Cheesy Army of Undead

[myancey]

I've been attempting to make the biggest undead army possible and was wondering if I could get assistance. I couldn't find an undead army optimization board.

I just want as much undead as possible. Skeletons and zombies, though other things would be cool beans. What do I build for in terms of character?

[Valdor]

I am not much of a necromancy guys, so in terms of character building goes i can not help. But if you need some more power in your undead army, i can recommend the Shadesteel Golem is a good choice i think. Pg 72 of MM3. It has a negative energy burst that will deal 12d6 damage (with a 19 will save for half damage) to any pesky heroes that are trying to stop you while healing your army. Take the Tombtained soul feat and you will also benefit from this burst. That is about all the advice i got for you. Hope it helps!

[druid91]

Well for biggest possible?

Start a chain. Get a Vampire, or a wight, OR something else that can create spawn.

Then you control them. And thus by proxy their spawn.

Of course if someone hits your commanders then your control over your army dissolves.

[BillyBobJoe]

Shadows. Lots of shadows. Plus the things mentioned above.

[TroubleBrewing]

Locate City Bomb Wightpocalypse is the standard choice for Undead Cheese.

[No brains]

I have a question that goes with this query.

If one plays a gestalt Dread Necromancer//Cleric, do the add together the total number of rebuke attempt they would normally have, or do they only get the better number of rebukes that one class would give them?

[WinWin]

I have a question that goes with this query.

If one plays a gestalt Dread Necromancer//Cleric, do the add together the total number of rebuke attempt they would normally have, or do they only get the better number of rebukes that one class would give them?

Seperate abilities. You would have turn attempts/day trascked seperately for each class. You would need to specify what turning/rebuke you were using before making the attempt.

As for the OP

Deathbound Domain would increase your controllable animation cap (nothing prevents this cap being exceeded, such as in the bounds of a desecrate, but control is not assured.)

A large turning pool, or seperate pools would extend the HD cap for rebuke/control *.

*I'll have to check the RAW on this.

Undead Leadership. Like leadership, but for undead. You can probably even weasel your way around the 'killed followers' penalty because Undead can't be killed, only desroyed.

Several feats and presige classes allow creating of undead. Pale Master can animate for free, which is great for replacing lost minions. Yathrinshee on the other hand, simply animate anything they kill, too bad the class otherwise sucks.

Legions of chaff are not an effective tool at high levels. Great impetous for a story, but not an effective weapon unless harassing low level villagers is your thing. That is not to say they are not useful, but a necromancer is probably better off focusing on a few powerful minions.

[Drynwyn]

Well, first of all, get lots of spawn creating undead. Wights are good, but so are shadows and ghouls.
Second, invest in a Rod of Undead Control( MiC). It let's you control 1.5 times however many HD you normally could, and I have cheesed it with spawn and deathbounf domain.

[Jack_Simth]

Several feats and presige classes allow creating of undead. Pale Master can animate for free, which is great for replacing lost minions. Yathrinshee on the other hand, simply animate anything they kill, too bad the class otherwise sucks.Don't forget the Fell Animate metamagic feat! Great for CdG spells after you've disabled something....

[Johel]

If you just want the shambling horde type of army, I'll suggest a Mohrg.

You need : Caster Level 18
700 gp of black onyx
The corpse of a mass murderer or similar complete monster.
Create Undead
Heightened Extended Command Undead

The Mohrg has a will save of +9.
So ideally, you want to have a DC of 29 to your Command Undead spell.
Failing that, having the spell prepared twice every day is a good idea.

Please note that this will only make the Mohrg your "best friend". It won't make him your slave.
For this, you need Control Undead.
But given the short duration and the high level of that spell, just keep it in case you REALLY need the Mohrg under strict control.

Also, if your aim is just to seed chaos to keep adventurers busy, you don't even need to control the Mohrg.
If you want to actually rule the city/kingdom/world after, he is better than a shadow or a wight : Zombies don't spawn other zombies as they kill. So the infection is limited.
Zombies are too dumb to really be nasty. So they are easy to round up.
Zombies can effectively be controlled rather than just commanded.
So, sure, your enemies might easily stop the infection.
But this should still keep them busy for a while.
And if they don't stop it, you can easily do it.

[TechnOkami]

Walker in the Waste: There's no limit to the amount of salt mummies you can make.

Go to town.

:smallwink:

[Rejakor]

Fell Animate Acid Splash. With a third level sorc/wiz slot, animate infinite zombies. You just need a person at -something, and coup de grace them with it (weaponlike spell). 2d3 is hopefully enough to kill them, if not, try again.

Other than that, rod of undead mastery, deathbound domain, undead leadership + Extra Followers feat, house-mohrg, etc.

[ubergeek63]

I am not much of a necromancy guys, so in terms of character building goes i can not help. But if you need some more power in your undead army, i can recommend the Shadesteel Golem is a good choice i think. Pg 72 of MM3. It has a negative energy burst that will deal 12d6 damage (with a 19 will save for half damage) to any pesky heroes that are trying to stop you while healing your army. Take the Tombtained soul feat and you will also benefit from this burst. That is about all the advice i got for you. Hope it helps!

completely impractical. CL17 or 180K GP.

[Serpentine]

Not really what you're after, but here's some undead dragons for you (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121461).

[ubergeek63]

I've been attempting to make the biggest undead army possible and was wondering if I could get assistance. I couldn't find an undead army optimization board.

I just want as much undead as possible. Skeletons and zombies, though other things would be cool beans. What do I build for in terms of character?

you neglected to mention what character level...

for an army of undead, dread necromancer.

however it might be interesting to be 6th lvl wizard with arcane thesis (fireball), energy substitution (cold), Lord of Uttercold, Fell Animate, which would give you a radius cold effect that heals undead while raising those it kills in a lvl 3 spell.

[Coidzor]

...Now I want to homebrew cheese zombies....x.x

[Fouredged Sword]

Dread Necromancer // Bard/dirge singer

Make your zombies do the thriller

Whopa Hissssssssssss!

[mootoall]

Seriously though, if you want cheese, you want big bruisers. If you want big bruisers, you're looking for dragons. Skeletal Fang Dragons are some of my favorites, especially because of the relatively low HD they have as Great Wyrms. Spellstitch Revive Undead onto them, get three or four, and make sure they never die. If you can have rebuked ones made during character creation, I'd go for the Mummified template.

[Coidzor]

Dread Necromancer // Bard/dirge singer

Make your zombies do the thriller

Whopa Hissssssssssss!

Or Dread Necromancer // Bard/Warchanter.

Zombie Hydras with doubled BAB and Dragonfire Inspiration simultaneously. :smallbiggrin:

[ubergeek63]

with the arcane thesis/fell animate trick you could do 2 scorching rays (cold) at lvl6 since thesis also give 2 caster lvls to the spell studied

[JaronK]

To get an unlimited size army with no RAW problems, you need to get Animate Dread Warrior (from Unapproachable East) as a Spell Like Ability. The easiest way to do that is to get a loyal minion (such as a permanently rebuked one) with 19 Wisdom, and then Spell Stitch him.

That lets you have tons of ex humanoid undead with class abilities, with no upper limit.

JaronK

[mootoall]

And while we're talking Faerun, I've got a Sarrukh to sell you :smallwink:

[Tokuhara]

If you are creating an army of undead, be sure your spell is cast by three words:

Klaatu
Berata
Nichto

a big cookie for whoever can guess what movie series the words are from :smalltongue:

[Urpriest]

If you are creating an army of undead, be sure your spell is cast by three words:

Kleptu
Berata
Nichto

a big cookie for whoever can guess what movie series the words are from :smalltongue:

I thought it was Klaatu?

[Tokuhara]

I thought it was Klaatu?

My bad. been too long

[agahii]

Dread necromancer with a rod of undead mastery leadership(necropolitan human followers and cohort) Undead leadership(w/e you want for folowers and cohort), and a couple times per day to cast animate dread warrior with no costs (spell stitched has been mentioned). You now have more undead than you will be able to use and have a sane DM.