Mentat
A Dune-Based Necromancer Variant
by Drasca

Class: Necromancer
Tag: None.

Introduction

A Mentat plays the role of advisor to royalty, strategist and sometimes assassin. He is familiar with all forms of poison, tactics and stealth. He is a formal, logical man, but cold and calculating. He shall set traps, blind his enemies and eliminate them without suspicion or evidence. Failure to do so means assured loss of rank and position of advisor for his royalty.

Items

Mentats will always carry a dagger class weapon.

Imbues are disallowed until Ancient Kaa the Soulless (found in the false tombs of Tal Rasha) and the Dark Elder (found in the Lost City) have both been assassinated.

Skills

The summoning tree is entirely banned. A remote construct would only be clunky and betray his presence. He cannot afford such blatant idiocy around. This includes other minions.

Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, and Iron Maiden are all also banned.

Skill Preferences
Blind Enemy (Dim Vision)
Using his vast chemical and electrical skills, he simultaneously dims his own presence with stealth and blinds the enemies’ awareness.
For effective use of Dim Vision, several points are recommended.

Knife-fighting (Poison Dagger; 1 point required)
Knife-fighting is for the arenas, but by learning of the various deadly and efficient poisons, one can knock out his enemies in a few hits.

Demolition/Traps (Corpse Explosion)
Mentats, knowing that their enemies attempt to recover the bodies of their wounded, plant and activate small tactical explosives on the bodies of the slain. More powerful and sophisticated parts can be found and used when one goes deeper into enemy territory.

Corpse Explosion skill is limited to 1/2 point per act.

Recommended Tactics
Med-Level Dim Vision is very useful.
Use Attract as a diversionary and clustering skill.
Low level CE is extremely useful with few players in the game. Even more so when combined with Attract, but note Attract’s small radius of opportunity