Drimus's page

Zombies and most mindless undead usually attack any living creature. Most of the time a necromancer does not need to tell them to attack. They may however need to be told not to attack.

Compelling in this case is being forced to do something they normally will not do. In the game this usually means some form of magical control. While the spell animate dead is magical its duration is instantaneous not permanent. This means one the undead are created they are self-sustaining and no longer dependent on the spell for their existence. You cannot dispel the animate dead to get rid of the undead. The undead created by it are not affected by an anti-magic field. That also means that you can give orders to your zombies in an anti-magic field.

Command undead requires you to expend a channel negative energy. That makes is a super natural ability. This means it does not function in an anti-magic field.

So at the end, what do you think can i order my animated zombies to attack the dread zombies or not?

Both animate dead and command undead are from the core rule book. Dread zombies are from the advanced bestiary which was written 5 years later. His argument that they should specify that they override an ability that was not yet created when they were written is rather silly.

I can however see some validity in his argument when it comes to animate undead. Animate undead creates an undead that remains under your control indefinitely. The spell is actually kind of vague about how much control you have over them. All it states is that they can be made to follow your, or they can be made to remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. So if they are following you then they will attack any living creature. You could of course always change the order to the second instance of staying in one place limiting what they attack.

Command undead on the other hand allows a will save to resist, and intelligent undead get a new save every day. The description of the feat also states that they obey your orders to the best of their ability as if under the effects of a control undead. Control undead is by the way a 7th level wizard spell, that last for 1 min. per level.

Other than the HD limitation there is nothing preventing you from using command undead on the zombies you animate. So after the zombies under command undead are kill you could use command undead on the ones you have animated.

Yep, i can see some valid point about that. But the thing is that he is taking the word compelling with a meaning that it's not intended i guess. If i can order to an undead to attack i think im compelling it to do it. i don't need anythng extra to compell an undead that is already under my control.

He said that compelling would be to use another spell like Undead Beacon. I told him that to be the one who raised gives me more power over them than that spell hability. Also, he thinks that it should be stated in Animate dead or command undead that those spells/feats bypas the "normal zombies never attack a dread zombie unless compelled.". I imagine that he is interpreting that it's some kind of special inmunity and the zombies are not going to be willing to attack the a dread zombie

but the thing it's that my GM says that normal zombies can't attack dread zombien because the sentence:"normal zombies never attack a dread zombie unless compelled.". He said that i need another spell innorder to compell them besides animate dead or the feat command undead . Like, he isntaking "compell" as key word

Hi, we are currently in a discusion with my GM. Im playing a necromancer who has animate dead and command undead(feat). We are figthing dread zombies and he says that my zombies cannot attack them due to this text that is undead their command zombie ability: "normal zombies never attack a dread zombie unless compelled.". Im saying that in this case compelled is not a key word and i can make my zombies attack the dread zombies, because im forcing them to do it. He says that they can due to that dupernatural ability. Opinions?

Thank you so much!

Hi, i have a question regarding this feat. I couldn't find any thread related to it. Can you retry your Command Undead (feat) with creatures that have succeeded on the sabing throw? Thanks