EDIT: IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR A DEATH DOMAIN CLERIC There is no Homebrew in this Post, Just reflavoring and most DM's should be fine with this, this is all within the offical books, all the stuff you need is in the PHB, MM , and DMG. This goes up to level 12 because most games end at that point(anything after this you can do whatever)
Step 1:you want to get 9 levels in wizard(Necromancer Subclass) Step 2:Then you want 3 levels in Fighter or Paladin(Elidric Knight or Oathbreaker recommended) Step 3:Use the spell point system(Found in the DMG) Step 4:Cast Animate undead at 5th level(any spare spell points can be used for spells or casting animate undead at lower levels) Step 5: Re-Flavor your Undead into your Soldiers(skeletons work best in my opinion)
And Ta Dah you now have a Army of 48(50 if you chose eldric knight or 54+1if you chose oathbreaker paladin(or any paladen)) Keep in mind that those numbers are the max, you can not cast any spells(other than cantrips) if you have that many You could do this without the fighter or the paladin, but you would just be a weak little wizard boy and not a strong warlord
the oathbreaker paladin is likely the best subclass option because it strengthens the undead If you get to go to 13th level i would recommend getting another paladin level because then you can use your channeled divinity to control a wight and a wight can control 12 zombies so thats 13 more soldiers under your control(The channeled divinity is right below this)
Control Undead. As an action, you target one undead creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target must obey your commands for the next 24 hours, or until you use this Channel Divinity option again. An undead whose challenge rating is equal to or greater than your paladin level is immune to this effect.
Now as a necromancer wizard when you cast animate undead you get +1 undead when you cast animate undead, so at casting 5th level animate undead gets you 6 undead anyone else who cast it gets 5 undead so thats why necromancer wizard is vital
Because all your paladin/Fighter and wizard spell points are going to Animate undead all the magic attacks you get are cantrips so i would recommend Chill touch and i would reflavor it to a war cry or something like that, Chilling Shout, Cold Stare, and Death Stare are decent names
you don't need good INT to animate dead so INT only required for Chill touch For stats i would priorates Con first for good health and for 2nd place you need to pick if you like the Chill touch attack more or Melee attacks more 1.Con 2.Str / Int 4.Dex / Wiz 6. Cra
If you get 13 levels and chose paladin then Wiz takes 4th easy because of channeled divinity
This is would be an awful build to play with as combat would take forever. Additionally, you would probably be hunted down for desecrating so many corpses.
Lastly, a 5th level Cleric could wipe out your entire army with a single action.
They are re flavored to not be undead, but even if they were you are underestimating how powerful 48 undead is, 48d6 damage is crazy and the skeletons HP is increased because of the necromancer wizard level Skeletons have ranged attacks so i spread mine out so that the cleric would not wipe them out in 1 turn also just get one or more skeletons to grapple the cleric by pushing the cleric agent a wall or on the ground and cover their mouth with their bony hand, that disables most cleric spells, its basically saying if you bring enough men with knifes to a gun fight you will win So yes, if the necromancer has a IQ of a 12 year old then a cleric can wipe this army out in 1 turn, but even with the IQ of a 12 year old if you get to go first that cleric is screwed because of the sheer amount of arrows and bodys
you have clearly never seen a PC battle between a Cleric and a necromancer have, it was a 5v3+48 and uhh lets just say it did not go well for the side with the cleric that was also level 11(i mean it did not go well for my side either lol) i posted about it before, i will admit it was a close battle but it ended with 1v1 between the paladen and me, it was very close and i only won because of a wand of magic mistles that i nearly forgot i had,It was a Paladin, Cleric, Bard, Ranger, Fighter vs a Necromancer, Warlock, Rouge, and 48 undead.
So your saying should be "Lastly, a 5th level Cleric could wipe out your entire army with a single action if you bunch them up together" but yeah, i'm just using animate undead to figure out how many soldiers i can get and then re flavoring them, so even if i was doing what your suggesting your statement is still wrong, DnD is a magical world, Warlords and Generals know about AoE spells, thats why having your men stay close to the enemy's or spreading them out would be a common tactic in battles
My final point is you could get your men by recruiting them from local villages because its called "reflavoring", though part of the reflavoring would be daily pay and rations for you men, thats why i said "Warlord or Military General" and not "Necromancer", People reflavor stuff all the time, like that creature that travles tru bags of holding, it shares the stat block with the troll, when reflavoring you change damages and how stuff looks, maybe add or take away abilities as it makes sense for the reflavor
TLDR:While in theory a 5th level cleric could wipe out my entire army in 1 turn, in practice it could not, heck even a 12th level cleric might not be able to
Edit: Also Combat with wizards is already a pain because they take forever to pick their spells and these undead don't all take initiative, they are commanded by a single action that happens on the controllers turn, I made a simple python program that makes my turn very streamlined i just tell the program how many undead i have, what type of attack they are doing, and what AC they have to hit, and it rolls all the dice for me and tells me how many hits and how much damage, it even can account for Nat 20's
But hey, we are all entitled to our own opinion, lets just agree to disagree
True, thats why i did not include the oathbreakers paladen boosts, the only reason i included the wizards one is because its in related to the spell i use to calculate the ammount of men i can have
I also remove their resistance to a few things and other things as well to make them more human this is not a 100% finished guild, this is just pointing people in the right direction if they want to play a warlord
if enough people are intrested i may make a full guild on how i buff and debuff it the reason i did not include the full thing is beaucse it can vary from DM to DM and you may need to discuss it with yours
I’d go a step further than 6thlyranguard and say you can’t re-skin the undead as soldiers at all. They are far too different. First and foremost, undead don’t have a choice in being recruited. Also, they don’t have to be paid or fed or sleep. Undead will be unwelcome in most civilized areas. You’re getting a small army, here, you’ve got to deal with the drawbacks that come with how you raise that army.
And when you start changing traits, you are taking it well beyond a re-skin and into the realm of creating a new creature. A creature which the spell wouldn’t be able to create.
Side note: The term warlord is a bit loaded. It was a much beloved class in 4e that didn’t make the jump to this edition. People may come here expecting to see something very different.
Oh shoot, i played 4th edition and totally forgot about that, i totally should of just used Millitary Commander or Control a army (Edit:There, i changed the thread name)
Also when i played this i did calculate the cost of feeding, paying the army, and transporting I payed each man 15 gold weekly and spent about 300 gold feeding them every weak at the army's peak(not including horse feed and donations to the gods of light for healing ), my character was funding his army conquest to conquest.our DM did down time and in that down time me and the DM would do little side campaign's were i would participate in wars as a mercenary army, There were times were i had to downsize my army due to the sheer amount of gold it was costing me I eventually had to downsize and buy a few farms and ran a army of about 20 men for a bit while i waited for my farm to make money, i also learned about Crop rotation from this But yeah the farms made the accounting even worse and there was a cold snap one of the years and i nearly went bankrupt, most of my farms were in close proximity to each other except for 2 and those barely kept me from bankruptcy
but yeah, this campaign is one of the few times i used the info i learned in a accounting class due to the sheer amount of budgeting and number tracking i had to do
One of the best campaign's i was in, I generally play necromancers and this was familiar but different enough that it was fun Instead of being hunted down by Inquisitors and Mobs i was stressing praying to the gods of harvest that my farms would be bountiful
Making undead not undead is Homebrew, it's not reflavouring, same with changing resistances etc... If you want to command an army just ask your DM if you can recruit an army. Dragging around 50+ creatures with you constantly is just going to be a headache. Each soldier would cost 2sp-4gp per day depending on their experience & training.
Alternatively, you could just play a game like Warhammer that is actually designed to accommodate players running whole armies, instead of bringing a game of D&D to a grinding halt.
Even if you "reflavor" the undead from "Animate Dead" as "not undead people" - let's say you raise them as some less sketchy looking creature, maybe plants etc. - you still glossed over a a major requirement for the spell:
- Corpses: You would need a corpse to raise every single one of your happy helpers. getting 50 Corpses over some period of time will need serious commitment to either desicrate a bunch of graves or some kinda warcrime.
Also Your Ability Score recomendations won't work out like that. You're asking for a Paladin/Wizard multiclass, that will require you to have a 13 in Str, Int AND Cha. You are the very definition of a MAD build.
Making undead not undead is Homebrew, it's not reflavouring, same with changing resistances etc... If you want to command an army just ask your DM if you can recruit an army. Dragging around 50+ creatures with you constantly is just going to be a headache. Each soldier would cost 2sp-4gp per day depending on their experience & training.
I based my payment off a post saying commoners make 10 GP a week, so 50% higher than that sounds reasonable
Alternatively, you could just play a game like Warhammer that is actually designed to accommodate players running whole armies, instead of bringing a game of D&D to a grinding halt.
I plan out my turns, the partys warlock took more time with their turns than me
Even if you "reflavor" the undead from "Animate Dead" as "not undead people" - let's say you raise them as some less sketchy looking creature, maybe plants etc. - you still glossed over a a major requirement for the spell:
- Corpses: You would need a corpse to raise every single one of your happy helpers. getting 50 Corpses over some period of time will need serious commitment to either desicrate a bunch of graves or some kinda warcrime.
Also Your Ability Score recomendations won't work out like that. You're asking for a Paladin/Wizard multiclass, that will require you to have a 13 in Str, Int AND Cha. You are the very definition of a MAD build.
I had good roles for that charecter, and also good point, for the starting scores for my charecter were 15 Str 14 Dex 17 Con 12 int(later increased to 14) 14 Wiz 13 Cra
Edit:
But yeah, i do see your guys points, it is a MAD build and some people who play it would slow down combat greatly i was just sharing a build i made a while back that worked and was fun and challenging, i do see difficulty's with it I just thought having a army of 54 men + a Giant is fun, it worked at the table i was playing at, but i can see it may not work at all tables(Giant is a zombie ogre from the oathbreaker paladens abiliy)
EDIT: IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR A DEATH DOMAIN CLERIC
There is no Homebrew in this Post, Just reflavoring and most DM's should be fine with this, this is all within the offical books, all the stuff you need is in the PHB, MM , and DMG.
This goes up to level 12 because most games end at that point(anything after this you can do whatever)
Step 1:you want to get 9 levels in wizard(Necromancer Subclass)
Step 2:Then you want 3 levels in Fighter or Paladin(Elidric Knight or Oathbreaker recommended)
Step 3:Use the spell point system(Found in the DMG)
Step 4:Cast Animate undead at 5th level(any spare spell points can be used for spells or casting animate undead at lower levels)
Step 5: Re-Flavor your Undead into your Soldiers(skeletons work best in my opinion)
And Ta Dah you now have a Army of 48(50 if you chose eldric knight or 54+1if you chose oathbreaker paladin(or any paladen))
Keep in mind that those numbers are the max, you can not cast any spells(other than cantrips) if you have that many
You could do this without the fighter or the paladin, but you would just be a weak little wizard boy and not a strong warlord
the oathbreaker paladin is likely the best subclass option because it strengthens the undead
If you get to go to 13th level i would recommend getting another paladin level because then you can use your channeled divinity to control a wight and a wight can control 12 zombies so thats 13 more soldiers under your control(The channeled divinity is right below this)
Control Undead. As an action, you target one undead creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target must obey your commands for the next 24 hours, or until you use this Channel Divinity option again. An undead whose challenge rating is equal to or greater than your paladin level is immune to this effect.
Now as a necromancer wizard when you cast animate undead you get +1 undead when you cast animate undead, so at casting 5th level animate undead gets you 6 undead anyone else who cast it gets 5 undead so thats why necromancer wizard is vital
Because all your paladin/Fighter and wizard spell points are going to Animate undead all the magic attacks you get are cantrips so i would recommend Chill touch and i would reflavor it to a war cry or something like that, Chilling Shout, Cold Stare, and Death Stare are decent names
you don't need good INT to animate dead so INT only required for Chill touch
For stats i would priorates Con first for good health and for 2nd place you need to pick if you like the Chill touch attack more or Melee attacks more
1.Con
2.Str / Int
4.Dex / Wiz
6. Cra
If you get 13 levels and chose paladin then Wiz takes 4th easy because of channeled divinity
They are re flavored to not be undead, but even if they were you are underestimating how powerful 48 undead is, 48d6 damage is crazy and the skeletons HP is increased because of the necromancer wizard level
Skeletons have ranged attacks so i spread mine out so that the cleric would not wipe them out in 1 turn
also just get one or more skeletons to grapple the cleric by pushing the cleric agent a wall or on the ground and cover their mouth with their bony hand, that disables most cleric spells, its basically saying if you bring enough men with knifes to a gun fight you will win
So yes, if the necromancer has a IQ of a 12 year old then a cleric can wipe this army out in 1 turn, but even with the IQ of a 12 year old if you get to go first that cleric is screwed because of the sheer amount of arrows and bodys
you have clearly never seen a PC battle between a Cleric and a necromancer have, it was a 5v3+48 and uhh lets just say it did not go well for the side with the cleric that was also level 11(i mean it did not go well for my side either lol)
i posted about it before, i will admit it was a close battle but it ended with 1v1 between the paladen and me, it was very close and i only won because of a wand of magic mistles that i nearly forgot i had,It was a Paladin, Cleric, Bard, Ranger, Fighter vs a Necromancer, Warlock, Rouge, and 48 undead.
So your saying should be "Lastly, a 5th level Cleric could wipe out your entire army with a single action if you bunch them up together"
but yeah, i'm just using animate undead to figure out how many soldiers i can get and then re flavoring them, so even if i was doing what your suggesting your statement is still wrong, DnD is a magical world, Warlords and Generals know about AoE spells, thats why having your men stay close to the enemy's or spreading them out would be a common tactic in battles
My final point is you could get your men by recruiting them from local villages because its called "reflavoring", though part of the reflavoring would be daily pay and rations for you men, thats why i said "Warlord or Military General" and not "Necromancer", People reflavor stuff all the time, like that creature that travles tru bags of holding, it shares the stat block with the troll, when reflavoring you change damages and how stuff looks, maybe add or take away abilities as it makes sense for the reflavor
TLDR:While in theory a 5th level cleric could wipe out my entire army in 1 turn, in practice it could not, heck even a 12th level cleric might not be able to
Edit: Also Combat with wizards is already a pain because they take forever to pick their spells and these undead don't all take initiative, they are commanded by a single action that happens on the controllers turn, I made a simple python program that makes my turn very streamlined
i just tell the program how many undead i have, what type of attack they are doing, and what AC they have to hit, and it rolls all the dice for me and tells me how many hits and how much damage, it even can account for Nat 20's
But hey, we are all entitled to our own opinion, lets just agree to disagree
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
True, thats why i did not include the oathbreakers paladen boosts, the only reason i included the wizards one is because its in related to the spell i use to calculate the ammount of men i can have
I also remove their resistance to a few things and other things as well to make them more human
this is not a 100% finished guild, this is just pointing people in the right direction if they want to play a warlord
if enough people are intrested i may make a full guild on how i buff and debuff it
the reason i did not include the full thing is beaucse it can vary from DM to DM and you may need to discuss it with yours
I’d go a step further than 6thlyranguard and say you can’t re-skin the undead as soldiers at all. They are far too different. First and foremost, undead don’t have a choice in being recruited. Also, they don’t have to be paid or fed or sleep. Undead will be unwelcome in most civilized areas. You’re getting a small army, here, you’ve got to deal with the drawbacks that come with how you raise that army.
And when you start changing traits, you are taking it well beyond a re-skin and into the realm of creating a new creature. A creature which the spell wouldn’t be able to create.
Side note: The term warlord is a bit loaded. It was a much beloved class in 4e that didn’t make the jump to this edition. People may come here expecting to see something very different.
Oh shoot, i played 4th edition and totally forgot about that, i totally should of just used Millitary Commander or Control a army
(Edit:There, i changed the thread name)
Also when i played this i did calculate the cost of feeding, paying the army, and transporting
I payed each man 15 gold weekly and spent about 300 gold feeding them every weak at the army's peak(not including horse feed and donations to the gods of light for healing ), my character was funding his army conquest to conquest.our DM did down time and in that down time me and the DM would do little side campaign's were i would participate in wars as a mercenary army, There were times were i had to downsize my army due to the sheer amount of gold it was costing me
I eventually had to downsize and buy a few farms and ran a army of about 20 men for a bit while i waited for my farm to make money, i also learned about Crop rotation from this
But yeah the farms made the accounting even worse and there was a cold snap one of the years and i nearly went bankrupt, most of my farms were in close proximity to each other except for 2 and those barely kept me from bankruptcy
but yeah, this campaign is one of the few times i used the info i learned in a accounting class due to the sheer amount of budgeting and number tracking i had to do
One of the best campaign's i was in, I generally play necromancers and this was familiar but different enough that it was fun
Instead of being hunted down by Inquisitors and Mobs i was stressing praying to the gods of harvest that my farms would be bountiful
At that point, why are you bothering with raising them as undead. Just hire soldiers. Cut out the middle man. Much simpler.
Making undead not undead is Homebrew, it's not reflavouring, same with changing resistances etc... If you want to command an army just ask your DM if you can recruit an army. Dragging around 50+ creatures with you constantly is just going to be a headache. Each soldier would cost 2sp-4gp per day depending on their experience & training.
Alternatively, you could just play a game like Warhammer that is actually designed to accommodate players running whole armies, instead of bringing a game of D&D to a grinding halt.
Even if you "reflavor" the undead from "Animate Dead" as "not undead people" - let's say you raise them as some less sketchy looking creature, maybe plants etc. - you still glossed over a a major requirement for the spell:
- Corpses: You would need a corpse to raise every single one of your happy helpers. getting 50 Corpses over some period of time will need serious commitment to either desicrate a bunch of graves or some kinda warcrime.
Also Your Ability Score recomendations won't work out like that. You're asking for a Paladin/Wizard multiclass, that will require you to have a 13 in Str, Int AND Cha. You are the very definition of a MAD build.
Im using the necromancer ability as a "balancer" to figure out how many i should be allowed to have at each level
I based my payment off a post saying commoners make 10 GP a week, so 50% higher than that sounds reasonable
I plan out my turns, the partys warlock took more time with their turns than me
I had good roles for that charecter, and also good point, for the starting scores for my charecter were
15 Str
14 Dex
17 Con
12 int(later increased to 14)
14 Wiz
13 Cra
Edit:
But yeah, i do see your guys points, it is a MAD build and some people who play it would slow down combat greatly
i was just sharing a build i made a while back that worked and was fun and challenging, i do see difficulty's with it
I just thought having a army of 54 men + a Giant is fun, it worked at the table i was playing at, but i can see it may not work at all tables(Giant is a zombie ogre from the oathbreaker paladens abiliy)