Prestige Class Options for Dread Necromancers?

[Giygas]

any you can think of? None of them in the manuel seam to fit with the dread necrosave for the True Necromancer, for which you also have to take cleric levels. However, as of now,  I don't really see too many options that would not force you lose some of your power as a dread necro by having to invest points in skills that would "distract" you from the main three of all caster classes, spellcraft, concentration and lore.

Any ideas on posible PrC options for Dread Necros, or should they just  stick with taking 20 lvs of sorcerer or warmage after he/she gains litchdom?

[MaxAstro]

What does the Lichdom benefit for the Dread Necro actually do?  If its benefits are lesser than those of the Lich prestige class, that could be a viable option.  If you wanted to emphasize the "evil" aspect of the character, any of the Disciples of ~insert demon here~ or Thrall of Graz'zt or Orcus seem like possibilities.

I agree that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of PrCs that seem designed for the Dread Necromancer, especially as a pure caster...

[Stratovarius]

Any class that boosts arcane casting at a full level works well, Shadow Adept being one option. There aren't going to be too many that suport his necromancy though.

[Giygas]

Yeah, most of the disciple of *insert demon name here* and Thrall thingy are VERY cool and flavorful villain classes  but require a decient investment into some negation skills, one of which is cross class for dread necros.(Persuade) So, with so few skill points as a dread necro, I want to put what few precious skill points I get into the important stuff- Spellcraft, Lore and Concentration. So yeah, although usefull, I would rather spend my few skill points on those needed attributes then waste them just to get into a PrC, making my character much weaker in the processes. The only way I could see myself taking any of those PrCs as a dread necro would be if I had a race that had some kind of large int boost, like Ithlids. However, the Ithlid race is VERY cheap and I want to stay away from it if possible.(Even though the idea of being a mini-Cthulu is very appealing.)

The shadow adapt sounds somewhat interesting, it adds some much needed defense to the DNecro, but there are better options for that(which I will name below.) As for the litch, it's pure useless for a DNecro, why? You need to be a lv.21 caster to get levels beyond 4 in it, and the dread necro stops leveling at 20. I suppose you could take one level in sorcerer or something, but I am not sure if that would qualify you for the litch levels above 4 or not. Also, I do not yet know what kind of Litch abilites the DNecro gets at Lv.20 in the game, but if the DNecro becomes a full litch, complete with abilities for free at 20, then the Litch class is even more useless for a DNecro.

The best thing I can think to do to advance a Dread Necro past lv.20 would be levels in Sorcerer. The Sorcerer bases it's spellcasting of the same stat the dread necro dose, but has a MUCH wider choice of spells, meaning you have the chance to pick up spells that can compensaet for what your limited DNecro list lacks. This means defenses, perhaps some better AOE/Crowd control and buffs for your undead. Of course, another interesting route to go would be Dread Necro/Favored Soul for acsses to the cleric spell list rather then the Sorc/Wizard one.  Both lists are good, but the cleric list is VERY tempting  since it has spells similar in function to the sorc/wizard list as well as inflict spells which can heal your undead army.(Imagine Mass Inflict Critical Wounds with your undead hord.....sounds VERY nice.) But then again, many of the spells on the cleric/favoured soul spell list are also on the dread necro list, while the sorc/wizard list has more spells that dread necros can't get normally.

Also, there are two other downsides to the favored soul. The  first is the fact that although favored soul casting is based on the same stat as dread necro casting, the  DC for  favored soul spells are based on wisdom, which is usually the "dumb stat" of choice for arcane casters like the dread necro. However,if a favored soul can get high enough charisma and wisdom do cast spells, there is no reason a Dread Necro/Favored soul could not do the same. The other downside is more of a minor annoyance then anything else.....those blasted angel wings the favored souls get. I mean, nothing says evil overlord like a set of giant white  angel wings sticking out of your back. I suppose if you had sephiroth hair(which is possible if you use one of the elvin heads(Some of which can look VERY sephiroth-ish)....but the whole undead skin that comes with being a litch just ruins the "one winged angel" look. If only there was a way to replace them with those bone wings Balors have, then we would be talking.

[MaxAstro]

Are you sure the Dread Necro stops at 20?  I see feats listed for epic levels in the manual...  Even if they can't, you can take Practiced Spellcaster to have your first 4 levels of Lich add to your caster level and that will easily get you into Demilichdom.

Anyway, you've spiked my interest, so tomorrow I'm gonna level a Dread Necro up to 20+ and test out Dread Necro/Lich and how the Dread Necro Lichdom works.  Will report back after testing.

[Stratovarius]

Yes, it stops at 20. However, you can take prestige classes that get you further caster levels for the DNecro. Also, the Shadow Adept isn't defensive, it's offensive. That whole +3 DC to Necromancy spells being one of them, and usually the primary reason for taking the class.

I would call sorcerer a terrible choice to take for a DNecro, you're basically starting all over again with a nothing caster level. You really do want to get into a prestige class or two by level twenty, and there are some, like the elemental savant, that do that very easily.

[Giygas]

Yeah, I don't consider DC boosts offensive or defensive, I consider them a very needed power up, but I suppose you could call them offensive for necromancy because of death magic.  Anyway, shadow adept is the only PrC  for the dread necro in the whole game it seams usefull unless I somehow get a massive int boost to get the skill levels nessicary to qualify for Thrall of Garz'zt or Disciple of Asmodeus(A very cool class.)

The Litch option seams like a great idea though provided the DNecro dose not get the special litch abilities and demilitch abilities on their own, so I will be waiting for that report.

Of course, if I really wanted too, I could TRY and create my own PrC for the dread  necro or use something from the Tome of Necromancy, but I have little to no game hacking skills, so most likely I would have to get somebody else to do the computer/game programing related work because I can't do that kind of stuff very well without instructions. However, shadow adept seams like the best option by far, so I will most likely just stick with that.

[MaxAstro]

Well, my Dread Necro 20/Lich 10 (With 8 soul gems and full level phylactery) says that it is very possible.  Dread Necros actually don't seem to get a lot out of their Lichdom feat except becoming undead.  However, by taking a Dread Necro to 20, basically without doing anything else, you meet all the prereqs for the Lich class, so I think Lich is the obvious choice for your first ten epic levels.  Past that I'm not sure it matters what you take, because I don't think anything could kill a DN 20/Lich 10...

However, over the course of leveling this character up I encountered some seemingly critical bugs, one of which basically renders it unplayable.  Firstly is that one of the Dread Necro's first level spells seems to be named "-5" and has the description for the "reduce spellfire level by 5" feat.  Secondly is that the DN seems to get Practiced Spellcaster (Warmage) instead of Practiced Spellcaster (Dread Necro), although the feat still gave me enough caster level to take Demilichdom, so I don't know if that is merely a typographical error.  The final and most serious is that with one exception where it seemed to glitch into working for one level, I was unable to choose spells as a Dread Necro.  I got a constant "You will be able to choose more spells when you next gain a level" dialog that wouldn't go away unless I talked to an NPC.

I was also getting a lot of TMI errors for various things by the epic levels, and a repeated "Feat gained Undead HD 0" message.  Oh, and the Illithid Wizard cohort I took as a lark started generating stack overflow errors once I reached a high level.  Dunno what that means or if it is important, but all this bugginess has turned me off to actually playing this god of a character I just created.

[Giygas]

Dread Necros don't chose spells though, the get all of the spells of a certain level when they gain spells per day in the next spell level, just like a cleric. So, unless you meant casting spells by "choosing" spells, then that is not a even an error at all. (and if you could not cast any spells, how did you level up in dread necro? O.o)

[MaxAstro]

What I mean is there was a dialog menu like Duskblades/Psions/etc get for choosing their spells, except it only said "You'll be able to choose more spells when you next gain a level", and no matter how many times a clicked "End Dialog" it wouldn't go away.  And I didn't seem to gain any spells, except the one time it actually let me choose spells, and then I had to manually choose every spell I had available at the time.

[Stratovarius]

Yeah, its a known issue. It's actually fixed already, just waiting for the next PRC release.