Making a super powerful Undead Army

[GetZakked]

I'm in a D&D Campaign where my current goal is to amass a super massive, awesome undead army. So starting from level 1, with feats, what would be my best course of action to achieve a near limitless awesome army of undead that can totally wipe out my enemies (And the other players because it totally sounds like my undead army is not going to fly with some of them).

I was told to go, Cleric 3, Wizard 3, And then take Dread Necromancer all the way to the top. Is that the best course of action? What would be the best to do? Were a group of power gamers too, so feel free to be as creative as possible and add all the crazy shenanigans.

I also want to be a Lich, maybe even go as far as Demi-Lich at some point, but thats purely for character flavor.

[Vitruviansquid]

You're going to want to post this in the DnD3e/3.5e section of this forum, where the people who are into 3e/3.5e/pathfinder optimization hang out.

[GetZakked]

Ok Thank you very much

[Forrestfire]

I'm going to assume that whoever gave you the advice on the class meant True Necromancer, in which case, ignore them. The class is really bad. Cleric x with PrCs, Wizard x with PrCs, and Dread Necromancer 8 with PrCs (or DN to 20) are all great options. Cleric is the best of them, though.

Now, getting an army. How I would do it is with wights, shadows, or another spawning undead as the main force, having each one order it's spawn to obey you. Any time an individual undead creature gets enough spawn to be a danger for your army if it dies and releases them, put theme in a Smoky Confinement bottle. This had the dual purpose of protecting control.over your army and making sure you can have a large force in your pocket ready to fight at any time (although using them is a last resort).

For your Animate Dead creations, you want to use the hit dice you have available for control to get some extremely hard-hitting shock troops, basically. Skeletal hydras, dragons, Polymorph Ant Objects'd corpses to have tons of stscked templates, and the like.

Another good option to think about is having minions with their own control pools. There are some undead and other creatures with Rebuke Undead and Animate Dead, and you also can take Leadership (or Undead Leadership, grabbing necropolitans) to get access to cleric followers. Probably want to pull the same Smoky Confinement trick for the most controlling of those minions, too.

On the note of lichdom, it's really awkward because the +4 LA is so painful for a spellcaster. Necropolitan can be fluffed as something similar, and you could use contingent spells to emulate the phylactery, but I'd avoid that 4 LA at all costs.

[Firest Kathon]

(And the other players because it totally sounds like my undead army is not going to fly with some of them).

I just have to ask: If you already know that the other players will not like it, why do you think it is a good idea to do this? Have you asked them if they are OK with intra-party conflict/PvP?

[Diachronos]

My first bit of advice: See if your DM will let you use a Dread Necro fix instead of the version from Libris Mortis, even if it's just a spell list fix. If the answer is no, ignore arcane casters altogether and play a cleric; there's no point in going for this kind of a character if you're stuck waiting until level 7-8 to get access to your key spell, no arcane classes get Desecrate, and the base Dread Necro doesn't even get cantrip slots.

Outside of class choices, you're going to want to invest in the Corpsecrafter feat tree. Extra health and damage are a huge bonus to undead, especially when the feat has no prereqs and is a stepping stone to other useful feats.

[Lightlawbliss]

one thing to remember with undead hoards is that only so many enemies can get in melee range of a target. 10000 undead don't do you much good if they can only attack 1 to 8 at a time. Your going to want some incorporial undead just to maximize angles of attack. You will also want to consider undead that have some form of ranged attack (even if that attack is handing them a c-bow and bolts). Don't underestimate the value of being able to do SOMETHING over having them just stand there waiting their turn to die.

I second the "don't go lich" motion. It's more of a NPC Template.

And why are you going foward with a plan that you suspect will result in effective TPK by pvp?