Necromancer PrC sucks! I need a new one.

[Rowenstin]

IMC will be soon a invasion of undead, lead by a necromancer. But there´s not any class capable of animating and controlling large amounts of zombies and skeletons.

So I´m thinking in a new prestige class. The setting is Greyhawk; there´s several mad clerics of Nerull dealing with lots of undead there, so the class will be cleric-based.

The class needs a way to animate large amounts of low-level zombies ans skeletons without material components and control them.

Any idea?

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Librum Equitis has a "Zombie Master" 5 level PrC that lets the character control at least triple the number of zombies normally allowed, while retaining spell advancement in their prior spellcasting class.

 

[Rowenstin]

that´s an starting point, thanks. But what I´m looking for is a way to create and control thousands of low-level undead.
(not necessarily in a direct way, perhaps using more powerful minions to control those beyond line of sight)

 

[nsruf]

How about you use an existing necromancer class and equip the villain with a special magic item or artifact that serves to multiply the usual control limit by a factor of 100 or whatever you need?

Destroying this gadget could be the long-term goal of your campain and protecting it or keeping it operational (e.g. via human sacrifice) would be an important factor in the necromancer's plans.

 

[Master Kaul]

You could keep your villan a full Cleric or find a decent prc necromancer class in a book, because a new Necromancer isn't what you need. Simply use the Greate undead spells and then your Bad Boy can have Undead generals and you can have the main masses of the army fall under the Gererals' control who are in-turn under the control of the necromancer. This is the best most consistant way to have a gigantic undead army under 3rd edition rules.

Oh, and if you can also count Vampire Spawn as Captains too, because a cleric can only control so many undead.

I hope this was helpful

 

[HellHound]

Thanks for the plug for Librum Equitis vol 1.

Our second e-book, Thee Compleat Librum ov Gar'Udok's Necromantic Artes includes a prestige class for undead "generals" who can take over control of some of the Zombie Master's undead for him (freeing up more room for the Zombie Master to control yet more undead). The Zombie Master was also reprinted in Gar'Udok's, so if you don't have LEvol1, Gar'Udok's has both classes you could use, as well as a plethora of spells useful for this kind of game.

You can find out more about Gar'Udok here:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=109&

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Gar'Udok would be the better way to go, then, if you want all necromancy material. I've heard good things about it.

Librum Equitis #1 was a total mixed bag for me (about 50/50%balanced/unbalanced, useful/useless). Not too bad for $5, though, and everybody should find a least a handful of useful PrCs in it (much of the material I believe to be unbalanced can be easily fixed, by cutting the Primary Weapon PrC ability starting bonus from +2 to +1).

 

[Crothian]

There are some good prestige classes in the Undead book by AEG....

 

[Rowenstin]

Thanks a lot. I´ve already considered the artifact option and I don´t like it for several reasons. I´ll try the prestige classes in the books you´ve said, or more likely make one of my own since is difficult to find or download those here. It´s abilities will be simply a: undead of less than 3 hit dice do not count against it´s total, can animate large amounts of udead with a single use of animate dead (pehaps multiplying x2 the amount of hit dice raised for each 10 minutes of extra casting time) and can make them obey another character. I dont think it is unbalanced since it will require a high level caster (and medium sized skeletons and zombies are no longer a threat in a balanced game) and needs the apropiate number of corpses to animate (a difficult problem of logistics)

 

[DoctorB]

I did something similar in my campaign.

The villain was drawing on the power of a captured Dragon to power his super-undead abilities. He raised an army of thousands of undead but he could not command them, so he sent wraiths to control them and had a magical communication device to talk with the wraiths.
The party first destroyed the communication device, hurting coordination in the undead army, and then rescued the dragon which cut off the bad guy's ability to summon so many undead.

BTW, I am firmly of the opinion that NPCs do not necessarily have to obey the same rules that PCs do. If it is dramatically appropriate, just make it true.