Reskinning a necromancer as an elementalist?

[Bragol]

I have always liked the concept of a character that raises mindless servants to his bidding. The various Necromancer builds are great for that (3.5 Dread Necromancer is pretty cool), but undead don't go down well with the local townsfolk or good party members.

Has anyone taken a shot at reskinning the Dread Necromancer (or something similar) and switching our elemental abilitieis in place of undead ones?

Traditional summoners(summon monster 1-9) are fun, but they don't get to keep their minions around for long.

I would like to create/control a bunch relatively low-powered elemental minions just like create undead does. I am even OK making the primary material component (a body for undead) similarly difficult/easy to acquire.

Before I take a shot at this, I would like to find out if anyone else has tackled this idea.

Even if no one has attempted this, I welcome input on what would be interesting/effective.

[LazarX]

Keep in mind that walking into town surrounded by flaming elementals isn't going to reassure the townfolk any more than shambling undead. Monsters ARE Monsters.

[Jezai]

I never thought of this, but one of my player's is currently playing a necromancer and I love the concept.

I think it would take some work balancing though. At level 4 my player controls three black bear skeletons at 5hd each. Which is pretty insane on its own. I think the abilities of elementals would be even better, look at ice elementals for example.
Ice Elemental

Imagine having four of these things running around making anything they hit take a DC14 save or be staggered. DC14 isn't bad at all for level 4, and with four of them he could really hurt some creatures (particularly, animals and monsters at that level that rely on multiple attacks).

I think the first thing to do would be to make a list of what kinds of elementals should be used. For example, could I make an Aerial Servant with this? Or just the standard fire, earth, air, water? Also I think forcing the elementals to not have an intelligence score (like the mindless undead created with animate dead) would be reasonable.

[VRMH]

Can't you just disguise and/or transmute your shambling corpses?

[Jezai]

VRMH wrote:

Can't you just disguise and/or transmute your shambling corpses?

disguises aren't exactly full-proof. I guarantee that you WILL run into problems.

[Bragol]

VRMH wrote:

Can't you just disguise and/or transmute your shambling corpses?

I want to create a good character or, at worst, a neutral character that can easily hang with good characters. Unfortunately, create undead is an evil spell.