Command Undead Spell to powerful?


Rules Questions


I hope I might be missing something here or is this 2nd level spell, Command Undead, way to powerful? Is there some HD limit that I'm not seeing or can a level 3 wizard just walk up and take control of a 20 HD unintelligent undead? With that being said, a level 20 wizard with the undead master feat and extend metamagic feat can cast command undead with a duration of 80 days and he can casts it 10 times a day giving him 10 20 HD unintelligent undead. Then he can continue to repeat this process over the next 80 days to give himself an army of 800 20 HD unintelligent undead. Please tell me if I'm missing something and i'm wrong.

Command Undead spell
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/command-undead
Undead Master
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/undead-master
Extend Spell
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/extend-spell-metamagic---fina l


Command Undead (the spell) makes Command Undead (the feat) and most abilities that give you things like additional HD of Animated Dead completely irrelevant. Don't even bother with them. And no, you are not missing anything.


Anzyr wrote:
Command Undead (the spell) makes Command Undead (the feat) and most abilities that give you things like additional HD of Animated Dead completely irrelevant. Don't even bother with them. And no, you are not missing anything.

Depends on the level of play. At high levels sure, you're better off with the Command Undead spell and just repeating it as needed.

At low levels when every Commanded Undead is consuming a second level slot every few days and you're constantly juggling those level 2 slots and are basically losing them to keep your undead... it's nice but not great. Having both is an asset at this juncture.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
Command Undead (the spell) makes Command Undead (the feat) and most abilities that give you things like additional HD of Animated Dead completely irrelevant. Don't even bother with them. And no, you are not missing anything.

Depends on the level of play. At high levels sure, you're better off with the Command Undead spell and just repeating it as needed.

At low levels when every Commanded Undead is consuming a second level slot every few days and you're constantly juggling those level 2 slots and are basically losing them to keep your undead... it's nice but not great. Having both is an asset at this juncture.

Going to politely disagree even at the lowest possible comparison point (level 3) for the reasons I'll outline below:

Command Undead (the spell)
+ No Hit Dice cap
+ No save
+ The earliest you get it controls an undead for 3/days with one cast.

- Requires one of your highest spells at level 3.
- Requires CHA check to convince Intelligent undead to follow orders.

Command Undead (the feat)
+ Can be used 3+CHA times per day (Necromancer Wizards win very hard here at 3+INT uses per day).
+ Any number of undead in range (up to 3 HD).

- Capped at 3 HD regardless of uses remaining.
- Grants even unintelligent undead a Will Save.
- Intelligent Undead get a new will save each morning.

I'd say being able to control enemy undead (which tend to have high HD for their CR) is a key factor here. Not to mention 1 2nd level spell per 3 days is not a high upkeep on a potentially much higher HD undead.

There are some niche cases where Command Undead (the feat) is superior, like controlling intelligent undead, but its not enough for me personally to support it's viability. To each their own.


3 HD is indeed pretty lame, but 7 HD with Undead Master [admittedly it's yet another feat but it fits extremely well into a Necromancer Build that incorporates the PFS swap from Scribe Scroll, costing only one actual build feat] ain't bad and on unintelligent undead it lasts forever [until they are destroyed or replaced.]

Obviously Command Undead Feat is inferior to Command Undead Spell, but I am still of a mind that in some cases at low levels having both is ideal. [At the very least in the case of the Necromancer Wizard I'm running through RotL right now.]


From the GM side of things it reminds me a lot of Charm Person in terms of as written issues (the Cha check can of worms among other things).

Just how many unintelligent undead you run into with any significant number of HD is largely dependent on ... you guessed it, your GM. Most of the higher HD undead in the Bestiaries are anything but unintelligent and many would put the non-wizards in the party to shame.

Potent yes. How potent, however, depends an awful lot on the GM and the overall campaign. Plenty of controls built into it for the GM to make the spell as reasonable as the GM needs it to be. By the time 15+ HD enters to picture so does Dominate Monster, Planar Ally, Summon IX, etc, etc..


If I saw a player going around corralling all the mindless undead in an area, I'd prolly start instituting intelligent undead.

Sovereign Court

There's an implicit meta argument at work here. As a level 3 wizard you're not likely to run into a CR 10 mindless undead.

There aren't that many mindless undead anyway; there are some zombie giants or suchlike, but they'll usually be side dishes, not the main enemy. The only places where you're likely to see powerful mindless undead are when the BBEG is a necromancer, or one of the PCs is a necromancer. In the case of the BBEG the undead should already be under his command, and you get the question of what happens if multiple people attempt to control the same monster.

In the case of PC necromancy it actually takes quite some fiddling for a PC to be both good at creating undead (usually involves being a cleric) and having Command Undead (a wizard spell). It's probably a dedicated necromancer build by then. That sort of thing already has wide-ranging campaign implications.

So, is CU too powerful because it works so well on mindless undead? I think not, because mindless undead just aren't that powerful.

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Then, is CU too good because it also works on mindful undead? Will is a strong save for undead, so it's not guaranteed to work. If it does work you have an ally that requires careful handling. To start, the spell states the monster will not attack you; it might still have designs on the other PCs. That's probably one opposed Charisma check (no retries!) to start with. And another check to get it to do the things you want it to. Keep in mind that undead use Charisma for Con purposes and tend to have a high score in it. So you'd better pump your own Charisma too.

So, it's nice, but you have to really invest in it.


Against intelligent undeads is basically Charm Undeads so it's not particularly overpowered as a 2nd level spell.

Against mindless undeads is weird that doesn't have an HD limit, but mindless undeads like zombies and skeletons unless bloody are rather weak anyway. Wouldn't be an unreasonable houserule to limit the HD you can "dominate" to your caster level, but on the other hand it shouldn't be common for a 3rd level character to meet a 10HD zombie or skeleton to begin with.

Sovereign Court

I've snapped up a mindless wight llama once, that was neat.

In general, this is a good spell to carry on a scroll, because you don't use it all that often but when the opportunity presents itself it's pretty funny.


Ascalaphus wrote:

I've snapped up a mindless wight llama once, that was neat.

In general, this is a good spell to carry on a scroll, because you don't use it all that often but when the opportunity presents itself it's pretty funny.

It's a great spell to carry on a scroll because the best things to use it on don't get a save and usually don't have SR. The shoddy CL and DC barely mean anything against most targets you would want to use it against.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

At this very moment I'm playing a 6th-level arcanist with ~10 troll bloody skeletons thanks to this spell. It has saved the party more than once.

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