Extra Skeletons Worth It?

[AdahnX]

Hey there, new player here. Started playing about a little over a week ago and just went premium couple days ago allowing me to post. I started off with a Cleric since they've pretty much ruled as the Lords of the Undead in PnP and NWN (Command Undead as a Class Feature and earlier access to the Animate/Create spells) but the lack of evil PCs and no death gods like Wee Jas or anything kind of puts a damper on that.

So anyway, I went researching the Wizard Pale Master prestige line, which seems like it would give me what I'm looking for, but I have a question before I finalize my build plan. Are the Skeleton/Blackbone/Frostmarrow Archers and Mages worth the extra AP? As a Wizard I figure I've got range and spellcasting covered and it seems to me that what I would want from a summon would be something to Tank while I hang back and fire off spells, a.k.a. the Knight. (Of course if I party with a Tank then this becomes null and void but I've always seen summons as a 'when I can't round up a party' kind of thing.)

Oh, also, would it be feasible to splash one level of a class to make perception and stealth class skills and if so which class would be best? Kind of leaning toward Rogue since that would give me access to a few other useful skills but other thoughts are appreciated.

[OldAquarian]

no

[jcTharin]

they said that they were making them more powerful in the next update.

from what i have read. as of now, they are really nice in low and mid game but are worthless in end game.

[AdahnX]

Thanks for the info. I was mainly wondering whether it was useful to have minions that could cast spells and shoot arrows. But I think that I'll probably do best sticking with my original plan of just getting the Knight summons. Also, after doing a little more research into the L20 Wizard bonuses decided against multi-classing.