How do I create an undead army?

[Knight Magenta]

Our group may be playing with the Pathfinder mass combat rules soon, and this is a perfect chance to raise a legion of the unquiet dead! I know I want to make several regiments of Bloody Skeletons since they are immune to attrition and have virtually no maintenance costs. I will be using the Charnel Soldiers (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Charnel%20Soldiers) feat as well as assuming that the Undead Master (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Undead%20Master) feat actually does something. However, the Pathfinder mass combat rules need me to have 50+ minions to count as an army; and all this stuff only gives me 44HD ( I am likely to be level 7 at this point) this leaves me with an anemic army and no HD left for an adventuring minion.

So playground, help me build a legion! My DM will likely be OK with 3.5 or 3rd party solutions. (Also, how do NPC necromancers do this? you can hardly conquer anything even with 80 HD of skeletons, and that's at level 20...)

So far I've found Awaken Undead (http://alcyius.com/dndtools/spells/libris-mortis-the-book-of-undead--71/awaken-undead--1468/index.html), which will let me daisy-chain minions, but its not clear how I could level up my lieutenants, and I don't really want to kill a bunch of high level clerics... Its also a level 6 spell it is quite a ways away for me.

There is a rod for 10k that doubles your control limit, but this is a little pricey for not a very large increase in army size.

Leadership is an option, but that's boring. I don't just want a fell legion. I want a fell legion that I have raised.

Is there a way to transfer control of minions I've raise to my lieutenants? If I have feats that make my skeletons stronger, I don't want to have my minions doing any raising. If this was a spell, what level would you make it?

I don't really care if my character is arcane or divine, but he needs to be able to access lichdom, and not be overly evil. Neutral is preferable, and a little evil is OK; just no eating souls and drinking babies. I'm OK with my army growing into its own over time, but as I understand it most of the mass combat stuff will happen in the level 7 to 11 range. So Ideally the build would come online in that range.

[Gildedragon]

Have your lts be wights
Control minions that control minions that control minions

[Knight Magenta]

Have your lts be wights
Control minions that control minions that control minions

I am wary of spawning minions for two reasons:

1. If the chain of command is broken then you have potentially tons of uncontrolled undead that create spawn running around. I don't want to actually cause a wightpocalyps... That might upset my allies.

2. Since the wights create spawn randomly, its not clear who you have to order to command a given wight. Even if the wights' first order is always "obey the necromancer" you still run into the danger of a miscommunication leaving a random chunk of your army just standing there waiting for orders. Wights are after all only int 11 after all and have no special ability to not become distracted.

[Gildedragon]

I am wary of spawning minions for two reasons:

1. If the chain of command is broken then you have potentially tons of uncontrolled undead that create spawn running around. I don't want to actually cause a wightpocalyps... That might upset my allies. as if they'd not be the first casualties... And then they won't mind having more friends >:3



2. Since the wights create spawn randomly, its not clear who you have to order to command a given wight. Even if the wights' first order is always "obey the necromancer" you still run into the danger of a miscommunication leaving a random chunk of your army just standing there waiting for orders. Wights are after all only int 11 after all and have no special ability to not become distracted. boost their intelligence and wisdom
Also: you don't command the footsoldiers you relay info down the chain of command; like a general would
Aas to prevention of a wightpocalypse suicide collars if they ever become uncontrolled

[Flickerdart]

Pathfinder didn't change the amazing command undead (https://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/commandUndead.html) spell. For days/level, a nonintelligent undead obeys your orders, no save. Keep a schedule where you use X slots every day to re-command the minions with the oldest command spells on them. If you have a few (living or undead) underlings with their own slots, all the better. If you're using 3.5 content, spellstitch some intelligent undead with it, so they can cast it as an SLA.

[Knight Magenta]

Pathfinder didn't change the amazing command undead (https://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/commandUndead.html) spell. For days/level, a nonintelligent undead obeys your orders, no save. Keep a schedule where you use X slots every day to re-command the minions with the oldest command spells on them. If you have a few (living or undead) underlings with their own slots, all the better. If you're using 3.5 content, spellstitch some intelligent undead with it, so they can cast it as an SLA.

Hmm... a small cadre of spellstitched undead seems like it could do the job. The costs are pretty high, but a 2 HD minion with 11 wisdom can control 4 mindless undead. This lends itself to a smaller army of larger creatures. Probably ogres or trolls or some such.

I still need a way to create intelligent undead. Is there a way to access that at level 7-8? I suppose I could buy a scroll of Create Undead to spawn some skeletal champions. It only costs 1650gp to raise a lieutenant. I would prefer to raise my commanders under my own power, but that seems like it could be viable. Spellstitching them would even let me use non-casters as my base creatures. Always a plus!

[Quertus]

Animate creatures with less than 1 hd to get yourself over the 50 HD limit. Beware the army of skeletal squirrels!

When they leave your control, mindless undead follow the last order they were given. "follow him, attack what he attacks" seems pretty simple; many DMs will let you get away with even better last commands.

Items that reduce turn resistance are, IMO, better than most other items for amassing an army. Make every skeletal ogre count as 1 HD (or less!) for control purposes, and the value of your army will increase dramatically.

And, personally, I hate paying for the onyx to animate the dead. I tend to use Tainted Sorcerer to ignore those costs; I can only hope that there's some equally good way that comes with less cheese attached.

[Clistenes]

I am wary of spawning minions for two reasons:

1. If the chain of command is broken then you have potentially tons of uncontrolled undead that create spawn running around. I don't want to actually cause a wightpocalyps... That might upset my allies.

2. Since the wights create spawn randomly, its not clear who you have to order to command a given wight. Even if the wights' first order is always "obey the necromancer" you still run into the danger of a miscommunication leaving a random chunk of your army just standing there waiting for orders. Wights are after all only int 11 after all and have no special ability to not become distracted.

Have the first wight, which you control directly, create ALL the other wights. Have it tell the others to obey every one of your order, and then hid it very well. After the first battle, tell your first generation of wights to call their spawn and order them to obey your orders. Repeat after every battle.

Divide your wight army into several divisions, each division being a different generation of wights. When battle starts, send the younger generation first, and send the second younger generation only when the fist has been destroyed, the third younger generation only when the second has been destroyed...etc.

Tell your wights to police and hunt rogue ones out of the chain of command. Use the last generation for that when out of battle.

[frogglesmash]

Everyone's suggesting wights, but shadows would be much better footsoldiers if you can get your hands on one. They create controlled spawn very quickly a la wight, are incorporeal, far more maneuverable, deal damage that most npc's can't negate, but my favourite part is you can have them travel under ground at all times making your army virtually undetectable. To build on that tactic, you can have them spread out through entire cities undetected and then have them strike in unison come nightfall thus taking the town nearly instantaneously resulting in thousands of new recruits, and greatly reducing the chances that word of your army of shadows reaches other towns.

[Bullet06320]

Skeletal minion ACF gives you one more http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#skeletalMinion
that doesn't count towards you HD total

Create Crawling Claw spell from Monsters of Faerûn, they are listed as Constructs not Undead in the monster entry. you can create twice you HD worth per casting.

Animate Dread Warrior from Unapproachable East altho there is a heavy xp coast with that one

[Zanos]

Pathfinder didn't change the amazing command undead (https://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/commandUndead.html) spell. For days/level, a nonintelligent undead obeys your orders, no save. Keep a schedule where you use X slots every day to re-command the minions with the oldest command spells on them. If you have a few (living or undead) underlings with their own slots, all the better. If you're using 3.5 content, spellstitch some intelligent undead with it, so they can cast it as an SLA.
If you have 3.5 content, you can also pick up a lesser rod of chain spell, or the feat itself, and use that on command undead to get a lot more mileage out of each casting.

[Knight Magenta]

If you have 3.5 content, you can also pick up a lesser rod of chain spell, or the feat itself, and use that on command undead to get a lot more mileage out of each casting.

Hmm... Chain spell is an interesting idea. It would let me control CL^2 + 1 minions per 5th level spell slot. Assuming the trait that lowers meta-magic costs, using 2 4th level slots I could control 50 ogres zombies or something like that. That's actually pretty good.