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View Full Version : Dark Wizard....without Necromancy...is this posible?



Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 10:24 AM
When people think of an evil mage in D&D, the first idea to come to mind is Necromancy. However, despite this Wizards suck at Necromancy, Clerics and Dread Necromancers are just better at it. However, despite this, I LOVE the "evil mage" type characters who dress in a black cloak wardrobe and use powers that look and feel evil....and as far as necromancy gose, well...it's better to just be an evil cloistered cleric and take the divine gestures flaw and some feat to switch your casting stat to int or charisma and call it a day.

However, what I am wondering is, how a person can make a "cliche'" evil mage, you know, the kind with the evil laugh, black cloak fashion, sense and who uses powers that are "evil" appearance, looks and flavor wise rather then just using spells that don't look/feel evil for evil purposes.....without Necromancy as a major focus of the character.(Which means the character can still use it but can't have it as his main specialty and can't take PrCs based on Necromancy.)

So, any ideas for such a Dark mage that still feels, both morally AND aesthetically JUST AS EVIL(If not more) as a Necromancer?(not just wizard but any necro class, including clerics and DNs)

JeminiZero
2011-01-26, 10:28 AM
Its not that wizards do necromancy badly. Its more of they do army of the dead badly. A dedicated necromancer focused on debuffs, and SoDs is stll quite potent.

Besides that, the other dark school, is of course Enchantment: Dominate poor sods, abuse them till they are nearly dead, then kill them for fun.

Flickerdart
2011-01-26, 10:32 AM
Transmutation can also be given a pretty Evil spin, and Conjuration works wonders here (see the Malconvoker).

Psyren
2011-01-26, 10:36 AM
Its not that wizards do necromancy badly. Its more of they do army of the dead badly. A dedicated necromancer focused on debuffs, and SoDs is stll quite potent.

This. Some of the most powerful necromancy spells (e.g. Enervation, Shivering Touch, Avasculate) are Wizard spells, and Clerics can only get them through domains. The problem doesn't lie with a wizard's ability at necromancy, the problem lies with your definition of "necromancy."

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 10:37 AM
The former is true. Wizards can be good necromancers in that sense, but a cleric can do that AND be good at animating which means compaired to a cleric a Wizard is an inferior Necromancer. Also, being a cliche' evil overlord requires having lots of disposable minions, and I don't know any better way for a non Cha-focused character(Sans a thrallheard) to get lots of disposable minions then through Necromancy. Leadership is better with a big charisma and wizards, who usually dumb that stat, are not going to get lots and lots of minions out of it unless they specificly optimize themselves to get lots of minons via leadership. Sorcerers are a different story, however, and an Enchantment focused Sorc/Nightmare Spinner(enchantment-based addaptation clause version that allows him to bypass immunity to mind effecting) could get quite a few flunkies if he chained leadership and dominated a king/emperor/leader of a big empire or something similar.

Likewise the wiz could just use 3rd party/homebrew to make his stat charisma and do the same thing. However, I am almost positive that a necromancer cleric can get more minions then a high cha character with leadership can and on villains I like having lots and lots of disposable minions as appose to one or a small number of big guys which is the main reason I love playing necromancers so much.

bbugg
2011-01-26, 10:40 AM
Of course you can make a stereotypical evil wizard without necromancy: make a wizard, set the alignment at E and do nasty things. Done.

Control people's minds to do your bidding. Burn down the orphanage. Poison the town's well.

This is the main reason I'm starting to really dislike the path that D&D is taking. All of the options available in character creation make us forget that it's a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Play the role - you don't need a mechanical difference.

Leon
2011-01-26, 10:40 AM
With Shadow magic and Illusion in general you can make anything look dark and dangerous.

Add a dash of Enchantment and you can have a lot of minions - maybe more than just magically dominated ones. What were once charmed maybe very loyal after long service and rewards.

Coidzor
2011-01-26, 10:41 AM
Indeed, Necromancy can create ravening horrors, but then, conjuration can just unleash ravening horrors that already existed on the world anyway. And so can transmutation but it has a lot less spell support for doing so for various reasons.

Enchantment is, by its very nature, the violation of volition. And Transmutation is the body-horror school, whereby abominations like owlbears, duckbunnies, and monkeybees! monkeybees! monkeybees! are made.

I mean, it's hard to remove the association of dark wizards with black robes, due to cultural-psychological and cultural-interial reasons, but I can picture a dark wizard who isn't a necromancer.


This is the main reason I'm starting to really dislike the path that D&D is taking. All of the options available in character creation make us forget that it's a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Play the role - you don't need a mechanical difference.

Well, the issue is that you can't play the role unless you can do so. Unless you're powered by plot, in which case that's usually an NPC under the DM's control anyway.

Players generally just don't have that luxury, not even an inch compared to the mile of the DM, when they make their dark wizards.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 10:43 AM
Yeah. True...but where are you going to get an army of mooks? Killing stuff is good for chaotic evil destruction-loving types, but the guys who want to rule the world will be left out, there. Enchantment can KINDA get you minions but not lots and lots and lots of disposable mooks unless you decide to be Uchiha Madara and dominate the ruler of a massive empire which, unlike having your own army, is a very fragile way to gain a massive army that requires a lot of work to both hide the fact your the shadow leader and make sure people don't realize the king is dominated. It's still dooable, but takes a lot more work then necromancy....though RP wise it's just as, if not more evil.

Coidzor
2011-01-26, 10:46 AM
and a wizard can't have an army of the undead or the living which he can control directly that will match the size of a necro cleric's army(as leadership without leadership chaining will, as far as I remember, give you less mooks then a Necro cleric with the deathbound domain, desecrate ect..will have.)

You know what having minions with initiative and ambition gives you, other than Starscreams if you don't smooth out their meat properly? :smallwink:

Besides, barring the obvious cheese which just disintegrates the system rather than bending it over one's knee, massive hordes are speedbumps at best.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 10:52 AM
But I prefer quanity to quality when it comes to having lots of minions. Simply put, and evil overlord should have a giant army, period. A wizard can never have a giant army except by hijacking it from somebody else/playing Uchiha Madara and dominating emperors, kings ect and such...

The only exception I could see to that is if the character is either A) High enough level where he can take out armies with a single spell and thus conquer an empire without ever having to do mass combat. or B) The wizard happens to be an heir to the throne and is able to eliminate the sitting king/emperor and other(if any) heirs that inherit before him. Could be the dark horse/exiled heir as well, which is why he's adventuring and his goal could be to one day eliminate all the other heirs and the sitting king/emperor/whatever and thus claim the throne himself..

Also, I suppose that if a wizard REALLY wanted to play Uchiha Madara he could just get to epic levels and make an epic spell that's basically Charm Person, Global which would make everybody love him and name him emperor of the planet for life and call it a day.

Oh, and I also forgot one more way. If there happens to be a big, strong, powerful society that's also a democracy, he can just charm everybody and have himself elected president and pull a Palpatine-esc move to make himself dictator. The main issue with this is that in normal D&D settings your not going to find that many democracies.

gbprime
2011-01-26, 10:55 AM
Point is, "evil" isn't tied to a school of magic, it's all in how you use what you have. For example, Blood Snow isn't an evil spell, but combine it with web or entangle, and it's a particularly nasty way to kill people. Throw in a cackle and you're "good" to go. :smallcool:

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-26, 11:01 AM
Where do you get an army of mooks?

Enchantment. Leadership. Thrallherd.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 11:01 AM
True, but I prefer the "take over the world" style villains to the "kill, kill kilk destruction!" types who love to slaughter people as appose to obtain power. While there are ways for a wizard to get an army they all involve being high level or hijacking it from somebody else(which also usually requires being high level or at the least high level enough to cast dominate person.) since leadership dose NOT give you an empire/conquering-scale army without serious cheese.(chaining leadership.)

Thats not a big deal though since at lower levels a cleric dose not have a massive undead legion either.

Amnestic
2011-01-26, 11:02 AM
unless you decide to be Uchiha Madara and dominate the ruler of a massive empire which, unlike having your own army

I think Lulu (http://cosplay-costumes-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Lelouch-.jpg) deserves a mention if we're talking about ruling stuff with awesome mind control. You don't need a huge army to be a big bad evil guy. Just maxed out Int and a crapload of skillpoints in Craft (Evil Laugh) ;D

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 11:04 AM
Yeah, but minions are awesome. I like having tons of minions to boss around. Also, Lelouch is not evil hence why I did not mention him. He's, at worst, neutral, in my eyes, but the arguments over Lelouch's alignment are endless and I don't want to turn this thread into a "Is Lelouch good or evil" debate.

Anyway, as stated earlier a Cleric won't have enough undead to be a conquer until higher levels either and despite leadership giving you less minions then a the lord of some tiny as all **** manor in the middle of nowhere it DOSE give you a cohort that can be a necro cleric.

gbprime
2011-01-26, 11:06 AM
since leadership dose NOT give you an empire/conquering-scale army without serious cheese.

No, but Alter Self and Suggestion/Charm Monster do. You just have to have some ranks in disguise and commit Regicide. Then you use HIS army. :smallbiggrin:

true_shinken
2011-01-26, 11:09 AM
Personally, I think an enchanter can be very devious. A necromancer defiles your body, but an enchanter defiles your mind.
Check the Purple Man in Alias. That's just... sick.

Thrawn183
2011-01-26, 11:09 AM
You want to be a dark wizard? Throw around some fire and ice. It doesn't have to be negative energy to be "dark"

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 11:12 AM
That's actually not enough. In that situation you would have to kill or otherwise do away with the court mage, high priest and anybody else in the whole empire who is close to the king and has access to detect magic and dispell magic. You would also have to strictly control the education of all young wizards to make sure they don't learn spells that can end your ruse, check the bloodlines of all residents of the empire to make sure non of them have magical bloodlines(and if any do quietly do away with them.) and somehow take control of, alter and/or replace any major faiths in the empire to make sure clerics can't stripe your guise. If the empire is atheist, even better as then you never have to worry about clerics at all and thus can just control the wizarding education system and take out magical bloodline people in the way mentioned above.

gbprime
2011-01-26, 11:17 AM
Thats actually, not enough. In that situation you would have to kill the court mage, high priest and anybody else in the whole empire who is close to the king and has access to detect magic and dispell magic.

No, you just have to accuse them of treason, or engineer it so they accuse EACH OTHER of treason. Then while they're busy fighting each other, you can dismiss the whole lot of them over concerns of security. Remember, you're charming and suggesting this whole time. Court opinion will eventually be on your side.

Once you're on the throne for a while, you can rewrite history so people care less that you can wield magic. It's keeping everyone in line until then.

Nobody said it's EASY... just FUN. :smallbiggrin:

Coidzor
2011-01-26, 11:18 AM
Hell, why does Dark Wizard have to mean he's illegitimate? Rule a kingdom for long enough and the Might makes Right of the world grandfathers you in.

Come to think of it, do the Shades from FR have much necromantic focus? :smallconfused:

gbprime
2011-01-26, 11:25 AM
Hell, why does Dark Wizard have to mean he's illegitimate? Rule a kingdom for long enough and the Might makes Right of the world grandfathers you in.

"But the king got assassinated 5 years ago and replaced by a dark wizard who assumed his form!"

"The last 5 years have been pretty good for business. How about you?"

"Eh, not that bad, actually. And with the larger army and fortifications, there's a lot more work available than there used to be. More coin flowing."

"So... revolt?"

"Nah, no point."

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 11:27 AM
I edited my post to include "or otherwise take out" to include non-killing ways to take out enemies but you ninja'ed me before I finished the edit. As for might makes right that's only true in some societies, most of which are savage in nature. I mean, just look at the real world for an example of how might makes right means **** in most societies. A soldier could easily kill any politician yet the politician leads the country while the soldier fights on the country's behalf. Likewise, there is a VERY small population of wealthy people globally and yet despite having the greater numbers and thus greater might(in the traditional sense. If you look at resources/money as might then this is not the case.) it's hard to deny that the rich rule the world.

Now I know that in a world with magic that "might makes right" is a bit different but a monarchy, steeped in years of tradition and such won't just let somebody on the throne because he knows magic. The only way for a wizard to take over a kingdom without having to play puppetmaster/shadow leader is to be very high level since if he can't destroy an army he's not taking that kingdom, period.

Coidzor
2011-01-26, 11:29 AM
Actually, come to think of it, isn't that supposed to be part of why the Thayan populace is content with the Red Wizards despite individuals' excesses? That they're good for the economy?

Leon
2011-01-26, 11:31 AM
But I prefer quanity to quality when it comes to having lots of minions. Simply put, and evil overlord should have a giant army, period. A wizard can never have a giant army except by hijacking it from somebody else/playing Uchiha Madara and dominating emperors, kings ect and such...



Eh....

What is there to stop a Wizard from forming a Army?
All he needs is money, time and creatures.

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-26, 11:31 AM
You could... marry into the royal family.

And I would like to reiterate that raising an army is incredibly easy.

Leadership.

Thrallherd.

Enchantment.

And mix in some undead for spice.

The Big Dice
2011-01-26, 11:35 AM
Yeah, but minions are awesome. I like having tons of minions to boss around.
Find a suitable humanoid race. Orcs are the classic. Vapourise the leaders of the biggest, baddedst tribe on the block. Tell the survivors they now work for you. Instant minions. Call this the Quick Way.

Or, find those humanoids. Charm the leaders, then give them juicy targets to attack. Targets that both push your agenda forwards and give the tribe lots of loot. Use the loot to attract more humanoids to your army. Call this one the Slow Way.

Take one evil wizard, add orcs, goblins and so on. Burn a few cities down and there you go. New kingdom on the block.

Toliudar
2011-01-26, 11:40 AM
Indeed. Once your 'army' needs are of sufficient size, you're never going to be doing all of that with your own personal power, but through some kind of hierarchy. Doesn't matter what class or level you are.

Throw in a dose of Spell Thematics (and/or a generous re-fluffing) and just about any school of magic is scary. I'm thinking of the Palantir from LotR. Divination magic that scared the pants off of Gandalf.

Psyren
2011-01-26, 11:45 AM
But I prefer quanity to quality when it comes to having lots of minions. Simply put, and evil overlord should have a giant army, period. A wizard can never have a giant army except by hijacking it from somebody else/playing Uchiha Madara and dominating emperors, kings ect and such...

And what's wrong with that? :smallconfused:

The problem with an undead army (besides the smell) is the amount of micromanagement they need to be effective. Sure you can control them, but that just means you have to command them too. And to really get a throng going they generally have to be mindless, making them easy to fool and requiring pretty detailed instructions from you. (e.g. "guard this door" - they won't protect the window etc.)

And from a metagame standpoint, huge armies are a pain. Whether PnP or CRPG, "Army of the Dead"-style necromancers slow the game to a crawl.

Another_Poet
2011-01-26, 11:58 AM
If you're still willing to use the Necromancy school, just without an undead-raising focus, I'd recommend using Blindness a lot. It is super useful, but it's also permanent. I once left a Huge air elemental blind, roaming its dungeon forever and unable to cure itself or find its way to help. Mwa ha ha. (Then my stupid party finished it off out of "mercy.")

Also, consider using Summon Monster as fodder for Vampiric Touch to cure yourself, or Leadership.

Illusionists can also spin evil very easily. Just make yourself look like the husband (wife) of the hottest woman (man) in town a couple of times. People will be creeped out by you plenty fast. To make the full transition to Evil just make that when the town hangs you for adultery, it is actually the town cleric's son (illusioned to look like you) who gets hanged.

Say it with me....
Mwa ha ha.

Tiki Snakes
2011-01-26, 12:03 PM
Find a suitable humanoid race. Orcs are the classic. Vapourise the leaders of the biggest, baddedst tribe on the block. Tell the survivors they now work for you. Instant minions. Call this the Quick Way.

Or, find those humanoids. Charm the leaders, then give them juicy targets to attack. Targets that both push your agenda forwards and give the tribe lots of loot. Use the loot to attract more humanoids to your army. Call this one the Slow Way.

Take one evil wizard, add orcs, goblins and so on. Burn a few cities down and there you go. New kingdom on the block.

Bingo. It really is that simple.

Pechvarry
2011-01-26, 12:18 PM
"Rule the world" style wizards really just work better in games w/out leadership, I feel. Example scenario: the PCs reach the warcamp of the army intending to invade their neighbors. They Diplomance their way to the generals, and convince them through roleplaying to attack the undead horde moving down from the north -- the horde that threatens all nations of man. Grats, the PCs now have an army (until the objective is reached, anyway).

If this is how your game runs (and I think a lot do), then this logic applies to your BBEG as well. Insidious lies, paired with very good nondetection-type stuff, will cover the political side of your evil wizard's agenda.

This leaves the crunch: just play a wizard. I can't think of many spells that are really inherently good-feeling wizard spells. I seem to remember the BBEG in Record of Lotoss War (ugh) basically being an evoker, and making it seem scary. Every spell should fall into one of 3 categories: a) subversion, b) destruction, or c) PC-foiling. Be it counterspells or getaway spells, the third category is simply remembering that a good BBEG has an answer to everything the party can do (as opposed to getting ubercharged in round 1).

Incompleat
2011-01-26, 12:25 PM
I am not really that into the "army of orcs" idea, myself - it's not bad in itself, but it has been the standard modus operandi of evil, world-conquering spellcaster types since at least Sauron.

Same with manipulating a senile or overambitious leader from behind the scenes: it's not that it's a bad idea, in itself, but It's Been Done.

If you like the "army of the dead" feel, nothing prevents an evil wizard from outsourcing the summoning to adequately subjugated clerics - that's more or less what Xykon does, by the way!

Or, why not, have her find a way of controlling, through mind magic or subtler means, some powerful, good-aligned clerics of, say, Pelor, and let her use their undead-destroying abilities to force a vampire clan or two to do her bidding - for extra fun, she could have the cleric of Pelor pose as the Big Bad for most of the campaign, of course :smallwink:

Alternatively, he or she could, either personally or through a druid at her commands, warp the minds and the bodies of animals and force them to obey her wills - individually, they will be weak, of course, but there is nothing like an endless army of plague weasels to put the fear of the DM into a party :smallamused:

Or golems, plenty of them. Just to put a twist in the idea, have the wizard "enchant" a number of full armors for the soldiers of some kingdom, and when it becomes dramatically appropriate have the armors reveal themselves to be golems, trap the soldiers inside them and force "them" to fight for the wizard - for bonus evilness, of course, one should encase the king's son/daughter/lover into the best suit of armor, force him/her to execute the king, and then having it become the wizard's most powerful champion.

Or, well, there always is the good old "deal with the devil", which could well give the wizard command over an army of gentlemen from the lower dimensions. Again, one could toy a little with the theme - for example, why not have it become a "deal with the angel(s)" instead? As in, the wizard has somehow gotten access to something so horrifically evil and dangerous (perhaps, some multiverse-destroying gizmo?) that a Lawful Good deity agreed to give her the command over an army of its most trusted followers for a while in exchange for her to give it back to him?

That could be kind of a fun opponent, I think: the wizard's minions dislke her, but they are honor-bound to obey her anyway, and the deity in question hates her guts but cannot bear to attack his own minions, and she keeps giggling and having her angels slaughter kind old ladies and little doggies.

And finally, of course, there is option e): All Of The Above :smallbiggrin:

Coidzor
2011-01-26, 12:44 PM
Say it with me....
Just as planned.

Fixed that for you. (http://1d4chan.org/images/3/3c/Just_as_planned_tzeentch.jpg) :smallamused:

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 12:51 PM
Yeah, all good ideas...but the flaw is that, unlike a Necro Cleric, those options are not available to a PC. Thus, if an evil PC's goal was to, say, conquer a kingdom and/or eventually, the world, and he was NOT a Necro cleric how would he do that without using highly complex plans that involve lots of manipulation and work? I mean, without necromancy PC options for raising armies are slim to none since the robot/construct army would take way to much gold and XP to have enough of them to match a cleric's undead legions, leadership without chaining also dose not give you enough minions to match a necro cleric and just bullying a bunch of idiot orcs/goblins/whatever is kinda doable but meh flavor wise for me. I guess I could just be a Necromancer wizard with Leadership AND undead leadership, make the leadership cohort a Necro Cleric and the undead leadership cohort either a necropolitian necro cleric, necropolitian Dread Necromancer, cleric/walker in the waste(Who would be a Dry Lich and thus undead) or any kind of undead that can create more undead on it's own/spawn.

Either that or just be a cloistered cleric who worships no deity, has the deathbound domain, take the divine gestures flaw so I have a mechanical excuse to wear the black cloak, take the divine magician ACF, use some homebrew/3rd party feat to switch my casting stat to int(Or cha if int+ cloistered cleric skillpoints is just too many for a DM.) and then I meet all the requirements to be a undead army necromancer who aesthetically looks and feels like a necro wizard SHOULD without actually being one.

Coidzor
2011-01-26, 12:53 PM
Dip PrC Bard for Acquire glibness, win at manipulation forever. There are other spells that would be available that slip from my mind at the moment though.

You're not going to be taking over the world as a Necro Cleric as a PC without the DM working with you on it anyway.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 12:57 PM
Yeah, but a kingdom is not out of the question, for a Necro Cleric. For a wizard who can't make his own army? Unless you decide to go dominate the king, no...and making undead is WAAAYYYYY easier then ruling a kingdom from the shadows via a dominated ruler due to the existence of things like detect magic and dispell magic...and that's not even to mention that it would be painfully obvious that the king is dominated since he won't do anything unless you command him to do so and if he actually has good saves then your in for even more trouble.

As for BEEGs, you don't need an excuse. You can just come right out and say that the wizard has all those minions because he's the BBEG and then use any explanation you want despite it not being viable by crunch.

Coidzor
2011-01-26, 01:00 PM
For a given value of easier and ignoring all alternatives and being confined to a very, very narrowly and yet nebulously defined band of fantasy realms with a rather capricious and apparently inconsistent DM in what he will and will not support in a PC's quest for power.

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-26, 01:03 PM
Leadership, Thrallherd and Enchantment are all available to a PC.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 01:09 PM
Leadership has already been mentioned...it dose not provide the sheer number necromancy dose, so it's out. Thrallheard is psionic and also dose not provide necro cleric level numbers. Enchantment can't get you an army ever. It can only control one person so you either have to spam so many dominate persons it's not funny or dominate somebody with an army and the latter, while doable, requires FAR more work then animating a bunch of undead and can be screwed over by anybody with dispell magic or a king with a good will save.

Feasibly, the ONLY way a wizard could match a necro cleric numbers wise, WITHOUT DM intervention/aid would be to chain leadership, which, as stated, is very cheesy. All other methods require SOME kind of intervention by the DM...

Bullying Orcs, Goblins ect..:Involves no crunch what so ever, meaning it's only with DM action that this one can happen

Shadow Leader/Puppetmaster/Dominating the King/manipulation: Requires a leader to dominate, first of all, and second of all requires a LOT of work and spending a LOT of time in the kingdom, and the latter involves the GM heavily since you spending lots of time in a kingdom is counterproductive to party dynamics.

Mecha Mooks: Your going to need LOTS of gold and LOTS of XP to make this work...which means you need a generous DM. If your DM' is stingy with money and XP you can forget this.

Raising an army the old fashion way: There is nothing in crunch that lets you do this, leadership included(Because leadership HARDLY gives you the numbers to conquer stuff, you, at best, have the army of a minor lord who owns a small manor. Hardly enough to conquer a kingdom. Thus, since nothing crunch wise(sans necromancy) can give you such an army it is, again, only able to be achieved with DM intervention.

If there are any others I misses

Toliudar
2011-01-26, 01:13 PM
Yeah, all good ideas...but the flaw is that, unlike a Necro Cleric, those options are not available to a PC. Thus, if an evil PC's goal was to, say, conquer a kingdom and/or eventually, the world, and he was NOT a Necro cleric how would he do that without using highly complex plans that involve lots of manipulation and work?

Um. Shouldn't taking over a kingdom require a lot of planning, manipulation and work? I mean, unless you're playing so far into epic that you are effectively leaving the rules behind anyway?

Tiki Snakes
2011-01-26, 01:16 PM
Yeah, no, really. If the wizard in question believes that crushing a nations army with a legion of undead, siezing control of the infrastructure that remains after such a destructive conflict and keeping the surviving populace both in place and properly subjugated whilst micromanaging said legion of largely mindless undead is the easy option...

When compared with merely enslaving a couple of people that matter and having the newly aquired Empire effectively subjugate itself...

Well, there's no accounting for folks. :smallwink:

Havelock
2011-01-26, 01:24 PM
D&D (at least 3.5) is not made with the idea in mind that conquering empires is what PC's most likely will be doing.

Mechanically, I don't really see any practical way to singlehandedly excercise total control over a massive army, with the exception of constructs, but they are expensive. There are upper limits on how many undeads you can have control over, enchantment spells doesn't last forever etc, etc....

Planar Bindings could theoretically provide you with an army forever in your service, but the one splatbook I've seen (Fiendish Codex II) discussing that spell, suggests that Devils will never provide services that goes on longer than 1 day/level, and they require sacrifice or compensation for it, or you automatically loose your charisma check. It's fair to assume that to be the case with any creature, or the spell is horribly broken.

What is left is to do what Hitler, Caesar, Stalin and Napoleon to name a few did. Take control by achieving enough support to seeize and hold it, then make yourself independent of your initial supporters and do as you like. And then you should be fine as long as you can ward off assassination attempts, win your wars and keep people reasonably well fed.

It certainly does help to be able to kill houndreds of adversaries within seconds, but the trick is to have generals, administrators and governors loyal to you (by granting them favours and so on), who have soldiers and police forces and what not that are loyal through them. A hierarchy works because those in higher rank provides enough wealth, favours and so on to those of lower rank for them to be content. At the bottom of society you might find slaves and serfs who are kept starving down in the mud by well fed and armed servants of the elite.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 01:30 PM
Ehh...dominating a few people is still harder because of the kind of work involved. Quashing rebellions is easy, especially when you have powerful wizard spells and an undead army. Also, even if the vast bulk of your people who rebel are killed no skin of your back, they now join your undead army. As for rebuilding infrastructure, you have lots of undead, have them go gather resources and rebuild the infrastructure since slave labor is the best kind of labor their is.

Compare that, to being a shadow leader. Domination is painfully easy to spot. Detect magic and dispell magic ruin it. Any mage with half a brain who's not on your side will easily recognize the leadership is dominated and try to stop you. Despite the numbers, I find that fighting an army of rebellious commoners, aristocrats, warriors and experts is FAR easier then fighting a single or small group of spellcaster(s). Also..there is the fact that the dominated people MAY make their save and since you most likely don't have the spells to erase their memory(since it's so high level unless your a bard who gets a different spell 'similar at lower levels.) one made save means their free AND remember being dominated which means you've just been exposed and since your charisma score is ****(Most wizards dumb cha) your not going to make the social skill checks to get everybody to believe the leader has gone insane.

As for doing things the "old fashion way" there is NO crunch regarding how to do that and thus, as stated earlier, it's dependent on the DM letting you do it.A Necro Cleric, TECHNICALLY can raise an army without the DM's help. Dose that mean the DM can still deny a necro cleric that chance? Yes. Dose that mean he NEEDS the DM to do it? No. A fighter can raise an army if the DM lets them. Excluding DM intervention, only a Necro Cleric can raise a large army.

Incompleat
2011-01-26, 01:32 PM
Yeah, I would drop the "huge army" idea for a PC: D&D is not really the right system for that, or for in-depth modelling of fictional world politics.

As an alternative, why not go for a summon-happy wizard, perhaps using the Alienist prestige class to spice things up a little?

It's not the most optimal build ever, but it can be fun, and, hey, wizard - it's not like you will be underpowered anyway :smallamused:

Grelna the Blue
2011-01-26, 01:33 PM
In all my days of GMing, the BBEG I created who was most hated by the PCs was an enchanter.

Seriously, enchanters can make you do stuff you'd normally never do. They can change who you ARE. Charm Person isn't too bad, but Suggestion, Dominate Person, Feeblemind, and Mindrape? They're scaaary bad.

When the BBEG cordially invites you to dinner, you expect a trap. You detect for poison. But what if the component parts of the dinner (harmless in themselves) make up a recombinant Philtre of Love? And you're facing him across the table?

JaronK
2011-01-26, 02:02 PM
Wait, Wizards are great at making armies of undead. Animate Dread Warrior + Spellstitching = army, and they've got plenty of spells to do whatever they want with it (more than a DN). Plus UA gives them a variant to buff their undead.

JaronK

randomhero00
2011-01-26, 02:04 PM
Conjuration and enchantment can be VERY evil if used right. Just think about.

FMArthur
2011-01-26, 02:15 PM
You don't have to go all undead all the time to make an evil wizard. Make him look evil, make him do evil things, and make people talk about how evil he is. He could spray unicorns at people and still be a terrifying force of evil. PCs can keep going from there rather easily.

For NPCs, to get PCs to consider a wizard evil all you have to do is give them an unnecessarily difficult encounter (easy even without a level advantage) and then have him escape at the end, laughing at them. Bonus points if he dispels and shatters their hard-earned gear in the fight. Now they hate him.

Toliudar
2011-01-26, 03:02 PM
As for doing things the "old fashion way" there is NO crunch regarding how to do that and thus, as stated earlier, it's dependent on the DM letting you do it.A Necro Cleric, TECHNICALLY can raise an army without the DM's help. Dose that mean the DM can still deny a necro cleric that chance? Yes. Dose that mean he NEEDS the DM to do it? No. A fighter can raise an army if the DM lets them. Excluding DM intervention, only a Necro Cleric can raise a large army.

Well, there's crunch for the hiring, maintenance and use of hirelings. Hire enough warriors and you have an army. How is that more or less crunch-based than finding a lot of dead bodies to animate and control?

As you yourself have said, a PC's ability to raise an army - undead or otherwise - is dependent on the DM's cooperation.

kme
2011-01-26, 03:38 PM
Maho-Tsukai, it seems that whatever is mentioned, according to you it doesn't even compare with the "necro cleric". Can you provide examples of undead armies that necro cleric would have at levels 10, 15 and 20. Also, I would like to know how exactly would you use those armies.

gbprime
2011-01-26, 03:54 PM
He does seem to have a real Nightstick for the Necro Cleric, doesn't he? :smalltongue:

It would be good at this point to get a baseline expectation from him. Since alternatives are not valid, what capabilities is he trying to duplicate or surpass?

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-26, 04:31 PM
Okay then. No, a 'Dark Wizard', without Necromancy, is not possible when you deliberately shoot down every and any suggestion for how to make it work.

gdiddy
2011-01-26, 05:39 PM
I get the feeling that Maho is married to this concept.

I'm not sure anyone is going to dissuade him from this ideal Dark Wizard

Real cool Dark Wizards go around starting a religion based on themselves until they start getting Deity Ranks. :smallcool:


Also:
I just wanted to say that I misread the thread title as "Dark Wizard....without Necrophilia...is this posible?"

I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

Psyren
2011-01-26, 05:41 PM
Why wouldn't his namesake work? Maho-Tsukai are pretty badwrong, and he clearly knows about them...

CN the Logos
2011-01-26, 05:48 PM
Okay then. No, a 'Dark Wizard', without Necromancy, is not possible when you deliberately shoot down every and any suggestion for how to make it work.


I get the feeling that Maho is married to this concept.

I'm not sure anyone is going to dissuade him from this ideal Dark Wizard

Real cool Dark Wizards go around starting a religion based on themselves until they start getting Deity Ranks. :smallcool:

Yeah... When someone asks how to make a BBEG wizard that doesn't focus on necromancy, the general assumption is that he won't be fixated on building an undead army to the point where one starts to wonder if he has electrodes in the pleasure centers of his brain that activate every time someone says "undead."

Still, I understand the desire to build an undead commander villain, what with their rich history in literature and movies. Why, surely one can't be blamed for wanting to follow in the footsteps of such greats as Sauron, Palpatine, and Voldemort!*

Oh, wait. None of those guys did the undead army thing. The Lord of the Rings doesn't map well onto D&D's magic system, but Sauron focused on shapeshifting, crafting magic items, and pushing his bluff modifier into the mid-sixties ("Yes, your Majesty, invading Heaven to attack the gods is an excellent idea. They're a bunch of sissies anyway, that's why they're hiding over there. If you just show up with a bunch of spears and shout angrily enough, they'll give you the secret of eternal life to leave them alone!"). Palpatine could be done pretty effectively as a focused illusionist with a bunch of divination as backup, to ensure his plans go... just as planned. Voldemort kills things with blasty ray-type spells, we never see him cast anything that doesn't involve at least hideous torture, and he always follows that up with the death-rays. Necromantic "feel" of the Killing Curse aside (and that could be duplicated with a feat), you know what we usually call a wizard who blasts things until they die?

An evoker.

An evoker.

Evoker.

EVOKER.

Anything can be frightening if you play it right. That said OP, if your heart is really set on running an undead army commander, why do you feel compelled to run the absolute best build or nothing at all? You don't win D&D, and unless you play alongside groups with a very specialized taste, attempts to do so can alienate your fellow players. An unoptimized generalist wizard is already good. The builds other people here have suggested are better. You don't need a Tier 0 build to be effective or interesting.



Also:
I just wanted to say that I misread the thread title as "Dark Wizard....without Necrophilia...is this posible?"

I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

Oh, totally. Lichloved is a situational feat at best.




*Voldemort is not actually that inspiring to me as far as BBEGs go. Sociopaths generally make for really boring characters to read about. He is, however, the most stereotypical cackling black cloak type I could come up with off the top of my head, so he warrants a mention in this topic.

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-26, 05:51 PM
Voldemort had zombies.

He was also a lich.

CN the Logos
2011-01-26, 05:54 PM
Voldemort had zombies.

Yeah, he did, but we never saw them aside from one (or was it two?) trap(s). It was not the focus of his build, at all.

...Was that seriously all that was worth responding to in that post? I actually feel a little sad now. :smallannoyed:

ETA: And to edit in response to your edit, he was indeed a lich. Still not an undead army commander. The original lich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koschei) was, in fact, a gish build. Nothing to do with any undead other than himself as far as I know.

KillianHawkeye
2011-01-26, 06:18 PM
A real Dark Wizard does't need magic to get a huge army. They rule through fear, because they got to the top by being the baddest and craziest guy in the room.

Czin
2011-01-26, 06:22 PM
Of course a Dark Wizard can be done without Necromancy. Consort with the fiends of the lower planes, that's easily as bad as Necromancy. A conjurer who summons and calls forth vast armies of the Demonic/Diabolical/Yugolothic can actually be considered worse than his zombie and skeleton using counterpart depending on the setting. Instead of a Lich, he could be grant himself immortality by becoming fiendish (and if you really want to mess with your players heads, make him/her half-fiend as well as fiendish.)

FMArthur
2011-01-26, 06:28 PM
Hey guys how do I use Necromancy without using Necromancy?

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-26, 06:35 PM
...Was that seriously all that was worth responding to in that post? I actually feel a little sad now. :smallannoyed:

Nope. I just don't respond to huge long posts that well.

Jack_Simth
2011-01-26, 06:38 PM
Yeah. True...but where are you going to get an army of mooks? Killing stuff is good for chaotic evil destruction-loving types, but the guys who want to rule the world will be left out, there. Enchantment can KINDA get you minions but not lots and lots and lots of disposable mooks unless you decide to be Uchiha Madara and dominate the ruler of a massive empire which, unlike having your own army, is a very fragile way to gain a massive army that requires a lot of work to both hide the fact your the shadow leader and make sure people don't realize the king is dominated. It's still dooable, but takes a lot more work then necromancy....though RP wise it's just as, if not more evil.
Ah... actually, a stock Wizard can't get much of an undead army under his direct control, either. Just 4 HD/caster level. Clerics can have a few more, but not by much. The real tricks of necromancy are indirect control methods, which the Cleric can be better at (get a self-replicating undead with permanently enslaved spawn - Wight, Shadow, Wraith, Spectre, whatever - and Command *it* (the General of the Army), then have The General of the Army murder people into it's spawn (Generals). You then have the General of the Army have the Generals make spawn (Lieutenant Generals), and so on, until you either run out of sacrificial victims or ranks. You order the General of the Army, the General of the Army orders the Generals, the Generals order the Lieutenant Generals, and so on down the line. Arbitrarily large army under your command (indirectly). Fragile, though. If anything happens to the General of the Army, you lose control of the entire kit and kaboodle.

The Wizard is much better at getting temporary control of undead minions, however (command undead has no save on mindless undead, so the save DC penalty of Chain Spell doesn't matter).



A little more on-topic, the Wizard playing around with Chained Extended Dominate Person spells, however, can have quite a lot of minions (Caster Level * Caster Level * 2 * The number of slots dedicated for that particular metamagic'd spell spell * 0.95, generally, or 427 for a 15th level caster doing this with one spell slot per day).

A Wizard playing around with Calling spells can do fairly well as well.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 06:53 PM
Actually, despite the way I have been acting and talking make me out to be an Undead lover(in more ways then one) commanding undead is not what I wanted. If I wanted to command a lot of undead as a Wizard I would not put "no necromancy" in the thread title. It's not the undead that I was looking for but rather an evil wizard with evil-feeling powers(which despite me shooting your ideas down on their own are all PERFECT for this character and I will explain below.) an army which was not smaller then the undead army of a necro cleric and did not involve steep, difficult upkeep(Such as being a shadow leader.). The army dose not have to be undead. It can be any always X evil race, outsiders, constructs or even human warriors in spiky black full plate for all I care. So along as they look evil and I can have just as many, if not more of them then a cleric of the same level can have undead the species matters not. What DOSE however, matter, is the size and scale of the army, but MORE IMPORTANTLY that there is hard crunch rather then RP with no supporting crunch at all. Leadership failed on it's own at being the "hard crunch" since it could not produce the numbers I wanted. However, you did point out something I totally forgot...hirelings.

While leadership gives you small numbers, it's good at getting you elites. So, yeah, the necro cleric will have more undead then you have leadership minions, but if you have enough money(which is easy as all heck for a wizard to obtain) you can use leadership to grab your elites with actual class levels and just use hirelings as your disposable redshirts. Likewise, since hirelings are a LOT cheaper to obtain then undead you have more extra spending money which means you can afford to equip your hirelings and give them all kinds of nice stuff. If your a good enough manipulator and treat them well enough hired goons can easily translate into soldiers of your future empire of evil. Truth be told, chances are unless they are all extremely cowardly that if you give them enough cool stuff, promise them power, gold, adventure, ect.. they would jump at the chance to be the black armor clad soldiers for the empire of evil. Why? Simple. Despite "disposable mook" not being the best job in the world it's still a better position then "peasant farmer" . If you give the commoners/experts/X NPC class some good equipment that they could never afford(because if the guys will work for less then one gold peice like hell they will ever be able to afford the stuff you can.), promise them they will get lots of gold, adventure, women ect.. and tell them they will no longer be stuck as peasant farmers, lower class craftsmen, bottom wrung soldiers who barely escaped the death sentence that is the job of guards and instead be the greatest conquering force the world has ever seen chances are the position of "disposable mook" will sound a WHOLE lot better to many of them then it actually is.

Problem solved.

So, I apologize for being critical of your ideas and despite the way I acted all of them where perfectly viable and I actually liked the RP of a lot of them but I shot them down because I assumed that, mechanically, there was no way for them to match the sheer numbers a necro cleric can produce. However, now that you reminded me of hirelings ALL of the concepts here can work just fine PROVIDED I can get enough gold to hire enough people and despite undead having better stats and less necessary upkeep then lots of hired goons the hired goons are FAR cheaper to produce then undead and unlike undead don't have a control limit meaning that, with enough money, I could have a hired army larger then any necro cleric horde AND have actual crunch to provide a reason to have this massive force other then "My character/NPC has a character goal of conquest and taking over stuff so can he eventually/he will have an army?"

Yuki Akuma
2011-01-26, 06:54 PM
Getting gold isn't hard.

You're a Wizard. You can use several infinite money loops.

Go nuts.

Psyren
2011-01-26, 06:56 PM
Hey guys how do I use Necromancy without using Necromancy?

Simple, you shot web.

(As a serious answer; Invocations, Vestiges or Incarnum)

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 07:01 PM
Yeah...again, I apologize for being a big **** about this and seeming as if I thought your ideas where bad. They where not bad and all of them where quite fitting. I acted the way I did because I forgot the hirelings rules and thus thought that there was no ACTUAL CRUNCH which would allow a wizard to have an army of mooks that could match the size of a necro cleric's undead horde, and with hirelings brought in I was proven absolutely wrong. Therefore, any of the concepts you have provided here for me work perfectly fine so long as I can supply the money(Which as stated, is easy enough for a wizard.) to have enough hired mooks. Then for elites I can just use leadership, seeing as I can grab at least some guys with actual PC class levels and despite the anemic number of mooks leadership gives you I can easily have disposable mooks so long as I can fork over the cash...which is easy for a wizard.

Thus, with an actual CRUNCH/MECHANICAL way for a Wizard to get an army the size of a Necro cleric's army I no longer have any issues with the ideas presented here and in a way for having a big army hirelings + Leadership to grab elites is BETTER then Necromancy since hirelings cost almost nothing and have no control limit and leadership mooks work for free meaning you can have elites for technical no price(While to animate elites a Necro Cleric needs to spend lots of gold) and an infinite size army of disposable mooks since there is no limit to the number of hirelings and the aforementioned infinite money loops translate to, more or less, infinite mooks. While a Necro cleric can have only so many undead.

The only issue here is that Undead will be stronger then your payed mooks, however, adapts I would think work for fairly cheap and if you send them out with your low level PC class guys from leadership to adventure/do some activity that would give them XP they can all become fleashwarpers(and with entry tricks rather quickly) and an army of fleshwarpers is both very disturbing and very powerful, and adapts also get some powerful spells on their spell list meaning despite undead being better then plane old hirelings at base, hirelings have the advantage of being able to become stronger/level up and thus take PC classes and while undead may be stronger then a hired human mook, give that hired human mook some levels in a PC class(or do the the fleshwarper adapt thing) and suddenly that former commoner can cast spells, use manuvers and do things that a PC can..and thats a lot scarier. Heck, even if their highest stat is a 14 if you send them out with some stronger guys to gain XP and level up they can be just as strong as a PC wizard could(sans items) if they get a high taint score and take tainted sorcerer? So your casting stat is a 14? Who cares...your taint score is your casting stat now....there you go, your "disposable mook" who the necro cleric laughs at when he compares them to his undead now is a functioning wizard...guess we know who has the last laugh..the only thing you have to remember is to only do this to a certain point as we all know how annoying "the starscream" can be.

Yeah, this is a slow process, but the tradeoff of having an army of "disposable mooks" who have PC classes is worth it, and despite their new found power chances are they will stay loyal to you if their lawful(since you gave them the chance to gain this power and in return a lawful character would remain loyal to you.) and if their not just remind them that despite having a few PC class levels that your bigger and badder then them and if they don't listen they will be punished with any one of the thousands of horrific fates you can give them as a wizard.

Czin
2011-01-26, 07:04 PM
*Snipped long post*

As Exemplars of Evil notes, the Leadership isn't exactly the best for Villains since they have a bad habit of killing their minions which hits you with a leadership score penalty. But they can get Minions (equivalent to cohorts) and lackeys (equivalent to followers) in a table that's pretty much identical to the leadership table. Also, if you want lots of followers get Epic Leadership and Legendary Commander, with a leadership score of 40 (which really isn't that hard to get) you can have over 10,000 level one followers. Now add this to your lackeys and minions that you get from being a villain, that's another 10,000 if you are willing to allow Legendary Commander apply to the minions and lackeys table. If you want, you can have them as undead by taking the undead leadership feat in the Libris Mortis.

Let me remind you, in the medieval era an army of 20,000 was considered to be really damned big, now if your minions, lackeys, cohorts, and followers have leadership (even though cohorts can't take leadership if I remember correctly) and their own lackeys and minions the size of your army can quickly snowball. If you play your cards right, you should have an army of 30,000-40,000 pretty easily.

An army of 30,000-40,000 is a lot bigger than anything a typical Necro-Cleric can directly command without some epic feats of his own. In fact, you have an army that has as many soldiers as a D&D metropolis has people as per the DMG's settlement size tables. You'd be able to defeat most nations in the majority of settings through sheer numbers.

And this can get even more ridiculous if you have allies, with seven other people allied with you (I chose this number as a homage to the circle of eight, which had the wealth and power of a mighty nation simply because these eight high level wizards had so much resources) your army would be a horde of the likes the world has probably never seen. 240,000-320,000 men marching under one group's banner is something that strikes fear in the hearts of all.

Maho-Tsukai
2011-01-26, 07:31 PM
Also, lackeys and minions, I assume, is only for BBEGs/NPCs and thus for a PC to achieve the same thing he would need to take leadership twice, which he can't. However, as far as I know, he CAN take undead leadership and normal leadership meaning he could have roughly the same numbers as the NPC with minions and lackeys + leadership could, the only difference being that some of your flunkies would be undead. However, if you are able to get some undead which can spawn/create more undead you can pull the same spawn tricks a Necro cleric can and likewise if you want EVEN MORE undead make one of your cohorts a Necro Cleric and once your leadership score is high enough for him to be a high enough level to start making a massive army you can have both an A Necro Cleric's infinite-sized undead legion+ normal minions + your own, infinite-size undead army from undead leadership(which can get you undead that can spawn/create more undead...hence infinite size.)...and that's not even taking into account hirelings for whom the only control limit is your wealth.

The only downside to this is the fact that you can't do that until epic levels while a cleric can have a good sized(not of that scale, mind you) army pre-epic. Of course, you COULD always just do what another poster mentioned and use chained extended dominate to get over 400 temporary mind slaves per spell slot you spend on it, but that also requires a high level, though not as high as leadership requires. And at lower-mid levels without GM aid you won't be making an army...but a Necro cleric dose not get a MASSIVE army at low levels either and you could always just go dominate a king until you have enough money and levels to make an army...

Leon
2011-01-27, 01:48 AM
Hey guys how do I use Necromancy without using Necromancy?

By using Post Mortem Communications

Tvtyrant
2011-01-27, 02:57 AM
I suggest making an illusionist, and then making the enemy think you have a massive army of mooks. Then use shadow spells to create summons, displace them and let the enemy spend forever trying to kill things you don't care about. Or Shadow->Forcecage with Spell Pen and Greater Spell Pen to lock people up for free. There is a Prc in Races of Stone that makes shadows almost real, and with cheese more then real. That is about as dark as a wizard can get really; making illusions so believable that reality itself believes it.

Ravens_cry
2011-01-27, 03:40 AM
Hey guys how do I use Necromancy without using Necromancy?
If you go by the actual definition, there is only one really necromancy spell: Speak with Dead, though various divination spells could be fluffed to use entrails and blood splatter patterns for a real necromancy vibe.