's sake! DON'T be a cleric that can't turn or heal (i.e., a worshipper of Wee Jas, wich spontaneously casts inflict spells, not cures). Actually,t his option probably isn't that bad, but in combo with the sorcerer levels, it made my brief experience in playignt he class miserable.
Oh wait, I have a Commune effect as well called Glimpse of Truth. I have a Suspended Silence that beats your Silence. I don't do combat healing because I'm not a moron......and when I do it, I use Magic of the Land to put encounter-winning buffs on my friends that also do healing.
All kidding aside, there is not enough synergy between Cleric and Wizard to make Mystic Theurge viable. True Necromancer adds insult to injury by further penalizing any synergy you might have.
The fact that there are NO viable Necromancer PrCs in the game is the reason that people like the True Necromancer. Heck, I'm at 30+ pages right now an online Necromancer supplement for the WotC boards just so that some people can actually play flavorful Necromancer characters.
Oh yeah? Well, you're still screwed, because I'm a 7th level rogue/1st level wizard with the Double Wand Wielder feat from the Complete Arcane, using two wands of Scorching Ray simultaneously, each wand having been created by a wizard with the Split Ray feat and sufficient level that each wand shoots three rays, so when I, the agile rogue, easily beat your Initiative and make the touch attacks with my sneak attack, you take 40d6 damage. From an 8th level character. Obviously, we should all play rogue/wizards, as they are clearly the most powerful thing there is.
Cut the competative crap. Who cares? Mystic Theurges can be just fine; its options and quantity over single-spell power. The lower caster level is helped by Practiced Spellcaster for cleric and wizard. I've seen 12th level wizards who led with Fireball almost everytime, with awesome effect, so having a higher spell level doesn't necessarily mean anything.
I read the necromancer handbook- interesting, but why did you keep refering to things as 8th and so level classes? Also, a wizard can indeed have hordes of undead minions. They're making the ghouls and such, as since these creatures ARE intelligent and have motives, I as the DM think that they would quickly realize that the wizard who spawned them would have similar motives and thus they could cooperate. Don't like that? Fine- the wizard has 22 Int, so he's a freaking genius and sets up a contingency plan and hires underlings to keep the undead in line, therefore coercing thier service to him quite effectively, and there is no HD cap. It's just a matter of "How many can you chrun out and have the resources to control?" That goes for wizards and clerics, and even Mystic Theurges.
But the Theurge has only Animate Dead at this point! Whoop-dee-doo. Can't control all of the skeletons? When the old ones slip out of your control, they still follow more or less the same orders that you gave them when they were still under your control. So, fill the main hall of your lair or whatever with undead, then release them from control and keep a well-hidden secret passage, or maybe even just Dimension Door, to get past them. You don't have to deal with them, enemies do, objective met.
Want to be an adventurer with those undead? Take the best ones, use those afore-mentioned scrolls of Command Undead, and head out! But their CR is too low compared to the things we're fighting! Not really- it's not just the low CR undead fighting the foes, but your whole party PLUS the undead you add. There's a synergy in numbers. Not to mention, CRs aren't designed with monster-on-monster combat in mind, but monster-on-player; so the actual challenge presented by any given monster to any other given monster is extremely circumstantial. The undead you tote around will do just fine.
Just have fun.
Oh yeah? Well, you're still screwed, because I'm a 7th level rogue/1st level wizard with the Double Wand Wielder feat from the Complete Arcane, using two wands of Scorching Ray simultaneously, each wand having been created by a wizard with the Split Ray feat and sufficient level that each wand shoots three rays, so when I, the agile rogue, easily beat your Initiative and make the touch attacks with my sneak attack, you take 40d6 damage. From an 8th level character. Obviously, we should all play rogue/wizards, as they are clearly the most powerful thing there is.
Well, your character should actually be doing 36d6 of damage, and since Dex is actually a better stat for Wizards than it is for Rogue, your chances of actually winning initiative are pretty even. It looks like rocket-launcher tag to me, but only if we assume no protections from fire on the other character.
Lets not forget that you have also presented an 8th level character with the equipment of an 11th level character.
So yes, if you can give the character high-level equipment, you have a 50% chance of winning.
As a fellow character expected tp pull weight in a party, that actually is really terrible. You'll last one adventure before those wands run out and then you're a non-viable character.
Congratulations.
Cut the competative crap. Who cares? Mystic Theurges can be just fine; its options and quantity over single-spell power. The lower caster level is helped by Practiced Spellcaster for cleric and wizard. I've seen 12th level wizards who led with Fireball almost everytime, with awesome effect, so having a higher spell level doesn't necessarily mean anything.
I can't recommend spending two feats in order to still be bad at your job.
On top of that, the "options" you speak of are almost non-existent. For the most part, the two spell lists overlap a lot, which was the point of my example.
By losing spell levels, you are actually losing more options than you are gaining (not to mention that higher level spells are just objectively better with higher DCs). Because of the overlap between arcane and divine spells, different casters actually have the SAME OPTIONS(see my example above), though they might get them at slightly different levels. Only higher level spells offer NEW OPTIONS, meaning any Mystic Theurge character is actually crippled in that department.
The fact that only a certain number of combats per day can happen means that there are a finite number of spells you can cast in combat, and having more spells is useless. At this point any MT character is going to have to start dumpster-diving for long-term buffs in order to make up for the fact that he's down on tactical options, and that actually can work in the short term. At higher levels when game-defining options open up like Polymorph any Object and Time Stop, the MT is going to seriously lag behind any single-classed character.
I read the necromancer handbook- interesting, but why did you keep refering to things as 8th and so level classes?
I was referring to the Dread Necromancer, and in that case it just doesn't get any meaningful class features after 8th level. Even the capstone power of "Turn into a Lich!!!" is something that happens some time on your last adventure, so you don't really care.
Also, a wizard can indeed have hordes of undead minions. They're making the ghouls and such, as since these creatures ARE intelligent and have motives, I as the DM think that they would quickly realize that the wizard who spawned them would have similar motives and thus they could cooperate. Don't like that? Fine- the wizard has 22 Int, so he's a freaking genius and sets up a contingency plan and hires underlings to keep the undead in line, therefore coercing thier service to him quite effectively, and there is no HD cap. It's just a matter of "How many can you chrun out and have the resources to control?" That goes for wizards and clerics, and even Mystic Theurges.
But the Theurge has only Animate Dead at this point! Whoop-dee-doo. Can't control all of the skeletons? When the old ones slip out of your control, they still follow more or less the same orders that you gave them when they were still under your control. So, fill the main hall of your lair or whatever with undead, then...
Lots of people play fun and substandard characters, and their DM knows this and makes sure that they don't fail. He even changes the rules of the game in order to make it possible for fun stories to be told.
I can't fault that style of play, but I also can't expect everyone to play that way. When trying to give advise people on a board, I try to assume a "default" campaign where the DM follows the rules and he expects players to be able to defeat challenges CRed or ELed to their level. I expect adventures to run like published adventures, since a lot of DMs use published adventures.
That why I can't condone blatantly inferior choices... like a Half-Dragon Minotaur.... or a True Necromancer.... or anything that will get your party killed and might even drive away your DM because he's tired of rewriting his story in order to save your party.
I apologize for my harshness in my post- I was having an extremely frustrating day. I needed a vent. Something about the quasi-juvenile "well my gun's bigger" that started to happen just caused me to snap.
I stand by my opinion that the mystic theurge is viable, however. The cleric and wizard spells do have a great deal of voerlap, but they also have a great deal of difference. Use the wizard levels for things like fireballs and other damaging spells, while the cleric goes for self-buffing spells. Divine shield, favor, and power, and the Mystic Theurge isn't bad in melee combat. Plus, he can always pull out that empored Magic Missile or Fireball for a good bit of damage.
And as for the number of encounters per day that are possible, I've just got one adventure for you: Three Faces of Evil.
And, it's not 40d6 or 36d6; we were both wrong: 3 rays from two wands, for a total of 6, each dealing 4d6 for a total of 24d6. Two of those rays get sneak attacks. At 7 levels of rogue, that's 4d6 per sneak attack, for a total of 8d6, which adds to the 24d6 for 32d6.