Dread Necromancers and Animate Dead

[takasi]

I'm trying to understand the rules for Dread Necromancer.

At 8th level, let's say a necromancer has an item with an enhancement to charisma (+4) and has a 20 charisma as base. That means the necromancer has a +6. With a desecrate spell, the necromancer can animate a 32 HD zombie with each casting (each with about 336 hp I think), and with the undead mastery class feature she can control up to 80 HD of creatures.

Add the sickening grasp feat and you can get 36 HD zombies (up to 90 HD of them).

Now if the DM will allow taking the 'Divine' Spell Power feat (changing arcane to divine) to boost the caster level to 13 with a rebuke check, we now have 52 HD zombies (up to 130 HD controlled).

Does anyone see this as a tad bit unbalanced for an ability you can do every day? Granted, you're going to pay 1500-3000 gp in material components.

Do these numbers seem right? Just trying to make sure I understand the rules as written.

 

[Kurotowa]

No, you're missing an essential piece from the Skeleton and Zombie templates.

"If the creature has more than 20 Hit Dice, it can’t be made into a skeleton by the animate dead spell."

"If the base creature has more than 10 Hit Dice (not counting those gained with experience), it can’t be made into a zombie with the animate dead spell."

So while a Dread Necromancer is a fearsome master of the undead, it isn't as bad as all that. Animate Dead has a hard cap of 20HD to what it can create. Not to mention the limit of what the DM allows you to find and kill so it can be animated at all.

 

[DreadArchon]

Does anyone see this as a tad bit unbalanced for an ability you can do every day? Granted, you're going to pay 1500-3000 gp in material components.

No, due to the second part.

(1) Having undead legions is spiffy, (2) that's more than the cost of a +1 weapon or item (per day!), and (3) a well-prepared enemy would lay that army flat.

 

[moritheil]

Area damage tends to thin the ranks quickly.

 

[takasi]

Thank you! Trying to figure out my undead stuff.

I still feel it is very powerful. For example, with the conditions above the 8th level dread necromancer could animate and control at least 5 skeletons (that's just by RAW, several more if 'Arcane' Spell Power is houseruled) that are 20 HD each. Check out the stats for the Young Adult Red Dragon Skeleton example in the SRD:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm

(Yes, the DM could curb this by making access to a dragon skeletons difficult, but let's go with something more common like dinosaur bones or something. Also, it's part of the class feature, so it should be assumed the character should be able to use it at some point.)

And not only that, but the skeletons would have +80 hp from desecrate and the undead mastery skill. That's over 1000 hp for only 2500 gp. With an average of +19 to hit on a single attack for an average of 100 points of damage if all 5 skeletons hit. If all five get their full attacks it's an average of 500 point of damage every round!

I can't think of very many encounters at EL 8 that could possibly stop that (or a party of 4 dread necromancers doing this), can you? Heck, just ONE of those skeletons should take down a normal party!

 

[DreadArchon]

I still feel it is very powerful. For example, with the conditions above the 8th level dread necromancer could animate and control at least 5 skeletons (that's just by RAW, several more if 'Arcane' Spell Power is houseruled) that are 20 HD each. Check out the stats for the Young Adult Red Dragon Skeleton example in the SRD...

At level 8? That's a pretty dang silly example. You're assuming that a level 8 can find numerous dead 20-HD dragons, fer cryin' out loud.

You need a more reasonable comparison for a scenario like that--"level 8 with access to the secret ele--er, dragon graveyard VS level 8 Fighter?"

What? Compare your build to, say, a level 8 Knight with Leadership, and give him and each of his followers all the items in the Epic Items section of the SRD. Including artifacts. And everyone is a Druid with two dozen scrolls of Elemental Swarm. Which, honestly, is a much more likely scenario. You can buy Epic Items, but where the heck would you get all those dragon skeletons?

 

[takasi]

At level 8? That's a pretty dang silly example. You're assuming that a level 8 can find numerous dead 20-HD dragons, fer cryin' out loud.

Like I said in the last post, use something more common then. A T-Rex is only CR 8, so a level 8 dread necromancer should be able to easily get 5 of them if he was in a hunting party. Or elephants or whatever else. It's not that difficult at 8th level.

The point is he'll end up with 5 (or many more) buffed creatures. A normal necromancer would only get 1, and it wouldn't be nearly as powerful as a single dread necromancer's skeleton.

 

[DogBackward]

C'mon, this is easy. New rule: Any undead under your control cannot have more HD than your permanent caster level for the Animate Dead spell. Every Corpsecrafter feat you possess increases the HD limit of all of your Animated undead by +1 HD. SO if you had Corpsecrafter and Nimble Bones, you could have 10 HD undead, rather than only 8 HD.

Permanent CL means that even Arcane Spell Power wouldn't be able to animate a 9 HD creature, using our level 8 Dread Necro. You could animate more of them at once with the higher CL, true, but they'd all be 8 HD or less.

This means that only a dedicated undead mage can have undead servants that will actually be truly effective in combat. Your average necromancer, without any Corpsecrafter feats, will have the same total HD of undead, but they won't be as effective in actual combat. Whereas someone who specializes in undead creation, with a host of Corpsecrafter feats, can have less undead, but they'l be more powerful. Still not 20 HD, however, which is a good thing.

For example, our 8th level Dread Necro, human, who uses all of his feats for Corpsecrafter feats would still only be able to control an undead with a total of 12 HD. And this takes true dedication, too, with no other feats being taken.

 

[takasi]

That's a fair houserule. Even if you impose this limitation (which is not RAW but still fair), you're still going to have a 9th Dread Necromancer with over 1000 hp worth of at least 10 chimera skeletons. Think of the benefits to AC alone; +20 to AC from aid anothers (assuming they squeeze into squares).

That's without any feats; just the standard class feature!

 

[DogBackward]

Chimeras are large, and you can't use the squeezing rules unless the terrain forces it. We actually tested this, you can't squeeze two people that close together without a couple of walls to help out. So, you could maybe get four of them if you manage the spacing perfectly, but most likely only three, unless you're up against a larger enemy. All in all, not a big deal.