Douglas Muir 406 |
Animate Dead has limits on how many HD you can *animate* with one single casting of the spell, and then how many HD you can *control*. These are set forth as follows:
Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can't create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. The desecrate spell doubles this limit.
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released.
As a practical matter, most animators are going to be much more interested in the second number (control) than in the first (animate). The first number will only be an issue rarely and situationally, like if you're 6th level and you stumble across the corpse of a 14 HD frost giant. The second number puts a hard upper limit on your power.
1) How does this interact with the dhampir favored class bonus for wizard? "Add +1/4 to the wizard's caster level when casting spells of the necromancy school." So, an 8th level dhampir wizard would cast necromancy spells like a 10th level wizard. (a) Does this mean he could animate 20 HD at a time, instead of just 16? (b) Does this mean he could control 40 HD of undead, instead of just 32? -- My take is that while it's not clearly written, it should apply to both. After all, the dhampir is always being treated as if she's higher level. I suppose the counterargument would be that the language "when casting" means you're only considered higher level _at the moment of casting_, not when you're just bossing your zombies around. But that seems kind of tortured.
2) The Spell Sage has the ability to occasionally boost the caster level of his spells. Same question as above: how does this affect (a) number he can animate at a time, and (b) total number he can control? -- My take: should certainly apply to animation, less sure about total control.
3) There are a number of items that boost your ECL when casting spells with the [evil] descriptor -- the Orb of Foul Abaddon, etc. Again -- does this boost your animate number, your animate and control numbers, or neither?
4) And finally, there's the Undead Master feat: "When you cast animate dead or use the Command Undead feat, you are considered to be four levels higher when determining the number of Hit Dice you animate." Well, it says "animate", not "control". So reading it as written, it appears to apply only to (a) the HD you can animate, not (b) the HD you can control. This makes it a pretty crap feat, one that no PC or sane NPC would ever waste a feat slot on. But that's neither here nor there... there are hundreds of crap feats. Really just including this to see if it was ever errata'd.
Thoughts?
Doug M.
Baval |
The first line comes up more often than youd think. Thats one main reason why getting access to desecrate is important. Especially once you start being able to planar bomb things to get ideal corpses.
Now on to your questions:
1.) You are exactly right. The Dhampir would be a naturally better necromancer with a larger pool. The wording is definitely iffy, but it would be a sadistic DM to rule it that way, especially with how many Archtypes for Dhampir make them better with undead, meaning the synergy is clearly meant to be there.
2.) This one would effect the initial limit to what you could raise, but not the control limit. This may result in you creating more undead than you can control. Opinions on what happens next vary, and one popular guide likes to RAW that you control all undead you create in a single casting even if it goes over your pool, but I usually play it that the amount you can control is a constantly checked limit.
3.) Same as above.
4.) This has long been considered a very terrible feat for exactly that reason. It has its uses, but very few. Essentially all it does is allow you to raise 8HD more undead than your normal cap in a single casting, assuming youre not using desecrate. This can be useful to wizards, but getting permanent desecrate is not very difficult. Note that it does actually increase the amount you can control with Command Undead, but the extra 4HD rarely matter (technically RAW it doesnt do anything, since it only raises your CL for "the undead you animate", which Command Undead animates none, but ive never had a DM rule that was intentional). The free extend spell on command undead is nice though, as it means you can keep more undead under your control (since you have to cast it less often) This is a low level feat that you retrain later, if you take it at all. (It also requires spell focus: necromancy, which is a useless feat to a minion focused necromancer.)
Note for 4 that if you rule the RAW interpretation of Animate Dead from 2, it allows you to create up to 16 HD over your normal limit when cast in an area of desecration, and thats not insignificant.
.seth |
1) "Add +1/4 to the wizard's caster level when casting spells of the necromancy school." So, an 8th level dhampir wizard would cast necromancy spells like a 10th level wizard. yes, CAST not learn or prepare. (a) yes, animating 40hd at one time with desecrate.
(b) your control amount doesn't change. you dont care though because you get them all from one cast and only lose hd from previous castings. if you have 20hd from the first cast and cast it again to get 40hd more you lose all 20hd from the first cast and keep all 40hd from the second cast.
2) your control pool is only ever checked when you first cast the spell. if you pick up a + cl bonus from praying at an evil shrine or something that lasts 24 hours, you don't lose the bonus undead the next day all of a sudden.
3) you only need to boost your caster level for the single cast animate number, which most things do just fine. down lower i have a list of the things i abuse, but it is not comprehensive.
4. undead master is an amazing feat, people that don't like it can't read. +4 cl that doubles under desecrate is awesome. if you take spell perfection its even better, doubling again.
example
16th level cruoromancer
16 caster level +1 gifted adept trait +4 dhampir wizard fcb +1 varisan tatoo +4 undead master +2 spell specialization +1 ioun stone +1 deific obedience urgathoa +7 spell perfection +3 death wine +1 death knell
total 41 cl x3 hd because of commanding infusion x2 because of desecrate
so in one cast you create 246hd and they immediately fall under your control, losing all the undead you already had under your control from previous casts.
this is instead of the 16 x4 = 64 you would normally get with just desecrate. so we can see that focusing on animation with items, spells, and feats does make a significant difference. the real problem is finding a pile of corpses worth 246hd in one spot, ESPECIALLY in one of those lame society games.
DM_DM |
2) your control pool is only ever checked when you first cast the spell.
Okay, pause right there. That's mission critical. If that's true, then you can do ECL-boosting things, cast inside a Desecrate spell... and then completely ignore the 4 HD/level limit until you cast again. So a 5th level dhampir Spell Sage with Undead Master could animate (5+1+4+4) 14x4 56 HD of undead... and you're telling me they'd *all* stay under his control until he cast again?
That makes a huge difference. Can you provide a cite for that?
Doug M.
Baval |
Animate Dead is badly worded and specifically says you gain control of all undead you create and all excess undead from *prvious castings* become uncontrolled, meaning technically you never lose any from your current cast. Its highly suspect that this is what was intended, but it is the way its worded.
Bigger Club |
You can use temporary boosts to your CL to get a higher limit. Relevant information is.
Animate Dead
School necromancy [evil]; Level antipaladin 3, cleric/oracle 3, shaman 3, sorcerer/wizard 4; Domain death 3; Subdomain souls 3
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead)
EFFECT
Range touch
Targets one or more corpses touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
Emphasis mine. So yes the limit of how much you can control is set at time of the casting.
.seth |
yes, it has worked this way for several editions now. the wording of the spell is clearly broken and not working as intended, but that is exactly how it works as written.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/magic.html#duration
"Instantaneous: The spell energy comes and goes the instant the spell is cast, though the consequences might be long-lasting."
once you cast a fireball at +5 caster levels, the damage is done. taking off your magical gear or retraining your feats doesn't bring your victims back any of their hp. to argue that taking off your magical gear makes the undead you already animated that "remain under your control indefinitely" suddenly go berserk means all burn victims would spontaneously be cured as well.
even if that were not the case, and the control numbers all dropped, it still wouldn't matter, because you would only lose the ones from prior castings. you keep all the ones from a single cast no matter how far over the control number they are, which is why i keep saying the one dose animate number is all that really matters.
the spell specifically says "If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled."
incidentally, if it didn't work this way, ignoring the control pool entirely, no one could use magic device a scroll of animate dead without having the proper class casting levels.
Baval |
I disagree with your assertion. While the spell is instantaneous, the control acts more like permanent (except it cant be dispelled or suppressed). It of course isnt, but thats how it acts.
By your logic of the fireball, the effect of the fireball is fire damage, the effect of animate dead is skeletons or zombies. the effect is not negated when your caster level lowers, there is still fire damage/skeletons or zombies. The continued control however is what was lowered.
Its highly debatable of course, but I think realistically using it that way is going to test a lot of GMs patience. I dont recomend it, especially since many inexperienced GMs think of necromancy as overpowered already (due to its overwhelming appearance, not due to any actual power it has. Necromancy is balanced.)
.seth |
if instantaneous didn't properly describe the spell effects, and "thats how it acts" were the case, you would expect to see that in the spell description or the faq page, which we don't. you don't have to like it, but that is how it has worked since 3rd.
most gms keep track of material components, and even if you bypass the need for several thousand gold worth of black onyx gems with words of power, blood money, or some other shenanigans you are still going to need corpses. the normal assumption is that you fight a battle then animate the bodies afterwards, which is why people want a higher control pool and a lower single animate. if you are in a home game you can easily just go to any battleground or graveyard instead and get a reasonable sized pile of skeletons dug up. you can't really do that in a society game, and i think they remove all your minions between sessions even if you do.
so the problem really continues to be where are you getting hundreds and hundreds of hit dice of corpses.
the reason dm's actually hate undead armies isn't anything rules related, its all about time and effort. if your turn takes 30 minutes to adjudicate i would find ways to kill off your character or remove your minions just as fast as the next guy. the dms that are trying to read the rules as intended rather than as written to prevent the situation from happening in the first place can't really be faulted for that.
the evolution of animate dead through multiple editions can be found here.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Animate_dead
as we can see 3rd is when they allowed the "all from this cast, only lose from prior casts" language to slip in. the problems now are a holdover from then.
what i tend to do in my games is let the necromancers have their full HD from the single cast, but keep a few powerful monsters with multiple templates stacked on them instead of nearly infinite smaller monsters that just bog down the combat and won't even land their claw attacks anyway.
if you have trouble getting a single big monster to animate, try crafting a life size statue and using stone to flesh or possibly one of those polymorph anything to anything kind of spells.
Baval |
getting appropriate corpses is not a problem at all, any creature you want can easily be obtained with planar binding into a room filled with explosive runes or other appropriate traps to insta kill what you summoned. A proper necromancer can even have a room specifically equipped for it with resetting traps. It takes some time, but its not difficult (any corpse, since the half-fiend template changes the type to outsider)
Higher HD creatures can be Gated in, and if the creature you want is native to the material plane you just plane shift yourself to another plane then gate them in there.
As long as planar bombing exists, appropriate corpses are never an issue.
Douglas Muir 406 |
getting appropriate corpses is not a problem at all, any creature you want can easily be obtained with planar binding into a room filled with explosive runes or other appropriate traps to insta kill what you summoned.
Higher HD creatures can be Gated in,
Has any DM anywhere ever actually allowed this?
I mean, sure it's RAW-legal. But it's also pretty much begging for massively disproportionate in-game retaliation. It's canon that most outsiders resent being called and bound. This goes way, way beyond that: it's J. Random Mortal Dude flat-up murdering outsiders so that he can get a few more hit dice of zombie slave. Any DM who cared about his game world would be totally justified in throwing a platoon of enraged angels or devils or whatever at the PC, heavily armed and utterly determined to crush the arrogant caster who's been murdering their pets or colleagues for his own convenience.
ISTM it would be a... very liberal... DM, who would allow a player to regularly use planar binding in this way.
Doug M.
Douglas Muir 406 |
yes, it has worked this way for several editions now. the wording of the spell is clearly broken and not working as intended, but that is exactly how it works as written.
I appreciate that this is a reasonable interpretation of the RAW. But is there an official ruling, errata, or FAQ?
Doug M.
Baval |
Baval wrote:getting appropriate corpses is not a problem at all, any creature you want can easily be obtained with planar binding into a room filled with explosive runes or other appropriate traps to insta kill what you summoned.
Higher HD creatures can be Gated in,
Has any DM anywhere ever actually allowed this?
I mean, sure it's RAW-legal. But it's also pretty much begging for massively disproportionate in-game retaliation. It's canon that most outsiders resent being called and bound. This goes way, way beyond that: it's J. Random Mortal Dude flat-up murdering outsiders so that he can get a few more hit dice of zombie slave. Any DM who cared about his game world would be totally justified in throwing a platoon of enraged angels or devils or whatever at the PC, heavily armed and utterly determined to crush the arrogant caster who's been murdering their pets or colleagues for his own convenience.
ISTM it would be a... very liberal... DM, who would allow a player to regularly use planar binding in this way.
Doug M.
Angels would of course retaliate, but devils tend not to care what happens to their fellows, and demons really dont. As long as you dont accidently bind some demon lords favorite pet or something (and the chances of that are pretty slim) youll be fine.
Ive done it plenty of times, Im in fact doing it now to get a set of Fiends of Possession Succubus to possess me for bonuses (3.5 has rules for possessing creatures buffing items and people)
That said, your DM might put his foot down if you start abusing the half-fiend thing, but hey as long as were talking about a DM whos allowing the "buff your caster level and then animate over your cap because RAW".....
Besides, as a necromancer I would totally be down for the DM to have an army of devils come to try and hunt me down. The roleplaying options would be glorious. No kingdom is going to just let an army of devils march around, so suddenly they have to team up with this powerful necromancer to put an end to it....theres a big war.....and at the end of it I end up with even more devil corpses than I started with.
Anzyr |
.seth wrote:yes, it has worked this way for several editions now. the wording of the spell is clearly broken and not working as intended, but that is exactly how it works as written.
I appreciate that this is a reasonable interpretation of the RAW. But is there an official ruling, errata, or FAQ?
Doug M.
That *is* the rule.
If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled.
It's perfectly clear so there is no need for rulings, errata or FAQs. And honestly as anyone who has ever read a necromancy post by me can tell you the control pool on Animate Dead is completely irrelevant. Meaningless. Don't bother with abilities that increase it. Don't bother with Command Undead (the feat) and especially don't bother with Undead Master. Why?
Because Command Undead (the spell) exists. With access to this spell any limits imposed by your control pool cease to be relevant. Your controlled undead HD pool will be effectively in the triple digits with little to no effort or investment other than you know... learning the spell and casting it in your downtime.
Douglas Muir 406 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ive done it plenty of times, Im in fact doing it now to get a set of Fiends of Possession Succubus to possess me for bonuses (3.5 has rules for possessing creatures buffing items and people)
This gets into "if I were your DM..." territory, and there's no percentage in that. If both of you are having fun, then great.
Besides, as a necromancer I would totally be down for the DM to have an army of devils come to try and hunt me down. The roleplaying options would be glorious. No kingdom is going to just let an army of devils march around, so suddenly they have to team up...
Well, I guess if your DM is playing devils as really stupid. Since a lot of them have 20+ Int and Wis, and it's canon that they're devious and subtle, that seems odd, but chaque a son gout. Me, I'd be thinking more in terms of, umm, maybe a kill team of half a dozen advanced fiendish invisible stalkers, led by a bone devil who's a rogue/fighter/assassin? Everyone is invisible, everyone can fly, the "hello" is a death strike attack and a wave of attacks from the stalkers. Or an attack led by mortals -- at Hell's instruction, a wealthy worshipper of Asmodeus bankrolls a strike force of a bunch of ambitious evil NPCs looking to curry favor with Hell, including a high level Diabolist and his squad of bound devils. Or bribes, blackmail and magic used against your associates, including your fellow PCs, to turn them against you -- would you trust all your fellow players not to turn on you if offered a vorpal sword? or the chance to rule a kingdom? Or, heck, a pit fiend just burns his annual Wish to wish you into Hell; you're just about to have breakfast when, bam, you're sitting in the dimension-locked dock of an infernal court and the trial for your offenses is about to begin.
-- To be perfectly clear, I'm fine with clever players abusing the rules. But when PCs start abusing /the game world/, then realistically the game world should respond. And that response may not be proportionate or level-appropriate. If your murderhobo PC kills a couple of city guards in Lawful Neutral Town, you can't really complain when a posse of Hellknights show up to take you down.
But, again, if you and your DM are both having fun, then pray carry on.
Doug M.
Plausible Pseudonym |
It seems pretty questionable to me to think Devils or any lawful outsiders don't care about their own being tricked or destroyed. It's not that they like or care about them on a personal level, but the senior devils are going to be pissed if their useful subordinates are being regularly picked off. It's worth having some assets devoted to disincentivizing that sort of behavior.
Baval |
It seems pretty questionable to me to think Devils or any lawful outsiders don't care about their own being tricked or destroyed. It's not that they like or care about them on a personal level, but the senior devils are going to be pissed if their useful subordinates are being regularly picked off. It's worth having some assets devoted to disincentivizing that sort of behavior.
While its 3.5, Id like to point out the Hag Countess is an Archdevil specifically because she, some random hag, tricked the previous Archdemon, and Asmodeus was like "cool whatever you rule here now"
Devils are all about killing each other for power. If youre stupid enough to be killed by a mortal, you deserved it (or they deserved it for being devious enough)
Like I said, if you accidentally pick up one of Bels generals or something he will probably have something to say, but thats unlikely because personal assistants to the Archdevils tend to be way stronger than normal devils of their kind, so its unlikely you could call them to begin with.
Baval |
Baval wrote:
Ive done it plenty of times, Im in fact doing it now to get a set of Fiends of Possession Succubus to possess me for bonuses (3.5 has rules for possessing creatures buffing items and people)This gets into "if I were your DM..." territory, and there's no percentage in that. If both of you are having fun, then great.
Quote:Besides, as a necromancer I would totally be down for the DM to have an army of devils come to try and hunt me down. The roleplaying options would be glorious. No kingdom is going to just let an army of devils march around, so suddenly they have to team up...Well, I guess if your DM is playing devils as really stupid. Since a lot of them have 20+ Int and Wis, and it's canon that they're devious and subtle, that seems odd, but chaque a son gout. Me, I'd be thinking more in terms of, umm, maybe a kill team of half a dozen advanced fiendish invisible stalkers, led by a bone devil who's a rogue/fighter/assassin? Everyone is invisible, everyone can fly, the "hello" is a death strike attack and a wave of attacks from the stalkers. Or an attack led by mortals -- at Hell's instruction, a wealthy worshipper of Asmodeus bankrolls a strike force of a bunch of ambitious evil NPCs looking to curry favor with Hell, including a high level Diabolist and his squad of bound devils. Or bribes, blackmail and magic used against your associates, including your fellow PCs, to turn them against you -- would you trust all your fellow players not to turn on you if offered a vorpal sword? or the chance to rule a kingdom? Or, heck, a pit fiend just burns his annual Wish to wish you into Hell; you're just about to have breakfast when, bam, you're sitting in the dimension-locked dock of an infernal court and the trial for your offenses is about to begin.
-- To be perfectly clear, I'm fine with clever players abusing the rules. But when PCs start abusing /the game world/, then realistically the game world should respond. And that response may not be proportionate...
Id be fine with all of these scenarios. If im high enough level to be attracting hells attention, im high enough level to get out of each of these scenarios. And damn straight I would not trust my companions, thats why I have a plan to kill (and reanimate) each of them. If I trusted my underlings I wouldnt have to kill them first. Not to mention whoever turned on me would be turning on the rest of the party, since im never anything but just to them. And thats not even considering that the rewards you mentioned are the same things I can offer. A kingdom? What do you think is the point of being a necromancer? A vorpral sword? I can kill the balor that offered it and force him to possess the sword, then its Vorpal when you want it to be and any other enchant when you dont. A wish? Im a spellcaster.
As for playing them smart, Im not sure youre the one really playing them smart. The smart move for the devils is not to go after some necromancer killing a few of them when they have the blood war and other affairs to deal with. An all out assault like that is a lot of resources, and a huge waste of whatever let them even summon that many of them to the material plane. I might have to deal with a few assassins here and there, but its highly suspect id ever be a blip on the radar of any demon or devil capable of mounting a large enough task force to face me in open battle.
Not to mention the fiends are immortal. They will just reform in the lower planes. Hell, on those grounds the "high level Diabolist with his squad of bound devils" is doing the exact same thing I am. The devils have far more to gain trying to deal with me, and the demons can just let me go around killing.
Baval |
This also all relies on me animating Devils instead of just animating Demons to avoid any kind of retaliation.
Also: Dont forget to be fair. If Devils will mobilize an army or use kill squads or burn their wishes to teleport me for multidimensional kangaroo courts, do Paladins routinely disappear around breakfast time? Do Diabolists often find their lairs under siege by infernal squadrons? Will I get to the top of the tower of the BBEG fighting through his enslaved devil guards only to find hes already been assassinated by 6 advanced fiendish invisible stalkers?
Im not doing anything significantly different from these guys (except arguably the BBEG who might be paying them)
Douglas Muir 406 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
AFAIK Pathfinder doesn't use the 3.5 "reform back on your outer plane" rule for called creatures any more. That's one reason it's canon that they don't like being called. "If you die in Canada, you die in real life" -- an outsider called to Golarion, that dies on Golarion, stays dead.
Same-same with the Hag Countess: 3.5, not Pathfinder. (And let's note that even in 3.5, she only got to rule a little while until Asmodeus allowed her to be overthrown. As it turned out, she was just a chair-warmer for the one he really wanted in charge.) Pathfinder's Hell is noticeably more organized and, well, Lawful than WoTC's. I almost think they've overdone it myself -- it's clear that some of the designers think Asmodeus is the bees' knees; instead of being a mere devil he's now one of the original gods and the Keeper of the Key to the Apocalypse -- but that's what it is. Also, no more Blood War.
"Do Diabolists often find their lairs under siege by infernal squadrons?" -- Well, maybe sometimes, sure. A Diabolist who summons devils to do evil on the mortal plane is basically a subcontractor to Hell. He has some autonomy, but he's broadly serving Hell's goals. (And, of course, it's literally written into the character class that he's already signed his soul over to Hell.) So from Hell's POV, he's just a minion with an unusually long leash. He's allowed to borrow the toys, and reasonable wear and tear is acceptable. Randomly murdering Hell's servants for his own convenience, though? Probably not. In general, if he starts getting uppity, sure he'll get slapped down.
I wrote the Guide to Planar Binding and the Guide to the Diabolist, and in both of those I note that if you screw with extraplanar creatures -- especially Lawful ones like devils, who are part of a hierarchy -- you're basically asking your DM to retaliate. But that idea is hardly original to me. The question came up in the endless Ask James Jacob thread, and his response was basically "darn straight, if they're abusing Planar Binding feel free to have the PC's reputation spread to related outsiders, with consequences".
"I can kill the balor" -- Well, if you're powerful enough to kill a balor, then the argument about not being a blip on Hell's radar sort of falls flat. You can say you're not worth Hell getting concerned about, or you can say you're powerful enough to mow down balors, but you can't really claim both. Also, I'm getting the vibe that we're moving into theorycrafting rather than discussion of actual play. Which can be interesting in its way, but.
[shrug] If y'all are having fun, you're having fun. That's really the last word.
Doug M.
Vrischika111 |
... Don't bother with Command Undead (the feat)...
Why?Because Command Undead (the spell) exists. With access to this spell any limits imposed by your control pool cease to be relevant. Your controlled undead HD pool will be effectively in the triple digits with little to no effort or investment other than you know... learning the spell and casting it in your downtime.
I created a BBEG necromancer recently and read all I could find.
I tend to disagree with above (trimmed for reading) post.
I agree that command undead, once understood, is not as powerful as it might seems.
however, it's second effect is worth the feat: double the duration of control undead spell.
so if you praise so much the power of control undead spell, a feat doubling it's duration (meaning that you can control twice as much undead) for FREE (no increase in spell level) is, imho, worth it.
I even hesitated to take extended spell on top...
Baval |
@douglas
agreed with the last line. Also, while killing a Balor is certainly something powerful by mortal standards, but its not exactly a unique occurrence. Im not saying they wouldnt recognize me as a threat if I show up at their door, Im questioning if such an act really warrants the extreme measures youre putting out, ESPECIALLY since if Hell really is even more beaurocratic in Golarion, those are going to be favors out the wazoo for whoever initiates it.