I was hoping someone coudl assist me in optimizing a Dread necromancer. All Wizards source books are viable options, and my stats are as follows at first level. Str: 10 Dex: 16 Con: 14 Int: 16 Wis: 12 Cha:19
I have 35,000 gold to spend initially as we are starting at 6th level. I want to maximize upon the dread necromancer abilities. The characters day job is that of a surgeon so some skill points will be designated to Knowlede anatomy, and profession Surgeon.
I am wondering if it is best to go straight Dread Necromancer or shoudl I dip into other classes as well. Any build suggestions or suggestions for items and feats are greatly welcome. Thanks in advance.
For starters you could look in the Libris Mortis for Tomb Tainted Soul which lets you heal from negative energy. I've heard in synergizes well with some of the Dread Necro's abilities.
Beyond that you're already better then anything I could ever make. You're being given the wealth of a 9th-level character (DMG 135) and your stats are twice the assumed level. Oh, and how are you getting CHA 19? I was generously assuming you started with CHA 18 and put the 4th-level bump in there for a point buy equivalent of 50 points. While the DM may tell you that you're starting at 6th-level I'm just looking at things and saying you're actually starting at 8th or 9th level.
Wont Necropolitan take away a level from me so I woudl be a level behing everyone else? What level is it best to take it at if I did?
Experience is a river. Lower-level characters completing challenges as part of a higher level party will earn more experience than their higher-level companions, so the gap closes faster than you'd think. There's a rule of thumb called the One Level Gravy Train that suggests that item crafters should stay one level behind their team, but advance at the same rate instead of the accelerated rate - the leftover XP is used to fuel item creation, in turn equipping the party far better than they could with simple loot or shopping.
(Caveat: This will not work with a level adjustment. A level 8 character with a +1 level adjustment is, for all intents and purposes related to XP, level 9, so he isn't one level behind a level 9 party.)
Eld20Generalissimo, StevenO has a point. You can crunch the probabilities on 4d6-drop-lowest, and find out that the "average" result is actually 15/14/13/12/10/8. Seeing six ability scores all above 10 and most above 14 is a statistical outlier. And, when you see lots and lots of "help me with my character please, my ability scores are all godlike" threads over and over and over, you begin to lose faith that people are actually following the rules.
On a related note, he's level 6, which should have 13000 GP in equipment, yet is asking for 35000 GP in equipment for suggestions. That's about what a 9th level character should have (WBL for 9h is 36000). So not only are his ability scores too high, his wallet is too deep.
StevenO you know you don't have to be like "woahz crazy stats" everytime someone asks for some help with a build and posts stats right? Sure it's way above a right out of the DMG point-buy, crazy good if all you did was roll 3d6 or even 4d6, but for all you know they're playing with some houserule along the lines of rolling a super number of sets or some such. ...
Actually, I feel like I do.
Most builds can be done using standard stats and while most favor certain stat over others they work. When you go and start throwing down crazy stats you automatically push up a build and often eliminate/reduce any weakness a focused build had which could potentially be exploited. I'd say the only reason some builds would even be allowed to play is because they have a weakness and if that weakness is gone they becomes too strong. To put something simply a "good build" doesn't require "god stats" to make it.
Tempest also mentions that statistical analysis of 4d6 drop lowest produces results between PB 30 and PB 25 depending a little on how low scores are treated. The problem is that you almost NEVER see someone come looking for help with a "poor" array which should exist but often see people mentioning stats that blow up the average. I'm sorry but I have no faith in "rolling" methods because they never seem like the produce expected results. People also pass of "rolled" stats like they followed the rules when they really use some enhanced rolling method; just rolling two sets of stats and choosing improves stats greatly and rerolling any number produces a huge increase.
Another issue I have with "high" stats is that they throw off any balance intended for listed CRs. If you take two characters and give one higher stats which is more powerful? Unfortunately that isn't well represented by the numbers. Now to challenge that exceptionally powerful character you either need to use higher CR opponents or you need to do the hard work of boosting everything's stats. I shouldn't need to point it out but by boosting everything's stats you really didn't do the PCs any good and you made more work for the DM.
As Andarious-Rosethorn mentions high stats at low level can overwhelm things with their bigger bonuses. This plays into my suggestion that high stats are effectively a LA that normally isn't accounted for.
Now even with all of my issues with those high stats there is NOTHING shown that explains starting with CHA 19 at first level. That means it is an illegal score regardless of any dice rolling. If there are houserule in effect that increase the power level of a game they really should be noted.
As for your wealth I'd point out that the DM is looking a 2ed rules and trying to apply them to 3rd edition. The wealth rule from Greyhawk were useful then because 2ed didn't have some kind of standardized wealth system so it was probably an attempt at creating one. Unlike the earlier editions 3e and 3.5 have a standardized wealth by level expectation (and the Magic Item Compendium offers another way of doing it) and should be used instead of something from an older edition.
I'd also mention that just giving monsters "max hitpoints" doesn't always mean a thing. At low levels it can offer a pretty significant power boost but as levels go up the ability to deal damage isn't as important and with it the higher hitpoints don't mean as much. Having about twice the expected number of hitpoints doesn't mean a lot if something is being stopped without targetting its hitpoints.
I'm sorry this isn't more helpful but I seem to remember a post or two not that long ago that talked about the Dread Necromancer a LOT. Actually, I think the title was something about playing a dread necro and while the thread did go way off topic it may have contained some useful information in it.
My whole goal here as stated was to try and get some build suggestions for a good roleplaying experience. I am not sure I even want to make my character undead in the end. While he is neutral evil, and primarily out fo rhimself he has no issues helping others if he gains knowledge from doign so. His front is that of a surgeon, while behind closed doors he loves to experiment with undead and such in hopes of gaining a better understanding. At least that is how I hope to play the character.
The party appears to be consisting of one Fighter and one Psion and my Dread Necromancer. So I am trying to add the flavor as well as make him usefull. Considering there are only 3 of us. So if anyone has build suggestions I appreciate any suggestions. Thanks to everyone for their assistance in advance.
OK the high stats are based on 4D6 drop lowest, ans we were instructed to re-roll ones.
Well, there you have it. That'll seriously bump up the odds for every ability score, particularly if that means "continually reroll 1s until you get no 1s, then drop your lowest die". I can't do the math with rigor in my head, but I think that'd put 16-17 as the mean result.
The Dm gives all monsters Max hit points based not their hit dice and tends to beef things up in his own fashion.
This matters as well, and it's important context.
My intention was to get somee suggestions on a path of advancement for the Dread Necromancer build itself.
Here's the handbook. In addition to providing a lot of good advice for working with necromancy - which is kind of the dread necro's purview - it provides good "iconic" progression advice for the dread necromancer, except he misread how Undead Mastery works (it's keyed off of your dread necromancer level, not your caster level).
OK the high stats are based on 4D6 drop lowest, ans we were instructed to re-roll ones.
Well, there you have it. That'll seriously bump up the odds for every ability score, particularly if that means "continually reroll 1s until you get no 1s, then drop your lowest die". I can't do the math with rigor in my head, but I think that'd put 16-17 as the mean result.
It doesn't shift it up as much as it might initially seem, since some of the lower rolls are already excluded by dropping the lowest numbers.
I actually did a check on a 4d6 generation where you dropped the lowest number in addition to rerolling any result of 1 or 2 (instead of just 1, as in this case), and just shoved a list of all the possible roll combinations into a table as data. It gave about 14.6 as the average of all the possible roll totals from each combination.
After that? Consider Bind Vestige, Improved Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder, you can get all kinds of goodies that will make you even more of a fear monster, or give you options for when that won't work.
What about using Undead Grafts? That seems like the kind of thing that would be right up your character's alley. I forget what book they're in, though.
Undead grafts are in Libris Mortis (and the Fiend Folio, but Libris Mortis covers all the same undead grafts and a few more).
OK the high stats are based on 4D6 drop lowest, ans we were instructed to re-roll ones.
Well, there you have it. That'll seriously bump up the odds for every ability score, particularly if that means "continually reroll 1s until you get no 1s, then drop your lowest die". I can't do the math with rigor in my head, but I think that'd put 16-17 as the mean result.
It doesn't shift it up as much as it might initially seem, since some of the lower rolls are already excluded by dropping the lowest numbers.
I actually did a check on a 4d6 generation where you dropped the lowest number in addition to rerolling any result of 1 or 2 (instead of just 1, as in this case), and just shoved a list of all the possible roll combinations into a table as data. It gave about 14.6 as the average of all the possible roll totals from each combination.
You do realize that is a pretty serious bump Slagger? It may not be the 16-17 that Tempest mentions but if you were to just figure the ePB of a 15x3,14x3 (which only averages 14.5) and that jumps the ePB to 42 and probably a lot more when you start throwing in more 17 and 18s. Rerolling 1s and 2s is the same as just rolling 4d4:drop lowest +6 which should average 15 points (ePB 48) but can easily be a LOT more.
The scores may not look a lot bigger but the equivalent point buy goes through the roof.
Now as much as I'd like to suggest becoming a Necropolitan instead of burning a feat for TTS here you'd really need to look at what you give up by losing CON 14. Now the Necropolitan should be getting d12's for HD regardless of the class taken but with CON 14 that shouldn't mean any more hitpoints unless you're using a d4 or d6 HD. Being undead does give you a number of immunities where you may normally roll FORT but you may miss that +2. Incidently if you had the 10 or 12 in CON I'd look at it much more favorably. Now the level lost to dying may hurt a little while but being down XP is something you SHOULD be able to makeup provided the DM is awarding XP as the DMG intends; unfortunately I'm not sure that is how your DM will do things.
You do realize that is a pretty serious bump Slagger? It may not be the 16-17 that Tempest mentions but if you were to just figure the ePB of a 15x3,14x3 (which only averages 14.5) and that jumps the ePB to 42 and probably a lot more when you start throwing in more 17 and 18s. Rerolling 1s and 2s is the same as just rolling 4d4:drop lowest +6 which should average 15 points (ePB 48) but can easily be a LOT more.
The scores may not look a lot bigger but the equivalent point buy goes through the roof.
Yes, it's certainly a significant increase; I was simply giving my insight on the approximate figure and noting that the rerolling doesn't make quite as much of a difference as you might think when you're already dropping the lowest values. If it had been around the 16-17 mark, it would have been that much more of an increase.
However, I checked the numbers and the difference between rerolling just results of 1 and rerolling results of both 1 and 2 is significant. Rerolling on just 1 gives about a 13.4 roll average compared to the 14.6 average roll for rerolling both 1 and 2 (with 12.5 being the average result of the standard rolling method). It's a much larger difference than I had guessed, but there's no substitute for checking directly.
I also checked the average 4d6 result for rerolling 1-3 (approximately 15.8) and rerolling 1-4 (approximately 16.9), dropping the lowest number in each case. So you can get about 16 or 17 for the average result if you're prepared to absolutely brutalize the rolls.
I think a Dreadpriest is a fun option, although list expansion is a tried and true option. Rainbow Necrosnakes are also a very cheesy and fun option, though likely to result in books being thrown.
Any class that adds to your spell list. I'm guessing that Dreadpriest uses Ur-Priest as a PrC, while Rainbow Necrosnakes is the Rainbow Servant.
While it'd be more accurate to add that a Dreadpriest uses Mystic Theurge, traditionally DN 8/Ur-Priest 1/Mystic Theurge 8/List expansion 3, you're right on all three counts