neutral cleric, undead army?

[morkendi]

Have been playing 3.5 a few months now. Right now I am playing a neutral cleric to a god of war/battle. Due to events, he wants to start making an army. Now if he made an undead army, this is what i am thinking. Get intelligent undead that create more. Control the first and have him make another. Have him comand the second to obey me as if I was its creater. Separte the 2 and have the mage imprison the first where it wont be found now I can have the second create more by taking it to an orc den or something with orders that any he create also follow my orders. Does this sound doable ?

[bigstipidfighte]

Everyone loves a good chain of undead spawn, but I fail to see the benefit of the second undead "middle man". If the second was killed I don't think the first would be of any use in helping you control the second's spawn.

Also note that depending on your DM, this might be considered an extremely evil act and/or ruin the planned adventure, so you might want to ask ahead.

[Flickerdart]

I think the idea is that he doesn't control the first undead - he merely coerces it into ordering a spawn to obey him, and then locks the original away.

[morkendi]

The short version of what has lead to this...

Something has united the foul folk, orcs, goblins, knolls, giants, trolls, and such. They have now formed an army that works togther. They have spread and the army has gotten very large. The good people have banded together, but are severly out numbered. The only thing that ever kept orcs and such from conquest was the inability to work together, but now that has changed. The good army lost about a third of its men in the initial onslaught and are now forced into a defensive action. The horde set out large groups to the various homelands and towns forceing others to leave to deffend family and homes. The people have turned to us for help as the horde seems to want to eradicate humanity as they are viewed as the pivital race.
Our party is stuck in the middle.

We are able to dish out some damage for a while, but sheer numbers are our downfall as we eventually run out of spells even if most mobs are easy to kill. The DM however has named mobs on par with our group, and we had to retreat.

Being that my cleric's god is a god of war, people have turned to me for ideas. We have switched to gorilla tactics and such like cutting of supply lines, but we don't have the man power to maintain. Terror squads comprised of mages and clerics that can port into the horde with heavy armored fighters to support and protect have slowed the march, but not stopped them. They port in, put out high damage, then port out but this can not be an endless cycle.

Now we look at needs. We need something capable of defending the people as well as being able to push forward. We also need something that will cause a big enough distraction that enables us to get through to what is leading the horde. We have not faced undead, so it is our thought that they are not part of the enemy, so that is where the plan comes in.

Early adventures gave me knowledge of where some undead are. I was thinking shadows as they drain strengh. If I get one, i was thinking of the above plan. Basically a chain. Start with one that creates another. It orders its spawn to fallow our orders, then we separate them and imprison the first. Give the second the same orders that all createrd fallow us and in turn, any they create follow us. This would start the chain. With this setup, the hord will be feeding our deffense as they are changed by the shadows.

More and more are created and used in this manner wich we hope would demand enough attention from the horde leaders so we can sneeak in and stop him.

[bigstipidfighte]

Solid plan so far. What do you do if the enemy mimics your tactic, commanding a few random shadows to convert human villages?

[animewatcha]

How good is the cleric at mind-games? I.E. dominating the named mobs. Or heck, that orcs will 'get more credit/spoils/women/etc.' than the gnolls/insertracehere. Stuff that gives doubt, misinformation, etc. Epic bluff checks to 'instill suggestions'.

[RFLS]

What level of TO is this campaign at? I'm assuming Clericzilla is out, as are (of course) DMM shenanigans. Explosive rune stacking cool? I would, of course, invest heavily in all sorts of traps, as well as things like sneezing dust.

Other tactics include targeting their leaders with your teleport raids or asking for help from any third party sources in exchange for <x>, where x is something they want that only humans can give.
Damage to infrastructure will aid you, as well, assuming the orcs don't have access to teleport as much as you do. Take out roads; this will halt their war machines. Take out food and rely on your (apparently) large number of casters to create food for you.

If your DM fiats your undead plans, I would look into a Ranger corps. They excel at hit and run tactics, and if they all take the appropriate favored enemy, it could turn the tide. Orcs fare badly against who are never there, particularly if they're typical "hit it with a sword" orcs. Rogues, too, although for RP reasons you probably won't get a group of them together. However, their sneak attack would make them a formidable guerrilla army.

Your main advantage seems to me to be that orcs and the like are generally melee. If you can find a way to consistently lay down long range damage without getting hit, you'd be golden. A dragon ally would be choice in this case. I would also look at the rules for siege weapons; although they may be too weak.

I would also find out why the orcs/other uglies have banded together. If it's a particular leader, a prophet figure, a strange artifact, etc, well, then, that's easy to deal with.

If you're really into the whole tactics thing and don't mind some heavy reading, Sun Tzu has plenty to say, as does Vauban. An American said it best though- "They're in front of us, behind us, and on both sides. The bast***s can't get away this time!"

[animewatcha]

Can you link sun tzu and Vauban or point me to titles?

[morkendi]

Character lvls 15 to 17 post spell pleage. Played some last night. Scrying reveals nothing but a grey mist. Teleport only works line of sight. Summoned demon to ask questions along with communing to verify. What we pieced together is this. In the beginning, the other goods tried to trick Gruumsh out of a place for his followers to live. He swore as retribution that the orcs would one day conquer the world. Being chaotic, he gas slain his wife and sons and taken over their pathions. This leaves only 2 other orc gods that havr gone into hiding. His orcs than slew all those gods followers making him the only orc good gaining more power. Even though he hates elves more, he sees humans as the pivital race. His priest and followers are more powerful than ever and being lead by a few chosen now called the eyes of the all seeing. So maybe my undead might not work because priest are involved.

[RFLS]

Vauban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9bastien_Le_Prestre_de_Vauban) and Sun Tzu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu). They're not D&D specific, btw xD They were both expert strategists in warfare ~corresponding to what you've got going now, seemed like they'd be applicable.

[Slipperychicken]

If you need to kill mobs of mooks, you can pick up a Reserve Feat to blast all day long. Fiery Burst seems appropriate, since it's both an AoE and overcomes Troll Regen.

You need to think less like frontline soldiers, and more like a strategist. You guys are high level, so you should be taking down leaders, not the rank-and-file. The thing about the Foul Folk is they're dumb: You can create confusion and mistrust in their ranks, and possibly separate them. Disguise yourselves as Orcs, then go kill, say, a high-ranking Goblin commander, and leave some Orcish weapons or other evidence at the scene (like carving some well-known Orc battle-cry onto the victim's flesh). Rinse and repeat until all the major factions are at each others' throats. This should devastate the enemies morale, and possibly get them fighting each other rather than you.

Even better, is if you can find the brains of the operation (the guy who has united the Foul Folk), and kill him. If you can get him, the army will likely fracture. Better still if you can spread rumors about who is responsible, preferably with a very high Bluff check (Glibness is invaluable here). Keep them pointing fingers long enough, and you might just win this.