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Yes, you read that right. I had this idea the other day either as a player character or an NPC in my games of a crazy cat lady that happened to be a necromancer. Her undead horde being all her pet cats only now they are zombies, skeletons, etc. Id make her neutral evil with the cruelty only showing to one that has harmed one of her babies.
For either way (PC or NPC) I’m not looking for optimizing just an entertaining character or encounter. I figured regardless of source class give her levels in agent of the grave to increase the amount of cats she has.
Her surface profession would be a veterinarian or something animal related with her being obsessed with cats, not just regular house cats, but wild big cats too and even catfolk (she hasn’t met one yet and is unaware they exist but I’d imagine that first encounter being like a kid that loves Disney and seeing Mickey Mouse in person).
Part of me thinks this will be a better NPC then PC (this way a lair can already be set up with a basement crawling with undead cats, zombies, skeletons, maybe even one lich cat (her favorite one only; yes that’s an expensive pet).
What are somethings to do to make a flavorful character that doesn’t break a game with this concept in mind.
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The easiest way to make a Druid necromancer is the Blight Druid with the Death Domain, Shades of the Uskwood feat, and all five levels of Agent of the Grave.
You can do it late level with a Witchguard Ranger and the Plague Patron... all five levels of Agent of the Grave.
Spirit Warden Shaman 5/Agent of the Grave 5 would be the quickest way I can think of.
If she's high enough level then the ability to possess one of her cats (magic jar or possession) might be fun.
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What are somethings to do to make a flavorful character that doesn’t break a game with this concept in mind.
Knit them all cat hair sweaters so they can go outside at night without arousing too much suspicion. After all: cats - living or dead - want to kill things.
What are somethings to do to make a flavorful character that doesn’t break a game with this concept in mind.Knit them all cat hair sweaters so they can go outside at night without arousing too much suspicion. After all: cats - living or dead - want to kill things.
LMAO that is amazing
My mind actually first went to Vivisectionist... with their Torturous Transformation... anthropomorphic animal and awaken... just seems like it could make for some creepy cat stuff. But Vivisectionist doesn't stack with Reanimator, so we miss out on the necromancy.
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The undead house cats would probably make a good swarm, to keep it simple. As the cat lady raises more, that could be a second and third swarm, or an entire troop on the long run. The undead wild cats could still be separate creatures.
Maybe she dabbled into necromancy because she couldn't have handled the death of a certain cat (or multiple). Starting out with a neutral attitude, her alignment went downhill when she "had" to do some horrible things to get the necromancy started. Or when the cats required... food.
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{. . .} Her surface profession would be a veterinarian or something animal related with her being obsessed with cats {. . .}
I'm tempted to say make her also be a taxidermist . . . in addition to the obvious professional fallback, this also lets her save up cat corpses that she hasn't had a chance to animate yet (including a reserve that she can animate fairly quickly if she was maxed out on controlled Undead and then suddenly loses a bunch, so this serves as yet another fallback). These would be unusual Undead in that they would appear to be fast Zombies, but they would actually be Skeletons (although maybe having some weird hybrid characteristics such as having DR/Slashing instead of DR/Bludgeoning), but you can mostly just reskin the Skeleton Template to get that.
Gravewalker Witch would be not too shabby as well -- make her Spell Poppet be a cat doll with humanoid skin. Although Witch works better in most cases with no prestige class levels.
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I think Juju Oracle6--> Agent of the Grave5--> Juju OracleX is the way to go here, because they get 6HD/CL and Max HP zombies with the Spirit Vessel Revelation. Not only could you have swarms of zombie kitties with full HP, but you could also raise quite a few lions and tigers, all with unrolled Full HP. Think Crazy Cat Lady x Tiger King x "Always Max HP" 6HD/CL.
Make craptons of Zombies with both the Fast and the Plague templates. Once you get level 5 AotG, use your Secrets of Death ability to pick up the spell Command Undead and now you're in business. Every time your Plague Zombies die, they blow up and afflict all others with Zombie Rot, which will raise as Zombies that you can use Command Undead to control in it's own seperate "Bucket" of Undead that doesn't count towards your Animate Dead "Bucket". <---- This is your juggling act, because if you get Extend Spell and the Undead Master Feat, your Command Undead spells last for 3days/level. Also, anything that you kill and raise with Animate Dead that goes "past" your max allowable HD can be "kept" with Command Undead juggling.
You're a veritable Zoo of an Undead Crazy Cat lady at that point.
Picking up targeted undeath with the Experimental Spellcaster feat would let her animate a minion with a 2nd level spell slot (if using the cleric/oracle list) and no material component. Saves a lot of money on onyx that way.
One thing I did for a halloweeny one-shot was apply the skeleton template to a swarm of ravens to make the stats for a swarm of animated chicken carcasses a mad butcher animated. Same principle could be applied to a different swarm to make a swarm of undead kitties.
Here is the Common Cat with the JuJu Zombie template applied to it... pretty sure I got it all accounted for:
Common Cat JuJu Zombie CR 2
XP 600
NE Tiny Undead (animal)
Init +7; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +5
DEFENSE
AC 18, touch 15, flat-footed 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural, +2 size)
hp 5 (1d8–2 +3)
Fort +0, Ref +5, Will +1
DR 5/magic and slashing
Channel Resistance +4
Immune cold, electricity, magic missile
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 claws +5 (1d2–2), bite +5 (1d3–2), slam +5 (1d3-2)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
STATISTICS
Str 7, Dex 17, Con -, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 11 (15 vs. trip)
Feats Improved InitiativeB, ToughnessB, Weapon Finesse
Skills Climb +12, Perception +5, Stealth +15;
Racial Modifiers +8 Climb, +4 Stealth
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If your character is going to be lvl 15+ in whatever campaign you're running, I would consider getting Spell Perfection for either Animate Dead or Command Undead, either one (but you'll probably get more mileage out of Command Undead).
Spell Perfection will double your CL bonus to +4 from Spell Specialization and +2 from Varisian Tattoo towards Animate Dead, and that's really good, because you're talking about another 3CLx6HD = 18HD that is permanent and you never need to make checks against. But you can also put Spell Perf on Command Undead, which would allow you to put Persistent on your Command Undead spell for free, and now your Spell Focus and Gr Spell Focus DC bonuses Double to +2DC apiece instead of +1DC apiece. So you could use MULTIPLE Persistent Extended Command Undead spells as lvl 3 spell slots every day, and now your Command Undead spells are 3days x lvl15 = 45 day durations and they have to save TWICE with an additional +2 DC from SF/GSF. That's kind of a big deal, because there's no Max HD for Command Undead Juggling, its only limited on how many times you can cast it per day and then not getting resisted when you recast it on them every 45 days when the spell expires. And since you're an Oracle, your high Cha score is going to be crushing their Save attempts.
If your character is going to be lvl 15+ in whatever campaign you're running, I would consider getting Spell Perfection for either Animate Dead or Command Undead, either one (but you'll probably get more mileage out of Command Undead).
Spell Perfection will double your CL bonus to +4 from Spell Specialization and +2 from Varisian Tattoo towards Animate Dead, and that's really good, because you're talking about another 3CLx6HD = 18HD that is permanent and you never need to make checks against. But you can also put Spell Perf on Command Undead, which would allow you to put Persistent on your Command Undead spell for free, and now your Spell Focus and Gr Spell Focus DC bonuses Double to +2DC apiece instead of +1DC apiece. So you could use MULTIPLE Persistent Extended Command Undead spells as lvl 3 spell slots every day, and now your Command Undead spells are 3days x lvl15 = 45 day durations and they have to save TWICE with an additional +2 DC from SF/GSF. That's kind of a big deal, because there's no Max HD for Command Undead Juggling, its only limited on how many times you can cast it per day and then not getting resisted when you recast it on them every 45 days when the spell expires. And since you're an Oracle, your high Cha score is going to be crushing their Save attempts.
Oh d@mn... on the Mystic Theurge Agent of the Grave build I shamelessly stole from you, you chose Animate Dead for Spell Perfection... but given that that build ends up with 230+ HD in its Animate Dead bucket, I think I am willing to give up 18 HD to optimize Command Undead. With Persistent Spell... just wonderful.
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Oh d@mn... on the Mystic Theurge Agent of the Grave build I shamelessly stole from you, you chose Animate Dead for Spell Perfection... but given that that build ends up with 230+ HD in its Animate Dead bucket, I think I am willing to give up 18 HD to optimize Command Undead. With Persistent Spell... just wonderful.If your character is going to be lvl 15+ in whatever campaign you're running, I would consider getting Spell Perfection for either Animate Dead or Command Undead, either one (but you'll probably get more mileage out of Command Undead).
Spell Perfection will double your CL bonus to +4 from Spell Specialization and +2 from Varisian Tattoo towards Animate Dead, and that's really good, because you're talking about another 3CLx6HD = 18HD that is permanent and you never need to make checks against. But you can also put Spell Perf on Command Undead, which would allow you to put Persistent on your Command Undead spell for free, and now your Spell Focus and Gr Spell Focus DC bonuses Double to +2DC apiece instead of +1DC apiece. So you could use MULTIPLE Persistent Extended Command Undead spells as lvl 3 spell slots every day, and now your Command Undead spells are 3days x lvl15 = 45 day durations and they have to save TWICE with an additional +2 DC from SF/GSF. That's kind of a big deal, because there's no Max HD for Command Undead Juggling, its only limited on how many times you can cast it per day and then not getting resisted when you recast it on them every 45 days when the spell expires. And since you're an Oracle, your high Cha score is going to be crushing their Save attempts.
Yeah, I made that build before I GM'ed for an Evil Gestalt campaign where one of the PC's was doing an Ultimate Necromancer Zoo build, she went: GravewalkerWitch20/JuJuOracle6,AotG5,JuJuOracleX. And she put Spell Perfection on Command Undead (I actually tried to talk her out of it) and it was waaaaay stronger than I thought it was going to be.
And it was because she had this really cool "inner circle" thing going on with her Coven and her Intelligent Undead Generals who couldn't pass her DC's, and it wasn't even close. She took Heighten, Extend, and Persistent Metamagics, Undead Master, SF/GSF (Necromancy), Spell Perf, and I can't remember what else.
She wanted to be "Khaleesi with the Night King as her general", and boy did she have it and then some.