The animated undead for Pale Masters is absolutely terrible. A 6 hp zombie as a special power for a prestige class?

I'd suggest this guy be SERIOUSLY upgraded. Preferably, I'd like to see a nasty undead creature that has at least as many levels as its creator.

Animate dead does the normal thing a half HD of your PC zombie.

You can use it on corpses though to animate them, if you can find them.

A six HP zombie is not half my HD.

I have a seventh level character.

Well, it probably rolled terrible on its HD or it only counts your PM levels for its HD.

That's still pretty crappy considering the hoops to jump through and the huge stigma with animating undead....doesn't exactly feel like the dark side being all quick path to power when you summon up something that would likely get beat by a rat.

I agree completely. If possible, something should be factored to take in the over-all level of the caster, and perhaps summon an undead to match it.

As Necromancy is basically a kill-on-sight in most circles, A palemaster should be able to summon -incredibly- strong undead, even with few levels, given their rare knowledge.

As normal, I am of the opinion that PrC's should be beast; Not just niffty. Therefore, I agree with Oro about the strength of their main class feature. On top of which, Necromancy should be one of the most powerful things in the game. Not one of the weaker. Give them minions of death worth targeting with team-good's little attack cursor!

I agree with Oro. A prestige class such as Pale Master is worthy of a nice undead summons.

I am forced to agree. At the very least, it should be somewhat comparable to all the death avatars I've been seeing, given that it is a class feature that the character in question had to app for. I played a pale master in the standard campaign and I really did not find anything there that was wowing me considering all the spells I was sacrificing for it.

Ebok is correct. Super power necros, and UBERize pales. The die on sight, and currently have no self defence. Give undeath some power.

Make them strong enough to be feared for something!

I must agree, and they are correct, and with their correctness I'm forced to agree.

Agreed

Spell list Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. (The desecrate spell doubles this limit)

The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. (You choose which creatures are released.) If you are a cleric, any undead you might command by virtue of your power to command or rebuke undead do not count toward the limit.

6 HP zombie is pretty weak here...give Pale Masters some love XD

lovethesuit I must agree, and they are correct, and with their correctness I'm forced to agree.

It'd really help my arguments if you didn't agree with me!

I agree too, but some specific suggestions would be nice. Also no clue on how easily the PM summons can be modified. If anyone knows anything about this, feel free to chime in!

You could grant PMs a summon undead circle "x" the x equal to your wizard/sorc/bard levels + pale master level -1. Or if not that replace circle with level.

So the best thing I assume would max out at some kind of ghoul king.

Maybe have Thomas, or some other super secretive necromancy NPC have palemaster only loot that has some animate dead x/day loot, that would be a good fix until some way to get around the scripting problems on the palemaster summons.

It's not the lack of loot, there are plenty of necromantic items floating around that have animate dead and other summons. It's their power that is weak. You have to end up using them on a corpse to have them be any good.

Animate dead is a make or break spell if you use right. I've used it on some creatures and I couldn't do anything else but smile at the amazing results I got.

On its own though and it pretty much is a useless spell.

Maybe let "animate undead" summon a zombie warrior/Ghast with half your HD when you take Spell focus: Necromancy and a Doom knight/mummy with three quarter of your HD when you take Greater spell focus:Necromancy.

Doom knights lolz

Way too strong. But yeah, maybe a ghost of some kind with half your HD, if no corpse is present. And I meant the loot would have x/day charges to represent the fearsomeness of the Pale Master more effectively in the setting.

I'd suggest a different approach:

Basically, the pale master is a necromancer that gives parts of their living body up for undead augmentations. For example, the natural AC bonus that the class gets is thier skin turning hard and bony. As they gain levels, they look more and more like the undead that they control. In Tome and Blood actually said that at level 10, most onlookers confuse the Pale Master for an undead.

- Palemaster isn't simply mastery of the undead, it is breaking the bounds between life and death, it's in a sense, a loss of vitality, not related to the desire to control and create undeath necromancers have.

- The Palemaster is also striving to serve the existance he previously knew in reshaping his body as he sees fit, to resemble undeath (The undead graft, and the vital changes necessary for the immunities that he gains). Likewise, these changes increase his link to the undeath. Whereas a necromancer would force undeath to do his bidding through spells and the like, a Palemaster differs by being able to use his growing link with the undead to coax them into doing what he wishes. Breaking the boundaries that people usually think exist between undeath and life.

A good aproach I've read might be self-mummification. Here is a caricaturization. (Mind you, this is a subjective view, but an interesting aproach, give it a magical twist, dismiss it, but if it can help to give you a guideline; as long you keep in mind that the Palemaster wishes to defy/shape Death, to twist his own self to ressemble it by "experimenting" on his body)

-First, the pale master makes a cut in the left side of the body and removes all of the internal organs. It is important to be well-rested and nourished before beginning the ritual. -Second, the liver, lungs, stomach, heart and intestines are washed and packed in salt, which will dry them out. -Third, the pale master stuffs his empty body with salt and waits for it to dry for at least 12 hours, preferably in a dry area with an abundance of negative energy. -Fourth, after sufficient time drying, the body is washed with water, then covered with oils to help the skin stay elastic. -Fifth, the dehydrated internal organs are returned to the body and reconnected with one another. The other organs are discarded. The remainder of the body is stuffed with dry materials such as sawdust, leaves and any linen used during the embalming process. -Finally, the body is covered again with good-smelling oils.

In essence: taken out, semi-mummified, returned (and also reconnected). Still magically working (Organs) and are required (since the pale master isn't really undead and can breathe, eat, ect).

Keep in mind that not all mummification is done through the old Eygptian techniques. There is also natural mummification, where a corpse becomes dessicated and somewhat preserved. It's conceivable that a Pale master's body could become much drier. Picture the skin becoming leathery and creased, the eyes sinking a bit, the lips drawing back a little to expose the teeth more. Finger and toe nails would appear longer as the skin retracts, cheeks would appear a little sunken. Losing all that moisture, they'd be much leaner looking, and might actually fit the phrase, "Death warmed over."

About the dead and controlling the dead:

Animate/Create spells make a dead body into an undead creature. At some point in casting this spell, a corpse becomes undead. Whether that happens at a distant and it's summoned to you, or whether you're carrying part or all of the corpse to be animated on you is up to you.

Summon Undead abilities are summon abilities. This represents a pale master's connection with undeath, and allows him to call his undead buddies to his aid. Like summon creature spells, they don't make the creature, just call it to your location and bind it to your will.

Sources: Libris Mortis, Tome of Blood.

- - - I'd suggest the Pale's master summon to reflect a 'mummy' creation that the pale master is constantly building and improving ( as implied by levels) based in part of his own organs.

Hope this is inspirational in any sort of way!

Fairly certain the Animate Dead script controls pale masters. I'll look into it if I find time.

I like the idea of constantly improving your own undead slave, but even a simple progression of tough undead. Something equivalent to a level 3 summoned monster to start with. Since the ability is something no PC can get before fifth level.

Pale Master PCs will already generally get some loot to help them out, but scripted suggestions are good also!

Mort's idea was very inspirational. Having a permanent mummy that could be improved over time would be terrific, but sounds complicated to script... and most of our scripters are AWOL, or busy with other things.

In my opinion what makes the Palemaster PrC weak, is that the PrC lvls aren't added up with your other caster class lvls when the duration/damage of your spells is decided.

At least, that's how I think it is, and I'm not really sure if it's desireable or possible to script around.

It's a trade-off to become a Pale Master. If PM levels added to your caster levels, everyone playing a necromancer would want to become one just to increase their power. There are numerous spells that ignore your caster level altogether -- the smart Pale Master will of course try to make good use of these spells.

So let's just stick to empowering the undeath aspect of the PrC!

Ideas from someone highly biased, about to start a Necromancer: - Spellfocus: Necromancy makes what is usually the Positive Energy Familiar into a particularly Powerful undead familiar, perhaps a little more so then most familiars. - Give evil char's a few DM quests also. having all DM quests run by good guys makes it hard. - Make it possible, through illusion spells, to disguise undead, so necromancers can fight without being killed on sight. - Allow more Planar interaction, something DM's usually seem to frown on, so Necromantic secrets can get around. Let an occasional Planewalker stumble into sanctuary, talk a bit, and jump off. The underdark is supposed to be a weak point in the planes, especially the lowerdark, so Planar stuff wouldnt be deathly rare.

Hammerfist0

- Give evil char's a few DM quests also. having all DM quests run by good guys makes it hard.

Evil characters get DM quests often enough I believe. Back in the day I recall having about three dm quests in three days though that was just very lucky. No specific bias is made when it comes to DM quests generally. Yes there are plenty of paladins around to stop you from getting involved in certain things that are very public.

However there are many ways in which you can deal with such situations. (i.e Gathering your own group to delve into whatever tasks thier dealing with and when they're most vunerable striking them all down in one fell sweep after which you claim your just rewards.)

Edit: Sorry for going off topic there.

As far as palemaster goes. I agree completely with all of the points above. Though I can't offer any suggestions that have already been stated.

Howland Pale Master PCs will already generally get some loot to help them out, but scripted suggestions are good also!

Mort's idea was very inspirational. Having a permanent mummy that could be improved over time would be terrific, but sounds complicated to script... and most of our scripters are AWOL, or busy with other things.

It wouldn't be complicated at all provided the script that summons the Pale Master's undead is just a single part of the Animate Dead script.

At some point, I was toying with making 'gnomish companions' for a module. Similar to Spellguard Defenders, only the gnome could tinker with the creation.

Every "tinkering" would increase the unreliability of their robot, but add certain benefits and drawbacks that were simply stored persistantly on the player token.

Its something I could help script probably, and I can see some use in doing so since I'd also finally finish my gnome companion stuff. A system for making it all work would still be required, but the scripts are easy enough.

You summon your beasty, start a conversation which adds persistant variables to your PC. Whenever you summon that beasty again, the script checks your player token for the variables and adds positives and negatives to the creature automatically.

My guess is the conversation would be things like:

"Hey, I want to make my zombie's flesh thicker!"

Roll Spellcraft Failure: You don't know how to do that! Success: You know the skin of an ogre is very thick. *a script checks if you have the skin* You don't: You may want to go skin an ogre. You do: *roll Craft Trap or Healing* Success: *lose ogre skin item* Your zombie now has a fresh coating of ogre skin on it. Failure: *lose item* Oh damn, your zombie's skin was all torn off. Now you've got a skeleton with far less HP.

Something like that perhaps.

Expect to see some fairly significant changes made to a number of prestige classes, including Pale Masters, made in the near future.

- Give evil char's a few DM quests also. having all DM quests run by good guys makes it hard.

Wow, what server you are playing on? Surely not EfU.

Howland

Wow, what server you are playing on? Surely not EfU.

Im playing on the server named "0 - Omg hax0rs O' EfUUU!!!!'. Why do you ask? I guess im misrepresenting DM quests. Silly me. Sorry.

Anonymous

Howland

Wow, what server you are playing on? Surely not EfU.

Im playing on the server named "0 - Omg hax0rs O' EfUUU!!!!'. Why do you ask? I guess im misrepresenting DM quests. Silly me. Sorry.

That was me. Yeah, all DM quests ive been on are NG type, but Ive played alot of non-combat characters, so I miss alot. Sorry. >.<

I love threads like this. I can't wait to see what comes next.

Howland Expect to see some fairly significant changes made to a number of prestige classes, including Pale Masters, made in the near future.

:D

Yay! Changes = good.

So glad someone else said it and it's being taken seriously. I feel slightly vindicated.

In case anyone ever looks into this again...

Canzah In my opinion what makes the Palemaster PrC weak, is that the PrC lvls aren't added up with your other caster class lvls when the duration/damage of your spells is decided.

At least, that's how I think it is, and I'm not really sure if it's desireable or possible to script around.

How aweful the summons are (were) aside, you've hit the nail on the head. Nobody seemed to really get just how crippling this is for the PrC at EFU's likely level range.

While playing a PM I did some experimentation with overrides and changes that seemed possible for implimentation at EFU. (But maybe I just don't understand how the client / server talk.)

Caster level fix:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=scripts.Detail&id=1980

Moving down class feats can also be accomplished with an override, to effectively count wizard levels when determining PM feat progression (maybe not for all feats, as some do seem a bit much ie. deathless master's touch, and crit. immunity).

Given faster feat progression, a summoning tool for PM summoning feats would have been wonderful. This is important because the class feat Animate Dead can't be used to target reagents, and the summons per level for the other feats don't always reflect progressive utility.

ie. http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Prefabs.Detail&id=817

Modifying the widget to count wizard levels and PM levels to determine the summoned creature would be dandy too.

Coming from playing the class as a wizard / PM, changes similar to the ones mentioned above would have been greatly appreciated, and helped the class stay oriented towards casting and summoning / animating. I've always thought that a PM seemed most appropriate as a class that fights primarily with summons, rather than as a kind of melee mage.

Go figure.

Your suggestions are appreciated, but I don't think the pale master needs any more boosting right now. :)