Outfitting an undead army

[lolcat]

Greetings Playground!

I am creating a BBEG whose stick is being a minionmancer/leadership army general (think Mummy / Necron Lord vibe). The BBEG's build is essentially a Walker in the Waste (Sandstorm p. 89, Lich undead & golem creator) Runecaster (PGTF p. 69, magic item creator with variable trigger conditions) Lord of the Uttercold Necro.
The bigger question however is: how to best equip his army on a budget, meaning using both magic items that create gear (Nolzurs Orb -Nolzurs Marvellous Pigments), Using Spells that create usable items (Necrotic Skull Bomb, Bloodfreeze Arrow etc.), using (undead) manpower to create stuff or just by casting fabricate.


One part of his army: ~300 lvl1 undead. Most likely bone-creatures (cold immunity, 1/2 damage from piercing and slashing, +4 Dex) swarmshifters. Class-wise i think 60% warlocks, 30% crusaders, 10% rogues or factotums (factoti? :D ), but i'm not set on that at all. Much rarer are higher level undead (mummy shock-troopers, spellstiched Mohrg generals).

The other part: a former arch-enemy that has been vanquished and turned undead, lead by a dragonborn Bard/Crusader riding a gold zombie-dragon. Slightly smaller army, mostly comprised of mundane fighters and bards.

Now the things would need help on are, as mentioned, how to equip all of them cost-effectively (and what equipment to give them) and what kind of tricks they would be able to use in combat, both vs. high level adventurers (most likely ~ lvl 12 at first contact) but also against regular enemies. Also, should i mix up the army compositions? Use other kinds of undead that might be interesting? (trying to avoid just going plain Wight-ocalypse). Flavor can be both classical as well as steampunk-magicky, whatever you can think of. Any and all help is much appreciated :)

(also, on another note, does anyone know of a build or handbook for bard/crusader combination DFI builds? Thanks! )

[redking]

The best armor is what the undead creature already has. How about a ghaele zombie (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=15713324&postcount=10)?


Ghaele Zombie

Medium Undead (Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 20d12+3 (133 hp)
Initiative: + 0
Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares; can’t run)
Armor Class: 26 (+16 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 26
Base Attack/Grapple: +10/+18
Attack: Greatsword +18 melee (2d6+12/19-20) or slam +18 melee (1d6+12)
Full Attack: Greatsword +18 melee (2d6+12/19-20) or slam +18 melee (1d6+12)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft
Special Attacks: -
Special Qualities: Single actions only, damage reduction 5/slashing, darkvision 60 ft., undead traits
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +12
Abilities: Str 27, Dex 10, Con -, Int -, Wis 10, Cha 1
Skills: -
Feats: Toughness
Environment: Any
Organization: Any
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral evil
Advancement: None
Level Adjustment: —



When zombified, they become insanely tanky : 20d12 (+any bonus you might have), +16 natural armor (+14 and +2 by zombie template), 27 Str and 10 Dex (before feats or undead mastery).
Just buy them a half-plate, a tower shield and a flail, they now have 37 AC and minimum +18 on disarm attempt.

Now, just buy an eternal of Disguise Undead (2 charge per day) and your Necromancer is walking around flanked by two armored female bodyguard. (giving him +10 on Pimping checks)

Outsiders are in general good zombie because of their insane natural AC and abilities, and their medium size (which make them way easier to hide or transport).

If you can tell me what kind of actions this undead army will undertake, then I can make better suggestions. Will there be a siege? If so, shoot undead animals or creatures using a catapult into the castle or city you are besieging, prepped with the Destruction Retribution feat from the Corpsecrafter line of feats.


Each undead you raise or create with any necromancy spell releases a burst of negative energy upon its destruction, dealing 1d6 points of damage plus an additional 1d6 points per 2 Hit Dice to every creature within a 10-foot spread (Refl ex DC 15 half). This damage comes from negative energy, and it therefore heals undead creatures

These creatures become unliving suicide bombers. You can get undead giant eagles or something to fly in, attack the parapets and explode when they get killed. They can fly zombies on their back's into the city or castle, let them loose there, and cause mayhem.

You could use disguise undead (Spell Compendium) to infiltrate an undead creature into the place you are harassing. Perhaps a ghoul or other intelligent undead. The corpse should be that of a plague victim or leper. Disguise undead will hide their malady, while they spread it among the unawares. Perhaps they could even sell cheap, tainted food. Possibly, they will be caught. When that happens, they blow up too.

A Doppelganger vampire 4 (RHD 4), Rogue 2, Zhentarim Spy 5, Chameleon 10 is a nasty spymaster. It doesn't need much equipment because it is self sustaining with magic and skills. It can create a network of subversives in enemy territory. Because this creature only has 17 class levels, I don't believe it is technically supposed to be epic, but it is 21 HD total. At this level, it would be one of the undead army leaders, acting within the scope of its remit.

EDIT: Here is a blog post with good examples of undead minions. (https://100pointsofdawizard.blogspot.com/2017/11/on-proper-care-and-maintenance-of-undead.html)

[Silva Stormrage]

Black Sand is an excellent cheap way of maintaining undead. It effectively gives undead who have some in their boots/shoes/whatever fast healing 1d4 as it deals 1d4 negative energy damage a round. Creatable by a 3rd level cleric spell the spell creates some temporary black sand (Round/Level) however, when Black Sand kills something it turns the creature's corpse into black sand. Thus if you kill a couple cows of something and turn their bodies into permanent black sand you have a very cheap and effective way of healing your army even when they are far away from clerics or other such spellcasters.

For higher level intelligent undead, spell stiching them is incredibly useful as it is incredibly cheap in terms of GP (1000 GP to give undead various SLA's) and incredibly expensive in terms of XP. Now your BBEG isn't going to spend this XP himself to outfit some minions, but he can force prisoners to sacrifice their life force (XP) via cooperative crafting. It's also very thematic and gives the players a direct target to hit if they want. Here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?269740-Spellstitched-SLA-spell-selection-recommendations) are some good spell stiched spell recommendations, this is also a good way to get free animated undead as giving the undead lieutenants animate dead as an SLA means it doesn't cost anything.


Generally speaking you don't want to equip them with anything particularly valuable because its just not cost effective. A level 1 bone creature is much weaker than a dire wolf zombie and if you have animate dead as an SLA you can get a LOT of dire wolf zombies (6 HD means you can grab half fiend or fiendish dire wolves with planar binding).

Some cheap items that act as force multipliers though. Dust Shell Grenades, applying blinding for a couple rounds no save on a ranged touch attack for 10 GP a pop? Super useful on some skeletons with decent dex.

Eversmoking Bottle is also pretty decent as it can be activated by undead and blocks a LOT of vision. This one works best if you can either give your undead smoke sight (Druid Cantrip) to let them see through it or using it with some undead that have blindsight/mind sight.

[redking]

Black Sand is an excellent cheap way of maintaining undead. It effectively gives undead who have some in their boots/shoes/whatever fast healing 1d4 as it deals 1d4 negative energy damage a round. Creatable by a 3rd level cleric spell the spell creates some temporary black sand (Round/Level) however, when Black Sand kills something it turns the creature's corpse into black sand. Thus if you kill a couple cows of something and turn their bodies into permanent black sand you have a very cheap and effective way of healing your army even when they are far away from clerics or other such spellcasters.

For higher level intelligent undead, spell stiching them is incredibly useful as it is incredibly cheap in terms of GP (1000 GP to give undead various SLA's) and incredibly expensive in terms of XP. Now your BBEG isn't going to spend this XP himself to outfit some minions, but he can force prisoners to sacrifice their life force (XP) via cooperative crafting. It's also very thematic and gives the players a direct target to hit if they want. Here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?269740-Spellstitched-SLA-spell-selection-recommendations) are some good spell stiched spell recommendations, this is also a good way to get free animated undead as giving the undead lieutenants animate dead as an SLA means it doesn't cost anything.


Generally speaking you don't want to equip them with anything particularly valuable because its just not cost effective. A level 1 bone creature is much weaker than a dire wolf zombie and if you have animate dead as an SLA you can get a LOT of dire wolf zombies (6 HD means you can grab half fiend or fiendish dire wolves with planar binding).

Some cheap items that act as force multipliers though. Dust Shell Grenades, applying blinding for a couple rounds no save on a ranged touch attack for 10 GP a pop? Super useful on some skeletons with decent dex.

Eversmoking Bottle is also pretty decent as it can be activated by undead and blocks a LOT of vision. This one works best if you can either give your undead smoke sight (Druid Cantrip) to let them see through it or using it with some undead that have blindsight/mind sight.


Good ideas, Silva. [BTW, check out the homebrew thread - I did something with the Horned Harbinger, using your one as a base]

Here is a list of cheap equipment (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?148101-3-x-Shax-s-Indispensible-Haversack-%28Equipment-Handbook%29) to equip your undead army.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

The best armor is what the undead creature already has. How about a ghaele zombie (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=15713324&postcount=10)?


...how exactly are you imagining the necromancer is going to acquire a large number of CR13 outsider corpses in a cost effective manner?

[Zanos]

...how exactly are you imagining the necromancer is going to acquire a large number of CR13 outsider corpses in a cost effective manner?
Hm, if only high level wizards had a set of spells that were capable of binding extraplanar creatures into compromising positions where they would be easy to kill!

OP, consider sickstone. You can create it with your spell and hand it out to all your undead, and they'll put out an aura that deals 1d6 con damage on a failed DC 15 fort save, or 1 con damage on a passed(!) save.

[redking]

...how exactly are you imagining the necromancer is going to acquire a large number of CR13 outsider corpses in a cost effective manner?

Greater Planar Binding, Magic Circle Against Evil, Dimensional Anchor , a couple of shadesteel golems. Really, it's not very hard to do but could cause hazardous reprisals from certain planar entities.

[lolcat]

Yeah it's rather not worth it to incur the attention and/or wrath of extraplanar and/or lawful entities by zombifying their minions/best buddies. Considering i.e. wall of iron -> fabricate is a rather cost neutral process, i feel that besides it there should be quite a few ways to equip low level (but intelligent) undead.


Also thanks for pointing out black sand and sickstone, definitely going on the list :)

[Beni-Kujaku]

I agree that a permanent blacksand sandbox is probably the best way to keep your undead army "healthy" between battles. (or black sand in every undead shoe, but that one is a bit cheesy). Then you just put leather armor and a stick in their hand and off they go. That said, if you have domains in your base class, it becomes very different. Both Wall of Iron and Fabricate exists in a few different domains. Gond is the most well-known deity to give you both. Then you create a permanent rune of Wall of Iron, a permanent rune of Fabricate, and you ask one of your undead to mass produce full plate armors and longspears to equip the whole army. The armors will definitely not be masterwork, but you don't really care when all your minions have at least 18 AC and can both attack with reach and from a distance.

Edit: Also the marbles from A&EG are completely overpowered for their 8 sp price. Maybe not the best in army-scale combat, but still something to consider.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Hm, if only high level wizards had a set of spells that were capable of binding extraplanar creatures into compromising positions where they would be easy to kill!

I said in a cost-effective manner. This isn't a white room theoretical optimisation exercise, meaning you have to worry about comparative risks - in this case the risk that comes from effectively declaring war on the Court of Stars, which might be a bit much to produce a bunch of mooks that can make a single attack with a medium greatsword.

Besides which, Ghaeles are particularly difficult to bind for their HD/CR as they're 13th level clerics and constantly have a magic circle and lesser globe of invulnerability active - plus there's a good chance they'll be incorporeal, which means you can't animate them. Much more practical to go with dire bear skeletons or something. (Which you'll probably need to spend about as many spell slots - also a cost to consider, btw - to acquire per mook.)


Greater Planar Binding, Magic Circle Against Evil, Dimensional Anchor , a couple of shadesteel golems. Really, it's not very hard to do but could cause hazardous reprisals from certain planar entities.

Once again, the words 'cost effective' come to mind. Shadesteel Golems have a market price of 130,000gp and require a 17th level caster to create. Slightly overkill for creating CR6 mooks. And as you say, there's the whole 'making enemies with powerful outsiders' bit.


Yeah it's rather not worth it to incur the attention and/or wrath of extraplanar and/or lawful entities by zombifying their minions/best buddies.

Precisely.

On another note, while not good for maintaining an army necromantic siege engines (Heroes of Battle p.134) are extremely cost-effective on the tactical level - just 3000gp and each shot reanimates 20hd of nearby corpses for 10 rounds. They just attack nearby living things indiscriminately, but that should be fine for a necromantic army's purposes. Suppose you could haul around extra corpses and just fire a shot near them when needed.

[Tzardok]

Besides, if eladrin are like devils and demons in that their corpses dissolve in most cases, getting a usable one is even more difficult.

[Zanos]

I said in a cost-effective manner. This isn't a white room theoretical optimisation exercise, meaning you have to worry about comparative risks - in this case the risk that comes from effectively declaring war on the Court of Stars, which might be a bit much to produce a bunch of mooks that can make a single attack with a medium greatsword.
Declaring war? Not exactly; Ghaele are soldiers, and soldiers go KIA/MIA. And in this case the necromancer is a high level wizard with access to divination wards, and will likely avoid notice unless he kidnaps a number much higher than would be necessary for effective action on the material plane. The Eladrin are also ruled by a non-deific Celestial Paragon who is flavored as being unable to leave her demiplane, not to mention that a celestial army likely has bigger concerns than someone siphoning off some of their soldiers, especially in a CG organization of knight-errants who often wander off on their own anyway.

It's weird that whenever a PC kills an outsider in normal combat, nothing happens, but supposedly if some go missing because of planar binding, a horde of archfiends and/or angels descends on you. Don't get me wrong, you will probably make enemies doing this, but the idea that the highest levels of the bureaucracy of the other planes are going to get involved when your murder some of their servants is goofy; their servants get murdered in the thousands daily.

Anyway, if you're really paranoid about retribution from the outer planes, you can always do this with demons, or use divination spells to find individuals who won't be missed.


Besides which, Ghaeles are particularly difficult to bind for their HD/CR as they're 13th level clerics and constantly have a magic circle and lesser globe of invulnerability active
Protective circle isn't going to be helpful against binding; it's not a mind control effect. Lesser globe could be irritating but is easily overcome with heighten; the only important spell it impedes is magic circle against good itself. Being a 13th level cleric could be problematic, but if a high level wizard can't figure out how to ice something when he has complete control over the circumstances of the encounter, he probably wasn't long for this world anyway.


plus there's a good chance they'll be incorporeal, which means you can't animate them.
Why would they be incorporeal? You can either use the binding itself to force it to its corporeal state or use ghost trap.


Much more practical to go with dire bear skeletons or something. (Which you'll probably need to spend about as many spell slots - also a cost to consider, btw - to acquire per mook.)
Not sure where you're getting dire bears? Just hunting wild ones? I guess you could do that with some divinations. If you're just going after wild creatures and try to find something smaller than huge that can use weapons, like a war troll.


Besides, if eladrin are like devils and demons in that their corpses dissolve in most cases, getting a usable one is even more difficult.
Devils and Demons only very rarely dissolve and it's easily preventable. Their respective fiendish codexes detail what happens to their corpses, and various 1st party books including the core books have examples of reanimated outsiders.

[Tzardok]

Devils and Demons only very rarely dissolve and it's easily preventable. Their respective fiendish codexes detail what happens to their corpses, and various 1st party books including the core books have examples of reanimated outsiders.

The fiendish codices are, in fact, quite clear that devils and demons dissolve nearly always. If you then remember that this was standard for the embodiments of alignment in 2e and that 3.x never said something to the contrary for eladrin, it becomes at least likely.

[Zanos]

The fiendish codices are, in fact, quite clear that devils and demons dissolve nearly always. If you then remember that this was standard for the embodiments of alignment in 2e and that 3.x never said something to the contrary for eladrin, it becomes at least likely.


Death
The topic of what happens to demons when they die is another cause of much debate. In general, however, both the Black Scrolls and the Demonomicon acknowledge the following basic concepts: Outside the Abyss: If a demon is killed on another plane, its body eventually returns to the Abyss—unless trapped through magical means, such as a dimensional anchor spell. (See the Demonic Death Throes sidebar for more details on how demon bodies sometimes disappear.) No matter what happens to the demon’s body, if it is killed outside the Abyss, its “essence” falls back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, where it is then be reformed as a new demon.
Demons sometimes disappear, but it can explicitly be prevented by dimensional anchor, a component of most planar binding spells.


A devil slain in the Nine Hells stays dead. A devil slain outside Baator devolves into a puddle of foamy, stinking ooze over a period of 3 to 9 minutes. This residual soul essence registers as both magical and evil. Any mortal ingesting it must make a successful DC 20 Fortitude save or become sickened for 2d4 hours.
Devils always dissolve, but it takes a few minutes, which is enough time to reanimate them as it is only a standard action to do so. It's not explicit, but you could probably also use dimensional anchor here.