The World of Avlis

Sorry, I don't have access to the Mages forum yet, so I'm posting here.

With Necromancy as your chosen school of magic, therefore making you ineligible for True Seeing and Premonition, do you think an Epic Wizard is viable, or are the Sneak Attack / Critical Hit immunities that come with the Pale Master class basically essential? Any strategies to overcome this potentially crippling handicap if I want to stay pure mage?

The PC background demanded that I choose the school and be denied Divination spells, but in terms of development and choosing classes things are still wide open.

Any thoughts are appreciated, including comments on the strengths/weaknesses of Wizard 40 versus Wizard 30 / Pale Master 10 (after all, a fellow can dream, right?).

Thanks.

You don't ~need~ Necromancy spell school focus to be a Pale Master, by the way (although, ignore that, as it is necessary for your background).

And also, I wouldn't say that not being able to cast True Seeing is that much of a handicap. Potions of See Invisibility are quite common, for instance...

As you might have notice by now, gaining levels goes really slow in Avlis. So compairing builds of level 40 makes no sense. I would compare them at level 20, if you really want to.

Immunity to crit/sneak is not essential at all, but is pretty good.

Important thing is: what would your PC like IG? My PC is a Necromancer that's also a Pale Master now. Sure Necromancy sucks when compared to Divination, but it makes a lot of sense for my PC.
What about yours? Just a Necromancer, or does he get some fuzzy feelings when with Undead?
Taking Pale Master levels will have a huge effect on your PC, just think about the Skeleton Arm you'll have, so you better choose this one on RP, not on stats.

Playing style matters here too. If you are someone who's mage parties up and is protected by friendly meatshields most of the time, things like critical hits and sneak attacks become less of a worry as you altogether avoid that .

To asnwer your question, I think that both would be doable. The immunities are in no way 'essential', IMO.

The Pale Master levels would give a nice set of abilities, sure. Still, I guess that when the time comes you'll be taking PM more for the roleplaying reasons then of the game technical ones, hah.

Hope that helps.

From a mechanics point of view, you really don't lose anything by going PM, and you gain a crapload of stuff that make you much harder to kill.

That said...

Think we need to keep in mind what a palemaster is meant to be as a class. It's not necessarily a necromantic focus as it is a focus upon undeath, and the effects you gain are essentially mimickry of undead, rather than an advancing of your understanding of necromancy as a spell school.

When it comes to actual spellcasting and necromancy there's a whole bunch of classes (notable True Necromancer, and in the Avlis Campaign Setting White Necromancers) who tend to focus upon the actual mechanics of the spell casting more (ICly).

What they all said, especially the parts about doing what will end up making sense for your character as you roleplay him (and be fun for you), and especially keeping in mind that pale mastery isn't ~necessarily~ just a necromantic focus, like Nob wrote. It's certainly related and some pale masters have played it as an extension of their necromancy, but others treat it as a path of its own.

*points to link in sig.*

For instance for my old PC, I never sow or ICly called himself a Palemaster.

He was a Necromancer. He had different views upon the class IC and of course OOC.