Undead Army/Necromancy

[Thrathgnar]

So me and a couple of friends are going to be starting a new campaign soon. We were discussing playing as evil characters and started looking at a couple of class choices. Right now, we are thinking we could combo with a Necromancer, Oathbreaker, and Death Cleric. We were speculating about creating an undead army. Would this be feasible?

[JNAProductions]

Mechanically? It's a bit iffy. Animate Dead and the like don't do so hot when it comes to large armies. There's a Warlock combo that lets you get a few hundred, but it requires around 18 hours a day devoted to it.

Honestly, if you really want an undead army, you're gonna need some homebrew shenanigans.

And if you want to be evil, try to find some permenant domination magic on a large scale. Much more evil than disturbing corpses.

[Eslin]

So me and a couple of friends are going to be starting a new campaign soon. We were discussing playing as evil characters and started looking at a couple of class choices. Right now, we are thinking we could combo with a Necromancer, Oathbreaker, and Death Cleric. We were speculating about creating an undead army. Would this be feasible?

It's feasible, but depends on your definition of army. The most you're going to get is a few hundred skelepals - if you're looking for an army in the true sense, the only way I can think of getting it to happen without homebrew is becoming a vampire and making an army of thralls.

[jkat718]

Heh, I'm playing/running a group with the exact same party makeup. :smallsmile:

[JFahy]

Can you gain the fealty of some 'contagious' undead and use them to scale things up? A wight,
for instance, can create up to a dozen zombies under its own control.

Not the most secure power base, but maybe they designed it that way on purpose. :smallconfused:

[SharkForce]

It's feasible, but depends on your definition of army. The most you're going to get is a few hundred skelepals - if you're looking for an army in the true sense, the only way I can think of getting it to happen without homebrew is becoming a vampire and making an army of thralls.

you appear to have forgotten "finger of death". obviously, it's a high-level option, and takes a while to get going, but you can definitely make an army of zombies with it given time and a supply of appropriate targets (up to 4/day I think for a typical 20th level wizard, perhaps up to 8/day for a sorcerer? I think it should work with twin, but I'm afk so I can't check atm).

granted, zombies aren't exactly the greatest (they're slow, they smell bad, their attack roll isn't great, and worst of all they don't have a ranged attack option like skeletons do so it's much much much harder to concentrate their fire), but it's something. and they certainly make for superior meat shields.

[Eslin]

you appear to have forgotten "finger of death". obviously, it's a high-level option, and takes a while to get going, but you can definitely make an army of zombies with it given time and a supply of appropriate targets (up to 4/day I think for a typical 20th level wizard, perhaps up to 8/day for a sorcerer? I think it should work with twin, but I'm afk so I can't check atm).

granted, zombies aren't exactly the greatest (they're slow, they smell bad, their attack roll isn't great, and worst of all they don't have a ranged attack option like skeletons do so it's much much much harder to concentrate their fire), but it's something. and they certainly make for superior meat shields.

I remember it, it's just that while it's in theory limitless in practise you lose more zombies each day than you make.

[SharkForce]

I remember it, it's just that while it's in theory limitless in practise you lose more zombies each day than you make.

perhaps while adventuring. take a month off when you have a bunch of captured orcs in your dungeons, and you'll find the situation changes dramatically.