Character idea...lots and lots of minions

[Maho-Tsukai]

Yes, you heart the title. I had an idea for a gestalt character who's main purpose was to obtain lots and lots of minions of any type. My idea was as follows:

Dread Necromancer 20///Cloistered Cleric 8/Contemplative 2/Dread Master(refluffed to not be Bane specific) 10

Possible feats:

Lost Traditions(From Green Ronin's Bastards and Bloodlines...used to set cleric casting cha instead of Wis.) or if not allowed....Dynamic Priest(make cleric casting based on Cha for everything except DCs, which you don't care about due to having DN for offensive casting.)

Undead Leadership(More undead minions)

Song of the dead(Use mind effecting spells on undead.

Undead Empathy(Use Diplomancy on mindless undead.)

Leadership(For your living flunkies)

Extra Followers(more living flunkies.)

Chain spell(For chain-dominating)

Divine Metamagic(for easier chain dominating.)

Cleric Domain choices: Deathbound, Tyranny, Domination(Via contemplative)

The basic premise of the build: Get as many minions as you can, both living and undead. With Lost Traditions(Or Dynamic Priest if the former is not allowed.) Your cleric casting is cha-based, meaning you can focus entirely on boosting your cha. With a super-high cha you can get a high leadership skill, which the dread master further enhances. Extra followers gives you even more minions from leadership.

You also have excellent necromancy, being a cleric/DN and with the full 20 levels of DN can control more undead they anybody else. Also, with the tyranny and domination domains you have access to dominate effects, including the ever awesome true dominate and monsterous thrall. You also can chain dominate, which is made even easier by DMM. In addition, song of the dead allows you to dominate undead and undead empathy allows you to use diplomancy on mindless undead. With cha as your only casting stat and diplomacy as a class skill(As it's a cleric class skill.) you can be a pretty darn good diplomancer.

So, this is just a very basic skeleton and I would love to know if any you have other ideas for a build to get tons and tons of minions...?

[opticalshadow]

Yes, you heart the title. I had an idea for a gestalt character who's main purpose was to obtain lots and lots of minions of any type. My idea was as follows:

Dread Necromancer 20///Cloistered Cleric 8/Contemplative 2/Dread Master(refluffed to not be Bane specific) 10

Possible feats:

Lost Traditions(From Green Ronin's Bastards and Bloodlines...used to set cleric casting cha instead of Wis.) or if not allowed....Dynamic Priest(make cleric casting based on Cha for everything except DCs, which you don't care about due to having DN for offensive casting.)

Undead Leadership(More undead minions)

Song of the dead(Use mind effecting spells on undead.

Undead Empathy(Use Diplomancy on mindless undead.)

Leadership(For your living flunkies)

Extra Followers(more living flunkies.)

Chain spell(For chain-dominating)

Divine Metamagic(for easier chain dominating.)

Cleric Domain choices: Deathbound, Tyranny, Domination(Via contemplative)

The basic premise of the build: Get as many minions as you can, both living and undead. With Lost Traditions(Or Dynamic Priest if the former is not allowed.) Your cleric casting is cha-based, meaning you can focus entirely on boosting your cha. With a super-high cha you can get a high leadership skill, which the dread master further enhances. Extra followers gives you even more minions from leadership.

You also have excellent necromancy, being a cleric/DN and with the full 20 levels of DN can control more undead they anybody else. Also, with the tyranny and domination domains you have access to dominate effects, including the ever awesome true dominate and monsterous thrall. You also can chain dominate, which is made even easier by DMM. In addition, song of the dead allows you to dominate undead and undead empathy allows you to use diplomancy on mindless undead. With cha as your only casting stat and diplomacy as a class skill(As it's a cleric class skill.) you can be a pretty darn good diplomancer.

So, this is just a very basic skeleton and I would love to know if any you have other ideas for a build to get tons and tons of minions...?

it sounds fun, but i would hate the bookeeping, as it is DN gives you mroe minions then you would ever really need. i also cant see any dm allowing this build. and given the cheese involved it might be easier to use the proxxy cheese (i.e having minions that control minions in an infinate chain)

i wouldnt mind seeing the build fleshed out more, but it seems as impractical as pun pun.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Indeed, some other things notable about this build is due to Dread Master it gets a grand total of 4 cohorts, one from leadership, one from undead leadership and 2 from dread master....so yes, a lot of book keeping indeed. Of course since this build is already ridiculous we can also assume for max minions each of the four cohorts also take some kind of leadership feat...heck, one of them could even be a thrallheard for the lolz.....yes, this IS an absurd idea...but thats the point. Get as many minions as possible.

[Fouredged Sword]

You could do better with a thrall heard fractal.

be DN//Psion / Thrall heard. Now you get two cohorts who are also DN//psion / Thrall heards, one that is your level -1, the other level -2. Now they get two cohorts each...

You end up with cohorts of all levels. You get more cohorts than most people have minions. Then they all have minions, and everyone has undead being controld.

Have everyone ride around on skeletal fang dragons and stuff. Have the psion side be telepath so you can dominate people.

Oh and remember that control undead can make a great wyrm skeletal dragon be your slave for 20ish days for a level 2 spell cast once.

[Talya]

I am attempting to build a Dread necromancer//Crusader for another game, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202958) and am already finding the DN difficult to build...

[opticalshadow]

I am attempting to build a Dread necromancer//Crusader for another game, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202958) and am already finding the DN difficult to build...

well, dn's are easy to build, and no sane dm would let you have an army to begin with. you normaly get a few big boys if your lucky, as much as it derails this thread, check out k's necromancy handbook, and google dread necromancer handbook (its like the second result) both help yo0u with the dn side. they are a real easy class to learn and play, as long as you take good notes.



but as far as this build goes, theres a rod you get , you can just pass around toy our undead. the DN alone is within RAW able to have an infinite control pool of undead (using some major but legal cheese) so already you have as big of an army as the world has dead things, adding anything on tot hat is just insult to injury.'


edit: honestly if you raise a incorpral creature (i think the first one is 4hd) and just raise an army of them, you win by default, most of the dnd world is incapable of handling them, and if were going to raise an army of minions why not raise one most things cant even touch?

[Maho-Tsukai]

True, and I actually thought of using thrallheard for the other side but the lack of a way to get the Psion to cast off of cha was what kept me from doing it. Having two casting stats dose reduce your leadership score, though with thrallheard style leadership it may not matter as much...

There is also the downside that I don't think there is a psionic way to chain dominate...and it dose not get as many cohorts as the DN///Cha-cleric/Dread Master version.

However, there IS one plus to the thrallheard///DN build....the fact that it is easier to get passed a DM then this monstrosity.

[Fouredged Sword]

Just break down and take wilder then. Sure you have to take expanded knowledge for Dominate (psionic), but who cares. Now you use purely cha for casting.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Actually, that would require expanded knowledge twice, as thrallheard has a telepath-only power as an entrance requirement. Wilders also get a pitiful amount of powers known. Disgustingly pitiful, in fact. In this case it would actually be BETTER to suffer MAD then take wider, since that would free up two feats and actually give you a wider range of powers...

The Lost Traditions/Dynamic priest DN///Cleric/Dread Master version still wins here, though, as it's SAD, can get LOTS of minions AND dose not have one side of the gestalt that has a totally anemic spell/power repertoire. Yes, it lacks thrallheard leadership, but with domination + Dread Master leadership bonuses + super-cha it should still come close to the DN///Wilder/Thrallheard would without having to be stuck with horridly underpowered wilder levels. Yes, it's more broken, but if using Dynamic Priest instead of Lost Traditions your cleric DCs will suck which means that you won't be that great of an offensive caster(though your DN casting will provide you with some offensive spell power if you need it)...but then again with this many flunkies who needs all that much personal offensive power?

The upside is that a Tier 3///Tier 4(Or was it 5...I forget where the wilder is but I know it's NOT a tier 3 or greater.) gestalt is easier to get past a DM then a Tier 3///Tier 1.

[Hirax]

Grab the might makes right feat to add your str mod to your leadership score in addition to your cha mod.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Now that is an awesome idea...especially seeing as Clerics and DNs are already good at melee as-is.....Also, if the game was starting at level 20 you could just dumb con and boost strength along with cha due to the lich transformation at level 20. If it's not then you can still suffer with a lower con and become necropolitian as soon as you hit level 3.

Also, this gets even more ridiculous at epic level, when Epic Leadership, Legendary Commander, Zone of Animation and Undead Mastery(the feat, not the DN class feature)all become available to you.

[Hirax]

If you're going for epic leadership and commander eventually, do what you can to get level 12 followers so that you can get a 12th level artificer that will be able to make you pretty much anything. As a class they don't forge ring until 14th level, but you could simply use your 12th level feat to get it because followers don't get exp.

edit: check out the ECS's item creation feat too, so that you can reduce the cost of making magic items with your followers.

[Talya]

So...if you had undead leadership...would you fill your followers with the undead you create that exceed your control cap?

Do hit dice bonuses to undead from class features and feats count against your control cap?

[Maho-Tsukai]

Actually, no. I would use undead leadership to grab new undead minions. Uncontrolled undead would be reubuked by any clerical(Or Dread Necromancer) followers I had or even myself. It's also worthwhile to note that due to Dread Master all my leadership mooks become fanatically loyal to me meaning I never have to worry about my minions trying to pull a starscream....so keeping my extra undead under my minion's control would not be a liability here.

Also, Undead Empathy allows me to use diplomancy on mindless undead meaning I can just talk any uncontrolled undead into my service.

[Keld Denar]

Thrallherd replaces its minions every day. Thats an unlimited supply of bodies for undeadification. Whats the best part about 1 HD skeletons? DESTRUCTIVE RETRIBUTION! Kamikazi skelebombers go go go!

[Maho-Tsukai]

True, but thrallheard practically requires psion, which requires a high int, which requires less charisma which means MAD and a lower leadership score. Also, once epic levels are hit plane old leadership becomes the stronger option as there is no epic thrallheard progression and Epic Leadership + Epic Commander can grab you tons of flunkies...and I don't think either feats apply to thrallheard...or do they?

[InaVegt]

True, but thrallheard practically requires psion, which requires a high int, which requires less charisma which means MAD and a lower leadership score. Also, once epic levels are hit plane old leadership becomes the stronger option as there is no epic thrallheard progression and Epic Leadership + Epic Commander can grab you tons of flunkies...and I don't think either feats apply to thrallheard...or do they?

You are aware that Thrallherd levels count twice for the purpose of leadership score, right?

I agree with the epic comment, but pre-epic, Thrallherd is fastly superior to plain leadership.

[Maho-Tsukai]

That is true, but in Epic standard leadership is superior without a homebrew thrallheard epic progression and the build sacrifices less by not going thrallheard then going thrallheard. You get plenty of minions at non-epic levels and beat the thrallheard at epic levels while ALSO not suffering any detrimental MAD(Dynamic priest will make your cleric casting slightly MAD but the idea here is to ignore your wisdom/cleric DCs since you can use DN for offensive casting/don't need offensive cleric casting with all these mooks anyway) from the DN///Cleric/Dread Master build while the thrallheard one would practically require you to suffer the full MAD that comes with having two casting stats unless you where a wilder, and I already discussed what is wrong with the latter..

Thus, ultimately, the thrallheard sacrifices more then what it gains in the long run. However, if an epic thrallheard homebrew was allowed then it may be a different story.

HOWEVER, in the case a homebrew thrallheard epic progression is allowed then a thrallheard build using this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187953) as an entry to thrallheard would be pretty darn nasty. Heck, since epic thrallheard is already putting us in the "lets use homebrew!" field then we may as well go full bore and use a homebrew base class that fits the concept better then anything wizards made as an entry.

Heck, if epic thrallheard is allowed with that the concept becomes much better as that class can allow us to grab mind-effecting spells as powers...hello mind rape(better then monstrous thrall as it can do what it dose and more.) and true dominate as psionic powers!