Wings Over the Pyre - March 25th, 2002

03:30 am

Well, it had to happen eventually; I've created a D&D3 character ... though I don't expect to get to play it. A friend of mine is playing in a starting 6th Lvl game, so I figured I'd see what my options were on creating a character. Since I had PCGen handy, it was at least a no-brainer to pull off, thank Hades.

Interesting notes: A beginning Necromancer has two lousy things going on. HP and funds. HP is all the worse if you have a really bad Con, or even a moderately bad Con. With only a d4 as your roll, a couple bad rolls, all modified by, say, -2, and you're eaten alive by the first kobold to come along.

The other interesting thing of note is that a beginning Necromancer can't do much more than turn or halt Undead until much later in their professional lives. Of course, Vampiric Touch 4x a day isn't anything to sneeze at, if you know you're going to have to get in there and mix it up, but its hardly sufficient to make one a stone bad-ass compared to, say, the Fighter's 6th Lvl Feats which make him a combat nightmare. Ziennor can cast any Lvl 1 spell he knows as a Lvl 4 without needing to use verbal or somatic elements, though, which ... well, frankly isn't that handy when looking at the Necromancy school spells. Mage Armor is the only one to look fairly useful to cast tied up or gagged, or both.

Ah well, good ol' standard Necromancer. Maybe I'll throw in a couple Lvls of Cleric and see if it helps; sort of a development counselor thing.

03:56 am

Well, while we're prototyping, here's Ziennor's Clerical development sheet. The interesting thing to me here is that his HP go up like a bloody shot, just from a couple levels of Cleric. (I guess rolling d8's instead of d4's really does make a difference.) Also notice the interesting special ability addition:

Summon Familiar,Spontaneous casting,Rebuke Undead 3/day

So, not only can Ziennor Turn and Halt Undead, he can Rebuke them, too. ("Bad skellie, no kobold tonight for you!")

Let's compare this to another couple levels of Necromancer instead of Clerical investment.

Ziennor after piling on a couple more levels in Necromancy is actually in some ways a lot less powerful a creature than if he had taken the Clerical investment. For one, there's no bonii to Evil and Lawful spells. For another, his HP suck mightily.

On the upside, he has a handfull of spells a day he can cast from Lvl 4, amongst which are Contagion, Fear, and despite it not being Necromantic, Evard's Black Tentacles, my signature spell. Contagion and Fear (particularly Fear) are the first really handy tools a Necromancer seems to get. Still no way to actually summon or control the buggers, sadly, which makes Necromancers nearly a misnomer, and makes me long to play Ironclaw, where at least if I'm a decent Necromancer out of the gate I can raise a few zombies to serve my evil will.

Kind of annoying, really.

Ah well, so endeth the lesson for tonight. Input, as always, is appreciated.

Current Mood: devious

04:35 pm

Just a note, thanks to Heather's astute and intelligent aid, Ziennor's character sheet looks much, much better.

Mind you, he still looks like an incompetent wuss, but better aesthetically. :)

Current Mood: happy

07:06 pm - Surprise, surprise, surprise

08:00 pm

OK, one more recreation of poor Ziennor as a 6th Lvl Cleric. Poor fellow, he's been ganked around so many times since I started its almost not funny. But D&D always was a bastard for getting characters to be exactly like you like them, ie you can't.

Looking at the Clerical approach, its actually much more survivable, save for the fact I wanted a secular approach to necromancy. But this chara can wear scale mail, carry a quarterstaff, and most importantly, cast Animate Dead 3x a day. And Talk to Dead. And actually do necromancery stuff. That's important.

The next version of Ziennor will be done in Ironclaw. That should be ... intriguing.