I have a player who wants to run an Olman zombie master. I was searching through all the various books I have to try and find a prestige class that would fit the bill, but didn't see anything that quite worked. Palemaster and True Necromancer were close, but had too much of an arcane spellcasting element. Has anyone found anything that worked or made their own zombie master prestige class? I may try to make one myself, but I figured if someone else had already done the work...
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There is a zombie master type prestige class in the Libras Equitas by Mystic Eye Games. I’m not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but maybe worth checking out if you can get your hands on the product?
EDIT: beaten by The Jade! These two books are by the same publisher, so it's fairly likely that the Zombie Master PrC in both of them is the same...
EDIT: beaten by The Jade! These two books are by the same publisher, so it's fairly likely that the Zombie Master PrC in both of them is the same...
Worry not. The version I recommended faultily explodes in the consumer's hands... so your's is the superior link by far.
Okay I've created my own Zombie Master prestige class, based on features from the Pale Master and True Necromancer out of the Libris Mortis. Here is the final product. If you have any suggestions or thoughts on it let me know. I have this as word document if anyone wants a copy e-mail me and I'll forward it to you. This is a 10 level prestige class, and although I couldn't paste in a table I think the below text gives all the information you need to run it.
Class Description: Zombie masters are the religious leaders of the Olman tribes, and advisors to the chiefs. They are responsible for maintaining the history and stories of their people through oral stories and song. They are members of a secretive cult called the Cult of the Walking dead, and they are respected, feared and shunned for their abilities to create and control undead, as well the undead characteristics they take on as they grow in power. In Olman society it has become socially acceptable to create mindless undead to help in the defence of Olman villages and to perform menial labour. They call these undead Walking Ancestors. Despite this the Olmans still have an aversion to these unnatural creations and tend to give them a wide berth. It is much less acceptable among the Olmans to create intelligent undead, as such being inevitably prove evil and dangerous. Zombie Masters don’t consider creating mindless an evil act, but they do view creating evil and intelligent undead as an evil act (which it is). Thus, such practices are forbidden, even though Zombie Masters have the knowledge to do so. However, every now and then a rogue Zombie Master engages in such evil acts, and if they are ever caught they are punished with death or worse.
Role Playing Notes: Zombie masters tend towards neutral alignments, but it is not uncommon for a Zombie Master to become corrupt, malicious and cruel resulting in an evil alignment. Most Zombie Masters care about their tribe, but are also self serving. They demand respect, and often take a perverse pleasure in being feared and shunned. They tend to crave power, but more often divine power than political power. Zombie Masters usually adorn themselves in tribal jewelry, piercings and tattoos. They always carry a ceremonial MW obsidian dagger, as symbol of their station. Such daggers are often magical.
Prerequisites:
Alignment: Any non good.
Special: Ability to rebuke undead. Ability to cast animate dead. Access to the death domain. The character must be human (Olman), and a member of one of the Olman tribes. To enter this prestige class the zombie master must apprentice with a zombie master in his village and become initiated into the Cult of the Walking Dead. After this initial training the zombie master must seek out the Lich Master, who is said to be the first zombie master. The lich master is an ancient being whose lair is near the volcanic peaks known as the Fangs of Zotzila. Each zombie master spends 6 months training under the cruel tutelage of the lich master before becoming a full fledged zombie master. Some candidates never return from this training.
HD: d8
BAB: as a cleric
Good Saves: as a cleric
Spell Progression: +1 of existing class level every level
Class Skills: Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Intimidation, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (Planes), Perform, Profession, Spellcraft.
Skill Points per level: 2+Int modifier.
Weapon and Armour proficiencies: Zombie masters are proficient with light armour, light shields, and heavy shields. They are proficient with simple weapons (except crossbows), and they are proficient with blowguns and Olman swords.
Special Abilities:
Rebuke Undead: The zombie master’s ability to rebuke undead continues to advance in the zombie master prestige class.
Ghoul Touch: At 2rd level,1 per day a zombie master can cast ghoul touch as a spell-like ability. His cater level is equal to the total level of his spellcasting classes. The save DC for this spell is modified by the zombie masters wisdom bonus. At 6th level he can use this ability twice per day.
Animate Dead: At 3rd level, 1 per day a zombie master can cast animate dead as a spell-like ability. He needs no material components for this spell and his caster level is equal to the total of all his spellcasting classes. At 6th level he can use this ability twice per day.
Zone of Desecration: At 4th level a zombie master begins to exert his control over the undead. He produces an aura that is identical to the effects of a desecrate spell, except that it affects only allied undead.
Deathless Vigor: At 5th level the zombie master becomes more akin to the undying flesh of the walking ancestors. The character gets a +4 bonus on Fortitude saves except on effects that also effect objects (like the disintegrate spell).
Tough as Bone: On reaching 7th level the zombie master takes on even more of the qualities of the undead. He becomes immune to disease, nonlethal damage, and stunning.
Deathward: On reaching 8th level the zombie master can cast deathward 1 per day as a spell-like ability. His caster level is equal to the total level of all his spellcasting classes.
Darkvision: At 9th level the zombie master’s connection with the undead grants him darkvision with a 60’ range.
Deathless mastery: On reaching 10th level, a zombie master gains the virtues of his deathless arts. His body becomes partially mummified (though he is not truly undead), and he becomes immune to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, death effects, critical hits, ability drain, and energy drain, as well as damage to his physical ability scores. He still needs to breath and eat. He no longer needs to sleep, but must enter a meditative state each day/night the same way an elf does. He still ages normally.
If you have any suggestions or thoughts on it let me know.
Where do I start? Okay, first is the requirements. That long description about the training and the fact that several don't survive isn't needed in the prerequisites section; it would be better placed as flavor text outside the class, as most PCs are either going to ignore it, or the whole process would be summarized (unless you want a PC being out of the game for six-plus months).
Next. This class gains immunities, resistances, or spell-like abilities every single level, some of which are quite powerful. Allowing them to cast animate dead once a day as a spell-like ability removes the need to use the costly component, namely a 25 gp onyx for each creature animated. Since this class adds its full level to the character's caster level (more on that in a second), this means that the point where this character can cast it for free, he can animate 16 HD of undead in one casting (which would normally cost 400 gp), and have a total of 32 HD controlled at one time. It doesn't sound like much for an 8th-level character, but 400 gp for eight zombies adds up quick, especially when characters of the same level can simply annihilate them.
Sure, he can bring up more given enough corpses and two days, but the fact that he gets to do it for free can unbalance things quickly. This guy could basically wander around towns and villages, randomly animate a pack of zombies and skeletons, and walk away to do it again in the next town. Just leave them there to cause havoc, they're not costing him anything more than a standard action a day.
One more level, and he can reach his maximum number of minions in one casting. He never has need to cast the spell normally, unless he wants to overwhelm an area with zombies and skeletons. And any areas he reach that are consecrated become neutral as long as he's standing there. He just has to walk into a temple of Pelor to effectively defile it.
When this guy reaches 12th level (assuming 5 cleric/7 ZM), he can animate enough skeletons in one day to have a mob (using the DMG2 rules); this requires 48 of them. A 20-foot square packed with skeletons, effectively a 30-HD undead. And he gets this free of charge, instead of having to fork over 1200 gp in onyx. Give him undead-controlling armor and the Undead Leadership feat from Libris Mortis and he can have a literal army following him around, especially with that constant desecrate effect. For free.
The 8th-level ability, with the note that it uses all spellcasting classes, is open for exploitation. Also be aware that it's completely overridden at 10th level (I'm assuming that the capstone ability includes immunity to negative energy, since it includes death effects and energy drain). So the ZM only gets to enjoy this ability for two levels, at which point he might as well erase it.
Darkvision as a 9th-level ability is extremely weak. If he doesn't already have it, he's probably gotten used to being without it by the time he's a 14th-plus-level character.
Lastly, and this is the big one, a prestige class that grants this many abilities, some of which are extremely powerful, should not gain an increase in spellcasting ability every level. There should be some trade-off. Given everything else the class gets, I would reduce it to once every even (or even every 3rd) level.
Thanks for the feedback on that. The requirements special requirements were more for flavour. Since in my game the character will be starting him as an 8th level PC he will have already been able to do them, and he can just use those things as part of his back story. So I don't really have to worry about him being unavaialbe for six months. If he were going to have to go through all that in game time I'd make it 1 month, and no it wouldn't be something that was role played out.
I'm not sure about your thoughts regarding the animate dead. There was at least one other prestige class that gets it as spell like ability, and generally I thought spell like abilties didn't require material components. I could always put the component cost back in. Zombies and Skeletons aren't that tough in a high level campaign, so I wasn't too worried about it. I hadn't considered the problem with the mob template, but I'm not sure if I'd let a player get away with that one.
I agree Darkvision is kind of a week ability to get a 9th level. I think I'd rather put it somewhere else, but I'm not sure where.
Perhaps Lone Paladin is right. Maybe he should give up a couple of levels of spellcasting. I will say however, that this prestige class took its inspiration from the pale master and the true necromancer. If you look at either of those they both get more special abilities than this one, and continue spell advancement. The True necromancer gets spell abilities at every level (including horrid wilting, create undead, create great undead, and energy drain as a spell like ability). The True necromancer also gains a level of divine and arcane caster every level.
The Pale master, gains animate dead, with no material components, 1 per day at third level, and various other features every level. However, this class does give up a spellcasting level at 1st.
Maybe I should take out the spellcasting level at first. I could give darkvision earlier. Maybe swap out the animate dead so that he only ever gets that once per day.