Help with Melee Cleric Necromancer

[Roryn]

First time posting here although I've read the forums for quite some time. I'm looking for help building a melee cleric with a necromantic theme in 3.5e. Race will be strongheart Halfling, and I plan on picking up Necropolitan. Campaign starts at level 2. All books are allowed, and I have most of them I think. Point buy is 32. I'm not so focused on items, and equipment to get and I want to stay away from super cheese. The party is a group of cultist Halflings focused on bringing the glorious existence of undeath upon the world.

I know that deathbound and undeath are pretty good domains for the necromantically inclined. I also know that DMM Persist is a standard for Divine Power melee clerics. I'm definitely not the greatest at optimization so I'm looking for the best way to roll in the strong melee properties of a cleric (self buffs/heavy armor/etc.) with a couple of strong undead minions for the most part, although I do have a picture of animating a bunch of undead rats to turn into bombs with the Destructive Retribution feat at least once. Corpscrafter looks like a necessity, and I already mentioned DMM Persist so getting there is a necessity as well.

Basically I need help with everything from the ground up if at all possible. We're looking to play this Saturday so that's kind of the timeline I have. If you need more information please let me know as I will check back in on the post often. Thanks so much for the help.

[PseudoPanda]

Bone Knight from Five Nations of Eberron is very fitting for a necrotic melee cleric if you can use Eberron material. It stacks with cleric for rebuke undead, most of its benefits are already included in being necropolitan though so considering the skill requirements and loss of caster level you won't miss out to much by not taking it.

Ordained champion is another good melee oriented PrC that stacks rebuke levels though it loses out on spell progression as well. It requires the War Domain but gives you another domain so you don't miss out on your domain choices and can exchange granted power for fighter feats.

What level are you starting at? This will help determine what your build will look like when it comes to feat availability and PrCs you can enter

[Roryn]

Starting at level 2 with the expected progression capable of hitting 20 eventually. I originally liked the idea of Bone Knight, but as you said necropolitan kind of overlaps. Ordained Champion looks fitting though. If I understand correctly I just can't lose more than 3 cl's right? Of course I'd prefer to lose them later than sooner though since I'll be playing the character from 2nd level up.

I mean I'm not opposed to going straight cleric 20, but I know there are all kinds of goodies to grab out of PrC's that increase the effectiveness of the character. I know that cleric is actually a pretty strong chassis all around as it has a lot of versatility built into it. Not looking to break the game, just be strong choice that won't lag behind. Our DM likes to throw really challenging encounters our way and encourages optimization without super cheese.

Also, it may just be better to not do the necropolitan thing and take tomb-tainted soul as a feat and work my way to Ordained Champion/Bone Knight. What are the thoughts about this?

[Roryn]

To outline some of my problems with the Ordained Champion/Bone Knight path.....

Lose a total of 3 CL's... delay's progression of Animate Dead and such that I was really looking forward to
Bone Knight immunities overlap with Necropolitan Template
Bone Knight loses Concentration and Spellcraft as class skills which could be very problematic, and as I'm pretty locked in at Strongheart Halfling no Able Learner to fix this

I'm concerned that I probably just want to do too much i.e. Have a cleric worried about necromancy but able to hold his own in melee pretty well. A dark nasty Halfling cleric reminiscent of the Lich King was kind of what I had in mind... I've found that there just really aren't very many necromantic flavored Cleric PrC's so again straight Cleric might just be the way to go...

Other thoughts to add in...
DM ruled that we can take 2 flaws, so I can have DMM Persist at level 1...
Tried to talk him into a necromantic version of Radient Servant of Pelor but he wasn't biting...