What are the practical limits on a PC-created Undead Army?

[Gritmonger]

I'm curious if in 5th edition it would be even remotely practical to form an army of undead.

I go look - and it seems like the most a player might be able to create is a multiple of undead - but far from an army. Say, you're a 17th level necromancer, and you use a 9th level slot to animate dead - you can raise 13, and maybe assert control over 16. From there, you've got an 8th level slot, a 7th level slot, and so-on, so if you animate a passel it looks like you'll be controlling 16 + 14 + 12 + 10 + (8 x 2) + (6 x 3) + (4 x 3) = 98 total you can assert control over, but you're burning every single spell slot at 3rd level and up to do so...

Am I missing something, or wouldn't a higher level fighter eventually be able to pay a lot more people to be an army? Would a high level necromancer ever do this? I understand they could create a lot more undead, but could (at the above estimation) almost control 100 skeletons or zombies. 99 if they are a necromancer and also use their ability to "control undead."

[Giant2005]

You can control a lot more by being a Warlock and dedicating your life to resting an hour, casting the spell, resting an hour, casting the spell etc.
None of it is really that practical however. The most you could control would be 20-30 before it became too much of a drain on the character's quality of life but your mileage may vary.

[Camman1984]

It would also give you a pretty lousy army, if you have already burned your spells all it requires is someone flying with an aoe attack to put you back to square one, and if you are level 17, then that is not an unreasonable opponent to expect.

I am not clear on the economy of 5th edition but i remember in 3.5 that most non-adventurers would be lucky to see a couple of gold after a years labour. We once paid an entire towns population about 3000 gold to build a fortess for us in a nearby woodland. Surely the same logic could be used to hire an army. Who needs leadership feat when you are wearing the treasury of a town as armour :)

[asorel]

Enemies killed with Finger of Death become zombies under your control permanently, without a limit on how many you control. The theoretical limit, therefore, is nonexistent. Practically, the limit depends on how rigorously you set up a chain of command. An army of any reasonable size will be too large to manage completely by mental control, so you'll have to mentally order your zombies to respond to the commands of designated officers.

[SharkForce]

It would also give you a pretty lousy army, if you have already burned your spells all it requires is someone flying with an aoe attack to put you back to square one, and if you are level 17, then that is not an unreasonable opponent to expect.

I am not clear on the economy of 5th edition but i remember in 3.5 that most non-adventurers would be lucky to see a couple of gold after a years labour. We once paid an entire towns population about 3000 gold to build a fortess for us in a nearby woodland. Surely the same logic could be used to hire an army. Who needs leadership feat when you are wearing the treasury of a town as armour :)

not so much in 5th edition. skilled labour (including soldiers) get paid 2 gp per day iirc.

[Camman1984]

do portable holes still exist? Otherwise logistics might be difficult getting all them zombies from place to place.

[Grek]

Higher level necromancers can use Create Undead to make wights. Each wight can create and control 12 zombies, and unlike other undead they're not immune to charm spells. You can just Geas a wight to do your bidding for a month. Or a year with your 7th and 8th level slots, or forever with your 9th. That's 360 zombies from your 6th level slot, 4380 from each of your 7th and 8th level slots, and 12 per day from now until forever for your 9th level slot. Double all that if you decided to be clever and take the Enchantment school, as you can use Split Enchantment to double your wights/geas ratio. Plus 46 skeletons from your unused animate dead capable slots.

Also: there's nothing stopping you from paying for a mortal army yourself. Just because you're a necromancer doesn't mean you don't get a share of the loot.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Why can't we have both?

Of course it really doesn't change the fact that low level mooks still can't contribute much in higher level games

[iTreeby]

Higher level necromancers can use Create Undead to make wights. Each wight can create and control 12 zombies, and unlike other undead they're not immune to charm spells. You can just Geas a wight to do your bidding for a month. Or a year with your 7th and 8th level slots, or forever with your 9th. That's 360 zombies from your 6th level slot, 4380 from each of your 7th and 8th level slots, and 12 per day from now until forever for your 9th level slot. Double all that if you decided to be clever and take the Enchantment school, as you can use Split Enchantment to double your wights/geas ratio. Plus 46 skeletons from your unused animate dead capable slots.

Also: there's nothing stopping you from paying for a mortal army yourself. Just because you're a necromancer doesn't mean you don't get a share of the loot.

Geas just makes them take damage the first time they disobey you, doesn't seem very safe.

[GM_3826]

Still, I'm pretty sure that under 5th Edition rules most characters don't actually have player character classes. It's noted at the start of every class's description that "Not all X" (wherein X would be a profession a class could reasonably be expected to have) "are Y". If a high-level necromancer gathered enough strong allies and killled enough enemies using "Finger of Death", chances are high he could conquer a small kingdom, and work himself up from there.

[Naanomi]

A necromancer/sorcerer can get a few more by cashing in lower level spells and sorcery points for more animate dead action

[Grek]

Geas just makes them take damage the first time they disobey you, doesn't seem very safe.

Geas charms them for the duration and then inflicts 5d10 damage the first time time they disobey you on a given day. That is, if they disobey you on the first day, they take 5d10 damage. If they disobey you on the second day, they take another 5d10 damage. And so on and so forth for the entire duration. A wight can almost always survive disobeying once (0.13% chance it will die), but has much worse odds (84.99% chance it will die) of doing so for two days, and even worse odds (99.97% chance it will die) of disobeying three times in a row. Plus its charmed, so chances are good you can convince it to obey without explicitly pointing out the sword dangling over its undead head.

[druid91]

Why can't we have both?

Of course it really doesn't change the fact that low level mooks still can't contribute much in higher level games

Actually, low level mooks can contribute a lot in high level games in 5e with bounded Accuracy in play.

[Vogonjeltz]

I think you have it pretty well covered, practical limitations on size are:

A) Supply of Ingredients (e.g. bodies + onyx).
B) Supply of Spell Slots with which to create AND retain control.

So several points of failure exist:

1) Failure to secure necessary ingredients to add recruits or replace losses.
2) Failure to retain and use the spell slots necessary to maintain army.
3) Failure to renew control in a timely manner.

The last one is the most worrying possibility especially if the caster has become incapacitated for several days, in which case they might have to flee the rampaging undead horde they themselves created.

Actually this could prove an awesome setup for an adventure. Your party is hired on as consultants for a Necromancer who through an untimely accident is rendered incapable of reasserting control over his minions (the party may or may not be aware of this), which infest the castle they are in. Hilarity ensues!

[asorel]

Spell slot usage becomes a non-issue for any caster with Finger of Death. To be sure, you can't gain access to it until 13th level, but any character considering fielding an army is going to be at the upper end of the ECL spectrum.

[Shining Wrath]

Setting dependent, but someone might object to the creation of undead, or you bringing the undead into territory they control.


Fey
Druids
Life Domain Clerics
People with keen senses of smell (e.g., Shifters)
OoA Paladins
Anyone who doesn't understand that necromancy isn't always evil
Other necromancers who view you as competition or who don't want you drawing attention to their activities

[MadBear]

While using finger of death could get you a giant army in theory, in all practicality it's unlikely to happen. At most you are creating 4 extra zombies per day. If you utilize these zombies in any ECL before they get to giant numbers, you're going to lose more then you're raising.

With that said, a person who's going around killing 4 people per day is going to garner attention. Especially if he's turning those that died into his personal army. That alone will ensure that most campaigns won't see a single necromancer ruining a whole campaign, without a whole bunch of help and/or time.

[asorel]

While using finger of death could get you a giant army in theory, in all practicality it's unlikely to happen. At most you are creating 4 extra zombies per day. If you utilize these zombies in any ECL before they get to giant numbers, you're going to lose more then you're raising.

With that said, a person who's going around killing 4 people per day is going to garner attention. Especially if he's turning those that died into his personal army. That alone will ensure that most campaigns won't see a single necromancer ruining a whole campaign, without a whole bunch of help and/or time.

It's going to be game-dependent, but there are ways to do it. There are enough evil humanoid races to go around, for one. If a city is large enough, it's going to have a decent amount of deaths, many of which are likely going to be from a slum region, where something as costly as a funeral is a luxury. You could probably cut a deal with a local mortuary or executioner, and convince them to look the other way in exchange for taking care of some of their workload, and a decent parcel of coin. Provided you have a stronghold or similar isolated area for storing your forces, it could be done relatively painlessly given enough time. It partially depends on how lenient the DM is with downtime. Planning and executing this would be a non-trivial matter, but it could be done.

[Gavran]

Geas charms them for the duration and then inflicts 5d10 damage the first time time they disobey you on a given day. That is, if they disobey you on the first day, they take 5d10 damage. If they disobey you on the second day, they take another 5d10 damage. And so on and so forth for the entire duration. A wight can almost always survive disobeying once (0.13% chance it will die), but has much worse odds (84.99% chance it will die) of doing so for two days, and even worse odds (99.97% chance it will die) of disobeying three times in a row. Plus its charmed, so chances are good you can convince it to obey without explicitly pointing out the sword dangling over its undead head.

Then I guess they'd better make the first 24 hours of betrayal count, yeah? And no social skills, advantage or not, result in "you are under my control."

[druid91]

Then I guess they'd better make the first 24 hours of betrayal count, yeah? And no social skills, advantage or not, result in "you are under my control."

"So, I created you. We both know what you want. By following me, you'll get it, you'll get to quench your thirst for death over and over again. The magic in your head is just a little insurance on my part to ensure you're doing it to the people I want you to and only those people. Luckily for you, there's a lot of people who are alive that I'd rather not be alive anymore. Welcome to my Undead Army."

[Orbis Orboros]

A dip in sorcerer would allow you to convert low level spells into sorcery points that are then used to twin Finger of Death.

[Forum Explorer]

Geas charms them for the duration and then inflicts 5d10 damage the first time time they disobey you on a given day. That is, if they disobey you on the first day, they take 5d10 damage. If they disobey you on the second day, they take another 5d10 damage. And so on and so forth for the entire duration. A wight can almost always survive disobeying once (0.13% chance it will die), but has much worse odds (84.99% chance it will die) of doing so for two days, and even worse odds (99.97% chance it will die) of disobeying three times in a row. Plus its charmed, so chances are good you can convince it to obey without explicitly pointing out the sword dangling over its undead head.

Not really, a long rest will heal them, will it not?

But like others are saying, it just means that it'll make the betrayal count and will likely throw down with you immediately.


"So, I created you. We both know what you want. By following me, you'll get it, you'll get to quench your thirst for death over and over again. The magic in your head is just a little insurance on my part to ensure you're doing it to the people I want you to and only those people. Luckily for you, there's a lot of people who are alive that I'd rather not be alive anymore. Welcome to my Undead Army."

Sure. That'd work if it's true. Or mostly true anyways.



Anyways I think the biggest practical constraint is casualties as you build it. If you are adventuring in order to try and build up zombies, you'll keep losing zombies in combat. In fact you'll be hard pressed to remain in the positive number of zombies per day.

If you leave them on their own, well zombies might get attacked by something, from monsters to paladins.

And speaking of paladins, your undead army will likely attract the attention of someone who objects to it's existence.

[archaeo]

I would make the argument that, whatever the rules say, the practical limit of any undead army is found on the faces of the other people at your D&D table. Even with a small army, a necromancer is going to be eating up a lot of table time, and as the army grows, the army management tasks grow with it. Some tables will love the intricate play this can create, some tables will loathe the management and scheduling necessary to keep armies in line.

The necromancer playstyle is really something that, ideally, the whole table is on board with. Even with a sympathetic DM, the necromancer can really dominate the time available for gaming sessions and create a bunch of requirements the rest of the party has to play along with unless they're happy about being murdered by the newly uncontrolled zombie army following them.

[Grek]

If they "make the betrayal count" they're still going down with you. Geas doesn't vanish when the caster dies. Every day they're not obeying you is another 5d10 damage, and eventually that's going to rekill them. If only because they got unlucky and rolled high for damage. There's nothing in it for them to betray you beyond pure spite. And if you're even remotely charismatic, you should be able to convince them to not kill themselves trying to spite you.

[Gritmonger]

Thanks for all of the responses - with regard to slowing down the table, would having a theoretical platoon-sized group of 32 undead of mixed types push play into using the massed combat/warfare type rules instead?

[Gavran]

If they "make the betrayal count" they're still going down with you. Geas doesn't vanish when the caster dies. Every day they're not obeying you is another 5d10 damage, and eventually that's going to rekill them. If only because they got unlucky and rolled high for damage. There's nothing in it for them to betray you beyond pure spite. And if you're even remotely charismatic, you should be able to convince them to not kill themselves trying to spite you.

They can as obedient as they please after you're dead. So long as the Geas quest isn't "to resurrect me if I die" I imagine that'd generally be fine. I guess you could Geas a few with that though, and give them the means to do so somehow. Would be amusing.

I disagree that "I can give you something you want" is an infallible argument to press something into your service, nor that you can cause all creatures to always not be spiteful at nearly any level of charisma. Some, sure, but it's part of a solution, not the solution. "I can give you everything you want at a price that is acceptable to you" is probably the closest argument that would be always 'correct' to agree to, rationally, but creatures are not just rational or always rational. It may simply want to eat your face. It may hate you for raising it. It may not (I'm not looking at monster stats, nor do I want to argue about what 3-8 Int means or whatever) have the intelligence to comprehend that serving you is in its best interest. It may, in fact, gladly risk death to kill you out of spite. Social skills power varies a lot per table, and "DC 30 - The target does whatever you want, without limits" has always been a terrible idea.

[Chronos]

Note that being charmed also means that they can't directly harm you, either. They might still indirectly harm you, but you don't have to worry about "I just want to eat some face right now, and your face is the closest".

Also consider that people keep control of armies all the time, even in our world, with no magic whatsoever, just unaugmented mundane skills.

[Shining Wrath]

Thanks for all of the responses - with regard to slowing down the table, would having a theoretical platoon-sized group of 32 undead of mixed types push play into using the massed combat/warfare type rules instead?

DMG has rules for average attack resolution, but still, suppose you have 24 zombies and 8 wights.

They swarm the enemy, 8 to a foe, 6 zombies and 2 wights each.

The DM could resolve that as 4 calculations for the zombies, but 2 wights are probably going to be rolled for, so that means your turn consumes 4 calculations, 8 rolls for wights, and whatever you do with your turn.

[jkat718]

DMG has rules for average attack resolution, but still, suppose you have 24 zombies and 8 wights.

They swarm the enemy, 8 to a foe, 6 zombies and 2 wights each.

The DM could resolve that as 4 calculations for the zombies, but 2 wights are probably going to be rolled for, so that means your turn consumes 4 calculations, 8 rolls for wights, and whatever you do with your turn.

a) The DMG rules for Handling Mobs (p. 250) would reduce that to 2 calculations, done at the beginning of each combat (and more of a chart reference than a calculation, really).
b) That's not too many rolls, especially because those rules eliminate rolling for damage, which is a good portion of a DM's rolls. Also a player's, so you're rolling is about on par with another player's.

[Gavran]

Note that being charmed also means that they can't directly harm you, either. They might still indirectly harm you, but you don't have to worry about "I just want to eat some face right now, and your face is the closest".

Also consider that people keep control of armies all the time, even in our world, with no magic whatsoever, just unaugmented mundane skills.

... fair point. I knew that, then I got all wrapped up in social skills and completely left that part out of my thinking. A forcibly pacified undead is at the very least safer to try to persuade, if not necessarily more productive. Every time I think about Charmed I think about the GOOlock Thrall ability and go "man charmed kind of sucks." And it kind of does, on an ability that only works on a target you've already defeated - but it definitely makes persuading the angry dead much more plausible. Do you get XP for Geas-ing to death the ones that choose to spend their few days of survival rampaging the countryside instead of obeying you? :P

[Forum Explorer]

If they "make the betrayal count" they're still going down with you. Geas doesn't vanish when the caster dies. Every day they're not obeying you is another 5d10 damage, and eventually that's going to rekill them. If only because they got unlucky and rolled high for damage. There's nothing in it for them to betray you beyond pure spite. And if you're even remotely charismatic, you should be able to convince them to not kill themselves trying to spite you.

If you're dead then they can't really disobey you can they? I wouldn't say that they'd take the additional damage once you are gone. Also even if it does kill them later on, it doesn't do you a lot of good now does it? You are still dead.

[Capac Amaru]

Any magic user capable of summoning thousands of undead should be more than capable of constructing appropriate rituals for the summoning and command of as many undead as they could need.

Of course, this puts the user immediately into BBEG territory, and suddenly you've got parties of adventurers trying to put a stop to your evil schemes.

Aside from this, you have resource problems of spell components and bodies, the logistical problems of arming, equipping, storing and moving your army, and the political challenges from neighbours who don't like armies of undead next door.

Once your horde hits a certain critical mass, you're going to have more powerful entities starting to consider you a threat. Don't be surprised when you end up with a holy crusade on your doorstep.

[Envyus]

I remember back in a 3.5 game were I had one of the villains be a Necromancer who created Wight under his control. He used this wight to create more wights until he had a small army of them. The small army of wights then went forth creating more for him. Because of this he hid the original Wight deep in his lair so it would not be in any danger because if it was destroyed he would lose control of his entire army of wights. He eventually allied with an army of monstrous humanoid and giants to conquer a city. The PC's with the help of a spy in the enemy army found out about the villains army coming charging at the city and the source wight. So while the army was out they infiltrated the fortress to assassinate the source Wight. They managed to succeed as a result of the Necromancer losing control of all of his Wights they turned on their monstrous allies mid march and attacked them. The Wights were out numbered and despite their ability to turn the other monsters into wights the army of monsters destroyed all the wights but lost over 80% of their forces.

It was a cool scenario that also shows the problem of controlling undead. If control if lost they will turn on you before you can blink.

[Chronos]

On the other hand, what if you are the neighbor with the political problems? I could imagine a nation ruled by a LN despot, where the death penalty is common, and carried out by the court wizard casting Finger of Death on you. You're now using the same resources any other nation would to arm and deploy your army, except that you don't need provisions or pay for your soldiers. And it's all perfectly legal, according to your own laws at least.

Adventure hook: The army is directly answerable to the wizard, not to the king. The king might not appreciate this, and might hire the PCs to do something about it.