Army of Darkness

[PaucaTerrorem]

New campaign in DM's homebrew setting. Playing evil characters bent on dominating as much of the world as possible. I am the battle cleric. Buff myself, smash-kill, then heal is my standard plan. My Clericness is mostly a boost to my Facesmashiness(in fact his name is Father Farnsworth Facesmash). Playing a Tier 1 as a Tier 3-4(?).

DM had this campaign planned and was gonna start it once we were done with the current game. Couple of people no call/no show so he says "F it. The 3 of you here get a head start". Current party is Battle Cleric(myself), Ranged Ranger(new guy who shows potential for true vileness), and Psion(he likes the fluff on ROLE-playing).

My real question is, can I have an undead army using only the SRD? Really sticking with BATTLE-cleric theme. Melee first, then spiritual s***.

[Blackhawk748]

yes you can, just prepare Animate Dead. The great part about having a bunch of undead minions is that it takes almost no investment on your part, just some money for some gems to stuff into the corpses faces.

[Prof.Smythe]

yes you can, just prepare Animate Dead. The great part about having a bunch of undead minions is that it takes almost no investment on your part, just some money for some gems to stuff into the corpses faces.

Which then starts making money for you. Example - smash an enemy adventuring party, sell there loot for gems and reanimate the party. Then go with it into a small village and wipe out everyone in the village. Sell everything they have, and if you can find someone that would buy the land sell that too. Buy more gems, reanimate a few more corpses. Head to the next village. Repeat until you get bored or have run out of villages.

Do this a couple of times and you'll not only have an army of darkness, but a decent enough business enterprise going with the local pawn shops and maybe have carved out your own little Undead filled domain.

And now I really want to play a Necromancer after writing this :D

As for the original question - I think there's a couple more Undead spells like Control Undead that you can use if you find a couple of mindless undead wandering around. Add them to your army, the more the merrier :)

[drack]

Yup, and desecrate is another good undead spell. Those two alone should cover you for a while.

Edit: the control undead spells are sorc/wiz, and massacring villages is a good ay to get the GM sending clerics and paladins that easily kill any undeads you can make from a village...

[Blackhawk748]

As a rule Clerics are the best in Core for being Necromancers, out of that it goes hands down to the Dread Necromancer. So if you want a really big army grab Leadership and get a Dread Necro Cohort, if you cant just get another Cleric as your cohort for more undead to control.

I speak from experience that this is true: http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j34/warfie/necromancy.jpg


Edit: the control undead spells are sorc/wiz, and massacring villages is a good ay to get the GM sending clerics and paladins that easily kill any undeads you can make from a village...

and he should, unless you slaughtering villages that are in the middle of nowhere and have almost no contact with anyone, people will find out, and thats when the clerics of Pelor show up and seriously ruin your day.

[drack]

As a rule Clerics are the best in Core for being Necromancers, out of that it goes hands down to the Dread Necromancer. So if you want a really big army grab Leadership and get a Dread Necro Cohort, if you cant just get another Cleric as your cohort for more undead to control.

Yup, though if you're new to necromancy, and are more focused on smashing things, and having a small group of big thwackers to smash stuff with you, those two spells should be about all you need. :smallbiggrin:

[Blackhawk748]

Oh and if you find a hydra..... KILL IT AND ANIMATE IT IMMEDIATELY preferably as a zombie, they make great mounts.

[drack]

:smalltongue: They are indeed a crowd favorite. Personally I prefer things like Leviathan though. Nothing beats the giant living undersea pirate ship that eats other giant undersea pirate ships. :smallwink:
Do note however that your standard skeletons and zombies have a maximum of 20 HD. Things like animated fossils (MM IV) can be animated with animate dead and exceed this cap, though I don't think you'll need that for a while.

[Blackhawk748]

Things like animated fossils (MM IV) can be animated with animate dead and exceed this cap, though I don't think you'll need that for a while.

Oh god i can see it now lol

*thud..............thud*
clerics and paladins look at their soup pot over the fire as ripples spread across it.
Cleric 1"What in the name of the gods is that??"

Father Farnsworth Facesmash on a Fossilized TRex "ITS SUZY!! AND SHES HUNGRY!!!" *insert long drawn out evil laugh*

[drack]

:smallbiggrin: That's what a 5000 year slumber can do to you. and he is looking for heavy hitters, don't dinos count? :smalltongue:

[Blackhawk748]

Of course they do! They're basically the kings of Zombie/Skele heavy hitters, theres probably a few things better but not much, and then theres the "OH-DEAR-GOD-WHAT-IS-THAT?????" factor. That expression truly is priceless lol.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Instead of murdering villagers to make your army of the dead go and kill bandits.
They come with weapons and armor and nobody cares if you kill them.
They'll probably even reward you. :smallwink:

[drack]

Instead of murdering villagers to make your army of the dead go and kill bandits.
They come with weapons and armor and nobody cares if you kill them.
They'll probably even reward you. :smallwink:

Yup, or if you just nee bodies go to the graveyard. :smallconfused:

Keep in mind that since only racial HD count any bandit levels are lost and you jut have 1HD undeads either way. Hardly heavy hitters...

[Blackhawk748]

Unless they were bugbear and ogre bandits, they make good zombies

[drack]

Indeed :smallbiggrin:

[PaucaTerrorem]

Well sweetness. Thanks for the replies. I will be doing all of that. And face smashing.

[Scow2]

If you're leading an Army of Darkness, your biggest threat isn't really clerics and paladins. Sure, they're a pain specifically bent to kill your army, but you can take countermeasures against them.

The REAL threat you have to look out for is that time-travelling jackass who replaced his hand with a chainsaw.

[Prof.Smythe]

Ok which of you zombie dinosaur owners has been reading Dresden this time?:smallcool:

[drack]

To be fair I did that before I read the book. :smallbiggrin: