Thaumaturge or Pale Master...?

[Rinzler]

Go with Pale Master, and my recommendation is to take 9 levels of it ASAP as the Vampire makes a huge difference. Animate dead is essentially worthless IMO, the summons more get in the way and lag behind anyways. The PM summons before Vampire, while nice, are also slow and behave stupidly. Getting to the Vampire is key.

[Deathgrowl]

The palemaster mummy scales up to level 20. Up to palemaster 8, the mummy is a fighter, has improved knockdown, great cleave and can be buffed to 40 AC, 39 AB and 3d4+19 damage. It's really, really, really good!

At palemaster 9, the mummy becomes a cleric that also scales with you up to level 20. It has Harm, Energy Drain and various inflict and mass inflict spells prepared. Indeed, if you have your animate dead undeads out and about, it will use mass inflict spells to heal them.

The palemaster 9 vampire has slightly lower AC, but the AB and damage is similar to the mummy. At the same time, the vampire has 5 regen and an energy drain on-hit (or is it constitution?).

I haven't yet tested the palemaster 10 one. But really, this is seriously, seriously powerful. Too powerful, in my opinion, with all the other power palemaster gets as a class.

[metaquad4]

The palemaster mummy scales up to level 20. Up to palemaster 8, the mummy is a fighter, has improved knockdown, great cleave and can be buffed to 40 AC, 39 AB and 3d4+19 damage. It's really, really, really good!

At palemaster 9, the mummy becomes a cleric that also scales with you up to level 20. It has Harm, Energy Drain and various inflict and mass inflict spells prepared. Indeed, if you have your animate dead undeads out and about, it will use mass inflict spells to heal them.

The palemaster 9 vampire has slightly lower AC, but the AB and damage is similar to the mummy. At the same time, the vampire has 5 regen and an energy drain on-hit (or is it constitution?).

I haven't yet tested the palemaster 10 one. But really, this is seriously, seriously powerful. Too powerful, in my opinion, with all the other power palemaster gets as a class.

The PM 10 vampire gets rapier feats, but no rapier (as I mentioned before). No IKD either! That is a downgrade for sure.

The mummy I've used in the past, but it doesn't really seem keen on using those energy drains or harms. Those would be redeemable qualities for it, though, if it knows how to use them.

I'm not sure if the PM 10 vampire is in the cohort slot. If it is, then it'll have a purpose: Standing beside my Create Greater Undead vampire. If not, I'll keep using the CGU Vampire (which, unlike the PM vampires, are also boosted by ESF: Necromancy!). The PM 10 vampire is an excellent tank though, I'll give it that. And when it crits, its pretty nasty with those stat drains.

[Deathgrowl]

I'm not sure if the PM 10 vampire is in the cohort slot. If it is, then it'll have a purpose: Standing beside my Create Greater Undead vampire. If not, I'll keep using the CGU Vampire (which, unlike the PM vampires, are also boosted by ESF: Necromancy!). The PM 10 vampire is an excellent tank though, I'll give it that. And when it crits, its pretty nasty with those stat drains.

It's a very good thing, too, that the semi-permanent palemaster vampire is no where near as powerful as the 2 rounds / level CGU vampire.

[Rinzler]

I'm not sure if the PM 10 vampire is in the cohort slot. If it is, then it'll have a purpose: Standing beside my Create Greater Undead vampire. If not, I'll keep using the CGU Vampire (which, unlike the PM vampires, are also boosted by ESF: Necromancy!). The PM 10 vampire is an excellent tank though, I'll give it that. And when it crits, its pretty nasty with those stat drains.

So you think the CGU Vampire (with ESF: Necromancy) is more powerful than the PM 10 Vampire?

[Mutko1]

Don't take PM and Thau both. Vampire takes summon slot and That's gate summons also take this slot and these are the ones doing most of the work as a Thau in epics. Also for any of those summons to be worth in epics you need epic spell focus conjuration or necromancy so that's 6 feats for both of those.

[metaquad4]

I'm not sure if the PM 10 vampire is in the cohort slot. If it is, then it'll have a purpose: Standing beside my Create Greater Undead vampire. If not, I'll keep using the CGU Vampire (which, unlike the PM vampires, are also boosted by ESF: Necromancy!). The PM 10 vampire is an excellent tank though, I'll give it that. And when it crits, its pretty nasty with those stat drains.

So you think the CGU Vampire (with ESF: Necromancy) is more powerful than the PM 10 Vampire?

It does way more damage, but its less of a tank and has no stat drains to it. Trade off. But in our current enviroment, the damage tends to be more valuable.

[Rinzler]

I'm not sure if the PM 10 vampire is in the cohort slot. If it is, then it'll have a purpose: Standing beside my Create Greater Undead vampire. If not, I'll keep using the CGU Vampire (which, unlike the PM vampires, are also boosted by ESF: Necromancy!). The PM 10 vampire is an excellent tank though, I'll give it that. And when it crits, its pretty nasty with those stat drains.

So you think the CGU Vampire (with ESF: Necromancy) is more powerful than the PM 10 Vampire?

It does way more damage, but its less of a tank and has no stat drains to it. Trade off. But in our current enviroment, the damage tends to be more valuable.

It seems silly that ESF Necro doesn't apply to the Pale Master summon. Do you prefer the Warrior, Warlock, or Defender from CGU?

[Hawke]

Huh... didn't realize that ESF didn't work on palemaster summons

[Nachti]

The only reason why PM vampire and mummy scale to 20 HD is that they use the summon slot. and thus compede with CGU and gate. Also ESF does not work because of the same reason.

In my eyes its flawed because I think all cohorts should use the same summon slot, preventing such silly combinations like techsmith/palemaster.

[dedude]

In my eyes its flawed because I think all cohorts should use the same summon slot, preventing such silly combinations like techsmith/palemaster.

I agree on this, one cohort at a time.

[Valefort]

Making the pale master undead a cohort would allow him to have two summons at the same time for all build combinations.. I don't think giving more power to Palemaster is a good idea

[Nachti]

I'd reduce PM power a bit in exchange of course. But well...

[Deathgrowl]

Making the pale master undead a cohort would allow him to have two summons at the same time for all build combinations.. I don't think giving more power to Palemaster is a good idea

Wait. Are you saying I am cheating with my 5 undeads at one time? Animate dead gives me 4 and then I can have either the vampire or the mummy. The cleric mummy even heals the 4 others!

[Valefort]

Don't they last for 20 rounds (or 40 extended) ?