Post/Author/DateTime	Post
camperdave 04-10-06, 10:47 PM	OK. Though a personal record of CO, I have created an 8th level character with 192 HD of zombies following him around due to creaton, and rebuking for a few more pets (AKA whatever I can get past the DM.) However, the 192 HD of zombie can't all be in one due to fell animate. So, I need one of two things. Some sort of permanent fusion for zombies, or some good moneymaking use for a massive "hoarde on the farm". Without inteligence, I was thinking of making this more obscene and getting Undead Leadership to get a blaster cohort and some taskmasters. Any ideas for follower >5th level taskmaster undead and what to put the "pets" to doing?
DragonChildX 04-11-06, 12:39 PM	How did you pull off 192 hd of Zombies If I may ask?
camperdave 04-11-06, 10:12 PM	I plan to post the full 8th level build in a few days, when the cohort/stronghold/followers are done. However, if you want a secret, here's where the undead come from. A dread necromancer controls (4 + Cha Mod) * Level's worth of HD. (4 + 8 = 12) * 8 = 96 A certain Libris Mortis rod doubles that: 96 * 2 = 192 HD. Bada Bing! Now, any suggestions on what to do with them?
Elvis Gone Warlock 04-11-06, 10:32 PM	Must...Eat...Brains... Ahem, sorry. How about an army?
DragonChildX 04-12-06, 03:02 PM	Oh what to do with them is easy. Look up unliving weapon in the BoVD and have fun. Walking undead timebombs rock!
camperdave 04-12-06, 09:15 PM	I think my build will torture the poor DM enough without massive armies. If I want to make him let me play it, I should probably keep most of them at home. If he makes me mad though... :P
malisteen 04-12-06, 10:41 PM	I could be wrong, but the Libris Mortis rod doubles the hit dice you can control per caster level, while the DN cha boost is per class level, meaning the rod wouldn't double your cha bonus.... That said, you aren't even close to how many undead you could control. Lets start: caster level (8) * 4 = 32 hit dice, * 2 (rod) = 64 hit dice Class level (8) * Cha bonus (8) = 64 hit dice. Rebuking level (8) * 2 = 16 hit dice Total sane hit dice: 144 hit dice. But why be restricted by sanity? Now, the biggest undead you can animate is (caster level 8 * 2) 16 hd. You can cast command undead as a second level spell, which grants complete control of a mindless undead without save for caster level (8) days, and you should have... what? six of these per day already? And you can cast it in place of a higher level spell, so lets just round that up to 10. CU's per day (10) * days of duration (8) = 80 more undead of any hit dice. # of extra undead (80) * most hit dice you can create (16) = 1280 hit dice Of course, that number could be higher, since you could give up more higher level spell slots to cast command undead more times, but I'm trying not to be unreasonable here. ;) So, sane hit dice of undead (144) + insane hit dice of undead (1280) = a grand total of 1,424 hit dice. under your direct control. But does it end there? Oh, no. You see, by taking the leadership feat, you can nab yourself a cleric type cohort, who can control another hundred or so hit dice (far more so in Eberron, where the necromancer domain grants a cleric access to the command undead spell). But that's not all! If you can manage 3rd level followers then they can all be wizard specialist necromancers casting command undead each three times a day at caster level three, for another nine 16 hit dice skeletons or zombies per third level follower! Thus leadership (but not undead leadership) will grant you another thousand or so hit dice of undead minions. 2,500 hit dice undead army? Not bad for an 8th level character! Of course, that leaves aside the question of how you're going to afford all those onyx gems to animate that many undead, or where you'll find all those 16 hit dice corpses, or where you'll get the equipment to outfit your host, or what will happen when an army of crusading clerics and paladins of pelor come and start burning domain abilities and killing off your pathetically wussy (but totally necessary) third level wizard followers..... But still, even if we cut that number down to one tenth as a simple matter of bowing to reality, that's still 250 hit dice of undead, well more then you started with, and probably itself ten times the hit dice of undead followers necessary to completely ruin any 8th level game. :cool:
camperdave 04-13-06, 12:30 AM	I think that it does work for the rod thing - order of operations. I am not doubling my cha bonus, I am doubling the number of HD i can control (which happens to be (4 + cha mod) *8 ) So... 2 * ( (4 + cha mod) *8 ) But let's not have an argument.. I did not think of control undead - that might :plotting: have to be done. As for the cohort, he is alread a warmage / Tainted Scholar blaster of True Nastieness (Think CL more than you could believe and DC you can't beat this). But this requires Undead Leadership, so maybe we will have to have some Undead Wizzards of Necromancy and Controlling Undead. :plotting: But what should I do with my hoard of (larger) doom?
DragonChildX 04-13-06, 12:16 PM	start a war against goodly temples. Hell they may have alot of clerics that can turn undead. But you have 2500 undead. They dont have that many turning attemps. Raze them to the ground!
camperdave 04-13-06, 02:29 PM	You all seem to be misunderstanding. He makes undead because he thinks they deserve to exist, and should be respected by the living, if they respect the living. He plans to keep around a large number of Mindless Undead to protect them, while they work for him. He will allow minded undead to join him if they respect the living as allies. He hopes to unite the living and the dead forever. So... If he has a gem mine in his stronghold, could zombies work there under the supervision of minded undead clerics?
malisteen 04-14-06, 11:07 PM	What you want is a stronghold. A nice stronhold in some truely, epicly inhospitable locale. I'm talking frostfell, black sands, bottom of the ocean type inhospitable. A place where no living creature would want to be anyway, but where your intelligent undead can idle their time away, untroubled by the lack of heat/food/water/air/what have you. There they can live endlessly perfecting cultures finer aspects: art, music, literature, architecture, magic, and so forth. When resources are required, teleportation or planar travel can used to bring the fruits of these endeavors to mortal lands in an exchange of ideas that will keep the thoughts of your citizens new and active, allowing them to keep pace with the avant guarde developments of mortal culture, but bring to them the refined technical skill of an eternity of practice. In time your little artists colony could blossom into a beacon for all intelligent undead willing to give up mindless depredation in favor of spiritual and intillectual pursuits. At least, that would be the dream.
camperdave 04-14-06, 11:15 PM	However, the point of this is facilitate interaction between mortals and undead. I want the guy to unite both sides together.
neilthrun 04-15-06, 06:19 PM	Cast awaken undead on everyone of them, and give them their freedom. Or set them up as some sort of energy source, a couple hundred zombies turning a wheel could make an impressive irrigation system. Or something.
camperdave 04-15-06, 06:28 PM	I don't have awaken undead yet. However, the irrigation idea is great. Some turn wheel, some pick, some sell. Great! Any more ideas?
Karm Hundredfists 04-15-06, 07:01 PM	Sure, the wheel operated irrigation system is a great idea, but why not use the irrigation to create a sluice. Use the sluice to mine for gold. Considering the cost of scrying spells and magic, etc... it shouldn't be too hard to find a great spot that the gold will poor out of for years. Then, since you wanna be a goodly two shoes, give the gold to some undead/not-undead community center or some crap :P.
camperdave 04-15-06, 08:20 PM	Men, we have a winner! THat is perfect, since my stronghold contains a mine... full of riches untold. Now, what would a zombie-sluce cost, and how should I explain it to my DM?
Karm Hundredfists 04-15-06, 09:33 PM	"Sluice mining was a popular method of mining. Imagine a long wooden box (the sluice) without a top on it. The box is sitting on a slope. Cleats were put on the inside bottom of the sluice to catch the gold. Gravel was placed in the upper end and then water was poured into the box and allowed to flow through. Gold settled on the bottom of the sluice box. This process usually required several men but they could mine much more efficiently than using a pan or a rocker box." In other words, it would not cost very much. Especially since your labor is free. Essentially if you have a reliable high altitude water source the only material needed is stone or wood. Since both of those are presumably free, the only cost would be the zombies. "A sluice box will wash much more gravel than a gold pan, but an ample supply of water must be available for sluicing." You should be able to get all the gold out of your mine relatively more quickly then normal. The only stipulation would be training the zombies to recognize the shiny bits and putting them in a box. Then smelting the ore into gold. So reasonably you should just have to pay for a very inexperienced blacksmith who will smelt for you.
camperdave 04-15-06, 09:49 PM	If I have the average undergound mine, where should I obtain this water source? Eventually I'll get a decanter of endless watter, but I think I'm alittle short. Unless I can pool all of my follower's cast (the managers of the zombie mining co) into 1 or two of them...
Karm Hundredfists 04-15-06, 09:53 PM	Preferably from a lake on top of a mountain fed primarily by underground springs, but this is not longer on the topic of Character optimization. Just hire a gnome to figure it out.
camperdave 04-15-06, 10:55 PM	Back to char. op - how much would said gnome cost RAW?
Karm Hundredfists 04-15-06, 11:39 PM	2 cp.