how do i be a competent necromancer/pale master assuming there

>>52660031
Depends on the system.

>>52660031

I assume you're talking about D&D 3.5? Summon a mummy that can wield magic and he'll carry your party pretty much just because he's a wizard.

Depends on what youre trying to do, are you Evil or Good?

Evil, well youre gonna need to start small. Find out how many skeletons you can raise at once. If youre a lowbie, kill yourself a few hobos and lone travelers, people no one will miss and wont put up a huge fight. Keep your self as secret as possible until you have a decent horde. You might even try to sac a few towns in the middle of the night, just be sure there are no runners or the clerics will be hunting your ass. Find those disenfranchised by the local governments and use them to help with the chanting and keeping the guards away from you. Once you have enough power, take a keep or fortress far out on the frontier and use that as your stronghold to take the rest of the land.

If youre good, you should keep yourself hidden as most dont understand the necromantic arts and might try to kill you before you can explain. Start small, maybe steal a few bones here and there from local crypt so you can start building up your army of the rightous dead. Dress them, as skeletons and bodies tend to freak out the normies but with plate no one knows you have no skin. Help smaller villages near so that you can build a fan base and so youll have a place full of sympathetic folk who can hide you when the zealots come out to merk you. Fight off monsters with your band of skeleknights but do your best to only incapacitate the sentient, this will help you gain trust with the locals. Become an invaluable force of good in the outlying provinces before showing yourself to the lords in the area, and do so in a very open and public way so as to not risk them whacking you in secret out of prejudice. After that, be generous and kind and you should do alright.

>>52662604
tell me more about evil

>>52660031
I love playing a necromancer.

My assumption might be wrong, but seeing that you're mentioning pale master specifically I'm guessing you're planning on playing a necromancer in a d&d 3.5 game. Necromancers are in a bit of a weird place in d&d, as most of the classes don't really align with what people commonly think of as a necromancer or are just generally pretty crap. Wizard necromancers are more about playing with the power of the soul than having undead minions. Clerics can make great necromancers with rebuke undead and many spells to create them, but are more a class about service to a god. Prestige classes like pale master are generally terrible. Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror is probably the class I'd recommend depending on the power level of the party and if the DM would allow it. It aligns most closely with how people tend to think of a necromancer as being, and isn't op unless in a really weak party. Look it up, and how to optimise one if you're playing in a group that does that.

Apart from that a lot of being a competent necromancer will depend on the context of your game and party. What does your necromancer want to accomplish, and why does he use the dead to try to achieve this? What do people in the setting and your party think of necromancy? Does it work in a way that is inherently evil, and if so do you need to find a way to conceal your abilities from the party (unlikely to work out without making the game a pain to play even in a great RP group) or other entities in the world?

wtf is a pale master

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>>52660031
Being a wizard specialized in necromancy with the Pale master PrC isn't really very Necromancer-like.

You'd be better off with taking the Wizard Unearthed Arcana variant which provides a skeleton minion constructed at 100GP with fighter levels equivalent to your Wizard level.

Pale masters are based around a series of concepts found in Mortibunds, in that negative energy exposure can cause individuals to gain "undead-like" qualities from core undead recorded in the Plane of negative energie's active base will, which Accerak tried to subvert once upon a time.

The issues with the PM are-
>The Undead-like progression doesn't have you ignored by unintelligent undead, something that was corrected in the d20 series Gary Gygax participated in with the much more interesting Crypt Lord PrC
>The never needing Black Onyx for spell components was just an error and was rectified in errata
>Automatic Arm removal, for the graft
>Plenty of other Necromancer classes with Undead-like progression.
>Somehow completely redone in Dungeons and Dragons Online with a Shroud system dedicated to the Undead-like quality aquisition

There is a better redone hombre of the Pale Master which takes into account the lore-based misgivings of the original PrC, it isn't on the D&Dwiki just so you don't fuck up.

To list what's on the menu in 3.5-
Wizard Necromancy specialist
3 Variants to this provided in the UA
Focused specialist/Master Specialist On Necromancy coupled with Red Wizard Wizard package and the PrC
Cleric Orientated to Necromancy with Choice Gods
Dark Magi full base class Necromancers from Dragon magazine
Deathwalker
Fleshcrafter
Soulstealer
Then you've got the well acclaimed Dread Necromancer from heroes of horror.

PrC's
Horned Harbringer
Master of Shrouds
Pale master
Walker in the Wastes
Thrall of Orcus

But hey, least it's not fucking True Necromancer.

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>>52667096
https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Pale_Master,_Rebuild_%283.5e_Prestige_Class%29

Here's the bad boy, much closer to the DDO game and interesting to use.

As for other Necromancer materials for 3.5/d20, check out The Secret college of Necromancy, D&D 3rd Edition - MGP - Encyclopaedia Arcane - Necromancy, Beyond The Grave, and the Crypt Lord from the d20 S&S Scarred Lands setting, GG took part in it I think, so it's worth the check out.

Also, the Work of Pale mastery relates to a foreign eastern school of Necromancy where people work on gaining the notable Undead-like benefits of the undeath through their work with Negative energy, it was brushed upon in the UA, but it probably Relates to 2e's kazerabet, who in 3.5 is the poster child for the Dread necromancer base Class.

Also, as a PM, no way in hell do you get to become a Lich, you settle for necropolitan or that thing that pops up when sometimes a spellcaster dies, and if you're attempting Lichdom, then you best use the Monster class template found on the Archive.wizards site you little blighter.