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Maho-Tsukai
2010-10-21, 07:45 PM
I said I would make this post and I am keeping my word. So, before I start posting I want suggestions and ideas from you all..what do you see being the makeup of a necromantic army? I have a good idea myself, but I would like to know what you all think before I post up my work here in this thread. Tell me what you think would be the best makeup for a necromantic army and then I will (slowly) reveal the fruits of my boredom and show you all what nasty things I have in store for this evil, necromantic force.

Greenish
2010-10-21, 07:53 PM
Bone Knights! They can raise cheap additional troops (with int!), and provide Turning Resistance.

Dread Necromancers, for infinite healing.


Massed skeletal archers behind big tough monsters.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-10-21, 08:00 PM
I had actually planed to have bone knights as battlefield commanders and a healthy amount of dread necromancers.(XD) In fact, the supreme leader of the whole thing is a very "special" Dread Necromancer who is far more versatile and dangerous then a standard DN for reasons I am keeping secret as of now.(I will give you a hint, he is built in a way which allows for a massive expansion of his spell list that pushes him from a tier 3 to a tier 1...It should be somewhat easy to figure his build out from this information, and believe it or not it DOSE actually have some significant fluff behind it.)

Darth Stabber
2010-10-21, 08:03 PM
It's all about the ghouls. Their kills = more ghouls, and only the initial ghoul counts against your control limit. I would count Vampire, but it is really hard to control any vampire powerful enough to warrant wanting to control it. Cleric Liches tend to make the best commanders. Wizardly necromancy is too limited to provide good undead apocalypse, though they can do it, they have to be higher level to achieve the same effect. Dread necro's free healing is nice, but not really outstanding enough to make them anything but awesome lieutenants.

Nanoblack
2010-10-21, 08:14 PM
Pretty much anything that turns the enemy ranks into an advantage. In heroes of battle, theres a type of ballista bolt that animates the bodies of those it kills. Also as said above, you can use ghouls, but massive hollowed-out monster zombies (dragons being my favorite) can be used as troop transport. Finally check some of the links in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150910&highlight=sothoth) by the demented one.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-10-21, 08:38 PM
When you, in addition to having DN spells and class features know and can cast the whole cleric list you make a fine commander of undead, at least in my mind(and yes, I gave away my build...you can guess it's a Venerable Dragonwrought, desert Kobald dread necromancer who uses the master of the horde sovereign archetype to add all cleric spells to his spell list, meaning he becomes just as viable as a cleric as far as spellcasting goes. His abysmal strength means nothing since he uses finesse with touch attacks/touch spells and if he really needs the strength can just buff up since he has the whole cleric list to use. He also has the benefits of undead mastery and with his naturally high cha and access to desecrate he is literally able to animate and control more undead then anybody else provided you rule that desecrate stacks with undead mastery.Tomb tainted soul is obtained via flaws, since he has to take both dragonwrought AND tomb tainted soul at first level.) As for liches, I have special plans for them, and I will tell you that beyond this initial force there will be more then one of these armies which will be tied to one master empire/necrpolis lead by a very powerful dragolich who despite being a dragolich will, through some creative tinkering, have full arcane spellcasting and like the kobald leader of this army have the whole cleric list as part of their own via sovereign archetypes. The dragolich stays in the shadows, and each of his "elites" (One of which I have conceived as being an Egyptian themed cleric/walker in the wastes) more or less act as independent villains with their own goals that ultimately benefit the dragolich. Think of them as a necromantic "Akatsuki" with the dragolich being "Madara." They may very well all be used as badguys in future campaigns of mine.

SurlySeraph
2010-10-21, 08:43 PM
Take a 6th-level cleric (19 Wis) and throw on Necropolitan and Spell-Stitched. Now that cleric is 2nd-level but can cast a 6th-level spell. He'll be horrendously squishy and bad at melee for a while, but since lower levels take less xp he'll get nearly caught up to the rest of the party before too long. And it's easier than going into Mystic Theurge if you're not going to go past 13th level.

Or Spell-Stitched Swordsages or Monks, for more survivability. Swordsages would be strictly better if paying the xp doesn't make it lose its higher-level maneuvers, though that's a pretty dubious interpretation. Either way, it's a great way to create an elite of undead ninja-wizards for special operations. Or you can use them for artillery, buffing, or anything else magic can do since you're getting 6th-level spells with 6th-level character xp.

Wights! Wights are great for massacring low-level soldiers due to the energy drain, and since new ones rise in 1d4 rounds losses get replaced pretty quickly.

Allips! Allips can incapacitate nearly anything. They take a bit of planning to create, so keep them in reserve to kill big dumb creatures.

Ghosts make excellent spies, if you can find a reliable way to create and control them.

Necrosis Carnexes (Carnices? What's the plural of "Carnex"?) are a cheap way to heal in addition to Dread Necros.

As for the mainline troops, what Greenish said. Lots of skeletal archers behind big zombie meat tanks. Keep some low-level clerics and dread necros mixed in to heal and bolster, mostly right behind the meat tanks. You can have incorporeal undead hide underground or overlap spaces with others for ambushes (i.e., a wraith inside a zombie ogre). Wizards with Fell Drain AoE spells, or Spell-Stitched as I mentioned above, serve as artillery. Make sure to have the casters buff the undead hordes. Bards with that feat that lets their songs affect undead could also be useful, if a bit silly.

PopcornMage
2010-10-21, 08:45 PM
Well, you can go with the hordes of endless zombies, or you can "freshen" it up with a few exceptions like the occasional beastly abomination.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-10-21, 08:47 PM
Thanks for all of these ideas, they are all wonderful. After I am done scrounging through the monster Manuel and related sources I will start posting up units and such for the Kobald's force, and then when I get around to it may work on some of the other villains/"elites"

Fable Wright
2010-10-21, 08:48 PM
You need Awakened zombie hydras. Fast healing + partial charge, attacking with all the heads in one round... they are really, really powerful as undead. Remorhaz skeletons are also pretty nasty, and some fast skeletons with the pounce ability make for good skirmishers.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-10-21, 09:05 PM
All great ideas thus far, and I also had the crazy idea of having cloistered cleric/bards who use that one feat which allows cleric levels to count as bard levels for bard song advancement along with that feat which allows undead to be effected by bard song. Unlike the cleric/bone knights who will serve as battlefield commanders who can happily wade into melee these guys would act as the sit back and buff/heal types who may end up becoming "archers" of sorts with zen archery...not fully sure how they would look. All they would need is 1 bard level, however, so the CL loss would not be massive. These guys may not make it into the final cut, though.

Crafty Cultist
2010-10-22, 01:19 AM
Negative energy is your freind. get magical devices that generate negative energy or can create a rift to the negative energy plane can bathe the battlefield in a force that damages the living and bolsters the undead.

If you give a large flying creature the bone template(from BoVD) you will have a hollow flying creature you can build inside. A bone dragon could be grafted with wondrous architecture that generates a magic missle effect could be crewed be skeletal monkeys(they're small so a lot can fit) to become an effective gunship.

If you have skeletal troops, take the flesh from the corpses used and use it to cultivate disease and decay. The resulting ichor could then be used to coat wepons for an extra level of deadliness.

DaragosKitsune
2010-10-22, 01:28 AM
Libris Mortis contains a section towards the end that includes a series of templates for skellies and zombies that don't increase effective hit dice.

Runestar
2010-10-22, 01:41 AM
Aspect of orcus just for the coolness of it?

Dragon skeletons are just nasty, if you can get them.

Lord_Gareth
2010-10-22, 01:52 AM
Alright. Necromantic armies! What do we want?

Your Basic Troops
You've only got so many hit dice worth of undead under your direct control, so you want to use these to set up your chains of other undead. Take Undead Leadership and invest in things like Bone Knights, necromancers, wights and shadows; anything that can create a spawn under its own control. Put some effort into maintaining loyalty. Keep the troops fed - animals work great. Remember, if you're going to use ghouls, you need to feed them especially, as they don't control their spawn. However, it should also be noted that ghouls can literally eat anything fleshly and be perfectly fine. Snag an Expert and have him cook for the ghouls full-time and they'll follow you to hell and back.

Now, if you feel like raising your own undead (you should), Corpsecrafter and its brethren are a must. Get them all, or get a cohort who has them. Ideally, both, so you can expand the number of undead with their benefits. Train your necromancer followers into the feats. If the DM will let you, train your spawn-creating undead in them so their spawn rises with their benefits (this is a non-RAW use of the feat tree).

Once the spawn count starts rising, feeding your army is going to be a problem. Luckily, there are vagaries in a lot of rules that mean that good sharp knives and summon monster spells can keep your ghouls in flank steaks and your other undead in ability scores indefinitely. If you absolutely, positively end up with a problem, have a cleric on hand that can cast restoration and get living volunteers. Depending on how popular you are, the necromancers will probably work. It's only a flesh wound anyway. Hell, you can carve off pieces of your other undead minions to feed the ghouls and just neg energy heal them while the necros lose ability scores (and then get healed with resto).

The Advanced Stuff

How do we get a hold of specialized undead that aren't worth putting under your direct control? Hopefully, through Undead Leadership, since you should be saving your control hit dice for spawn-worthy undead. If that's not the case, consider the merits of raping the Diplomacy skill for the intelligent ones. As most sensible dungeon masters are not about to permit this, my best recommendation is to use a few of the higher-level necromancer minions to build and maintain specialized undead minions like Hulking Corpses (lame) or Crypt Chanters (cool fluff, but also lame). What do you want in a specialist undead? Preferably class levels, but anything incorporeal will always be high on the list. Death knights, liches, evolved undead, entropic reapers, and bone creatures are always worth the investment, especially if they can control more undead for you. Try summoning devils or demons with planar ally spells that can spawn more undead for you as well. Anything to expand on how many undead you have at your beck and call.

Strategy

By the end of this, your actual army is rather tiny if you want to keep it at a feasibly controllable level. So what do you do? Deception, deception, deception. Openly declare war on a nation. Make them think you have an army of skeletons or some other such nonsense, then begin devouring their troops while they sleep. Shadows, wraiths, wights, and vampires are great for this. Don't waste time! Every soldier added to your army is another mouth to feed, so keep moving! Your troops don't have to rest and you should do so as little as possible. By the time you've chewed your way through a few battalions, you should have a pretty sizable force. Where you go from here is up to you. You can devour a city, but then you've just got waaaaay too many spawn that are about to go free-willed from hunger. My suggestion is to destroy the enemy's soldiers beyond repair, secure your power base in their nation, and then march the extras through a portal to someplace nasty like the elemental plane of fire or the positive energy plane.

Repeat until you rule whatever fraction of the world you're comfortable with.

Coidzor
2010-10-22, 02:35 AM
Soldier Skeleton (LM 162) templated skeletons with combat reflexes and weapon focus (long spear or maybe duom) Double-ranked they get a +5 to attack and AC for each of their battle brothers. Of course if you can get skeletons of a species that has weapon proficiency in spiked chains, all the better.

If you really wanna have an army-like situation have some with awl pikes as well that switch to the back-rank once ranks have closed unless they get a push of pike (which favors skeletons anyway due to the whole piercing damage thing unless the enemy has lucerne hammers).

Earth Necromentals are also of use as they have fast healing 3 as long as they're on the ground, Wind Necromentals also would have a good chance of always having fast healing as it would be active when there is air around them, they're underneath/touching/in the sky, or there's a wind going depending upon the DM...

Maho-Tsukai
2010-10-22, 08:32 AM
Ok, all good ideas here. as for how I am going to have a lot of undead, well, bone knights will most definitely be present so both the bone knights and DNs will be doing a lot of animating in addition to the army's leader. As for dragon skeletons, I had planed on having a few around.

Coidzor
2010-10-22, 09:18 AM
Spell-stitched Necropolitan Dread Necromancer 8s are the ideal animators.

Of Sentient Undead to do your fighting, most preferable are Bone Creatures, Swordwraiths, Dread Warriors, Death Knights, and Vampires.

Dread Warriors are dumb but retain most of the abilities of the creature in life with no control pool limitation. They mostly just need a tactical CO who can work around their limitations to use them effectively.

Malbordeus
2010-10-22, 01:07 PM
hmm, recently looking at necrocarnate zombies (magic of incarnum) they have a int score... pluss other random abilities.

any good?

Coidzor
2010-10-22, 01:13 PM
hmm, recently looking at necrocarnate zombies (magic of incarnum) they have a int score... pluss other random abilities.

any good?

Aren't they limited to one (or two if you take some PrC) per creator?

Malbordeus
2010-10-22, 03:23 PM
there are ways of doing it via soulmelds and the prestige class. but the template says nothing about having to be raised as such, or having to be controlled by a necrocarnum user.

one can assume a death under the right circumstances (good-aligned sacrifices in horible torturous ways) could raise the sacrificed creatures as these, or if there is a lot of life-force in a evil/negative dominant area, or a evil beings dying on the positive energy plane may be a possibility too.

this is purely based on necrocarnate fluff, mind you. i think its just nice to have some variety in your undead. :smallsmile:

WinWin
2010-10-22, 03:43 PM
Shadows.

Have casters summon weak monsters for them to kill and spawn from. Desecrate the area first or just use a darkskull.

Crafty Cultist
2010-10-22, 05:18 PM
Earth Necromentals are also of use as they have fast healing 3 as long as they're on the ground, Wind Necromentals also would have a good chance of always having fast healing as it would be active when there is air around them, they're underneath/touching/in the sky, or there's a wind going depending upon the DM...

Applying the necromental template to an elemental swarm(from planar handbook) you have a swarm that deals one negative level per round to any creature in their area. Earth swarms can burst from the ground and take the enemy by surprise, and air swarms have incredible speed.

Worlok
2010-10-22, 05:55 PM
Ghosts. They are incorporeal, meaning that they have an advantage over most other types of undead and can easily retreat in case of emergency, but they aren't mindless, meaning that they could technically be part of the army without being compelled to by magic, simply because they get something out of the deal. They can scout ahead, infiltrate and assassinate quite effectively with their Manifestation, the Horrific Appearance, Frightful Moan, Draining Touch and Corrupting Whatevers are perfect for demoralizing and weakening your enemies, and Malevolence lends itself to disorganizing enemy ranks. If those ghosts would happen to have levels in any spellcasting classes, although preferably cleric, they could even make for a decent line of defense and ad-hoc field commanders. So i'd recommend some ethereal support (I know what I'm talking about, I remember a certain group I used to sort of hang around once having serious trouble with what was effectively an assassination squad of ghostly sorcerers.)

Elfstone
2010-10-22, 10:07 PM
Vampires can be a really powerful stealth force. Especially since they can have their own spawn. Widen spell feat for your clerics. That way they can use inflict wounds on more undead.

true_shinken
2010-10-22, 11:20 PM
+1 to earth necromentals. I used'em once (coupled with a Dirgesinger). They freaked the party out completely.
(Well, the fact that they were trying to rescue the resident divine caster was probably part of the reason... 'Undead and we have no cleric?!')

BunnyMaster42
2010-10-22, 11:29 PM
If you really want a good idea of how to run a large scale necromantic army, then I suggest reading the Haunted lands Trilogy by Richard Lee Byers. The plot basically revolves around a massive undead army running amok, and while it uses most of the advice already posted, it does have some decent tactics and ideas.

Basically, you're going to want necromancer followers if you want any decently sized army. You're also going to want to have some way of inducing widespread magic darkness, or just some way to block the sun for the various undead that don't like it (vampires, wraiths, ect...).

Also, clerics will likely ruin your day, so you're either going to need a source of turn resistance, or some quells (Libris Mortis I believe) and some way to get them to the clerics.

I also suggest using any sort of water to your advantage, because legions of lacedons and skeletons rising from the water is a fairly awesome image.

Crafty Cultist
2010-10-23, 12:06 AM
I also suggest using any sort of water to your advantage, because legions of lacedons and skeletons rising from the water is a fairly awesome image.

This also reminds us that undead don't need to breathe. This can be used to great advantage. Flooding a battlefeild means armored knights will drown. The bottle of smoke magic item(DMG) can also be used to generate choking black smoke that will impede your enemies more than the undead.

Cold element area of effect spells will leave your skeletal troops unharmed. being able to bombard the front lines without worrying about freindly fire.

Sorry if my repeated comments are annoying, but leading an undead army is always something I've wanted to try, so I'm very interested in this thread.

Gralamin
2010-10-23, 12:09 AM
hmm, recently looking at necrocarnate zombies (magic of incarnum) they have a int score... pluss other random abilities.

any good?

They are even better then they look.

Coidzor
2010-10-23, 12:44 AM
Level 6+ undead battlecasters with energy substitution (cold) and Lord of the Uttercold can blast without hurting your undead (don't have to roll as it says the damage and healing are just canceled out?) and actually healing your skeletons and cold-immune troops.

Uttercold Assault Necromancers, IIRC is what they're called. At level 7 they can do an uttercold energy substituted(cold) wall of fire behind enemy lines once a battle has been joined, in such a way that the ranks of your army are being healed somewhat and the ranks of their army are being frozen/struck down by negative energy and rewards your troops as they advance and cuts off the avenue of escape or at least makes it more costly for your foes.

And a single one takes care of a strip 140 feet long of the battlefield. 140/5 = 28 squares of the battle-line for the wall itself. +10 foot radius for secondary effects +10 foot radius for tertiary effects.

So that's 32 squares long with primary and secondary... 36 long with primary, secondary, and tertiary. (4*CL+8= length of the area effected. 1+2+2= 5 = width of the area effected in one direction+wall). So a 5x36 component of the battlefield that is now healing your troops and damaging theirs. For concentration + 7 rounds minimum. With no saving throw. Though unfortunately SR.

And depending upon interpretation, the wall does double damage to undead, meaning it deals double the negative energy damage to them meaning double the healing...

Let's see

Level 7 if Wizard. Level 8 if Sorcerer/Warmage without houserules

Feats: Human: ?
1: Fell Drain
3: Energy Substitution(Cold)
(Wiz5: Lord of the Uttercold)
6: Undead Leadership(?)/Lord of the Uttercold
9: Practical Metamagic: Fell Drain (walls of fire that deal negative levels to those damaged by them, or...other spells and it only takes up a level higher than normal)

Or an archivist could do it as well...

Archivist 7
Feats: Human ?
1: Fell Drain
3: Energy Substitution(Cold)
6 Lord of the Uttercold

Edit: Whoops, did the math wrong. Only sends out waves of energy on one side, so it doesn't extend the length, except maybe diagonally out from the face.

So that's still a wall of fire 28 squares long. (4*CL= length of the area effected in squares. 1(wall)+2(5'-10')+2(15'-20')= 5 = width of the area effected). So a 5x28 component of the battlefield that is now healing your troops and damaging theirs. And it could be facing either towards your enemies or toward your troops, depending upon whether one wants to box the enemy in or maximize the healing for one's side after pushing through the enemy line or if one wants to lay down immediate healing for a mass of undead troops and lay some additional damage down on one's foes.

Tvtyrant
2010-10-23, 01:25 AM
Bolster your ranks with constructs that just happen to look like undead. Have them specifically hunt down enemy clerics to prevent having chunks of your army turned. "Why isn't that xombie turni-Agggh!"

There's a cheap CR 2 skeleton construct in the MMII I think, Flesh Golems, and you can bring back the Bone Naga constructs from AD&D to boot.

Coidzor
2010-10-23, 02:09 AM
An idea just occurred, of variable feasibility. Have commoner prisoners (or maybe just backup chickens if you can do this with chickens) and some form of catapult and a place you're sieging that you don't want to immediately assault with your incorporeal undead or something.

Fell-drain or otherwise kill things with negative levels*, and load them into catapults to throw over the walls. The defenders will probably get rid of most of them, but the ones they don't will rise as uncontrolled wights that will either give you a wightocalypse that is of little threat to your undead troops or cause them to expend resources to counteract a plan that cost you little.

*Say by having things like holy/unholy/axiomatic/anarchic arrows and making them hold them, having them die, and then getting loaded into the catapults. Wights work, but only if you can get them into the catapult and loaded and fired and over the walls before 1d4 rounds pass, otherwise you're just splattering wights, so it's more wasteful if one hasn't got a plan to get through the action economy to achieve it just so.

Alleine
2010-10-23, 02:29 AM
No one has mentioned Destruction Retribution yet?

It's one of the corpsecrafter line of feats in Libris Mortis. Every undead created with it will detonate on destruction and release a negative energy burst. It isn't much, but toss a bunch of low level guys into the front and when they go off it'll heal all the undead around them and hurt the enemy.

Coidzor
2010-10-23, 02:34 AM
Undead chickens are a favored thing for destructive retribution, IIRC. Can move freely through your bigger creatures' ranks and then explode to damage enemies and heal your troops.

Also, I think it's the closest, weakest undead that are turned first, so having them around can also help act as ablative armor against turning by clerics.