Updating the Necrosinger

[sirpercival]

I want to tweak my Necrosinger build to include Ur-Priest, since you can enter Ur-Priest much faster than Sublime Chord, and you don't have to take AD: Deathbound, you can just cast Revive Undead off the cleric list.  Plus, rebuke undead for DMM fun (not that I really need it...).

So, I need 2 levels of UrP, 1 level of Savage Bard, 5 levels of Dirgesinger, and 8 levels of Dweomerkeeper.

What's the easiest way to gain the Magic domain as an Ur-Priest?  I could dip cleric in my 4 extra levels, but I would lose it from UrP so I don't think I would qualify anymore.  Does Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment) qualify you for DwK?

In the 4 extra levels, I should probably take Ardent & find some early entry into Thrallherd.  Does Overchannel count for the ML requirement?

[ariasderros]

What's the easiest way to gain the Magic domain as an Ur-Priest?  I could dip cleric in my 4 extra levels, but I would lose it from UrP so I don't think I would qualify anymore.  Does Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment) qualify you for DwK?

Sir Percival, when you enter Ur-Priest, you lose all divine spellcasting.
Look at the Cleric. First entry on class abilities: Spells. Well, you lose that thanks to Ur-Priest. Second entry for the cleric's class abilities: Domains. Hmm.

So the Ur causes you to lose your ability to cast spells. Domain possession =/= spellcasting. You still have the domain, and you still gain its benefit, you just can't cast its spells.

DwK requires you have the domain, not that you be able to cast the spells from the domain.

In the 4 extra levels, I should probably take Ardent & find some early entry into Thrallherd.  Does Overchannel count for the ML requirement?

Yes, but any time you don't have the ML (i.e. actively using Overchannel), you lose all of the class abilities of the PrC, including your thralls.

[sirpercival]

What's the easiest way to gain the Magic domain as an Ur-Priest?  I could dip cleric in my 4 extra levels, but I would lose it from UrP so I don't think I would qualify anymore.  Does Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment) qualify you for DwK?

Sir Percival, when you enter Ur-Priest, you lose all divine spellcasting.
Look at the Cleric. First entry on class abilities: Spells. Well, you lose that thanks to Ur-Priest. Second entry for the cleric's class abilities: Domains. Hmm.

So the Ur causes you to lose your ability to cast spells. Domain possession =/= spellcasting. You still have the domain, and you still gain its benefit, you just can't cast its spells.

DwK requires you have the domain, not that you be able to cast the spells from the domain.

OK, I just wasn't sure if "having the Magic domain" required actually being able to cast spells from it.  Either way, if Planar Touchstone works then that's the nicest way.  I don't like spending levels on class features which get erased.

In the 4 extra levels, I should probably take Ardent & find some early entry into Thrallherd.  Does Overchannel count for the ML requirement?

Yes, but any time you don't have the ML (i.e. actively using Overchannel), you lose all of the class abilities of the PrC, including your thralls.

Hm.  OK, then is there a way to enter either Dirgesinger or Ur-Priest at level 5?  That would fix everything.

[ClayQ]

The bard variant that gives fort saves instead of ref saves (savage bard, that you are using iirc) would be able to enter at level 3 (ur priest) if not for skill ranks.

[ariasderros]

Qualifying for Ur-Priest

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He requires:
An Alignment;
Two feats that are easily picked up;
Base saves in Fort and Will of +3, also easily done;
And skills.

So the only problem is the skills.

Skills
If a skill is a class skill for any of a multiclass character’s classes, then character level determines a skill’s maximum rank. (The maximum rank for a class skill is 3 + character level.)

So, if your first level is in Savage Bard, you have it set the maximum scores in all of those skills. Granted, if the skill is a cross-class skill for the level you're taking, you still need to spend 2 points per rank.

Ur requires: Bluff 6; K. (Arcana) 5; K. (Planes) 5; K. (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 8.
All of which are Savage Bard skills. Thus, so long as you have the skill points to spend, you can raise it to the appropriate ranks at level 5 for K. (R.) and Spellcraft, and earlier for the rest.

To enter Ur priest at level 5, you'd need Primary Contact on two skills. That isn't possible, thus there is no entry into Ur-Priest before your 6th level (without using broken interpretations of bloodlines).

Dirgesinger

(click to show/hide)

He requires:
An Alignment;
One feat that is easily picked up;
Bardic Music (required by the feat too);
And skills.

So the only problem is the skills.

Skills
If a skill is a class skill for any of a multiclass character’s classes, then character level determines a skill’s maximum rank. (The maximum rank for a class skill is 3 + character level.)

So, if your first level is in Savage Bard, you have it set the maximum scores in all of those skills. Granted, if the skill is a cross-class skill for the level you're taking, you still need to spend 2 points per rank.

DS requires: K. (Religion) 4; Perform 8.
Both of which are Savage Bard skills. Thus, so long as you have the skill points to spend, you can raise it to the appropriate ranks at level 5 for Perform.

Thus you need to take Primary Contact to enter Dirgesinger early, you'd need Primary Contact in sith the skill set on perform.

So, you'd need a bonus feat, either from race (Azurin, Silverbrow Human, Human, Strongheart Halfling) or from a flaw.
Your feats would look something like:

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(1) Requiem
(B) Favored
(3) Primary Contact
(6) Iron Will
(9) Spell Focus (Evil)

Of course, you can just buy Iron Will, and use that feat slot for something else.

I feel it should be mentioned that the wording of the touchstone is "choose one cleric domain; you gain the granted power of that domain." Thus you still do not actually have that domain, any more than the Ring of Evasion actually grants Evasion. Similar =/= same.

So your levels would look like

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• Savage Bard
• Cloistered Cleric with Magic domain and Planning Domain. Normal Cleric works too. Planning domain gives you Extend spell, for the Metamagic Feat prerequisite of Dweomerkeeper
• X
• X
• Dirgesinger
• Dirgesinger
• Dirgesinger
• Dirgesinger
• Dirgesinger
• Ur-Priest
• Ur-Priest
• Dweomerkeeper
• Dweomerkeeper
• Dweomerkeeper
• Dweomerkeeper
• Dweomerkeeper
• Dweomerkeeper
• Dweomerkeeper
• Dweomerkeeper
• X

You would still need a Item Creation feat by the time it comes to going into DwK.

[sirpercival]

I don't think that works either, since Requiem requires Perform 8, which means we'd have to take it at 5 as well... crap.

Actually, I just realized something -- once I hit level 6, I can retrain Overchannel to Practiced Manifester and qualify for Thrallherd straight up.  So what we're left with is:

Any psionic race, buying Iron Will w/ the Otyugh hole

1 savage bard 1 (SF Evil, inquisitor [flaw])
2 ardent 1
3 ardent 2 (overchannel, retrained to practiced manifester at level 6)
4 thrallherd 1
5 cloistered cleric 1 (magic domain, knowledge domain, x domain)
6 ur priest 1 (requiem)
7 ur priest 2
8 dirgesinger 1
9 dirgesinger 2 (item creation feat)
10 dirgesinger 3
11 dirgesinger 4
12 dirgesinger 5 (x)
13-20 dweomerkeeper 1-8 (all other feats open)

Thoughts?  9th-level cleric casting gets you Gate and Revive Undead, which is all you need.

[ariasderros]

I don't think that works either, since Requiem requires Perform 8, which means we'd have to take it at 5 as well... crap.

oops.

(click to show/hide)

Actually, I just realized something -- once I hit level 6, I can retrain Overchannel to Practiced Manifester and qualify for Thrallherd straight up.  So what we're left with is:

Any psionic race, buying Iron Will w/ the Otyugh hole

1 savage bard 1 (SF Evil, inquisitor [flaw])
2 ardent 1
3 ardent 2 (overchannel, retrained to practiced manifester at level 6)
4 thrallherd 1
5 cloistered cleric 1 (magic domain, knowledge domain, x domain)
6 ur priest 1 (requiem)
7 ur priest 2
8 dirgesinger 1
9 dirgesinger 2 (item creation feat)
10 dirgesinger 3
11 dirgesinger 4
12 dirgesinger 5 (x)
13-20 dweomerkeeper 1-8 (all other feats open)

Thoughts?  9th-level cleric casting gets you Gate and Revive Undead, which is all you need.

Looks good, except you still need a metamagic feat for DwK too. Again, easiest way is from a domain granted power.

[sirpercival]

Yeah, nothing wrong with taking Planning domain.

[sirpercival]

So, here's the question.  Is it worth it to build in Thrallherd?  He can do this once per day with Gate since he has 3/day Su spell (once for Gate, once for Revive Undead, once open).  I guess having a Thrall would let him do it twice, using the open Su spell for the second Revive Undead...  Thoughts?