Thanks again for all the help! especially the itemization stuff, I suppose I can cover a lot of bases with intelligent itemization and save character creation resources for other stuff.

Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
General of Undeath was reprinted in spell compendium to only increase your HD limit by 1 per caster level, which isn't super great. Just use command undead instead. A Rod of Undead Mastery(20k) will also double your animate dead pool, should you care. Undead Lieutenant will also grant a similar buff, increasing your animate dead cap by your CL.
My dm loves necros, so I'm pretty sure I can get him to work with the older x5cl or x10cl versions. also the command undead with a chain spell metamagic rod is a hilarious combo.

Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
Enhanced undead is okay but I'd rather take corpsecrafter to cover the strength bonus. The HP does stack, but if you stack some metamagic on a desecrate your undead should have plenty of hit points as it is. Fell energy desecrate and corpsecrafter will get you to +8, which is the same hit points per HD as a barbarian with 26 CON.

My personal opinion is that the skeletal cohort that specialist wizard gets is atrocious. It isn't created by a necromancy spell so corpsecrafter won't apply, so at level 1 you're stuck with a 6 hp minion that is destroyed when it hits 0 that doesn't heal naturally, and has +1 str and dex mods. You have to ban two schools of magic to get it, and it's going to be pretty rapidly outclassed by anything you can make with spells later. Even at 20th level, you're gonna have a 20HD skeleton with 19 str and dex and 12 natural armor. The numbers on it just don't work out.
hmm, im not quite following how that gets +8. a fell energy desecrate gets you +4, and corpsecrafter gets you 2 for a total of +6. unless fell energy applies to corpsecrafter as well? but that wasn't quite my reading of it. +6 is still fairly respectable, but i like big HP'S lol.

And skeletal minion totally sucks at lvl 1, thats for sure. but im pretty sure I can get my DM to let me count it as created by a necro spell. Also with awaken cast on it and some decent equipment it could be a fairly decent bruiser. not spectacular, but decent. And its ease of replaceability is one of its major draws, in the event that there is a corpse shortage its good on resources.

I know this build will not be OP lol, not even low OP i dont think. But I really want to push the envelope with how many distinct undead 'cohorts' I can get. and how strong I can make them.