Positive Channeling Undead Lord


Rules Questions


So while reading the cleric archtype Undead Lord I noticed there was nothing saying they had to channel negative energy. However all Undead Lords gain Command Undead as a bonus feat. So basicly can you channel positive energy and get this feat still using the archtype. Or if not is there a way for a good Undead Lord to channel negative energy.


You can channel positive, but you can't use Command Undead, because you don't meet the prereqs. You still have the feat, but since you don't have channel negative, you can't use it. It's basically a waste if you channel positive.

Oh, and I doubt most undeath-friendly deities will let you channel positive.


Depends on the world. Though isn't there a feat that allows you to channel both?


Versatile Channel requires you to be a Necromancer or a neutral Cleric of a Neutral deity or who do not worship a deity (if allowed in your campaign setting).

One way an Evil character CAN channel positive energy is to be an Oracle of Life and take the Channel revelation, but this isn't an Undead Lord Cleric (you could go VMC Oracle of Life and get this Revelation, but it's bad because it is 6 levels behind). The Life Mystery doesn't set you up very well for being a master of Undead, though.

Channeling Positive Energy could have been somewhat useful if backported into AD&D 1.x, since the original Monster Manual listed Mummies as having a strong connection to the Positive Material Plane. This could have been just a typo, but I thought of it as feeding the rot organisms that they pass on to their victims.


the real question is, why would you ever want to?

Youre a person who worships a god whos portfolio at least partially includes undead as a major theme, and youve dedicated not only your life to that god as a cleric, but youve dedicated specifically your cleric training into mastering undeath, and you choose to channel.....

an essentially worthless energy for something youve dedicated basically your entire existence to.

As for your good Undead Lord, keep in mind casting [evil] spells is considered an evil act, and unless your DM changes something for you animated dead is an [evil] spell, so you wont be maintaining that good alignment very long. And thats not even considering desecrate...

plus, you know...."A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). "


There are neutral gods of death.


Positive Energy Chaneling would actually be somewhat useful for an Undead-oriented Necromancer or Undead Lord if a lot of your enemies were also Undead-oriented Necromancers or Undead Lords and you built your Undead army carefully to have a few big Undead instead of a lot of little ones, and take Selective Channeling, and also had Negative Energy Channeling available. Come up against an enemy Undead-meister: Channel Positive Energy, excluding your own army, and suddenly your opponent's army is badly burned or part fleeing (if you used Turn Undead) or maybe even suffering some other ill effects (with the right kind of Variant Channeling), and your opponent can't do it back to you, while if they try to Command Undead against you, you can do it back. As a bonus, you can also Channel Positive Energy to heal your allies who are still among the living.

By the way, Shaman with the Life Spirit can also get this even if Evil. Furthermore, Spirit Guide Oracle of Bones or Juju with Undead servitude and the Life Spirit (the reverse combination doesn't work) with Channel could get both Command Undead and Channel Positive Energy (qualifying for the Turn Undead feat) -- not as awesome as having both full-level pools of Positive and Negative Energy Channeling, but close enough to be able to do what I described above. Another combination that would do the same thing with respect to Energy Channeling would be Oracle/Shaman of Life VMC Wizard (Necromancer, optionally of Undeath), choosing Command Undead for the VMC Wizard option.

The one thing that is still missing is a way for Good characters to get their hands on full Negative Energy Channeling (which, if it worked equivalently to Life Oracle/Shaman's Channeling, could also be used by Undead-meisters).


Baval wrote:

the real question is, why would you ever want to?

Youre a person who worships a god whos portfolio at least partially includes undead as a major theme, and youve dedicated not only your life to that god as a cleric, but youve dedicated specifically your cleric training into mastering undeath, and you choose to channel.....

an essentially worthless energy for something youve dedicated basically your entire existence to.

As for your good Undead Lord, keep in mind casting [evil] spells is considered an evil act, and unless your DM changes something for you animated dead is an [evil] spell, so you wont be maintaining that good alignment very long. And thats not even considering desecrate...

plus, you know...."A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). "

Because forsaken by deity die to an evil necromancer raises part of my broken body to undead (i have an undead leg). Thus affinity to undead, and yet hated by deity. So I try to do good, but am still seen as evil and hated because undead affinity.


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The Wyrm Ouroboros wrote:
There are neutral gods of death.

Not of undeath, actually. Necromancy of the raise dead kind will immediately strip a Cleric of Pharasma of her spellcasting, and all of the gods with undeath in their portfolio are evil.

At any rate, in Golarion canon the raising of undead is a specifically evil act because A) it binds a soul to a corpse without consent and B) it disrupts the flow of souls, which if stopped entirely will bring about the end of the world by Groetus's hand. If you want to be a good necromancer you need to do it in a different universe, and by that point you're already homebrewing.


Artifix wrote:
Baval wrote:

the real question is, why would you ever want to?

Youre a person who worships a god whos portfolio at least partially includes undead as a major theme, and youve dedicated not only your life to that god as a cleric, but youve dedicated specifically your cleric training into mastering undeath, and you choose to channel.....

an essentially worthless energy for something youve dedicated basically your entire existence to.

As for your good Undead Lord, keep in mind casting [evil] spells is considered an evil act, and unless your DM changes something for you animated dead is an [evil] spell, so you wont be maintaining that good alignment very long. And thats not even considering desecrate...

plus, you know...."A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). "

Because forsaken by deity die to an evil necromancer raises part of my broken body to undead (i have an undead leg). Thus affinity to undead, and yet hated by deity. So I try to do good, but am still seen as evil and hated because undead affinity.

Youre going to need to be a different class then. You cant worship a god who hates you as a cleric, you wouldnt be able to get spells. Even if you could, you would not be able to be an Undead Lord as the god you worship must have a portfolio relating to undeath. And even if there was a good aligned god who didnt cut you off from your spells and hated undead but also had an undeath portfolio, you STILL wouldnt be able to cast the two most important spells for being a necromcancer: Animate Dead and Desecrate.

Id suggest the White Necromancer class. They can heal, and can raise the dead but use diplomacy to "command" them and must promise to release them when the reason they were raised is completed (and actually follow through with it). Because of this, they are allowed to remove the [evil] descriptor from Animate Dead.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/kobold-press-open-design/ white-necromancer


Baval wrote:
Artifix wrote:
Baval wrote:

the real question is, why would you ever want to?

Youre a person who worships a god whos portfolio at least partially includes undead as a major theme, and youve dedicated not only your life to that god as a cleric, but youve dedicated specifically your cleric training into mastering undeath, and you choose to channel.....

an essentially worthless energy for something youve dedicated basically your entire existence to.

As for your good Undead Lord, keep in mind casting [evil] spells is considered an evil act, and unless your DM changes something for you animated dead is an [evil] spell, so you wont be maintaining that good alignment very long. And thats not even considering desecrate...

plus, you know...."A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). "

Because forsaken by deity die to an evil necromancer raises part of my broken body to undead (i have an undead leg). Thus affinity to undead, and yet hated by deity. So I try to do good, but am still seen as evil and hated because undead affinity.

Youre going to need to be a different class then. You cant worship a god who hates you as a cleric, you wouldnt be able to get spells. Even if you could, you would not be able to be an Undead Lord as the god you worship must have a portfolio relating to undeath. And even if there was a good aligned god who didnt cut you off from your spells and hated undead but also had an undeath portfolio, you STILL wouldnt be able to cast the two most important spells for being a necromcancer: Animate Dead and Desecrate.

Id suggest the White Necromancer class. They can heal, and can raise the dead but use diplomacy to "command" them and must promise to release them when the reason they were raised is completed (and actually follow through with it). Because of this, they are allowed to remove the [evil] descriptor from Animate Dead....

Thank you. I just want a way to be a good necromancer.


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^I think some rebranding is needed here. You don't want to be an Undead Lord -- you want to be a Coordinator of the Mobile Deceased.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

^I think some rebranding is needed here. You don't want to be an Undead Lord -- you want to be a Coordinator of the Mobile Deceased.

Actually I want to be a benevolent ruler of a land run by immortal undead. I would be nice to people who enter but they can't touch the undead or else they will die, then I will animate there corpse to help with the place.


Artifix wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^I think some rebranding is needed here. You don't want to be an Undead Lord -- you want to be a Coordinator of the Mobile Deceased.

Actually I want to be a benevolent ruler of a land run by immortal undead. I would be nice to people who enter but they can't touch the undead or else they will die, then I will animate there corpse to help with the place.

Thats not good, thats Lawful Neutral. You cant just arbitrarily decide touching undead is a death sentence, nor can you force undead to do things they dont want to as a White Necromancer.

The scenario youre talking about exists, though i dont remember where. I remember reading about a Good Lich who rules a small town, where he has made an agreement with the people that they would be reanimated for 100 years after their death to serve in the town as a labor force, and as a result no one has to do any work until after theyre already dead. The key that makes this a good situation is everyone the Lich raises agreed ahead of time to it, and to a set duration, and he keeps his word and has no evil plots.


Artifix wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^I think some rebranding is needed here. You don't want to be an Undead Lord -- you want to be a Coordinator of the Mobile Deceased.

Actually I want to be a benevolent ruler of a land run by immortal undead. I would be nice to people who enter but they can't touch the undead or else they will die, then I will animate there corpse to help with the place.

Wait . . . You want to be Geb?


Baval wrote:

Thats not good, thats Lawful Neutral. You cant just arbitrarily decide touching undead is a death sentence, nor can you force undead to do things they dont want to as a White Necromancer.

The scenario youre talking about exists, though i dont remember where. I remember reading about a Good Lich who rules a small town, where he has made an agreement with the people that they would be reanimated for 100 years after their death to serve in the town as a labor force, and as a result no one has to do any work until after theyre already dead. The key that makes this a good situation is everyone the Lich raises agreed ahead of time to it, and to a set duration, and he keeps his word and has no evil plots.[/url]

Except here all humanoids would be undead not just the workforce.

UnArcaneElection wrote:
Artifix wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^I think some rebranding is needed here. You don't want to be an Undead Lord -- you want to be a Coordinator of the Mobile Deceased.

Actually I want to be a benevolent ruler of a land run by immortal undead. I would be nice to people who enter but they can't touch the undead or else they will die, then I will animate there corpse to help with the place.

Wait . . . You want to be Geb?

Who?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Artifix wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^I think some rebranding is needed here. You don't want to be an Undead Lord -- you want to be a Coordinator of the Mobile Deceased.

Actually I want to be a benevolent ruler of a land run by immortal undead. I would be nice to people who enter but they can't touch the undead or else they will die, then I will animate there corpse to help with the place.

Victory for the Forsaken!


Artifix wrote:


Except here all humanoids would be undead not just the workforce.

Except, again, you cant do that as a White Necromancer. Undead you raise are temporary allies to be treated with respect, not your permanent slaves or subjects. And it still doesnt change the fact that murdering and forcefully reanimating someone is evil.

Its starting to sound like you want to be a regular Lawful Evil necromancer, Lawful Neutral at best. Not a Good one.


Soul Warden. ^_^


Baval wrote:
Artifix wrote:


Except here all humanoids would be undead not just the workforce.

Except, again, you cant do that as a White Necromancer. Undead you raise are temporary allies to be treated with respect, not your permanent slaves or subjects. And it still doesnt change the fact that murdering and forcefully reanimating someone is evil.

Its starting to sound like you want to be a regular Lawful Evil necromancer, Lawful Neutral at best. Not a Good one.

I guess I didn't explain it, but I mean it would be a sort of sanctuary for undead as well as those exiled for being tainted, such as a paladin who committed some act of treason to there supposed church and was exiled. So I guess not all undead as there could be exiled paladins and stuff. But yeah.

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