How to Raise an Army of the Dead?

[Kid Charlemagne]

OK, staying within known rules (from whatever sources) how can a Necromancer raise a significant army of the dead? I'm looking to see what's the most hit dice that can be reasonably controlled by a single wizard. Assume a specialist necromancer of 20th level - nothing Epic, but feats from any source book apply. Preferably without the use of magic items - but if there any items that would impact number of HD controlled, feel free to list them additionally...

 

[jgsugden]

OK, staying within known rules (from whatever sources) how can a Necromancer raise a significant army of the dead? I'm looking to see what's the most hit dice that can be reasonably controlled by a single wizard. Assume a specialist necromancer of 20th level - nothing Epic, but feats from any source book apply. Preferably without the use of magic items - but if there any items that would impact number of HD controlled, feel free to list them additionally...

Use command undead to 'charm' a wight. Bring that wight into a small town and use other magics to lure people to it. Get it to create more wights. A wight controls the wights that it creates.

Within a few hours, you should have a giant pyramid scheme going on where you control the top wight who controls a few wights who each control a few wights who each control a few wights ...

Of course, this army will fall apart as wights in the middle of your 'command structure' die and the wights directly beneath them become free.

Alternatively, simulacrum spells can be used to create lesser versions of the necromancer that each casts animate dead ...

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Use command undead to 'charm' a wight. Bring that wight into a small town and use other magics to lure people to it. Get it to create more wights. A wight controls the wights that it creates.

I'm looking for something that would be practical to command - leaving aside all issues of wight farming and similar issues of scale (which I feel break down as soon as you start imposing legitimate registrictions), what can one wizard command for a significant period of time?

All the wight example creates is a massive, uncontrollable mess of undead. I'm looking for order here.

 

[Nightfall]

R&R2, True Ritual.

City of the Dead. Trust me, you'll get a nice army that way.

 

[LGodamus]

mongoose beyond the grave..........raise city...but the xp cost sucks madly and there is also raise death fleet for all your naval army of the damned needs.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Within a few hours, you should have a giant pyramid scheme going on where you control the top wight who controls a few wights who each control a few wights who each control a few wights ...

Of course, this army will fall apart as wights in the middle of your 'command structure' die and the wights directly beneath them become free.

Ah, but you haven't taken the next logical step.

You order the first wight to execute the following instructions.

1. Create half a dozen wights*.
2. Order each of these wights to obey commands given them by me, Bob the Necromancer.
3. Give them these three instructions.

Then every so often, you command a few of the earlier generations to fly into the centre of some solid mountain and await your next command.

Not much chance of them getting destroyed while they're in the middle of a half mile of solid rock, so you don't risk freeing up many of your current generation.

-Hyp.

* you might want to impose some sort of condition on this one, so that they stop once you have a certain number.

Edit - now, obviously, this post makes no sense until you replace all instances of "wight" with "wraith", since wights are not incorporeal and are thus incapable of hiding inside solid rock.

It works with wraiths

 

[Hypersmurf]

All the wight example creates is a massive, uncontrollable mess of undead. I'm looking for order here.

I don't agree on the uncontrollable part. If you have each spawnmaster assign its spawn to follow your orders, you can subsequently instruct them to also obey an officer corps, and you effectively end up with an ordered army.

-Hyp.

 

[Janos Audron]

I thought incorporeal creatures could never be more than five feet away from the surface while inside something solid?

 

[CCamfield]

If you want direct control, there's a PrC in Mercenaries: Born of Blood called the Necrenary. Not perhaps as flashy as the city-raising spells but I thought I'd mention it.

A 10th level Wizard/10th level Necrenary would be able to control 2*10*10=200 hit dice of undead, as well as being able to command or bolster them as a 10th level cleric, can cast Create Greater Undead as an (8th level) arcane spell, and can cast 4 undead animation spells simultaneously in 10 minutes instead of 1 per hour.

Necromancer's Legacy has a spell called Necropolis (Sor/Wiz 9, Bones(?!?) 9) that raises an entire city as skeletal warriors which do not count against the caster's control limit, but which are controlled. A city would yield 1d10 thousand skeletons. But they're limited to within 25 miles of the settlement...

 

[kreynolds]

I don't know if any of you are familiar with City of the Spider Queen, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Great Revenance spell detailed.