Dread Necromancer - Epic Game

[Wacky89]

Okay so I might be joining a epic gestalt game, they're at level 27 atm.
Spells are limited to PHB & Whatever epic spells I can find in official books. (Dread Necromancer exception I get to have all my spells from my spell list)
For everything else, all official material is okay.

Race:
Unholy Scion (Human Heritage to qualify for Lich) Star Elf Lich
Classes:
Classes:
1st Gestalt:
Dread Necromancer 20, Spelldancer 2, Bard 17-20, Mindbender 1
2nd Gestalt:
LA+5, Paladin of Slaughter 2, Battledancer 1, Hexblade 3, Bard 16

If any1 have a better suggestion for my build, you're welcome to suggest something else.
I'm actually abit iffy on the bard levels, since I looked at the bard spells from PHB and most of them suck.

What I'm looking for help to is what undead minions will actually influence in combat at this level?
I looked at the Seed: Animate Dead, I guess this is what I'm going to animate undead with?

I'm looking for 1 or 2 minions that is actually combat-worthy at this level.

[defiantdan]

I think you can become a demilich. if so you might as well get that in there asap. As for epic spells if he is allowing all the epic rules as written you're game is broken. There are dozens of threads in this forum explaining how to get insane epics spells. usually by summoning solars or coualts.

[OldTrees1]

Animate Dread Warrior (6th level spell, pick it up with advanced learning) from the Unapproachable East is for high level necromancers. It should scale better into Epic than the Animate Dead seed.

[Wacky89]

Animate Dread Warrior (6th level spell, pick it up with advanced learning) from the Unapproachable East is for high level necromancers. It should scale better into Epic than the Animate Dead seed.

Unfortunately I can only get spells from my spells known, unless it's with a runestaff with spells in PHB.

[Zanos]

Without animate dread warrior, and depending on access to other books, your best bet is to either:
Ask your DM if you can use the Reserve of Strength(DLCS, so probably not) feat to break the CL cap of animate dead. Probably doesn't work since the cap is actually part of the template, not the spell.
or
Use the rules for zombie/skeleton dragons from the Draconomicon. Undead dragons interestingly have no cap on the maximum number of HD, and are usually the only things that can pretend to be useful at epic.

It does really depend on how optimized your group is. With 54 class levels to work with it seems like everyone would just rewrite reality to better suit them every round, but YMMV very much in epic caimpaigns.

Failing either of those, I recommend creating an epic necromancy spell that creates either Vampires or Ghosts, as those retain nearly everything they had in life and could therefore make useful minions with class levels. You can just make some real long ritual to do it since it will mostly be a downtime spell. but I don't recommend busting out using the rules that allow other casters to contribute spell slots, as that way lies the madness.

If you can get it past your DM, I actually second demilich. It's got some sweet abilities, including never losing your gear even if you TPK, immunity to ALL magical and supernatural abilities, never need somatic components again, a brutal SoD that will be pretty good with your great charisma, +HD to AC and Attacks, +10 mentals, ridiculous skill bonuses, etc.

I guess affording the crafting cost for the soul gems might be a problem, though.

[atemu1234]

Unfortunately I can only get spells from my spells known, unless it's with a runestaff with spells in PHB.

So no non-core spells? Pity.

What about non-core uses for spells? Like a certain couple of templates from The Book of Vile Darkness?