Not sure how many will actually read this, nor have I found a better place to post this. Just wanted to contribute a few tips that branch from the main handbook itself, as well as what others have already posted. Most of this is practical in-game advice, as opposed to build discussion, which is what most of these posts seem to be focused on.
Dealing with enemies who can Turn or RebukeI posted this originally in one of the Q&A threads, but I think it deserves inclusion with a Necro Handbook:
Two feats from Magic of Incarnum:
Undead Meldshaper (requires Int 3)
Shape Soulmeld (planar ward)
PHB, Rebuke, pg 159: "A commanded undead creature is under the mental control of the evil cleric."
MoI, pg 83: "Your planar ward protects you from mental control."
Granted, two feats is kinda steep, but it gives you outright immunity to Rebuke.
It doesn't help with Greater Turning, though, which is a lot more bothersome IMO. Just casting Protection from Evil/Good/etc should block Rebuking, according to your argument. (And I think it should.)
Either of those options would only provide protection against being Controlled (the more powerful effect of rebuking). It would not protect against a regular rebuke, since the "cowering" condition is completely different than being mentally controlled. There are a total of 4 scenarios to account for (with this particular issue):
1. Normal Turn Undead
2. The more powerful effect of Turn Undead (being destroyed)
3. Normal Rebuke Undead
4. The more powerful effect of Rebuke Undead (being Controlled)
Honestly, if you're ever in a situation where you have to deal with #2 or #4, it's usually either because your DM is being a douche, or you've done something really stupid. Or a combination of both.
But since HD and CR are hardly related in D&D 3.5, they should still be accounted for.
Life Ward (SpC) grants immunity to #1 and #2. However, it only effects 1 undead per casting, and its duration is only 1 minute / level. Still, when facing enemies that can turn, it's one of the best ways to be worry-free of having your undead (or yourself) be turned or destroyed.
Since Cowering is a fear effect, anything that grants immunity to fear effects (other than the undead trait) essentially grants immunity to being Rebuked (#3). Hero's Feast (which DMs might rule doesn't effect skeletons), Greater Heroism, and Lionheart are all spells that are easy to come by. A Banner of the Storm's Eye (MIC) would do the trick too. And as mentioned, anything that protects from mental control (such as Protection from Good/Evil) effectively grants your undead immunity to #4.
Additionally, the "all inclusive" option for these scenarios is to stack Turn Resistance on your undead (or something to raise its Turning Hit Die). After Awaken Undead, you could technically hand out Cloaks of Turn Resistance to them, though at 11k a pop, that's pretty expensive. I find that following these rules is usually sufficient enough:
- Make sure the undead you fight with have a high number of HD for your level (For Animate Dead, smaller army with stronger individuals = more HD per undead = smaller chance of getting turned)
- Since you should have Corpsecrafter anyway, take the Necromantic Presence feat. This affects all your undead with 1 feat, plus RAW it affects YOU too, if you're a Necropolitan or some type of undead (as long as you are in control of yourself).
- Throw down a Bleakness spell as needed (PHBII) if you're a wizard or cleric. As a necromancer, you should have at least 1 of these spells on deck all the time anyway, since it's such a versatile utility spell. You can give all your undead fast healing, dispel Light descriptor spells, and boost all your undead's Turn Resistance all with 1 standard action.
Going with these alone, an enemy would have to have 4 + your undead's HD worth of Turning hit die to even think about turning or rebuking just 1 of your undead. This usually means that Destroying or Controlling is completely out of the question. If you're able to keep up with rule #1 (only controlling undead with lots of HD), then coming across an enemy with enough turning HD is EXTREMELY unlikely.
Conclusion: Either find ways around Turn/Rebuke Undead, or just stack Turn Resistance.
Onyx and Animate DeadIt's pretty obvious that WotC didn't take into account onyx volume when the Animate Dead spell was written. Yes, technically, the more HD your skeleton has, the more onyx you would need to fit into its eyes. But seriously, I've never once come across a DM that even accounted for onyx volume (or the volume of any spell component, for that matter). My recommendation: DON'T even make this an issue UNLESS your DM makes it an issue. Odds are, he's not even going to think about it (or care). As a DM, I wouldn't make a player account for it in my game.
The other issue people have with Onyx is the cost. About half of this entire thread has been about ways to bypass or reduce the cost of onyx with Animate Dead. But really, the only time anyone should really be concerned about the cost is if you use Animate Dead ALL THE TIME. If you intend on animating every single corpse you come across, or changing your "Animate Dead" army often, then yes, cost would be an issue (hence the popular suggestion of making it a spell-like ability for RAW cheese).
But my question is,
why would you abuse Animate Dead this way? As mentioned numerous times, the best way to use Animate Dead is to pump your controlling capacity, then Animate just a few but very powerful skeletal brutes, and have them do your dirty work. There are a few other good uses for Animate Dead, but generally, the idea should be that you're going to keep these undead around for as long as possible (until they are destroyed, stolen, lost, or you die).
Since this is the case, the cost of Onyx shouldn't really be an issue. As an example, if you're a level 12 cleric, you're walking around with 48 HD of skeletons. You spent a grand total of 1,200 gp to animate these skeletons. 1,200 gp is a drop in the bucket for a level 12 character. In fact, this cleric could safely carry around 1,200 gp worth of onyx (or more) in case he comes across better skeletons in his travels. Seriously, I would be more worried about the cost of OUTFITTING these undead than the cost of creating them. It's almost a non-issue.
I would also like to comment on the HD cap for Animate Dead. I see people trying to milk the HD cap for WAY more than should be allowed in game. Being able to control 6x your character's HD worth of undead is borderline broken, and I don't know any DM in his right mind who would allow it. Plus, RAW, you simply cannot do it. On every spell/item/ability I've seen that raises that cap (such as Desecrate and the Deathbound Domain), the description specifically says something to the effect of "you can create as many as double" or "you can create 4 times your HD instead of the normal 2", etc. The key word being CREATE. If you read the description for Animate Dead, there is a very clear difference between how many undead you can
create and how many undead you can
control. The spell is very specific in that the hard cap for the number of HD you can
control is 4x your HD. You can
create more than that through stacking effects, but you can only
control up to 4x your HD at any given time. If I were DMing a player who insisted on being able to control more than that, I would slap him with the DMG. That hard cap is more than fair. Spend your money/feats on something else.
Mobilizing Your UndeadThis has sort of been touched upon here and there, but I feel that it hasn't been brought to light as a practical issue, and discussed as such. So you have a few elite undead brutes to do your bidding. They follow you around and obey you. However, what happens if you need to go into town? You can't just bring the undead with you. Well, you can, but it will put the entire town into a riot (or it should). Do you tell them to wait outside of town in hiding until you call for them? What if you get into a fight in town and you need them? If your DM is competent, your undead probably won't be helping you for that encounter. Also, what if you need to squeeze into a tight space that your big undead can't fit into? What if your party needs to mount a dragon and fly somewhere? Your big undead simply can't join. There are numerous situations where it would be nice to be able to have your undead on hand to summon at a moment's notice, but not become a hindrance in these situations.
Shrink Item is a no go. Unfortunately, there's not a Reduce Undead spell, unless it's homebrew. And even then, if you follow suit with the other "Reduce" spells, you have to account for the spell's duration. I suppose you can use Plane Shift or some other planar travel spell to temporarily send them elsewhere, but that can get expensive in scrolls (or would take up valuable spell slots).
Do I actually have a solution? Yes I do. Enveloping Pit (MiC). Honestly, I don't know HOW they figured up the price for that thing. It's cheap as dirt, and it's WAY better than a Portable Hole. Sure, you could spend 20k and squeeze a couple of large skeletons in there (barely), OR you could buy an Enveloping Pit for next to nothing and have a 50 FOOT HOLE to store your elite undead in. The hole is bigger in diameter (10 feet) and depth (50 feet) than a portable hole (6x10). What the heck were you thinking, WotC!? If your DM makes you pay more money for this thing (since it's dreadfully underpriced), gladly agree to it. It's only fair.
Sure, you can open up the pit, toss it on the ground, and tell your large skeletons to "hop in" since technically, undead are immune to nonlethal damage (which is what falling damage is). But why be an @$$? There's no need for all that.
Take the cloth from your shirt pocket, and open it up horizontally (I'm picturing a bull fighter holding up a red cloth for a bull to run toward). This effectively creates a "tunnel" for your undead to safely walk into and out of. You can also think of it as a drinking glass. If you lay the cloth on the ground, it's like the glass is face up, with the top intersecting with the ground. If you hold it out horizontally, it's like the glass is lying on its side.
It's a move action to pull the cloth out and open it up, and another move action to close the cloth and put it back. Fast enough for you? It's better than dumping corpses out of a portable hole, Desecrating the corpses (WITH NO ALTAR!), then casting Animate Dead on them. This would take at least 2 rounds to do, whereas the Enveloping Pit trick can be done in 1 round (and requires no onyx!).
Magic Jar TrickThere has been lots of mention of Magic Jar in conjunction with Necromancy. The general consensus is that while it's a good spell for collecting souls and possession, it's too risky, as it leaves your body vulnerable. However, there is a trick that I've yet to see mention of that takes care of this problem beautifully.
As a Cleric, find some way to be able to cast Magic Jar. The easiest way I've found is to take the Divine Magician variant from Complete Mage.
Next, Command a Bhut (FF). Have the Bhut effect all allies with Dreadful Appearance once so that they are immune to it forever after that.
Now make a rod (or something similar) that has the Magic Jar component (a gem) attached to it. You will now carry this item around, pretty much always.
Now use Magic Jar. When your body goes limp and your soul is in the gem, command your Bhut to possess your lifeless body. To everyone else, it looks like it's just you walking around with a rod. But actually, the Bhut is possessing your body while your soul is in the Magic Jar.
The way to use this is to have Magic Jar active as often as possible. When combat begins, your soul should start from inside the jar. Train your Bhut so that it knows what to do without you taking a standard action to command it. The Bhut should position itself close (but not too close) to a brute-type enemy, preferably with hands and the ability to speak. As soon as you sense the life force, you take it over, and now you can even cast spells in the new body. You should give your allies (and the bhut) a code word that you say as soon as you possess a body, so that they know it's you. You can now use this body indefinitely, while the bhut walks around in your old body too. It's a bit odd, but it's effective (and fun to role-play).
"What about your controlled skeletons?" you may ask. "You can control the bhut mentally, but you can't control your Animate Dead army while your soul is in the jar." This is where Undead Lieutenant comes in. Since you've taken Divine Magician anyway, take Undead Lieutenant as your 3rd level Divine Magician spell. You can make your bhut, your slaymate, or any of your "Rebuke/Command army" a lieutenant, since you can mentally control them. Now you
still have full control over all your undead, even while Magic Jar is active.