So... seems like people have finished rebuilding, and want to go search for a missing elephantboat. Are we teleporting, or flying with Drisquar?
That would be like a bunch of helicopters trying to keep up with a fighter jet.
Oh... looks like he can still only take three creatures with him, not four. Right-o.
I think I'm going to leave the Gugs behind. They won't be very useful in/under the water.
The Belier will be great though so its coming along.
...are you going to do anything to disguise it? The party will probably be teleporting into the Sodden Lands, a day's journey or so from Port Peril.
Illia- can probably keep up with Drisquar, or at least not laughably behind. I believe we calculated my speed at 340 ft per round last time, and my perception has only increased.
And Drisquar's at 600'/round, or something like that, but also never tires. I think teleporting the party 50 miles or so away from a major city seems reasonable.
Of course, if I could constantly keep moving up my half-move, then teleporting to the horizon, I'd be moving at speeds best measured in kilometers per second. :P
I'll take whatever ride is offered. I don't have any fancy movement. One of these levels I was thinking of getting a wondrous item of Phantom Steed with several uses per day, but that is kinda expensive.
Hmm. Disguising the Belier...
No, actually. Instead I'm going to use terrain to do it for me.
When we teleport in I want to be over the ocean. The Belier will be visible for a moment and then will be under water. It can just stay submerged while we deal with the locals.
As long I give it the right orders and am not away from it for longer than 9 days it should be fine.
Also, before we leave I'm remaking it (destroying it, restoring the corpse, and re-animating it).
It is getting the Deathwine/Desecrate/Necrocraft treatment now that I have a little time.
One of these levels I was thinking of getting a wondrous item of Phantom Steed with several uses per day, but that is kinda expensive.
How about You and I make a mount for you?
There's an animal price list on the SRD. Pick whatever you want. (I recommend not picking anything with more than 20 hit dice so we can still give it the Bloody template. Also, don't pick anything with high natural armor. It will lose it.)
I give it the Unguent of Timelessness/Taxidermy treatment so that it looks alive to anything but close inspection.
Then you animate it as a Bloody Skeleton.
Skeletons keep weapon and armor proficiencies they had in life, so making sure it is trained in wearing barding will pay off.
This creature will probably eat up the vast majority of your Animate pool, but it will be a fairly cheap, hard to kill mount.
A skeleton's skin falls off, making it a little harder to disguise. You could always just buy a regular mount and not undead it (Port Peril is the sort of place to buy exotic animals easily).
Dire bats are the cheapest fliers. If you want bang for your buck, a bison does okay, though it's speed isn't amazing. Riding geckos can climb walls. There aren't many aquatic mounts that are as cheap as a horse (except for a manta ray, which would be extremely hard to ride, and which doesn't technically have bones); a narwhal would be blazingly fast and somewhat stylish, but it's also not native to the Arcadian Ocean.
To ride in style, you could trivially hire someone to call a whale, then murder it (or two orcas), and have a big floating skeleton barge for a fraction of the cost of a real ship, though this would take most of Anaxian's control HD.
My plan was to just steal a whale skull from a whaling ship, cast restore corpse and make a Relentless Zombie submarine. Control for big undead isn't actually a problem unless they are intelligent. The Command Undead spell has us covered, and I can use my Magic Jar trick to directly control it while we travel.
As for disguising John's mount, you're right. A skeleton would be bad. They can't fly either. A Relentless Zombie could fly fine and be disguised. If it dies it would just have to be re animated later.
Err... Restore Corpse doesn't restore the rest of the bones, just puts zombie flesh on it. But it's actually pretty trivial to find and murder a whale.
Err... Restore Corpse doesn't restore the rest of the bones, just puts zombie flesh on it. But it's actually pretty trivial to find and murder a whale.
I need to respectfully disagree. relevant parts of the spell bolded below.
The corpse looks fine, but is not fit for consumption. The latter is more to prevent the ome cow meat factory, but it didn't. Basically you add purify food and drink and can still feed an army with one cow carcass.
Restore Corpse
School necromancy; Level cleric 1, druid 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, witch 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range touch
Target corpse touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You grow flesh on a decomposed or skeletonized corpse of a Medium or smaller creature, providing it with sufficient flesh that it can be animated as a zombie rather than a skeleton. The corpse looks as it did when the creature died. The new flesh is somewhat rotted and not fit for eating.
"decomposed or skeletonized corpse" implies to me most of the corpse, not just like one bone. You can feat an army from one dead cow, but not from a single cow bone.
"decomposed or skeletonized corpse" implies to me most of the corpse, not just like one bone. You can feat an army from one dead cow, but not from a single cow bone.
Ahh, I see your point. You can renew a decomposed corpse, but not a cleaned bone.
Makes sense. How much of the corpse would need to be intact?
Well the reason i was thinking of Phantom Steed is that it just goes away when im not using it and cant be summarily destroyed by everything of our power level.
That said, next level maybe ill do something about a mount. This level we already have standard travel protocol in place and will get a whale it seems for undersea travel.
I'd say "the spell doesn't restore bones, period," so a skeleton missing its head would become a zombie without a bite attack, etc. It looks like it's intended to turn skeletons into zombies and not much else.
Stone to Flesh is the really fun one for necromancers, but it's still a ways away. Not sure if there's anything in between.
So all you would need to do to prevent a creature from coming back as undead is cut the head off and take it away from the body?
No head means no senses either. Undead still see and hear (don't ask me how).
Would Necrocraft allow me to replace missing bones with functionally similar bones from other creatures?
How about Marvelous Pigments to "paint" replacement bones?
Yeah, Necrocraft and Pigments should both work, though Necrocraft requires at least five partial skeletons (I guess you need to pick "choice parts" to avoid graft rejection) and Marvelous Pigments tops out at 1,000 cubic feet, which is about the same volume as a whale skeleton and would thus get expensive.
I need to carry around a good sledge and smash up heads next time I'm a paladin.
I need to carry around a good sledge and smash up heads next time I'm a paladin.
I was thinking the same thing.
Inaction's new body's candle-flame eyes shifted from purple to red
Text-to-speech? o.O
Inaction's new body's candle-flame eyes shifted from purple to redText-to-speech? o.O
No, that's just what Autocorrect thinks I'm trying to type. I usually catch it. Fixing it now.
The wonders of autocorrect, may they never cease.
Anyone mind if I loot the loot sheet to gear up my new body?
The things that jump out at me as useful are:
+3 Mithril Buckler of Arrow Deflection
Ring of Mind Shielding (4k)
Bracers of Armor +3 (4.5k)
Ring of counterspells (2k)
Can a dragon use a buckler?
Not really sure. This body has the proficiency for it and they are made to strap on. He can wear heavy barding too.
I guess the barding and the shield would have to be custom made to fit right.
Anaxian's original body has one, but he made it himself.
Hmm. What gives the dragon armor/shield proficiency? I'm not actually seeing anything about that in graveknight.
Antipaladin.
Ah.
Hmm, I forgot about that gear. Kinda wouldn't mind the buckler, but if you really want it Anaxian, its all yours.
cant use the buckler, or bracers. rings i could go either way on, no particular desire for them though. and the counterspells i'd have to have someone else charge up for me, so it would be better on others. mind shielding not needed, nothing really to hide for myself i dont think.
Hmm, I forgot about that gear. Kinda wouldn't mind the buckler, but if you really want it Anaxian, its all yours.
Take it. It's better for you than me. I just thought it wasnt claimed.
I thought the loot list was presumed sold and being used to pay for our 140k budgets.
I thought that's what was taken out of the drow city treasury.
I guess we each have 140k total and it doesn't matter where it came from.
Alright, back from Yom Kippur stuff. Yeah, I think the idea was that stuff on the loot list could be taken without worrying about crafting time.
Putting the finishing touches on Anaxian 2, return of Anaxian.
I wanted to make him a straightforward character who filled a niche we don't have.
I found one. Its kinda scary.
Anaxian now has Permanency
If any of you want anything on the list, just pay the cost and assume Anaxian took care of it. He can cast any of the 9th level stuff.
Sir John, I have an idea for a mount for you-
Anaxian can cast Lesser Planar Binding to summon an Advanced Nightmare and force it to serve you as a mount.
Its a little on the weak side so it might get shredded in combat, but if that happens then it just gets banished back to Abbadon and Plane Shifts back the next day.
Best thing about this, it's free!
Lesser planar binding is a calling not a summon. That means it's physically here. When it dies it does for good. Of course you can just call another, but the distinction is important to note.
Lesser planar binding is a calling not a summon. That means it's physically here. When it dies it does for good. Of course you can just call another, but the distinction is important to note.
Just reviewed this. You are correct.
Luckily Nightmares are really easy to bind so it isn't much of a drawback. Anaxian still has his shrink-able magic circle. He can bind outsiders pretty much anywhere.
Lesser planar binding is a calling not a summon. That means it's physically here. When it dies it does for good. Of course you can just call another, but the distinction is important to note.Just reviewed this. You are correct.
Luckily Nightmares are really easy to bind so it isn't much of a drawback. Anaxian still has his shrink-able magic circle. He can bind outsiders pretty much anywhere.
Yea. They're disposable either way, but you'll have to get a new one as opposed to the same one.
Nice!
It'll have to wait a bit though, I don't have much in the way of Ride or a helpful saddle.
In case anyone's curious: nothing super bad is likely to happen if you take a few weeks here, but *something* will certainly happen in the interim, possibly something randomly-generated.
Why don't we go there, and then you cast the Legend Lore?
Because we don't actually know where we're going. We have a general location, but it could be an island, or the bottom of the sea. We know nothing about the terrain or situation we're going into. The point is to find out that information so we can properly prepare and not have to come back to get stuff or be caught unprepared.
To anaxian a few weeks is nothing. He's patient and doesn't like doing anything without covering all the angles first.
He can be convinced to just go, but he won't be thrilled about it.
As much as i'd like to continue the story and get in some fights, Sir John is also undead and time is meaningless.
plus if something comes to attack us while we are waiting, boom, XP. hah