Why haven't I heard of necromancer mercenary companies?

[redking]

Whether wizard necromancer, cleric, dread necromancer, death master, or whatever. These guys can animate dead enemies on the fly. Their walking corpses never get tired, never get scared, and "fight to the death". Why is it then that I never hear of any mercenary companies comprised solely of necromancers and their undead?

Unless someone has a "well, actually, on page xx of xxx there is a necromancer mercenary company". Any thoughts?

[Telonius]

Anti-competitive behavior by the existing Adventurers' Guilds. If the word ever gets out that an Undead guild could be hired at 1/4 to 1/5 the cost of a party (only have to pay the necromancer, not the whole party) it would put them out of business.

[lolcat]

Definitely a good idea. "In the field", so to say, Bone Knights (Five Nations variant, p. 117) would also be a great addition to such a group.

[Eldan]

Definitely a good idea. "In the field", so to say, Bone Knights (Five Nations variant, p. 117) would also be a great addition to such a group.

Speaking of five nations, does Kharrnath have any mercenary groups?

[pabelfly]

Depends what the reward for fielding an army is versus adventuring and finding loot for a character is. Some comparisons would be interesting , if we worked out the cost to hire a comparable living NPC.

[InvisibleBison]

In most settings, necromancy is heavily stigmatized or outright forbidden, which pretty much precludes using it as a business model.

[Batcathat]

In most settings, necromancy is heavily stigmatized or outright forbidden, which pretty much precludes using it as a business model.

I imagine a lot of people in the market for hiring an army might not care that much about such details. It's usually the kind of thing that gets the authorities pissed at you anyway (unless you are the authority, in which case it's also a lesser problem).

[Satinavian]

Without shenanigans it still does cost 25 gp in black onix per HD for the weakest undead. So maintenance might be cheap, but replacing losses is not. Also skelettons and zombies are stupid and work better when used for trivial, not complex tasks.

Combined that means economic efficiency of undead would be better for monotonous and tiring but not dangerous works. Farmwork, mining, treadmills, rowers... . All of those uses would also be more pleasant to the necromancer than going into wars.


Add to that that mercenary companies often need to change change employers and location, that is something where widespread stigmata against the living dead really hurt. Even if you can get by with the locals at one playe, that is not necessarily true for the ext. And if less people would hire undead, the other potential employers might try to get you for cheap.

[redking]

In most settings, necromancy is heavily stigmatized or outright forbidden, which pretty much precludes using it as a business model.

I expect that only desperate employers would consider it. Especially if the enemy is hated, and the corpses of enemy soldiers are to be used as the battle fodder.

[Telonius]

In most settings, necromancy is heavily stigmatized or outright forbidden, which pretty much precludes using it as a business model.

Yep, Adventurers' Guild propaganda at work. "Oh, look how evil that Necromancer is. Ew, undead are rotting and dirty. Oh no, it's an abomination against the gods." :xykon:

[Akal Saris]

1) I blame a lack of imagination on the part of D&D writers. There absolutely should be necromancer merc companies.

With that said, maybe these could be used to justify their absence:
- Probably undead armies are absolutely terrible for morale when you use them in conjunction with living forces, and are of limited utility on their own. Nobody wants to be brought back as a mindless zombie by their employer.
- Even in evil kingdoms there's probably a monopoly on undead forces held by the local leader. Any necromancers getting funny ideas about starting their own freelance forces probably get a visit from the Royal Necrolord or somesuch warning them that they can either follow the rules or get murdered and follow the rules then.
- It's expensive! A 1HD skeleton probably costs as much as a years' pay for a living soldier. Much cheaper to hire a bunch of disposable warm bodies.

[ciopo]

What about Thay?

[Kalkra]

Ultimately, the answer is that DnD isn't the Tippyverse. Because while undead may not be the most optimal for mercenary companies, they're great for manual labor and the like. Ultimately, most campaign settings are a classic (and inaccurate) medieval setting with magic added later, rather than how a world would actually develop with magic.

I will mention that Spellstiched undead can create more undead for free, and canonically do. StP Erudites can also ignore material components.

[Batcathat]

Ultimately, the answer is that DnD isn't the Tippyverse. Because while undead may not be the most optimal for mercenary companies, they're great for manual labor and the like. Ultimately, most campaign settings are a classic (and inaccurate) medieval setting with magic added later, rather than how a world would actually develop with magic.

Yeah, that's an issue I have a with a lot of fantasy. Creators seem to want settings with magic, but not for magic to actually change the setting in any meaningful way. (There are exceptions, of course, but too few for my liking).

[awa]

because its not a mercenary company its just hiring a necromancer. Additionally most d&d settings tend to assume very low op if they care about the game mechanics at all and a basic necromancer is only bringing a small number of undead to the table. Say a level 10 necromancer is only has something like 40 skeletons, that might sound like a lot but when looking at the power being brought to the table the necromancer is far more important than the skeletons.

On a practical perspective I have always been dubious about the ability of mindless undead to do even low risk repetitive tasks. Because just ask any real farmer or miner the tasks are not actually mindless. As something closer to an average persons experiences have you ever helped a person move? Think about when you were trying to get a sofa up some stairs, did you need to stop and think about how to get it around corners? Communicate to not knock people down the stairs? Do you think the task would have been made easier if you had a dozen "people" who would only take an act if you explicitly told them to do or not do something, with zero common sense who would without hesitation trample or crush people pets and objects in their path?

A second aspect is people keep assuming undead are perpetual motion machines but is that the case? Sure they dont get old or hungry but does that necessarily make them immune to wear and tear. A skeleton sitting in a crypt waiting for an adventurer to show up might last centuries but if it is constantly working then the bone will wear down over time even assuming it doesn't suffer more significant injuries. Living creatures are undergoing a constant state of damage and repair do to wear and tear, undead dont do the repair part or at least not the basic varieties. So logical they should eventually break down.

If we want to make the setting work we can assume that murdering people is something they have an innate talent for and thus skeletons are great for sticking in a tomb and telling them to kill intruders but less good for anything else. In war it might be a problem because unless you babysit them you need to make sure they dont wander off and get lost, dont start killing friendlies and so on because being a solider is not a mindless task either.

The real trick is that when you are designing a setting decide what you want and then justify it, do you not want the undead industrial revolution just say undead are lousy at farming and are actually less efficient than human workers. Want it to be something the evil empire does, well then it is more efficient you just need to keep a steady supply of bodies as you kill people to feed the factories. Want a global warming metaphor well then rampant wide scale necromancy is bad for the environment (the game does in fact have rules for land tainted by evil magics). The point is you can justify many different types of setting based on different interpretations of the rules and the undead industrial/ military revolution is not the only logical path.

Huh I guess my pet peeve got away from me for a second.

[Eldan]

Ultimately, the answer is that DnD isn't the Tippyverse. .

I mean, they aren't, but there's more than one nation out there in published settings with undead armies. Like Karrnath and Thay.

[redking]

A group of 10 or 15 necromancers could control quite a lot of undead troops. An eternal wand of animate dead (3rd level, cleric spell) could bypass the costs.

The biggest downside that I can see about hiring an undead mercenary company controlled by necromancers is turning good aligned religious organizations against your regime when they may have otherwise remained neutral. So while you may start winning on the battlefield, you could have an order of paladins declare a crusade against your state.

[ShurikVch]

Indeed - necromantic mercenaries are astonishingly rare

Say, Bloody Swords (Dragon #315) have a Cleric of Orcus as their second-in-command, but the whole company includes only two undead (Hedris and Pont, male ghouls)

The Nameless Legion (Dragon #304) have among its cadres "The Blood Feasters": "Made up of assassins and slayers, usually undead in nature, this cadre specializes in eliminating specific targets such as generals, nobles, and adventurers. Its symbol is a fanged mouth that drips with blood."

If 3rd-party stuff is OK - Tome of Artifacts, tells about Erangoul's Filthy Cloak, which was initially a part of regalia belonging to a wererat lich, but later was used as a banner of "an undead mercenary company from a far shore"

[awa]

a wererat lich

Huh that's not a combo you see very often

[Mechalich]

Yeah, that's an issue I have a with a lot of fantasy. Creators seem to want settings with magic, but not for magic to actually change the setting in any meaningful way. (There are exceptions, of course, but too few for my liking).

It is much, much easier to world-build off some kind of historical baseline than to try and reimagine everything from first principles. It makes much more sense to to 'Historical Setting X + Y fantastical element' than try to create a new setting whole cloth. Even space opera writers commonly keep Earth and human history up through whatever the present date happens to be. The problem is that writers tend to be really, really bad at recognizing which Fantastical Elements and, importantly, how much of them, prevent Historical Setting X from ever coming into being.

3e D&D is one of the worst systems ever made from this perspective because it contains all the fantastical elements you can imagine and an awful lot of each one.

[OracleofWuffing]

An undead army generally doesn't need rations, wages, or benefits, so obtaining currency is significantly less of a worry than someone running a living army. So, it's more efficient for them to deal in bartering and power arrangements, which doesn't always fit the legitimate business lifestyle.

[Kazyan]

If you don't care about optimization, it's because of medieval stasis.

If you do care about optimization, it's because animated undead don't have 9th-level spells and are therefore have no relevance whatsoever.

[redking]

An undead army generally doesn't need rations, wages, or benefits, so obtaining currency is significantly less of a worry than someone running a living army. So, it's more efficient for them to deal in bartering and power arrangements, which doesn't always fit the legitimate business lifestyle.

The undead army doesn't need money or food, but money is useful for the necromancers that are in control of the undead army, whether they are alive or undead themselves. A necromantic mercenary company would have the same motivations as others, with the only difference being that the morale of the rank and file do not matter to the necromancer leadership of the company, whereas morale is always an issue for mercenary companies comprised of the living.

[Endarire]

Because the OP was one of the first to think of it in DND.

Otherwise, as an animation focused necromancer, why would you want to run a mercenary company when you could likely just take over a region or many?

[OracleofWuffing]

The undead army doesn't need money or food, but money is useful for the necromancers that are in control of the undead army, whether they are alive or undead themselves. A necromantic mercenary company would have the same motivations as others, with the only difference being that the morale of the rank and file do not matter to the necromancer leadership of the company, whereas morale is always an issue for mercenary companies comprised of the living.
What are the necromancers using the money for? If they're spending it on objectives similar to regular mercenaries, then you end up with a situation where leading an army of undead is no more economically efficient than leading an army of the living. That doesn't make sense given the starting premise, but I'll admit an undead mercenary company is cooler than an ordinary mercenary company, and that's better than making sense.

[redking]

I managed to find a company of undead mercs (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Order_of_One_Thousand_Nightmares) in the Forgotten Realms setting.


Order of One Thousand Nightmares
The Order of One Thousand Nightmares was a ghastly company of swordwraiths affiliated with Velsharoon.

Activities
The Order haunted the Fields of the Dead, fighting each other while riding their nightmares in battle. The clergy of Velsharoon mastered powerful magic allowing them to control the swordwraiths, forming a quickly growing undead army that only spelled trouble for the Western Heartlands. They numbered 200 strong as of 1367 DR.

I suppose a single, epic level necromancer can create a mercenary company all by itself. It can take itself, cast simulacrum for half level copies of itself, and then use the 'crums to help control the undead. Perfect for the cash starved necromancer.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Unintelligent undead are near useless as soldiers, because soldiers do more than just kill things - but that's essentially all a mindless being with no skill points can do.

Intelligent undead can rarely be fielded in sufficient numbers to form a force of any significant size. Necromancers deploying them would be more akin to a hired adventuring party than a full company - unless they were very high level, in which case they're unlikely to be for hire and would likely be valued more for their casting ability than any minions that came with them.

[Mordante]

Yep, Adventurers' Guild propaganda at work. "Oh, look how evil that Necromancer is. Ew, undead are rotting and dirty. Oh no, it's an abomination against the gods." :xykon:

That is assuming guilds even exist. I some campaigns that I play there are hardly any, guilds, or none at all. There are companies, but guilds not so much.

[Seward]

Normally I'd guess the Black Onyx cost makes undead troops too expensive for what you get in terms of power.

I'm not into minionmancy enough to know the tricks that let you raise undead hordes for free, so there probably is a way around that. But in general a skilled enough necromancer to raise a company of undead usually has better things to do with her time than take a mercenary fee to do somebody else's boring job. If you get past zombies/skeletons they often also have awkward feeding requirements or weaknesses to sunlight or similar.

Also as others have mentioned, undead are a far better investment as a menial workforce than something that can get them destroyed like combat. That black onyx initial capital investment can be wasted by a random warrior with a 0gp club or 2gp dagger getting lucky. But in a safe job like digging ditches it will eventually pay for itself in the long haul.

[Gnaeus]

Human skeletons are way too expensive in onyx costs. Giant skeletons are a heck of a buy, especially if you have a DN or something that can heal them between fights. Your mercenary Necro needs to think less Army of Darkness and more Dead Beats.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I think the previous poster had it right. You don't have mercenary companies of skeletons or zombies because that's just called "hiring a necromancer." The mindless undead are not getting paid. They're not mercenaries and they're definitely not a company.

Also many D&D settings are more pseudofeudal or or pseudo victorian in terms of military structures. Knights and feudal levies or mass conscription and state sponsored citizen militaries are more common than mercenaries in many settings. In Greyhawk, Iuz does use undead, but they're not typically mercenaries because that's not how his realm is organized.

Lastly, for all their presumed advantages, undead military forces have a number of significant drawbacks, so the assumption that they are optimal is just that. Depending upon the rest of the setting, they might or might not be.
1. Mindless undead create a single point of failure for the army. Take out the necromancer and the minions become uncontrolled and might even end up fighting your other forces.
2. Cost. The skeletons are free, but how much does the wizard or cleric charge to lead them? How does that stack up against hiring 20 level 1 warriors directly? Now you could say that you'll want to hire the wizard or cleric anyway, but there are a lot of scenarios where you can maybe afford 20 warriors but not a level 5 wizard.
3. Special vulnerabilities. In 3.x, any opposing army good or neutral priests has the potential to vaporize or immobilize them. Any opponent with access to second level scrolls (command undead) can take control of the undead giants/etc with no save. Sure living troops are vulnerable to magic, but for the most part, undead are vulnerable to fireball AND clerics etc. If your setting has more clerics than wizards, then that is a meaningful drawback.
4. Lack of synergies. In Pathfinder though not in 3.5, living troops have incredible synergy with good priests due to channel energy providing cheap and effective mass healing. Undead can have that but only from negative channeling priests. So unless your clerics channel negative energy, you'll get a lot more mileage out of living troops.
5. Flexibility. A group of 20 living soldiers can be broken up into squads. You can direct some to dig entrenchments and send two groups of them to scout the woods and then send one of your diggers with a message for the general, and you can expect him to be able to find the general without knowing exactly where he is. (Maybe he's in command tent, at the latrine, in the mess, or surveying some nearby troops--the living soldier can say, "urgent message for the general" to the guard at the command tent and then go to the mess hall. A skeleton could go to the command tent but won't be able to follow up further without new instructions from the necromancer). On the other hand, there are very limited tasks that mindless undead can work without the necromancer present so splitting up into two scout parties and a work detail is probably out of the question.
6. Suitability for a variety of situations. Mercenaries in D&D settings frequently do a lot of things other than just fighting. In Baldur's Gate, the Flaming First act as town watch when they're not at war. Mercenaries might also act as a training cadre or provide crowd control or guards at important events and locations. A necromancer and his minions might (or might not--see above) be good or cost effective at fighting but won't be very effective at most of the other things that mercenaries are used for. So, even if you wanted undead mercenaries when you were going to war, you probably wouldn't want them until you were at war.

[Raven777]

I think we ought to drop the Necromancer + Mindless Undead mindset, and explore outside that box a little. The likes of Wights, Vampires, Ghouls, Shadows, can create exponentially more of themselves for free. That's on top of not being mindless; they have minds and ambitions of their own. Such a group could in theory decide to form a military company that caters to its own strengths: no need for rest, immune to a slew of status effects, etc. Then they can get paid both in gold, a base of operation on their current patron's lands, and fresh victims or new inductees from the enemy forces.

[ShurikVch]

I think we ought to drop the Necromancer + Mindless Undead mindset, and explore outside that box a little.
Curst are nearly impossible to put down.
Make more of them, and you may make your very own Cursed Company (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cursed_Company)

Also, Tome of Mercenaries, apparently, have some undead mercenaries - except the book is not just 3rd-party, but also 5E

[redking]

Such a group could in theory decide to form a military company that caters to its own strengths: no need for rest, immune to a slew of status effects, etc. Then they can get paid both in gold, a base of operation on their current patron's lands, and fresh victims or new inductees from the enemy forces.

Importantly, they can operate legally under the sovereign leader or government that hires them. They go from hunted and hated for their very existence, to legally protected status. And who cares if a few of the enemy get eaten on the battlefield?


Curst are nearly impossible to put down.
Make more of them, and you may make your very own Cursed Company (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cursed_Company)

I googled the subject after making this thread and found the Warhammer undead mercenary company. Looks pretty cool. I think what a lot of people are overlooking is the nimbleness of a necromancer controlled mercenary company. Hundreds or thousands of soldiers moving across the land cannot be missed. They will face resistance. A troop of say 20 necromancers can sneak in behind enemy lines, animate the dead from graveyards or curse villagers to undeath, and then create a flanking military force behind enemy lines.

[Gnaeus]

I think what a lot of people are overlooking is the nimbleness of a necromancer controlled mercenary company. Hundreds or thousands of soldiers moving across the land cannot be missed. They will face resistance. .

Most especially from logistical perspectives. A medieval mercenary company is an atrocity machine. It lives by looting and associated crime. Its not easy to spot because it's 1000 people. It's easy to spot because those people will enter every village for food, or have a baggage train. Commonly there would be more noncombatants than fighters. A couple dozen skeletal giants can march 16 hours a day. 100% combatants. No baggage. Can travel in unoccupied places because they don't need to live off the land. Possibly even at the bottom of rivers. No fires to spot. Can hide in a pond for as long as needed.

[redking]

Most especially from logistical perspectives. A medieval mercenary company is an atrocity machine. It lives by looting and associated crime. Its not easy to spot because it's 1000 people. It's easy to spot because those people will enter every village for food, or have a baggage train. Commonly there would be more noncombatants than fighters. A couple dozen skeletal giants can march 16 hours a day. 100% combatants. No baggage. Can travel in unoccupied places because they don't need to live off the land. Possibly even at the bottom of rivers. No fires to spot. Can hide in a pond for as long as needed.

Ah, excellent points. Hiding at the bottom of rivers is a pretty good tactic. They can also much up or down a river, completely submersed. This opens the possibility of a surprise attack. There are so many possibilities.

[Jay R]

The economics of the situation is a little more complex than some people think. Don't confuse setup costs with upkeep.

A skeleton or zombie costs a 25 gp black onyx, even if it dies on the first day of battle. Regular mercenaries cost 2 sp / day, and you stop paying them when they die or you are finished with them. Unless you need the mercenaries for longer than 125 days, ordinary mercenaries are cheaper.

It is also a cash-flow issue. A 100-undead unit requires 2500 gp the first day, before you begin. A 100-unit regular mercenary unit costs 20 gp the first day, 20 gp the second day, etc. It takes 125 days before you had to pay as much as you did for the undead -- which means you had to have all that onyx before you started. With regular mercenaries, you pay small amounts at first, win your war, loot the captured cities, ransom the prisoners, and pay them out of that.

You also need to pay for a mid-level or higher necromancer. That costs a lot more than a mercenary captain.

Don't forget that if you aren't the necromancer, you need to pay for a 4th level spell -- minimum of 280 gp for 14 undead from a 7th level necromancer, or 20 gp additional per skeleton or zombie. So they really cost 45 gp each. [Yes, of course you can just hire the necromancer by the month. I promise you that will cost at least as much as paying for the spell.]

Mercenary companies keep replacing members -- at 2 sp /day. You are replacing yours with a one-time setup cost of 25 (or 45+) gp each. If your mercenaries are busy fighting, then there will be casualties, and your replacement costs will be too high. And if they aren't busy fighting, then why are you hiring mercenaries in the first place?

In short, if you want mercenaries for a short-term project, regular ones will be cheaper. Only if you keep them a long time, and they don't die in battle, will undead be cheaper.

[Also, if nobles start hiring necromancers to create zombie armies, there could soon be a shortage of black onyx. Unless you own a black onyx mine, you will not be able to keep them going.]

[Raxxius]

Ah, excellent points. Hiding at the bottom of rivers is a pretty good tactic. They can also much up or down a river, completely submersed. This opens the possibility of a surprise attack. There are so many possibilities.

I've done this before :smallamused:

Another thing is using general immunities of undead allows for necromancers to seriously force multiply.

Fighting in posion, like stinking clouds and cloudkills is really effective for shock troops.


But generally they're not a popular concept because most settings are in a neutral/good background and using the souls of the fallen to fuel an army is generally looked down upon.

Than and paladins are freaking everywhere man!

[redking]

The economics of the situation is a little more complex than some people think. Don't confuse setup costs with upkeep.

A skeleton or zombie costs a 25 gp black onyx, even if it dies on the first day of battle. Regular mercenaries cost 2 sp / day, and you stop paying them when they die or you are finished with them. Unless you need the mercenaries for longer than 125 days, ordinary mercenaries are cheaper.


The black onyx cost is very, very easy to circumvent for a crew of necromancers. There is all kinds of wacky optimization strategies presented on these boards, but circumventing the onyx is not one of them.

As for the 2 silver piece a day mercenaries, I think it's reasonable to consider this a retainer. These mercenaries aren't going to fight for 2 silver pieces. Of course, we can argue to death about the prices in D&D, but note that mercenary companies set their own prices and employers can take it or leave it.


I've done this before :smallamused:

Another thing is using general immunities of undead allows for necromancers to seriously force multiply.

Fighting in posion, like stinking clouds and cloudkills is really effective for shock troops.

Yes indeed. The undead are also great for maintaining or defending a siege.


But generally they're not a popular concept because most settings are in a neutral/good background and using the souls of the fallen to fuel an army is generally looked down upon.

Right. Given the terrible optics of using undead troops, I don't expect the practice to be very widespread. Desperation would probably be at the root of a decision to hire undead mercenaries or necromancers. Then again, I could also see a setting where only the undead fought wars by custom, as a way to reduce living fatalities.

[Raxxius]

The black onyx cost is very, very easy to circumvent for a crew of necromancers. There is all kinds of wacky optimization strategies presented on these boards, but circumventing the onyx is not one of them.

As for the 2 silver piece a day mercenaries, I think it's reasonable to consider this a retainer. These mercenaries aren't going to fight for 2 silver pieces. Of course, we can argue to death about the prices in D&D, but note that mercenary companies set their own prices and employers can take it or leave it.



Yes indeed. The undead are also great for maintaining or defending a siege.



Right. Given the terrible optics of using undead troops, I don't expect the practice to be very widespread. Desperation would probably be at the root of a decision to hire undead mercenaries or necromancers. Then again, I could also see a setting where only the undead fought wars by custom, as a way to reduce living fatalities.


Or fallen warriors being raised to continue fighting because they signed a contract that didn't include 'Until death do us part'...

Yeah I'm back in my evil campaign again...

[Mechalich]

A skeleton or zombie costs a 25 gp black onyx, even if it dies on the first day of battle. Regular mercenaries cost 2 sp / day, and you stop paying them when they die or you are finished with them. Unless you need the mercenaries for longer than 125 days, ordinary mercenaries are cheaper.


125 days is 4 months. That's not even a full campaign season. It's enough time to hire mercenaries, have them march to your keep, march them out to a single battlefield, fight a short battle, and march home. If you need to deliver a prolonged siege, you're going over that 125 days. Consider the Agincourt Campaign (nice and well documented). Henry V calls for a war on April 19, doesn't even land in France until Aug 13, spends over a month besieging Harfleur, spends another month marching through France, fights at Agincourt on Oct 25, returns to England on Nov 16, and concluded a triumph in London on Nov 23, which would have included many of his surviving soldiers. So even for this single season campaign you're looking at ~180 days for the soldiers involved, assuming they mustered at some point in May.

As such, undead troops realistically pay for themselves versus mercenaries in a single campaign season, and of course, D&D style undead are good forever

[PhoenixPhyre]

As such, undead troops realistically pay for themselves versus mercenaries in a single campaign season, and of course, D&D style undead are good forever

If all you're getting is 1 HD creatures. Because that's 125 days per HD. Whereas the cost to hire a 2HD Warrior isn't double that of a 1 HD Warrior. At least by default. And a skeleton is way less capable than a 1 HD warrior; zombies even less so. So you need more HD worth of skeletons relative to living bodies. Skeletons also don't heal naturally, so attrition is even worse.

Plus, since each necromancer has a limit on their control (plus needing to be with their troops to make them effective at all in a fluid campaign), for every X HD of undead you need a (very very very expensive and fairly rare) high-level necromancer. Whereas you can hire a sergeant (maybe 5 HD?) much more cheaply. And replace them much more effectively--if the necromancer dies, all his undead are now uncontrolled and a danger to everyone else. Whereas you can promote a veteran to sergeant fairly effectively.

[RandomPeasant]

I do think it's somewhat likely that the logistics involved in raising necromantic armies would mean that it mostly is the purview of nations rather than individual mercenary companies. If you have a nation of necromancers you can do things like having your high-level necromancers craft scary-ass mindless undead then handing them off to low-level casters with command undead to massively improve your per-caster impact. Mercenaries are probably better off relying on summons and binding (a mercenary company doing this appears in one of the Eberron books, IIRC).


1. Mindless undead create a single point of failure for the army. Take out the necromancer and the minions become uncontrolled and might even end up fighting your other forces.

That depends heavily on how you're getting undead. Standard animate dead doesn't particularly encourage you to go all-in on a single necromancer, because it scales directly with caster level. It certainly makes assassinating commanders more valuable, because their troops break automatically, but it's not one-and-done.


4. Lack of synergies. In Pathfinder though not in 3.5, living troops have incredible synergy with good priests due to channel energy providing cheap and effective mass healing. Undead can have that but only from negative channeling priests. So unless your clerics channel negative energy, you'll get a lot more mileage out of living troops.

Except they also have synergy with cloudkill and stinking cloud and circle of death and so on. If you want to do danger close magical artillery support with your army, undead are way better for that than living troops. It's not even close. You can have your white dragon heavies throw down two AoEs that your skeleton troops ignore.


6. Suitability for a variety of situations. Mercenaries in D&D settings frequently do a lot of things other than just fighting. In Baldur's Gate, the Flaming First act as town watch when they're not at war. Mercenaries might also act as a training cadre or provide crowd control or guards at important events and locations. A necromancer and his minions might (or might not--see above) be good or cost effective at fighting but won't be very effective at most of the other things that mercenaries are used for. So, even if you wanted undead mercenaries when you were going to war, you probably wouldn't want them until you were at war.

That's true, but there are also things skeletons are good at that regular mercenaries are bad at. Can't really expect your mercenaries to tirelessly plow fields or turn mills or whatever.


I think we ought to drop the Necromancer + Mindless Undead mindset, and explore outside that box a little. The likes of Wights, Vampires, Ghouls, Shadows, can create exponentially more of themselves for free. That's on top of not being mindless; they have minds and ambitions of their own. Such a group could in theory decide to form a military company that caters to its own strengths: no need for rest, immune to a slew of status effects, etc. Then they can get paid both in gold, a base of operation on their current patron's lands, and fresh victims or new inductees from the enemy forces.

For a middle ground that's less apocalyptic, a Spell-Stitched Ghoul can get animate dead as a SLA, letting them serve as squad-level leaders, which eliminates a lot of the lynchpin issues.


The economics of the situation is a little more complex than some people think. Don't confuse setup costs with upkeep.

A skeleton or zombie costs a 25 gp black onyx, even if it dies on the first day of battle. Regular mercenaries cost 2 sp / day, and you stop paying them when they die or you are finished with them. Unless you need the mercenaries for longer than 125 days, ordinary mercenaries are cheaper.

It costs that if you make it with castings of animate dead from spell slots. There are a ton of ways around that, like the Spell-Stitched Ghouls I just mentioned. Or Fell Animate on blasting spells.

[Morphic tide]

So, for a list of functional issues in the way of such:

1. Per-unit price tag of Undead, as 25 GP/HD makes their startup cost rather exorbitant.
2. You need either a lot of or very high level Necromancers to control a serious force of Undead.
3. Undead troops tend to be very limited in capabilities due to being Mindless, having much stricter needs.
4. Prevailing public opinion of Undead makes it extremely problematic to keep going in a lot of ways.
5. Spawn-creating Undead are unsustainable WMDs in the very worst way, well justifying the public opinion.

My own thought for this would be to have an Undead Cleric of Afflux with 19 Wisdom as the field commander and an at least 12th level Wizard as the one making and Spellstitching high-end Undead. That 12th-level breakpoint is to make Spectral Riders, who have Desecrate and Magic Circle against Good as constant Auras, with 15 Wisdom letting them host 4th-level spells like the Wis/Sorc version of Animate Dead, as well as Command Undead and Undead Lieutenant. Each Spellstitched Spectral Rider thus has 18 HD of Undead if I understand it correctly, and the Cleric can host SLA Revive Undead to finish making a mockery of replacement costs and can pile up bodies for a 6*CL HD batch via Deathless Domain stacking with Desecrate.

At this scale, operational costs are low, but there's enormous money sinks available for expansion. The Wizard's direct pool is 36 with Undead Lieutenant, which covers 7 un-advanced Spectral Riders, which, once fully Spellstitched, becomes 126 HD of secondary control. That Cleric at the same CL 12 would be able to make 72 HD in one go, better saved for more "basic" and often-replaced troops, particularly SLAs in the middle of battles. It'd be more "Regiment of Renown" than a full-scale mercenary company at just the two core members, but very much worth rather sizable prices due to the various advantages of Undead and the fact they're a ridiculous amount of magical fire-support.

[Gnaeus]

If all you're getting is 1 HD creatures. Because that's 125 days per HD. Whereas the cost to hire a 2HD Warrior isn't double that of a 1 HD Warrior. At least by default. And a skeleton is way less capable than a 1 HD warrior; zombies even less so. So you need more HD worth of skeletons relative to living bodies. Skeletons also don't heal naturally, so attrition is even worse..

First, I dispute your proposal that a 1hd skel is less capable than a 1 hd warrior. The skeleton will never break in battle. Never get sick. Is virtually immune to enemy archers and crossbowmen. By many standards, the skeleton well exceeds the human.

But again, the Necro raising 1 HD humans is a chump. A fire giant skeleton is way better than 15 warriors.

[Raxxius]

First, I dispute your proposal that a 1hd skel is less capable than a 1 hd warrior. The skeleton will never break in battle. Never get sick. Is virtually immune to enemy archers and crossbowmen. By many standards, the skeleton well exceeds the human.

But again, the Necro raising 1 HD humans is a chump. A fire giant skeleton is way better than 15 warriors.

From a raw statpoint in pathfinder skeletons get +2 natural AC and +2 dex giving a +3 AC boost, DR 5/Bludgeoning and immunity to fear.

Nearly all stated warriors are 2HD but don't carry bludeoning weapons, they'll have a hard time dealing with skeletons in melee, and it's worse if they're facing skeleton archers as even if they do hit, they need a high roll to do any damage. Vs a 2HD skeleton it doesn't get better.

in 3.5 skeletons are functionally similar to pathfinder, with a couple more hp due to d12s over d8s +Cha. The warrior is slightly worse so the odds only tilt in the skeletons favour.


That's pure combat stats, but immunity to fear is massive because warriors often have negative will saves, so moral and routing are concerns as well.

[Gnaeus]

2/3 of civil war deaths were from disease rather than combat. I've seen reports of campaigns with 10% survival rate of which 1% were combat losses. Unless you assume that there are enough cleric 5s in a typical army to stop disease from spreading, that one factor cannot be understated. Sieges were deadly and the chance of being killed by the enemy wasn't why.

[Seward]

Agree that specialized units of undead might be attached to artillery units for close support with stuff they're immune to.

Although honestly, armies tossing out cloudkill can usually manage a shock troop of mid-level dudes with slow poison. I assume that kind of special forces job is the sort you hire adventuring teams (mercenary or otherwise) for under normal circumstances. If you can get their ideology right or the enemy is well equipped enough to be worth it for an adventurer to attempt, they'll often work for free. (I've been a part of that adventuring company working for free in many battle interactives or adventures adjacent to a conventional battle)



Nearly all stated warriors are 2HD but don't carry bludeoning weapons,

Clubs are free, and have a craft DC of at most 12 and can be made in 1 day (time to craft is based on gp cost, which is zero so theoretically instantly but minimum time seems to be 1 day), and craft isn't a trained only skill, so even 8 int dumb thugs can make a club with 40% success rate in 1 day. Clubs require raw materials, but if you have wood or bone or even stone available, that isn't a problem. The skeletons themselves can supply the raw materials if you manage to kill a few.

Any army facing skeletons will have blunt weapons basically immediately, at no extra cost. Hell, they'll also have blunt throwing weapons (clubs are also ranged weapons), so they'll be about as effective as spearmen+throwing axes in that role.


2/3 of civil war deaths were from disease rather than combat. I've seen reports of campaigns with 10% survival rate of which 1% were combat losses.

In a world where first level wizards have prestidigitation, and first level clerics have create water and purify food and drink, these numbers would go down a lot, especially in Pathfinder where you don't run out of cantrips.

You don't manage disease with Cure Disease. You manage it with sanitation etc which is far easier to do with magic than it is in the real world. And this is also a world where you can commune with the God of Healing to ask what to do to keep your army from dying of disease that doesn't require a lot of magic. Save the mid level paladins and clerics for cases where it got away from you, or where a magically inflicted disease outbreak occurs.

I always assumed a D&D style army would have far less attrition from disease and logistics than pre-industrial counterparts in our world. It's just easier to manage and the causes are easier to find out.

[PhoenixPhyre]

First, I dispute your proposal that a 1hd skel is less capable than a 1 hd warrior. The skeleton will never break in battle. Never get sick. Is virtually immune to enemy archers and crossbowmen. By many standards, the skeleton well exceeds the human.

But again, the Necro raising 1 HD humans is a chump. A fire giant skeleton is way better than 15 warriors.

A 1HD warrior can act independently. A 1HD skeleton or even a fire giant skeleton can't. The 1HD warrior is infinitely more capable.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy, and skeletons need micromanagement.

[redking]

A 1HD warrior can act independently. A 1HD skeleton or even a fire giant skeleton can't. The 1HD warrior is infinitely more capable.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy, and skeletons need micromanagement.

Not really. Even if you mismanage a giant fire skeleton, it won't die, unlike a human.

[awa]

but now your really doubling down on not actually being a mercenary company. A necromancer with 30 skeletons is just a hired necromancer but it at least looks like a mercenary company. A necromancer with one giant skeleton doesn't even do that.

edit

Not really. Even if you mismanage a giant fire skeleton, it won't die, unlike a human.
It might If you walk it off a cliff due to a bad order or worse if it accidentally starts hacking up its allies. I mean fog of war is bad enough for people who can actually think how is the mindless dead thing supposed to know who its supposed to kill and more importantly not kill.

edit 2
I had a dog who came very close to jumping off a cliff chasing a bird I could very easily see an entire army of skeletons doing the same one right after another. Or even pushing each other off one after another as each stops right at the ledge.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not really. Even if you mismanage a giant fire skeleton, it won't die, unlike a human.

But it won't be effective and can often be counter-productive. There's also a major concentration of risk--if the controlling necromancer dies (ie the enemy is smart and focus fires), all his undead go out of control and start attacking everyone, "friend" or "foe". Unlike a human, where losing a general is a much smaller effect (mostly to morale and coordination at the high level). You also need more necromancers per body compared to generals.

[Dimers]

As for the 2 silver piece a day mercenaries, I think it's reasonable to consider this a retainer. These mercenaries aren't going to fight for 2 silver pieces. Of course, we can argue to death about the prices in D&D, but note that mercenary companies set their own prices and employers can take it or leave it.

Which also goes for the necromancers, of course. If a necromancer expects to be more valuable than a regular mercenary company, she may very well decide to be more expensive than one.

[zlefin]

2/3 of civil war deaths were from disease rather than combat. I've seen reports of campaigns with 10% survival rate of which 1% were combat losses. Unless you assume that there are enough cleric 5s in a typical army to stop disease from spreading, that one factor cannot be understated. Sieges were deadly and the chance of being killed by the enemy wasn't why.

however the game of DnD, like many games in general, greatly reduces disease deaths in armies compared to the historical numbers. My understanding of the typical DnD milieus is that this is just another way they depart from actual ancient warfare.

Regardless of the justification or lack thereof for such; the rules as is favor the notion that disease attrition on armies isn't that bad unless a DM chooses to make it happen specifically. At least from the source I've read; do you have differing sources?

[Particle_Man]

I could see some other mercenary uses for undead than just fighting. A ghost spy network would be rather effective, for example.

[Raxxius]

But it won't be effective and can often be counter-productive. There's also a major concentration of risk--if the controlling necromancer dies (ie the enemy is smart and focus fires), all his undead go out of control and start attacking everyone, "friend" or "foe". Unlike a human, where losing a general is a much smaller effect (mostly to morale and coordination at the high level). You also need more necromancers per body compared to generals.

There's absolutely nothing to suggest skeletons attack other undead, if their last instruction was 'slay the living' they'll fight to the last functioning skeleton. Losing a general in a human army is a massive blow, almost certainly a rout. Think about, you suddenly stop recieving orders, the guy who's supposed to be paying you is dead, you think the most logical option is to calmy continue to fight to the last man? These aren't heros, they're the guys who's bodies the heros step over to do the heroing.


We really to nail down the system here, because 3.5 and Pathfinder vary quite differently in mass combat. If I remember rightly, in 3.5 it's somewhere around 50% losses for a route check comes in, and pathfinder doesn't really do it similar to a one on one, and undead can fail morale checks and rout.

And tbf 2nd ed did it best. Birthright, Bestright.

[Gnaeus]

In a world where first level wizards have prestidigitation, and first level clerics have create water and purify food and drink, these numbers would go down a lot, especially in Pathfinder where you don't run out of cantrips.

You don't manage disease with Cure Disease. You manage it with sanitation etc which is far easier to do with magic than it is in the real world. And this is also a world where you can commune with the God of Healing to ask what to do to keep your army from dying of disease that doesn't require a lot of magic. Save the mid level paladins and clerics for cases where it got away from you, or where a magically inflicted disease outbreak occurs.

I always assumed a D&D style army would have far less attrition from disease and logistics than pre-industrial counterparts in our world. It's just easier to manage and the causes are easier to find out.

If a PC tried to cheat like that I'd demand about a DC 40 knowledge or heal check to independently develop germ theory. In a world that actually has evil gods who spread disease who is going to be examining the water, and if the rich people have access to clerics there would be a lot fewer people worrying about the problem. They might have easier logistics in tippyverse with its ring gates, or in a theocracy with a disproportionate number of militarized clerics. But in general I'd expect it to be just as bad if not worse.



But it won't be effective and can often be counter-productive. There's also a major concentration of risk--if the controlling necromancer dies (ie the enemy is smart and focus fires), all his undead go out of control and start attacking everyone, "friend" or "foe". Unlike a human, where losing a general is a much smaller effect (mostly to morale and coordination at the high level). You also need more necromancers per body compared to generals.

In a faux medieval setting I would expect medieval societal rules to exist, because obviously most D&D is in a strongly feudal setting. In a feudal army, virtually everyone is there because of a personal obligation to their Lord. If the Lord dies, you leave. If the Lord tells you to attack your allies or run away, you do it. There is no loyalty to kingdomland, only to the Lord of villageton. So I would expect human control issues to be quite a bit worse than undead ones, both because the undead are likely to keep saying the living if they become uncontrolled, and because any Necro tough enough to be leading an army pretty certainly has better personal defenses than do non spellcasting counterparts.

As has been thoroughly discussed in other threads, mechanically, a 3.PF battle is really only about the rock paper scissors game between the most powerful leaders involved anyway. That's PCs and named NPCs and top flunkies. The real measure of enemy effectiveness is how capable is the thing of hurting the enemy general or casters. And a few high HD minions are just way way better at that than are HD equivalent of 1HD mooks.



but now your really doubling down on not actually being a mercenary company. A necromancer with 30 skeletons is just a hired necromancer but it at least looks like a mercenary company. A necromancer with one giant skeleton doesn't even do that.
.

It doesn't look like a human mercenary company. But in a world where monstrous humanoids can be mercenaries themselves there's no reason why it doesn't look like the band of giants the orc warlord bribed into joining his army. Why would anyone have 1 giant skeleton when they can have half a dozen or more, and necros can command a lot of undead. Especially when you are discussing a company which could have half a dozen or more "officers" (necromancers or sentient undead". Honestly, even human mercenary companies often didn't look like mercenary companies. The guildsmen who had the technical knowledge to build and operate siege engines were often mercenary companies, well known for working for the winner or highest bidder. A band of necros is just a different kind of specialized company.


.
Regardless of the justification or lack thereof for such; the rules as is favor the notion that disease attrition on armies isn't that bad unless a DM chooses to make it happen specifically. At least from the source I've read; do you have differing sources?

I'm not really aware of any rules for running a mercenary company at all. The PF downtime rules are the closest I can think of, but they don't really discuss a group of mercenaries on campaign very closely. Like anything else, I would expect it to be as realistic or cinematic as the DM wants it to be. A realistic DM is likely to have disease be a major issue for any army not specifically countering it, and a cinematic one can use it as a plot device, unless of course your troops are immune. Both greyhawk and golarion have historical plagues, many of which are supernatural and quite nasty, and of course plague gods and outsiders, so it's pretty clearly an in setting threat.

[redking]

Both greyhawk and golarion have historical plagues, many of which are supernatural and quite nasty, and of course plague gods and outsiders, so it's pretty clearly an in setting threat.

Rats are like 1/4 HD? That's a lot of filthy rats that can be animated and sent quietly into the enemy camp. How about zombie rats going into the food stores to taint them? Or zombie rats throwing themselves into the well or other water source. That can't be good.

[Endarire]

Our back and forth discussion on this topic shows how situational Undead armies are in terms of effectiveness compared to living ones.

[Particle_Man]

Also it is D&D. There are other options that are not as vulnerable to clerics (or holy water).

Warforged, for example, have most of the immunities of undead, are smarter than skeletons, and can be hired like a human can.

[RandomPeasant]

A 1HD warrior can act independently. A 1HD skeleton or even a fire giant skeleton can't. The 1HD warrior is infinitely more capable.

You are radically overstating the impact of thinking independently relative to being a giant. I don't need something that can walk through enemy lines without caring that they're there to be smart, I just need to point it at the enemy.


There's also a major concentration of risk--if the controlling necromancer dies (ie the enemy is smart and focus fires), all his undead go out of control and start attacking everyone, "friend" or "foe".

Or there's a major reduction of risk, because you don't need to worry about your army breaking because of casualties sustained in melee. Plus, if the other side can assassinate your high-level spellcaster, it's not likely to matter much whether your 1HD troops break or not.


You also need more necromancers per body compared to generals.

You understand that this is a direct contradiction with your previous point, right? Either you are concentrating risk by having a single high-value target, or you are diffusing risk by having a broader command structure for the same number of troops.


however the game of DnD, like many games in general, greatly reduces disease deaths in armies compared to the historical numbers. My understanding of the typical DnD milieus is that this is just another way they depart from actual ancient warfare.

Disease in warfare is weird in D&D. By default, you don't get disease from wounds unless you got attacked by something that explicitly spreads disease, so it's not really clear how things would work (unless there are rules I'm forgetting somewhere like Heroes of Battle).


Our back and forth discussion on this topic shows how situational Undead armies are in terms of effectiveness compared to living ones.

You could have the exact same type of back and forth about the merits of living armies. Many people in this thread are just repeating the same "but what if you kill the necromancer" argument as if that completely negates any advantages undead have.


Warforged, for example, have most of the immunities of undead, are smarter than skeletons, and can be hired like a human can.

Warforged are way more expensive than skeletons, if they can be created en masse at all. A company of Warforged soldiers could probably get good money for mercenary work, but they're a lot more like regular soldiers than they are hordes of mindless undead.

[rel]

This is a brilliant idea!

If the PC's ask for mercs instead of a bunch of interchangeable and forgettable top brass plus some mooks the PC's obviously care nothing about but have to pretend they value you have a single memorable necromancer and a bunch of explicitly expendable underlings.

Instead of asking for GP The necromancer can believably demand more interesting payment; clearing a nearby onyx mine, securing the magic item that blocks turn undead from the nearby dungeon. Payment that naturally leads to questing.

Logistics can be skipped if needed without damaging verisimilitude because undead.

And if the enemy has an undead company on retainer, the necromancer in charge is a built in virtually inaccessible critical weak point for the PC's to exploit.

[redking]

Our back and forth discussion on this topic shows how situational Undead armies are in terms of effectiveness compared to living ones.

There is no reason to assume that undead mercenaries would be the only troops in a combined armed force. The undead would have to be segregated from the living soldiers for obvious reasons, but there is no reason that a sovereign hiring necromancer mercs would not also have living soldiers. The undead can be used when it is optimum to do so, and the living used likewise.



Warforged are way more expensive than skeletons, if they can be created en masse at all. A company of Warforged soldiers could probably get good money for mercenary work, but they're a lot more like regular soldiers than they are hordes of mindless undead.

Right. And what people are missing here is that it is hard to get mercenaries to fight. People assume that because mercenary services are priced at 2 silver pieces a day in a rulebook that the mercenaries are willing to throw away their lives for 2 Sp. They aren't. 2 Sp a day is what you pay them just to make an appearance. Simply having mercenaries on the payroll might be enough to deter a potential enemy attack. If you want them to go and fight in a pitched battle, be prepared to pay more, much more. And as you point out, Warforged mercenaries will fetch a premium for their services. Maybe they'll show up for 2 Sp a day, but they won't fight for that.

Addendum:
There are outsiders that have animate dead as an SLA. How about the 5 HD Artaagliths? Can be summoned with summon monster VI, netting a free animate dead. And what is this I see? Casts spells as a 5th level cleric. Rebuke undead as a 5th level cleric. Alternatively, use lesser planar binding to force some of these bad boys into service. They can be forced into general services, forcing them to stick around for 1 day per caster level - at least 10 days for a 10th level wizard.


Spell-Like Abilities: 1/day—animate dead, cause fear, death knell, desecrate, stinking cloud. These abilities are as the spells cast by a 5th-level cleric.
Spells: Artaagliths cast spells as 5th-level clerics and have access to the Evil and Undeath domains.
Turn Undead (Su): Artaagliths turn undead as 5th-level clerics.

I had a casual look at the mainstream outsiders, and they don't seem to have animate dead as an SLA. Artaagliths are thus very cool and a great addition to the conscripted necromantic mercenary army.

Undead Martyr, an undead creature from Ghostwalk, is 4HD and has this ability.


Profane Touch (Su): An undead martyr’s touch inflicts 1 point of negative energy damage, similar to an inflict minor wounds spell. Because it is negative energy damage, the profane touch heals undead creatures of 1 point of damage per use. If an undead martyr’s profane touch deals damage to a living creature, the undead martyr heals a like amount of damage.

Interestingly, the fluff says that healing the undead is exactly what they do, so its not an exploit. Undead Martyrs make great "clerics", tending to the unhealth of your undead army.

[Tzardok]

By default, you don't get disease from wounds unless you got attacked by something that explicitly spreads disease, so it's not really clear how things would work (unless there are rules I'm forgetting somewhere like Heroes of Battle).


The DMG explicitely mentions that there are diseases that you can get from tainted food or by touching diseased things. It's DM decision where and when, for example, filth in a wound causes filth fever.

[Gnaeus]

Our back and forth discussion on this topic shows how situational Undead armies are in terms of effectiveness compared to living ones.

Our back and forth discussion on this topic shows how situational living armies are in terms of effectiveness compared to undead ones

[redking]

It turns out the a Binder that binds Zceryll makes a decent necromancer by proxy (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=9094.0).


Artaaglith
And the best, I must confess, I have saved for the last… Well. ‘Best’ is arguable, but the artaaglith is a very important summon for the binder, because: animate dead. Binders get Tenebrous, which allows them to rebuke undead, but they don’t get any way to create their own undead…until now. These guys have animate dead as a 1/day spell-like ability cast at CL5, which is thankfully instantaneous, so even the summoning subschool’s limitation doesn’t hinder it. But that’s not all, they can also cast desecrate once per day. Even better, they’re specifically called out as being devoted to Orcus, so an altar or shrine to Orcus will trigger the doubled bonus hit points per hit die to undead created in the area. Now the binder can summon an artaaglith, have it desecrate the area, animate up to 20HD of undead, then use rebuke undead on them with Tenebrous and gain permanent control over them. Remember, there’s no duration on commanding undead – once they’re controlled, the binder has them permanently, unless they’re successfully commanded by someone else, so the binder doesn’t need to keep binding Tenebrous after establishing control of her undead minions. In addition to being able to create undead for the binder, the artaaglith also has full casting as a 5th level cleric with the Evil and Undeath domains. This is harder to work with, because how a summoned artaaglith’s spell list will be determined is entirely out of the player’s hands. The DM will very likely determine a spell list, and since there’s no way to get the artaaglith to stay around for 1 hour or more, there’s no way to force it to memorize the spells the binder wants it to cast. At best, it might come with some useful spells memorized, depending on the whims of the DM.

A necromancer troupe leading a force of undead mercenaries will want one of these Binders on staff. Better yet, there is great fluff. Have this Binder be a Tenebrous Apostate also. Great flavour and the Binder/Cleric/Tenebrous Apostate can act as the mercenary company chaplain.

It gets better. The Movanic Deva.

[QUOTE=Minmax forum post]Deva, Movanic
Physical combat is, again, not a strength of this summoned creature – 6 hit dice and a +11 on its highest melee attack ensure it won’t be seeing front line combat. What it does have, however, is an impressively long spell list: aid, consecrate, continual light, create food and water, death ward, detect evil, discern lies, polymorph self, prayer, and protection from arrows are all at-will. Three times per day it can use atonement, bless weapon, cure serious wounds, daylight, divination, hallow, holy smite, neutralize poison, remove curse, remove disease, and remove fear. Finally, it can use commune and raise dead once per day.
Holy cow that’s a lot of stuff it can do. Now, let’s go over a few caveats. Polymorph self no longer exists, but this can be assumed to become a self-only version of polymorph. Note that due to summon subschool limitations, atonement won’t work for the benefit of a creature whose guilt was due to deliberate acts. On the upside, divination means a 79% chance of a correct answer, but it gets better for the binder, because divination yields the same answer when cast by the same caster…but the binder can summon an unlimited number of different casters and have them each perform a divination independently, so even if the first one fails, additional ones can eventually ferret out even the most difficult of information. Note that hallow is instantaneous, which means the movanic deva can cast it for free – quite a deal, considering it normally costs at least 1,000 gp, or 2,000+ if a spell is going to be attached to it. Unfortunately, commune runs into the summon subschool’s xp cost limitation, where summoned creatures refuse to cast spells that would have an xp cost. In-character, this limitation makes absolutely no sense, since the spell-like ability does not cost xp, but there you have it. However, do take note that it specifies they refuse to cast such spell-like abilities, not that they are incapable of doing so. This means that if you have a way to obtain absolute control over your summoned creature, such as a dominate monster spell, you can force them to cast the xp-cost spell anyway.
And then there’s raise dead. As a spell-like ability, it uses no components, thus allowing the binder to skip the normal 5,000 gp cost of raise dead. While it does result in level loss, the ability to actually raise dead nearly at will is tremendously useful for the binder. Since a binder can summon a deva to raise dead for free every five rounds, a binder can revive a large number of people in a relatively short time, as long as everyone is willing to accept the level loss. While this is suboptimal for the binder’s adventuring companions, it may still be useful when no better choice is available. Just as importantly, it means the binder can help townsfolk and others who would never be in a position to be able to be raised at all.
Then we get to other situationally useful spells. Consecrate can be cast either to prepare an area for a battle with the undead, or in combat, to penalize all undead in the area. Prayer is a solid round/level combination buff/debuff to have the deva cast in combat. Holy smite is a good use, if we already have a movanic deva out during a combat, and cure serious wounds lets them heal others during the fight.
Overall, the movanic deva is a great summon, with incredible utility outside of combat with their divination spell, and even a few buffs that might be useful in combat, although there may be better things to summon than this creature, since they have limited direct usefulness against the enemy at this level, but in all other areas, they’re a top tier summon for this level.

Now, perhaps you are thinking "I don't know about celestial creatures collaborating with undead". These aren't ordinary Movanic Devas, they have the Pseudonatural Creature template. They are literally aliens. The Movanic Devas are great because they can mitigate one of the worst disasters that can happen to necromancer commanders - death in battle or by assassination. The Movanic Deva has Raise Dead as an SLA. Nothing like having an angelic being raise some gross necromancer from the dead. Although the pseudonatural Movanic Deva could also look like this.


Alternate Form (Su): As a standard action, a pseudonatural creature can take the form of a grotesque, tentacled mass (or another appropriately gruesome form, as determined by the DM). Despite the alien appearance, its abilities remain unchanged. Other creatures receive a -1 morale penalty on their attack rolls against a pseudonatural creature when it is in this alternate form.

From all the back and forth we have been having here, I think it is more likely that a team of necromancer mercenaries would be engaged in terrorism and behind enemy lines special ops. They appear somewhere, massacre a village and cause the villagers to be reanimated as some form of virulent undead, which forces the enemy to deploy their armies to put them down.

[Dimers]

And what people are missing here is that it is hard to get mercenaries to fight. People assume that because mercenary services are priced at 2 silver pieces a day in a rulebook that the mercenaries are willing to throw away their lives for 2 Sp. They aren't. 2 Sp a day is what you pay them just to make an appearance. Simply having mercenaries on the payroll might be enough to deter a potential enemy attack. If you want them to go and fight in a pitched battle, be prepared to pay more, much more. And as you point out, Warforged mercenaries will fetch a premium for their services. Maybe they'll show up for 2 Sp a day, but they won't fight for that.

I'd like to iterate that if a necromancer is more valuable for a given situation, she's likely to be more expensive, simply because she CAN. It's not like the mercenary market is regulated, after all. Arguing about which troop type is cheaper misses the point -- whatever is more effective is going to be priced higher. I know, I know, it's not a RAW argument, but it's how a real DM is likely to handle things.

[redking]

I'd like to iterate that if a necromancer is more valuable for a given situation, she's likely to be more expensive, simply because she CAN. It's not like the mercenary market is regulated, after all. Arguing about which troop type is cheaper misses the point -- whatever is more effective is going to be priced higher. I know, I know, it's not a RAW argument, but it's how a real DM is likely to handle things.

Absolutely. There are players that will insist that they have Vecna's eyelash in their spell component pouch, but that lasts about 5 seconds at a table and causes universal mockery. What makes necromancer led mercenary companies different to regular mercenary companies is that its only the necromancer captains that are getting paid. The undead troops get nothing. This makes this business model extremely profitable.

[gijoemike]

The economics of the situation is a little more complex than some people think. Don't confuse setup costs with upkeep.

A skeleton or zombie costs a 25 gp black onyx, even if it dies on the first day of battle. Regular mercenaries cost 2 sp / day, and you stop paying them when they die or you are finished with them. Unless you need the mercenaries for longer than 125 days, ordinary mercenaries are cheaper.

It is also a cash-flow issue. A 100-undead unit requires 2500 gp the first day, before you begin. A 100-unit regular mercenary unit costs 20 gp the first day, 20 gp the second day, etc. It takes 125 days before you had to pay as much as you did for the undead -- which means you had to have all that onyx before you started. With regular mercenaries, you pay small amounts at first, win your war, loot the captured cities, ransom the prisoners, and pay them out of that.

You also need to pay for a mid-level or higher necromancer. That costs a lot more than a mercenary captain.

Don't forget that if you aren't the necromancer, you need to pay for a 4th level spell -- minimum of 280 gp for 14 undead from a 7th level necromancer, or 20 gp additional per skeleton or zombie. So they really cost 45 gp each. [Yes, of course you can just hire the necromancer by the month. I promise you that will cost at least as much as paying for the spell.]

Mercenary companies keep replacing members -- at 2 sp /day. You are replacing yours with a one-time setup cost of 25 (or 45+) gp each. If your mercenaries are busy fighting, then there will be casualties, and your replacement costs will be too high. And if they aren't busy fighting, then why are you hiring mercenaries in the first place?

In short, if you want mercenaries for a short-term project, regular ones will be cheaper. Only if you keep them a long time, and they don't die in battle, will undead be cheaper.

[Also, if nobles start hiring necromancers to create zombie armies, there could soon be a shortage of black onyx. Unless you own a black onyx mine, you will not be able to keep them going.]


I am of the same viewpoint. The upfront costs are just terrible. But I am going to redo the example using the profession skill.

A professional soilder/merc with +0 wisdom and just 2 skill points taking an average of 10 results in 12, which is 6 gold per week. This is far more than the suggested 2 sp a day. So it takes slightly over 4 weeks of paying that merc to get to 25gp for the onyx. A full months pay for a 1 HD mindless undead. Mindless Undead suffer heavy casualties in open battle as they when by sheer number. I think we can all agree that 1 professional solider > 1 mindless skeleton.

The poor living mercs
10 mercs ( profession ranks 2) + sergeant ( profession ranks 6) + provisions = 272 gp a month salary + 100 ( assuming) gp provisions.
This gets us ~372gp a month for thinking, free willed, professionally trained mercs.

Quantity over quality
For a single battle in which we expect 1/2 of the undead to get beaten down
20 skeletons
500 gp in onyx + 250 gp to replenish after the single battle. That is 750 gp. That is more than 2x as expensive and this could have been a single battle.
That is an insane upfront cost. So I think we can all agree that large imposing armies of mindless undead will not work. It is fully cost prohibitive.

Quality over Quantity
Instead lets go for a mush smaller arming of thinking undead. As they are tough undead warriors who can now think in some way we can assume only 2 die each battle.
6 undead of 4 HD each
600 gp in onyx + 200 gp to replenish. That totals 800gp. That is even more expensive but the replenish costs are less.
Once again the startup costs are prohibitive.

I get around the onyx cost with eternal wands
How many wands do you have? Those things are limited in # of uses per day. If you loose 1/4 of your army every battle and have only a few wands it could take WEEKS to get back to full strength for something called an army. And that happens every single battle? At least it is cheap but not timely at all. What happens if you get attacked 2 days apart during a war?

I use optimization tricks to get around the 4 HD undead / caster level cap
As a single caster how many times can you cast that spell per day to replenish your troops after a single battle? Also, how much does that caster cost the king to be on retainer? We haven't even discussed those costs.

I use replicating undead like vampires with custom spells and items to protect them from the sun and dozens of tricks to avoid onyx costs, and I can use my spell like chain animate ability at will. I am the lich king uber lord!
YOU as the necromancer don't control those 2nd, 3rd, 4th, generation shadows, ghouls, wraiths, vampires. Really quick you are surrounded by a bunch of undead you don't control and also lack the capacity to control. The king is UNHAPPY.



And even have the dozens of optimization tricks. The cost of using those spells and abilities for the non spellcaster that hired you as a merc company is still over 200 gp per use based on spell casting service rules and in all the above examples the cost is at least 2 times more expensive than just hiring living breathing mortals to do the same job.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And even have the dozens of optimization tricks. The cost of using those spells and abilities for the non spellcaster that hired you as a merc company is still over 200 gp per use based on spell casting service rules and in all the above examples the cost is at least 2 times more expensive than just hiring living breathing mortals to do the same job.

And let's say you're a 20th level necromancer. That's 80 HD (base) of skeletons. Or 20 4-HD undead. PER 20th-level caster. Who, himself, is going to cost bucket-tons and can be much more effective doing something other than baby-sitting a bunch of (fairly useless, if you've got 20th level people hanging around) creatures who need micromanagement to do anything useful other than "attack those guys". So you can't even flood the zone--even with 80/caster (of 1 HD creatures) that have to be ordered around in a block (because you don't have time to do anything else and can't take individual initiative or adapt to changing circumstances).

More likely, if your necromancers are 5-6th level, they're creating 20-24 HD worth. But with power law scaling, you're still getting
a) less bodies for more money, all of which is up-front cost (as you showed)
b) less flexible bodies that require micromanagement from an expensive, vulnerable component (the necromancer[1])
c) that also piss off anyone who has a pretense of being good by merely existing. Including attracting those pesky things known as "heroes" like flies. Army of undead? Yeah, that's a crusading.

Note that 80 is a low end for a (modern) company, and with 80 undead under a single necromancer, you can't even split them into platoons or squads (because only the necromancer can really give them orders and they need constant order updates to adapt, not being able to do so themselves). A single 80-man platoon is way less effective than 4 20-man platoons, each with individual officers. "Big blob of bodies" just doesn't work effectively. Especially when fireball is available. And low-HD undead basically can't operate any other way, lest they invite defeat in detail.

And if you go for fewer, more powerful ones, you lose the ability to hold ground. Quantity has a quality all of its own--that group of 4 10-HD creatures can only affect things where it is. Sure, they can stomp anything they can catch flat, but they're leaving the entire countryside open to the enemy, who can basically just go around them. It's why planes and tanks fail at holding territory and you need infantry.

So an undead squad might work as a "special-forces" group (specialized in certain operations, like an engineer squad), it doesn't really work as a building block of an army. Even in 3e's screwed up (relative to Earth) environment.

[1] A necromancer who has to be within shouting distance of his troops and has to spend most of his attention micromanaging the troops is much more vulnerable than a normal caster, because they can't take a lot of the normal precautions without compromising their effectiveness at their core responsibility. It's like putting the general of the armies on the front line without movie-style plot armor.

[Malphegor]

I ran the numbers once on using Undead Leadership to have intelligent undead come by. Assuming all necropolitans and karnathis, you can get a lot of intelligent undead following you, they’re just mostly trash attrition followers, a level in Warrior at most. This isn’t a bad thing.

The problem is, apart from necropolitans and vampire lords the majority of undead are evil. Which isn’t NECESSARILY a bad thing for someone whose job is to kill and fight for money, but it does make it hard to manage their PR. My advice to any necromantic overlords? Don’t make it a passion project. Make it a DMG2 business. Have your legion of the damned be employees with wages to keep em happy (they have few needs but money gives them a reason to stick around for what needs they have, and dmg2 business rules waive away their costs as a mere facet of the profit checks), hire experts to manage their needs and public relations and marketing, and generally don’t be sloppy about things.

Most necromancers think their role is over once they’ve raised an undead and given it orders. You are a general, a mother, a business owner, a manager, and teacher. You have so much responsibility, you need to work hard to keep it crumbling, especially given that the majority of Good factions in the entire MULTIVERSE have people trained to hunt and destroy the specific kind of employees that you have specialised in.

Be smart. Keep your army of the undead happy. Don’t get high on evil. It’s just business.

[Jack_Simth]

One way around the control limit is living minions. Hand a UMD Bard/Rogue/Artificer/Warlock/whatever a Wand of Animate Dead (use a full wand, to get around the question of how you get Animate Dead as a 3rd level arcane spell for an eternal wand), and when the UMD user uses the Wand, the Bard or Rogue is the caster, and thus controls the resulting undead - using the wand's caster level.

You can then have sergeants and such, which helps a bit with the split forces problem.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One way around the control limit is living minions. Hand a UMD Bard/Rogue/Artificer/Warlock/whatever a Wand of Animate Dead (use a full wand, to get around the question of how you get Animate Dead as a 3rd level arcane spell for an eternal wand), and when the UMD user uses the Wand, the Bard or Rogue is the caster, and thus controls the resulting undead - using the wand's caster level.

You can then have sergeants and such, which helps a bit with the split forces problem.

At the cost (pun intended) of drastically exploding your costs, since a CL-6 wand of animate dead costs 13500 gp for 50 charges. Assuming (not being a 3e expert) that that gets you 1 HD per charge and you don't have to separately spend material components, that's 270 gp/HD (about 10x the normal costs).

Edit: and turns out you do have to provide the component cost, so that's 25 more gp per charge (assuming 1 charge per HD, which seems sane, because otherwise you'd end up being able to raise a 24 HD creature for 1 charge...).

[RandomPeasant]

The Movanic Devas are great because they can mitigate one of the worst disasters that can happen to necromancer commanders - death in battle or by assassination. The Movanic Deva has Raise Dead as an SLA. Nothing like having an angelic being raise some gross necromancer from the dead. Although the pseudonatural Movanic Deva could also look like this.

I would say that if your plan to avoid dying as a necromancer is to have summoned allies cast raise dead on you, you have fundamentally misunderstood how to go about being a necromancer. Just become a ghost or a lich.


I'd like to iterate that if a necromancer is more valuable for a given situation, she's likely to be more expensive, simply because she CAN. It's not like the mercenary market is regulated, after all. Arguing about which troop type is cheaper misses the point -- whatever is more effective is going to be priced higher. I know, I know, it's not a RAW argument, but it's how a real DM is likely to handle things.

Your basic analysis is valid, but it's likely to be more complicated than that. While quality would tend to increase the price necromancers can command for mercenary services, general distaste for necromancers might push in the other direction. And you could easily imagine heavily reduced rates if all someone wants is a bunch of undead to be a meat wall while the necromancer stays safely out of battle.


How many wands do you have? Those things are limited in # of uses per day. If you loose 1/4 of your army every battle and have only a few wands it could take WEEKS to get back to full strength for something called an army. And that happens every single battle? At least it is cheap but not timely at all. What happens if you get attacked 2 days apart during a war?

How many castings of animate dead do you have per day? If you're in fighting that is heavy enough to cost half your army, how on earth are you walking out of that with enough 4th level slots to match the eternal wand? And, of course, both this and the next point are gotten around entirely by my preferred approach of employing Spell-Stitched Ghouls.


a) less bodies for more money, all of which is up-front cost (as you showed)

I don't really understand the "up-front cost" argument. It's up-front cost to the necromancer, but if they are hiring out as a mercenary, presumably they have already paid that cost. It's true that they'll need to set a high enough rate to ameliorate their costs, but that doesn't mean you have to pony up the full value of black onyx to hire necromancers at all, as people seem to be suggesting.


b) less flexible bodies that require micromanagement from an expensive, vulnerable component (the necromancer[1])

I really value the living soldier's flexibility between "continue breathing" and "die", as compared to the skeleton's inability to do either of those things.


c) that also piss off anyone who has a pretense of being good by merely existing. Including attracting those pesky things known as "heroes" like flies. Army of undead? Yeah, that's a crusading.

That's reading in setting-specific assumptions. Maybe people consider having your young men kill each other to be a bit uncivilized when you could instead use the corpses of people who have lived long and happy lives as footsoldiers who risk no personal loss by fighting.


that group of 4 10-HD creatures can only affect things where it is.

Which is much less of a concern when it is objectively more mobile than the people it is pursuing. A quick check on google suggests that a roman army marched about five hours a day. Even if you assume that an army in full maneuver mode could double that without compromising its combat capabilities, undead troops with undead officers can march 24 hours a day. And they may well have a higher base land speed than the living. You can't outmaneuver something that has no logistics tail and doesn't sleep.


One way around the control limit is living minions. Hand a UMD Bard/Rogue/Artificer/Warlock/whatever a Wand of Animate Dead (use a full wand, to get around the question of how you get Animate Dead as a 3rd level arcane spell for an eternal wand), and when the UMD user uses the Wand, the Bard or Rogue is the caster, and thus controls the resulting undead - using the wand's caster level.

You can then have sergeants and such, which helps a bit with the split forces problem.

If you're going to do this, just do what I suggested and have spell-stitched ghouls. No component costs, and they can fight with your skeletons without compromising the undead immunity package (though they are vulnerable to cold).


At the cost (pun intended) of drastically exploding your costs, since a CL-6 wand of animate dead costs 13500 gp for 50 charges. Assuming (not being a 3e expert) that that gets you 1 HD per charge and you don't have to separately spend material components, that's 270 gp/HD (about 10x the normal costs).

You get hit dice based on the caster level of the wand. So probably 10 or 14, depending if it's a Cleric or Wizard wand.

[Seward]

You get hit dice based on the caster level of the wand. So probably 10 or 14, depending if it's a Cleric or Wizard wand.

The cost of the wand is also based on the hit dice you get though. So since you get 10hd for a L5 casting the wand cost is not the usual 11250 for a CL5 level 3 spell wand, it adds 500/charge or a total of 36250gp for a wand with 50 charges (you have to add the material component cost 50 times to the wand cost, just as with scrolls)

That's 725gp per charge, but you do get a 10hd undead for that charge, so you decide if it's worth it. I guess you could bring the cost down by lowering the hd/casting by simply not paying that material component, but even if you only get 1 hd/charge, it's still 275gp/charge so you are probably better off ponying up for the 725gp/charge version.

[redking]

There seems to much focus on the cost of casting Animate Dead, when various people have already identified ways to circumvent these costs. Ways that are not even exploits or controversial. I mentioned using the 5 HD Artaaglith (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25450996&postcount=63), using Summon Monster VI or Lesser Planar Binding to get free castings of Animate Dead, which can then be rebuked or controlled, or in the case of a bound Artaaglith, can lead the undead into battle directly.

If any of the necromancer captains are capable of casting Planar Binding or Greater Planar Binding, an even more interesting possibility open. They can ask one of the standard Artaagliths for the calling names of more advanced Artaaglith - and they advance by cleric character class. With Greater Planar Binding, you might even be able to call an Artaaglith with 13 levels of cleric, for a total of 18 effective cleric levels. Obviously this is a best case scenario. Even so, there should be plenty of Artaagliths of various cleric levels that could be called by Planar Binding or Greater Planar Binding.

Eternal wands: a cleric created divine eternal wand of animate dead is a 3rd level spell at 5th caster level.

Spellstiched undead is another option for free castings of Animate Dead.

Circumventing the upfront costs is not a problem for a specialized necromantic mercenary company with people with various skillsets on staff.

[Dimers]

Eternal wands: a cleric created divine eternal wand of animate dead is a 3rd level spell at 5th caster level.

If you want animate dead as an "arcane spell of 3rd level or lower", the only non-questionable way to get it is death master class. And Dragon Compendium certainly won't be allowed at all tables.

Personally, I'm also leery of planar binding as a go-to. It can take a long time to obtain service, there's no guarantee that the victim outsider will ever agree to service, there's at least a 5% chance of losing the victim every day you bargain regardless of SR (by you rolling a nat1 on the Charisma check), the victim "might later seek revenge", and "a clever recipient can subvert some instructions." That's a lot of tradeoffs for just saving money.

Finally, spellstitched undead lieutenants have their own significant up-front cost, unless you happen to find one stitched with animate dead wandering around in the wilderness and succeed in commanding it. I.e. if the gamemaster hands you the freebie on a silver platter.

Mind you, I'm just saying that it's not safe to assume free castings. I actually think that undead 'mercenaries' are a reasonable option in terms of cost-effectiveness even if you have to spend the onyx to do it.

[redking]

Personally, I'm also leery of planar binding as a go-to. It can take a long time to obtain service, there's no guarantee that the victim outsider will ever agree to service, there's at least a 5% chance of losing the victim every day you bargain regardless of SR (by you rolling a nat1 on the Charisma check), the victim "might later seek revenge", and "a clever recipient can subvert some instructions." That's a lot of tradeoffs for just saving money.


There are aspects to this. If you just need an Artaaglith to animate dead so one of your guys can rebuke/command them, then summon monster VI is an infallibly safe way to go about it. Planar Binding is required if you want the Artaagliths to stick around and serve as lieutenants. I still think its worth the risk, and payment could be provided if necessary (probably isn't). Lets face it - these guys are 5 HD creatures, being called by 11th level wizards at least. Not to mention that the area of the Planar Binding can be prepped beforehand. The entrapped outsider may realize that trying to attack even if it manages to escape the binding circle is a suicide mission.

And that is before the necromancers play hardball. Want to escape the binding circle and attack our people? Fine, take this Necrotic Tumor and be utterly dominated for the duration of your stay on the prime material plane. There might also be a Dread Necromancer leader with the planar turning feat. At 5 HD, only 11 SR (=+5 turn resistance), it would be trivial to rebuke/command these guys. Assuming the Dread Necromancer leader is 25 HD and also has the undead mastery feat, he could command 50 Artaagliths in this manner. 50 Artaagliths can control 20 HD of animated dead, in addition to 5 HD of rebuked/commanded undead. That's a good 1000+ HD of undead right there, stemming from a single 25th level Dread Necromancer.

The more we discuss undead mercenaries, the better they look. In what other case can you raise armies behind enemy lines? Not many.

[Dimers]

I feel that epic characters should be doing epic things, not finding ways to raise the profit margin in running a mercenary company of mindless undead.

As for the "hardball" -- now you're talking about four spells (magic circle, planar binding, necrotic cyst, necrotic tumor) (oh, and necrotic cyst is a Touch spell, so let's add in spectral hand for safety) and one feat to get "free" long-term service from a single low-level outsider, more if it makes its saves, even more if you trap the area outside the magic circle like you're suggesting. Said outsider can get sent away with a single fourth- or fifth-level dismissal. And it'll hate you even more later if necrotic tumor gets dispelled, and possibly come at you with its big brother, not at a time or place of your choosing. C'mon. You're not getting good help for free.

[Satinavian]

There seems to much focus on the cost of casting Animate Dead, when various people have already identified ways to circumvent these costs. Ways that are not even exploits or controversial. I mentioned using the 5 HD Artaaglith (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25450996&postcount=63), using Summon Monster VI or Lesser Planar Binding to get free castings of Animate Dead, which can then be rebuked or controlled, or in the case of a bound Artaaglith, can lead the undead into battle directly.The thing is when you start tricks like Planar Binding for spell component free castings, you are already on way different optimization level than the regular comparison living mercenary company. Of course you could start comparing an undead based planar binding abuse mercenary company and a living creatures planar binding abuse mercenary company, but going that route will get us only to a place where eventually both sides generate money for free and don't need any mercenary work.



But as for the use of mindless undead, i had quite some fun with "Awaken Undead" in the past.

[RandomPeasant]

"Bind up some creatures and have them use SLAs on your behalf" is really neither as difficult to pull off nor as cheesy as people are implying. Outsiders, broadly speaking, have a narrow range of spells that they can use frequently and for free. Spellcasters, broadly speaking, have a broad range of spells that are limited in use and (potentially) costly. It is not at all difficult to see how you might arrange a mutually beneficial exchange without any need for coercion. Similarly, the idea that it's particularly abusive to use planar binding to bypass the black onyx cost doesn't really hold up. You're popping a pretty high level spell slot, and if you get fully 80 HD of undead out of it, you're only saving 2k GP. That's... fine. I would let someone do that, especially if they were trying to make an army of undead to do mass battle stuff with. The issue with planar binding isn't that you can call up creatures to have them cast spells for you, it's that you can call up creatures that are individually as strong as your entire party and have them fight on your behalf.

[redking]

The thing is when you start tricks like Planar Binding for spell component free castings, you are already on way different optimization level than the regular comparison living mercenary company. Of course you could start comparing an undead based planar binding abuse mercenary company and a living creatures planar binding abuse mercenary company, but going that route will get us only to a place where eventually both sides generate money for free and don't need any mercenary work.


It's not "free" because it takes time (opportunity cost) and labor (the spellcasting) to accomplish. It's just a different route to a goal. Nor is it mere optimisation. I'd provided a bunch of RP hooks for it too. I've seen incredibly wild and silly optimisations on this forum based on lack of reading comprehension treated respectfully. Strange to see the pushback on this.



But as for the use of mindless undead, i had quite some fun with "Awaken Undead" in the past.

Strange that an awakened skeleton still has only 1 Charisma. The spell has been revised a couple of times if I recall correctly, so it must be intentional.

[Gnaeus]

And let's say you're a 20th level necromancer. That's 80 HD (base) of skeletons. Or 20 4-HD undead. PER 20th-level caster. Who, himself, is going to cost bucket-tons and can be much more effective doing something other than baby-sitting a bunch of (fairly useless, if you've got 20th level people hanging around) creatures who need micromanagement to do anything useful other than "attack those guys". So you can't even flood the zone--even with 80/caster (of 1 HD creatures) that have to be ordered around in a block (because you don't have time to do anything else and can't take individual initiative or adapt to changing circumstances).

More likely, if your necromancers are 5-6th level, they're creating 20-24 HD worth. But with power law scaling, you're still getting
a) less bodies for more money, all of which is up-front cost (as you showed)
b) less flexible bodies that require micromanagement from an expensive, vulnerable component (the necromancer[1])
c) that also piss off anyone who has a pretense of being good by merely existing. Including attracting those pesky things known as "heroes" like flies. Army of undead? Yeah, that's a crusading.

Note that 80 is a low end for a (modern) company, and with 80 undead under a single necromancer, you can't even split them into platoons or squads (because only the necromancer can really give them orders and they need constant order updates to adapt, not being able to do so themselves). A single 80-man platoon is way less effective than 4 20-man platoons, each with individual officers. "Big blob of bodies" just doesn't work effectively. Especially when fireball is available. And low-HD undead basically can't operate any other way, lest they invite defeat in detail.

And if you go for fewer, more powerful ones, you lose the ability to hold ground. Quantity has a quality all of its own--that group of 4 10-HD creatures can only affect things where it is. Sure, they can stomp anything they can catch flat, but they're leaving the entire countryside open to the enemy, who can basically just go around them. It's why planes and tanks fail at holding territory and you need infantry.

So an undead squad might work as a "special-forces" group (specialized in certain operations, like an engineer squad), it doesn't really work as a building block of an army. Even in 3e's screwed up (relative to Earth) environment.

[1] A necromancer who has to be within shouting distance of his troops and has to spend most of his attention micromanaging the troops is much more vulnerable than a normal caster, because they can't take a lot of the normal precautions without compromising their effectiveness at their core responsibility. It's like putting the general of the armies on the front line without movie-style plot armor.

You get HDx4 from animate dead alone. You can augment that with rebukes or control undead spell so the actual number for most casters can substantially exceed HDx4.

Planes and tanks are pretty irrelevant to how medieval armies fight. Leaving entirely aside the many medieval scenarios in which holding or taking a bridge or gate is literally the objective, medieval battles are fought by blocks of troops in lines. If you can break your enemies center or flank and force them to rout, you win, and the lions share of casualties are caused by chasing routing troops.

And again, the way the large majority of medieval troops operate is personal loyalty to a commander who is there. Every single group of 40ish dudes is rallying around a standard which is beside their liege Lord. He is just as much of a failure point as the necromancer, except that he can't turn invisible or D Door away or any of the other caster defenses.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You get HDx4 from animate dead alone. You can augment that with rebukes or control undead spell so the actual number for most casters can substantially exceed HDx4.

Planes and tanks are pretty irrelevant to how medieval armies fight. Leaving entirely aside the many medieval scenarios in which holding or taking a bridge or gate is literally the objective, medieval battles are fought by blocks of troops in lines. If you can break your enemies center or flank and force them to rout, you win, and the lions share of casualties are caused by chasing routing troops.

And again, the way the large majority of medieval troops operate is personal loyalty to a commander who is there. Every single group of 40ish dudes is rallying around a standard which is beside their liege Lord. He is just as much of a failure point as the necromancer, except that he can't turn invisible or D Door away or any of the other caster defenses.

I'm not sure mundane medieval battles really work as a starting point when there are magic and monsters. Fireball alone makes those blocks of dudes formations rather risky.

[redking]

I'm not sure mundane medieval battles really work as a starting point when there are magic and monsters. Fireball alone makes those blocks of dudes formations rather risky.

In a sense, having a bunch of necromancers animate dead and send them into pitched battle is pretty fair. It would be easy to simply portray war as protracted terrorism, with a wizard teleporting in, dropping a fireball on people, homes or infrastructure, then teleporting back out. It would certainly make the game a lot more boring (and possibly a good reason to make teleport a 9th level spell and merge it with plane shift).

[PhoenixPhyre]

In a sense, having a bunch of necromancers animate dead and send them into pitched battle is pretty fair. It would be easy to simply portray war as protracted terrorism, with a wizard teleporting in, dropping a fireball on people, homes or infrastructure, then teleporting back out. It would certainly make the game a lot more boring (and possibly a good reason to make teleport a 9th level spell and merge it with plane shift).

That's not what I meant at all. I'd suggest that pitched battles in a D&D world (especially one where there are enough wizards of high enough level to make necro-companies feasible) would be much closer to modern battlefields where things like artillery fire (ie fireball) means that you spread out and operate in smaller teams rather than big blocks of pikemen in fireball formation. And that's where necro-companies fall short--they can't operate in anything other than big block mode because the individual components can't think independently.

One of the major innovations that makes some armies way more effective than others is devolution of command down to the squad/platoon level. Where sergeants are expected to know the intent behind the order and take individual initiative to push that forward and adapt. You can't do that when only one person can possibly give any commands at all and they're followed unthinkingly and without creativity or thinking.

[Gnaeus]

That's not what I meant at all. I'd suggest that pitched battles in a D&D world (especially one where there are enough wizards of high enough level to make necro-companies feasible) would be much closer to modern battlefields where things like artillery fire (ie fireball) means that you spread out and operate in smaller teams rather than big blocks of pikemen in fireball formation. And that's where necro-companies fall short--they can't operate in anything other than big block mode because the individual components can't think independently.

One of the major innovations that makes some armies way more effective than others is devolution of command down to the squad/platoon level. Where sergeants are expected to know the intent behind the order and take individual initiative to push that forward and adapt. You can't do that when only one person can possibly give any commands at all and they're followed unthinkingly and without creativity or thinking.

First, this is modern combat doctrine, not medieval combat doctrine. No feudal army I can think of was organized that way. Certainly the extreme exception. You might see armies like that in Eberron or tippyverse, where you actually have fights between States, as opposed to kings, their muster bands, their retainers and THEIR muster bands. But even for the Romans or Byzantines which actually had organized army structures that weren't feudal mobs, the last thing you wanted was a free thinker. You wanted someone who would hold his ground between the guy on the left and the guy on the right and not break. And/or you wanted a hammer, like a heavy cavalry charge or wave of undead giants, that could force a break in an enemy line.

This is the Rock Paper Scissors of D&D combat. An army of independent thinkers gets annihilated by an army marching in formation. An army marching in formation gets annihilated by caster artillery. So what is really happening is a PC/NPC battle between leaders, in which high HD undead will be way more useful than mooks, and necromancers beat equal level commanders. Once the enemy artillery is neutralized, either the remaining casters have enough juice left to press an I win button, or it returns to the medieval standard where 2000 people standing in formation massively beat much larger numbers of free thinkers who aren't.

And again, the fact that a high HD undead army is better at both resisting enemy artillery (have enough HD to resist many invocations, and a lot of immunities) and at having friendly casters drop spells around them, is significant. A fireball into a mass of infantry destroys the unit. A fireball into a group of high HD undead doesn't even degrade it until it hits 0 HP.

And bear in mind that even in gunpowder age combat, after artillery became a real battlefield threat, like the civil war or Napoleonic wars, you still won battles by forming your guys into a line and assaulting the other person's line until it broke. These were commanders who actually had organized state armies with non-coms, and they still found "stand in a line and charge towards the enemy" the most effective tactic in most battles. What really changed that wasn't artillery. It was machine guns. Those tactics ended in the early 20th century.

And of course let's not forget that most necromancers, who will tend to have Int or Wisdom as their prime stat, should make better decisions than a military commander who probably has both int and Wis in their bottom 3 stats.

[redking]

First, this is modern combat doctrine, not medieval combat doctrine. No feudal army I can think of was organized that way. Certainly the extreme exception. You might see armies like that in Eberron or tippyverse, where you actually have fights between States, as opposed to kings, their muster bands, their retainers and THEIR muster bands. But even for the Romans or Byzantines which actually had organized army structures that weren't feudal mobs, the last thing you wanted was a free thinker. You wanted someone who would hold his ground between the guy on the left and the guy on the right and not break. And/or you wanted a hammer, like a heavy cavalry charge or wave of undead giants, that could force a break in an enemy line.

This is the Rock Paper Scissors of D&D combat. An army of independent thinkers gets annihilated by an army marching in formation. An army marching in formation gets annihilated by caster artillery. So what is really happening is a PC/NPC battle between leaders, in which high HD undead will be way more useful than mooks, and necromancers beat equal level commanders. Once the enemy artillery is neutralized, either the remaining casters have enough juice left to press an I win button, or it returns to the medieval standard where 2000 people standing in formation massively beat much larger numbers of free thinkers who aren't.

And again, the fact that a high HD undead army is better at both resisting enemy artillery (have enough HD to resist many invocations, and a lot of immunities) and at having friendly casters drop spells around them, is significant. A fireball into a mass of infantry destroys the unit. A fireball into a group of high HD undead doesn't even degrade it until it hits 0 HP.

And bear in mind that even in gunpowder age combat, after artillery became a real battlefield threat, like the civil war or Napoleonic wars, you still won battles by forming your guys into a line and assaulting the other person's line until it broke. These were commanders who actually had organized state armies with non-coms, and they still found "stand in a line and charge towards the enemy" the most effective tactic in most battles. What really changed that wasn't artillery. It was machine guns. Those tactics ended in the early 20th century.

And of course let's not forget that most necromancers, who will tend to have Int or Wisdom as their prime stat, should make better decisions than a military commander who probably has both int and Wis in their bottom 3 stats.

Very good points. Arcane spellcasters have the limitation of spells per day, so I wonder if one of the strongest warfare arcane class might be Warlocks with invocation choices specifically for battlefield control.

Invocations like Tenacious Plague has minutes/level duration, and creates multiple immobile 10-foot cube swarms which you can position to control the battlefield. Chilling Tentacles and Wall of Perilous Flame. Get some undead Warlocks so they don't need rest. Better if you can get the lich template on them somehow, so they fight on the battlefield but literally take no risk.

[Raxxius]

Very good points. Arcane spellcasters have the limitation of spells per day, so I wonder if one of the strongest warfare arcane class might be Warlocks with invocation choices specifically for battlefield control.

Invocations like Tenacious Plague has minutes/level duration, and creates multiple immobile 10-foot cube swarms which you can position to control the battlefield. Chilling Tentacles and Wall of Perilous Flame. Get some undead Warlocks so they don't need rest. Better if you can get the lich template on them somehow, so they fight on the battlefield but literally take no risk.


I think you need to determine campaign/world powerlevels.

low power, low magic- No high level necromancers, no undead. Warriors the staple of national armies, combat protocols similar to real life medievil warfare

lowish power, med magic - low level necromancers, skeletons core combat unit for the undead. Warriors still the core component of national armies, but fighters/mages/clerics common.

lowish power, high magic - everyone has magic items, smattering of PC class levels. Can function like modern day combat doctrines as every soilder will have magic weapons/wands/medkits (healing potions) Resurrection is still not common due to low level characters, so losses still have purpose. Skele's still function here due to eternal wands, but it's more likely that inteligent undead like skeletal champions, JuJu Zombies or wights would form the core of an undead army.

High power, high magic - High level PC class characters are common, all low level units are window dressing with no real battlefield purpose. Warriors may exist, but they're not a threat, so wouldn't be used in an actual fight. Your local priest can cast ressurection so death is more like an inconvience than a real issue. Combat would occur between small squads of superhero like characters, more in common with an anime than any modern day combat doctrine. At this point Liches/Vampire/graveknights would be the core undead chassis of choice because defeat doesn't mean the end, just an auto resurrection. They're not that different to living heros in combat.

Outside low power/low magic campaigns, undead can be effective, skeletons have great bonuses in med magic settings, outpacing low level warriors due to resistances and superior AC from natural and Dex bonuses, easy undead beatdown weapons are generally magical, which is in short supply by nature of setting. Once you start powering everyone up, skeletons become obsolete, but that's because they're 1 HD monsters. Once the baseline is upped, so would the level of undead your facing.

And this is all before you start digging into optimisation shenagians. If you're 3.5 and have access to corpsecrafter feats, 1HD skeletons will batter lvl 1 warriors.

[ShurikVch]

I think you need to determine campaign/world powerlevels.

low power, low magic- No high level necromancers, no undead. Warriors the staple of national armies, combat protocols similar to real life medievil warfare

lowish power, med magic - low level necromancers, skeletons core combat unit for the undead. Warriors still the core component of national armies, but fighters/mages/clerics common.

lowish power, high magic - everyone has magic items, smattering of PC class levels. Can function like modern day combat doctrines as every soilder will have magic weapons/wands/medkits (healing potions) Resurrection is still not common due to low level characters, so losses still have purpose. Skele's still function here due to eternal wands, but it's more likely that inteligent undead like skeletal champions, JuJu Zombies or wights would form the core of an undead army.

High power, high magic - High level PC class characters are common, all low level units are window dressing with no real battlefield purpose. Warriors may exist, but they're not a threat, so wouldn't be used in an actual fight. Your local priest can cast ressurection so death is more like an inconvience than a real issue. Combat would occur between small squads of superhero like characters, more in common with an anime than any modern day combat doctrine. At this point Liches/Vampire/graveknights would be the core undead chassis of choice because defeat doesn't mean the end, just an auto resurrection. They're not that different to living heros in combat.
How about - high power, low(ish) magic?..

[Raxxius]

How about - high power, low(ish) magic?..

I'd say undead are weak in lowish magic vs high power. Assuming lowish magic means you can't create high level undead and are somewhat stuck with basic skeletons/zombies. I'd say this is similar to some 2nd ed campaigns, where magic is weaker in general, armies still have some uses, but a single high level character will still cut down entire units solo.

Skeletons are strong for one HD creatures, they're not strong vs 6HD creatures as their basic advantages are good but they don't scale well as their bonuses are static.

A 1HD skeleton has +2 natural armour + 2 Dex, giving them on average +3AC for a loss of one BAB vs a level 1 warrior.

However undead scale on 3/4 BAB and don't get con to HD, so a 6HD 'warrior' skeleton has a BAB of +4, 27 (d8) HP and an AC bonus of +3 due to dex+natural. improved initiative but no other feats.

A level 6 warrior has +6/1 BAB, and 39 HP (d10 + 1 for Con bonus), assuming a standard array with str + con. They get a +2 stat boost, which I don't know if the skeleton would, and additional feats.

The DR effect is still useful but their combat avantage is signifcantly dropped due to static bonuses vs scaling.


I'm sort of working on the principal of lowish magic meaning you might get a lich or a vampire plus thralls in a game, but you wouldn't get squads of roaming magical monsters. Sort of like the Witcher/GOT before it goes into crazy mode.

3.5 is a littlle different due to how HP are calculated for undead being benificial for low cha ones, but you still have the scaling problem, which is generally dealt with by upgrading your undead chasis. I'd still say they wouldn't be useless because their largest weakness generally comes from magic.