Tracking a necromancer

[James the Newbie]

What divinations are good for figuring out where a being who raised a small army of undead is, and where they may be located?

We are on a mountain top, so we don't know how far from a town we are at the moment. Although we did just save a fortress from being destroyed, so we have some semi trustful soldiers to help us.

Our party consists of
monk 4
Wizard 4
Sorcerer 4
Cleric 4
Scout 4
Fighter 4

 

[Omegaxicor]

Detect Undead springs to mind, I don't know the specifics of the spell but you can use it to find out that 100s of Undead are 2 miles north-east of you...

EDIT: oops, Detect Undead has a range of 60", I know there is a spell that works over greater distances...

 

[anest1s]

Circle Dance is a 3rd level wizard/cleric spell.
I can't see anything that looks useful below that? Maybe I am wrong? If you could hire someone or use scrolls...

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

A Ranger level 4 could cast Lay Of The Land. This should tell you of a location with a significant amount of Undead, negative energy, a really large graveyard, a desecrated temple, etc.

Do you have a Ranger among the solders? Can anyone replicate this spell in any way?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You will know him by his trail of undead.
( )

 

[Grogg of the North]

Was the fortress attacked by undead?

Speak With Animals. You may need to describe the undead to them since they may not understand what a skeleton, zombie, or wight is but I bet they probably saw or felt their presence.

Detect Undead may be able to pick up a lingering aura if there were a lot of undead in the area recently. Follow the aura back if you can.

Can any of your trust worthy soldiers track? Do your soldiers know about the lay of the land at all? Any hidden or secluded passes or caves? An army of undead has got to leave a trail that anyone can track.

 

[James the Newbie]

Sadly we cant speak with animals, but it is a clever way of going about it. Tracking them the old way with our level 4 scout makes sense, but the undead could have marched for days, so we cant be certain. It is over a mountain terrain, so hard ground is hard to track on. Are there any good buffs for the survival skill?

The soldiers trust us a fair bit, but we found ourselves falsely imprisoned, we weren't even meant to save the fortress, but my wizard didn't want to see the good men die, and he persuaded the cleric to agree. Kinda blind siding the DM by winning the encounter versus the horde. Now we need to find who did this.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Hmm ... are any of your PCs a gnome? Because they get speak with animals for free.

As for helping with skill checks, the only one that immediately leaps to mind is the cleric spell Divine Insight. But its range personal. Now if you could convince your DM that the cleric is just "helping" the scout do the tracking....

If your cleric is non-evil, Path of the Exalted may help. It really depends on the DM. I tend to view that spell as "Okay Mr. Fancy Pants, where do I go now?" but not everyone agrees with that interpretation.

 

[anest1s]

Sadly we cant speak with animals, but it is a clever way of going about it. Tracking them the old way with our level 4 scout makes sense, but the undead could have marched for days, so we cant be certain. It is over a mountain terrain, so hard ground is hard to track on. Are there any good buffs for the survival skill?

The soldiers trust us a fair bit, but we found ourselves falsely imprisoned, we weren't even meant to save the fortress, but my wizard didn't want to see the good men die, and he persuaded the cleric to agree. Kinda blind siding the DM by winning the encounter versus the horde. Now we need to find who did this.

Aid an other with search if the DM allows it...?

 

[James the Newbie]

If we used the scent spell aid other could work quite nicely. Defiantly worth keeping in mind. Also tracking by scent works well anyway, thanks for the inspiration.