How to spend 500,000 gold?

[aphoticConniver]

I'm currently playing a 16th level Dread Necromancer, and I have 1 million gold to spend on items and the like. Goal is to take over the world, so I'm putting half of my money towards developing an artifact that can control even more obscene amounts of undead than I already can. So, the question is, what should I buy with the leftovers?

[Ranting Fool]

I'm currently playing a 16th level Dread Necromancer, and I have 1 million gold to spend on items and the like. Goal is to take over the world, so I'm putting half of my money towards developing an artifact that can control even more obscene amounts of undead than I already can. So, the question is, what should I buy with the leftovers?

Things that keep you from being Smited by every good hero that comes your way:)

[Lentrax]

I would use to create an evil lair, with the aforementioned good destroying goodies (evilies?)

After all, what good is your artifact going to do, if you aren't alive to use it?

(Maybe a phylacery as well so if you do die, you can still take over the world lich style.)

[silverwolfer]

buy an election

[Zombimode]

Finally getting this Ring of True Strike you wanted since level 1.
With the other 100.000? Wenches and booze.

[Slipperychicken]

Ritual of Crucimigration (Libris Mortis). Make yourself a Necropolitan, Spellstitched with Animate Dread Warrior. Animate as many undead as you freaking please, and control them without HD cap. Even if you're destroyed, the Dread Warriors will still follow your orders, since they only leave your command if you die, which you can't because you're undead.

+1 Spellblade Riverine Weapon of at-will Animate Dread Warrior. Choose Disintegrate for the Spellblade's spell, so only Disjunction can take it out. Either that, or make it out of Aurorum (BoED material), so it will re-form when broken, although Disintegrate may still work on it. No cap on minion number, all minions are automatically controlled by you, minions can still cast spells and stuff, although no individual minion can have more HD than the item's CL. At CL20, it's only 241,000gp. Get it grafted onto your arms as a pair of gauntlets or something so no-one can take them away.

For anyone you've captured and would rather keep alive (especially world leaders), or who has too many Hit Dice an Item of At-Will Mindrape will work wonderfuly. 275,400gp. It also lets you learn everything the target knows, as well as rewrite his brain. Very handy for interrogation. Might want to make it out of Aurorum so it doesn't get broken. Make it a nipple ring or something so people can't take it off you easily.

Buy a fast-time demiplane where you can raise an arbitrarily-large undead horde in 6 seconds and unleash it on the world.

Wish-loops, if that's allowed.

[aphoticConniver]

Also, how would I be able to offset the XP cost of Awaken Undead? I have a plan for a awakened zombie Blue Dragon mount.

[Slipperychicken]

Also, how would I be able to offset the XP cost of Awaken Undead? I have a plan for a awakened zombie Blue Dragon mount.

At-will item, spellstitch yourself with it, or thought bottle. A few other methods exist like Liquid Pain/Pleasure, but those are horribly inefficient.

[Silva Stormrage]

Ruby Blade (Mic pg 58 20kgp) + 4 Rebuke Undead Level Relic
Rod of Defiance (Mic pg 56 7,312gp) Undead have 4 fewer turn resistance while near you.
Mace of the Dark Children (Mic pg 53 8012gp) +3 on Rebuke Attempts + 2 on level and is adamantine
Lyre of the Restfull Dead (Libris Mortis) play a tune and reduce undead's turn resistance by 4.
Phlactery of Undead Turning (All things that benefit turning benefit rebuking) gives +4 turning level

End Result of All of these is that your rebuking level is: 16+4+2+4 = 26 (though it may be hard to qualify for the ruby blade one). Then you reduce all undead near you by 8 Turn Resistance. Thus you can now rebuke creatures with 20 HD as you can reduce turn resistance to negatives.

Rod of Undead Mastery from Libris Mortis doubles the amount of undead you can control from animate dead. Its a steal for 10k.

If you don't have a method of flight a feathered wing's graft is a good option, though you could just greater planar bind a Sibriex (Fiendish Codex 1) which can grant grafts for free. If you aren't evil it drives you insane though >.>.

I personally love the starmantle cloak from Book of Exalted deeds as well ~135k. It makes you immune to non magical weapons and magical weapons deal 1/2 damage if you pass a dc 15 reflex save.

[Cosmic Traveler]

with 1 million... what about a C+ sized steel golem with a full prismatic arsenal and dwarven and gnome engineering crew?

[Beelzebub1111]

if 500,000 will get you a world conquering artifact, why not make two?

[Randomguy]

if 500,000 will get you a world conquering artifact, why not make two?

+1.

Alternatively, make another artefact capable of disguising the entire army or turning it invisible or something.

You could make yourself a nice Lair from which to rule.

You could spend most of it on a Vest of the Archmagi, or you could just get yourself a couple hundred Memento Magica and never run out of spells, ever.

[killianh]

Rod of Undead mastery-10k GP
Custom Ring of apocalypse from the sky (spell from BoVD, does 10d6 to everything in a 10 mile/level radius (caster level 17, 9th level spell, command word activated)) 275400 GP
Vest of the Archmagi - 200k GP

that'll leave you with 14.6 k to work with. The rod doubles how much you can control, the ring lets you kill just about anything in the area at will, and the vest makes it very hard to kill you. very hard.

make sure one of the elective spells you learned was teleportation circle and maybe spend the last of your gold on some scrolls of Genesis so you have a plane to store your undead on while you destroy everything with the ring, then teleport them in with the circle and take over everything.

[Silva Stormrage]

Rod of Undead mastery-10k GP
Custom Ring of apocalypse from the sky (spell from BoVD, does 10d6 to everything in a 10 mile/level radius (caster level 17, 9th level spell, command word activated)) 275400 GP
Vest of the Archmagi - 200k GP

that'll leave you with 14.6 k to work with. The rod doubles how much you can control, the ring lets you kill just about anything in the area at will, and the vest makes it very hard to kill you. very hard.

make sure one of the elective spells you learned was teleportation circle and maybe spend the last of your gold on some scrolls of Genesis so you have a plane to store your undead on while you destroy everything with the ring, then teleport them in with the circle and take over everything.

The ring of Apocalpsye from the sky doesn't work it has a material component of an artifact and thus you would have to sacrifice 50 artifacts to make that item.

[killianh]

The ring of Apocalpsye from the sky doesn't work it has a material component of an artifact and thus you would have to sacrifice 50 artifacts to make that item.

missed that part. Though if enough time were to be spent finding them...

that said I think you could get around this by making it a scroll IIRC. If you have the gold to buy even one with fell animate on it it would kill an average sized D&D nation, followed by creating a hoard of wild undead to go and kill everything without even needing a command to do so

[Silva Stormrage]

Oh and one more thing, get someone to spell stich you if you are undead. If you aren't then become undead and spell stich yourself.

Then for your 6th level spell get animate dread warrior. You can then get an ever increasing army of undead at a rate of 1/day. And they keep their class levels :smalltongue:

[Randomguy]

The spells with the second largest area are Shadow Landscape, a druid spell, and Black Labrynth, a shadowcaster mystery, but they only have an area with a radius of one mile, which isn't much compared to the 200 miles of Apocalypse from the Sky. You could buy Staffs of them though, if your UMD score is good.


You could always buy something that produces a spell effect every round or at will, to power an energy transformation field of a nice spell. For example, you could set up an energy transformation field linked to Abyssal Army, cast a few spells into it to make the first demons appear, and then hand out a few immovable rods. The demons press the rods to feed the field, which summons more demons. When the original spell is about to expire, the demons with the immovable rods pass them down to the newest Dretches, to keep the cycle going.

A bonus is that abyssal army doesn't say that summoned monsters can't use any teleportation abilities, so you could get your army just about anywhere in the world. Except the Dretches, which can't teleport.

Actually, now that I think about it, you don't need to buy any immovable rods at all: Just wait 10 minutes for the Babau to show up and then they can just use their Teleport ability to power the field.

The downside is that, since you'd need to hire someone to set up the field and cast the spell, then the demons will obey them, and not you. Unless you're allowed to link the field to a spell that you can't actually cast, since the spell never actually specified that you did, (meaning an actual wizard would be able to pull this off by level 13), in which case you could use a scroll.

This would probably be better with the Hellish Horde spell than with Abyssal Army, but I only realized that about now and don't feel like changing the rest of the post. Also, devils would probably enjoy helping you run an evil empire better than demons, since, you know, lawful.

I wonder what the largest possible size for your evil army would be, at any given time. I'm too tired to do the math now, though.

[Slipperychicken]

Then for your 6th level spell get animate dread warrior. You can then get an ever increasing army of undead at a rate of 1/day. And they keep their class levels :smalltongue:

And their spellcasting too. Wisdom-based casters (Druid, Cleric) are best, since Dread Warriors don't take a hit to Wisdom.

[ericgrau]

Mental stats, con, touch AC of course.

But most of all a staff. More spells are always nice on any caster. Pick something spammable and/or something you wouldn't prepare every day. Raising fallen foes however few or many times you need is one option, perhaps also preparing the same spell since you usually can use at least 1 copy and that'll save a charge. And then when you need 3-7 copies you're also ready. But don't worry much about running out of charges, you get a lot. In fact expendable items tend to be cheaper than permanent items for an equal amount of power because of how short D&D combats are. Pick a few other such spells as well. Spamming fell animate fireballs could be fun, and has enough range that you don't necessarily need to control all the undead created.

100 level 1-3 utility scrolls, same reason and they're cheap.

[tiercel]

Even if you are going for the classic "take over the world with my undead hordes" necro, it might be worth considering buying some RP status -- e.g. followers, stronghold, a title of nobility.

Would-be heroes might have a harder time foiling you if faced with loyal mooks who they don't feel good about slaying out of hand, much less if you have some elements of the social system protecting you (as well as raw rules mechanics might).

[rweird]

The spells with the second largest area are Shadow Landscape, a druid spell, and Black Labrynth, a shadowcaster mystery, but they only have an area with a radius of one mile, which isn't much compared to the 200 miles of Apocalypse from the Sky. You could buy Staffs of them though, if your UMD score is good.


You could always buy something that produces a spell effect every round or at will, to power an energy transformation field of a nice spell. For example, you could set up an energy transformation field linked to Abyssal Army, cast a few spells into it to make the first demons appear, and then hand out a few immovable rods. The demons press the rods to feed the field, which summons more demons. When the original spell is about to expire, the demons with the immovable rods pass them down to the newest Dretches, to keep the cycle going.

A bonus is that abyssal army doesn't say that summoned monsters can't use any teleportation abilities, so you could get your army just about anywhere in the world. Except the Dretches, which can't teleport.

Actually, now that I think about it, you don't need to buy any immovable rods at all: Just wait 10 minutes for the Babau to show up and then they can just use their Teleport ability to power the field.

The downside is that, since you'd need to hire someone to set up the field and cast the spell, then the demons will obey them, and not you. Unless you're allowed to link the field to a spell that you can't actually cast, since the spell never actually specified that you did, (meaning an actual wizard would be able to pull this off by level 13), in which case you could use a scroll.

This would probably be better with the Hellish Horde spell than with Abyssal Army, but I only realized that about now and don't feel like changing the rest of the post. Also, devils would probably enjoy helping you run an evil empire better than demons, since, you know, lawful.

I wonder what the largest possible size for your evil army would be, at any given time. I'm too tired to do the math now, though.

Energy Transformational Field only casts a new one when the old ones duration expires.

[aphoticConniver]

Even if you are going for the classic "take over the world with my undead hordes" necro, it might be worth considering buying some RP status -- e.g. followers, stronghold, a title of nobility.

Would-be heroes might have a harder time foiling you if faced with loyal mooks who they don't feel good about slaying out of hand, much less if you have some elements of the social system protecting you (as well as raw rules mechanics might).

Well the thing is, I've already got both Leadership and Undead Leadership with a 30 CHA. I'm already a Necropolitan who was crafted by someone with all of the Corpsecrafter line.

Also, how much would, say, a siege weapon that fired entropic beams, giving those it hit massive amounts of negative levels, cost? It's really more for threat than anything else, but it seems like the plan to make hordes of undead so far.

[Slipperychicken]

Also, how much would, say, a siege weapon that fired entropic beams, giving those it hit massive amounts of negative levels, cost? It's really more for threat than anything else, but it seems like the plan to make hordes of undead so far.

Negative Levels aren't especially helpful in a siege. It's just a more efficient way of killing people. Why does it need to be a siege weapon? Couldn't you just make it into a rod or ring?