Sciris001's page

I guess I should also ask while I'm on here... If you turn into a, let's say, Allosaurus and GRAB someone with a grapple, they're in your mouth right? Allosaurus does not get SWALLOW WHOLE. So... If I wanted to swallow someone... Do they forget how to? I mean, it's as simple as -gulp-.

Small is an option with Wild Shape, though. Gargantuan and Colossal aren't. Thanks for that update though, Feral. Hopefully they work on that at some point.

I glimpsed over some shaman archetypes and saw one for saurians. Got excited. Pictured me turning into a T-rex. Found out the biggest you can go is huge. Is there ANY magical items or something I've missed which could do this? Or perhaps any alteration once transformed unrelated to wild shape?

Would it be an extract then? Or would those all be spells he listed? I'm still a little confused about how Alchemists differentiate between spells and spells that they turn into elixirs or w/e.

I have a friend who plays an Alchemist. He uses Polypurpose Panacea as a touch injection. Is this even possible? The spell is a self-target one only. Can you inject people with it still? If so, do they not receive any saving throws against it? Seems kinda broken if you can knock an ancient red dragon out with one touch attack then make off with all of his gold.

That's precisely my question. Let's say that paladin had 10 HD. Of course he loses all of his spells and divine abilities/ etc. but will he retain all of his original stats minus his racial bonuses? Will he retain his HD? Or does a Lvl 20 barbarian turn into a 2 HD zombie? I was under the impression he just gained the template. No there isn't a near limitless amount. But that ancient dragon i just killed looks pretty interesting. Maybe I want a dracolich. Or perhaps that ogre king? The majority of things killed can be animated.

I'm not sure about that. I've been in a lot of games where we've killed NPCs at or beyond our level. I guess it all depends on the games, though. I will check that book, however.

bump

I've read both of their descriptions, and I have also asked friends this and looked at a few threads on here about it. I've found some help, but not much. My question is fairly simple, how do they work?

Obviously, you need a corpse or corpses to cast either. But once you do, how is the strength of the undead determined? I've always thought Animate Dead just added the skeleton/zombie template to whatever it was animating. But now that I look at Create Undead and the various comments on here concerning it, is this true still? It would make more sense. And I am sure this is how it works.

Create Undead, however, seems a lot trickier to me. I have read a lot that the undead listed in the spell are all baseline generic monsters from the Bestiary. However, comparing their CRs to the level required to cast... Why exactly would I want to create a CR2-4 undead at Lv16, when I could raise a skeleton quicker which would be a lot more powerful? Even the Summon Monster spells are more useful than this. The only monster I see that is remotely worth casting the spell would be a Banshee. By then, you're epic level already. Anything weaker is just a waste.

I've tried to find somewhere saying that the spell actually adds a template to the created creature, rather than the generic description in the bestiary. But sadly, I'm not seeing this. And this is what my friends are telling me is the case as well. I'm not looking to break the game by controlling 3-4 epic level banshee sorcerers or whatnot, but the strength of most of the undead in the list is very.... disappointing.

HOWEVER. I have noticed something. It's not written anywhere, but could the undead created with this spell have an HD equal to X? Where X is some stat that scales with the caster's power (such as CL). This would make MUCH more sense. Or, even moreso, would the NPC or PC not gain a template, but instead just have their own HD mimic the undead created?

Example: Casting Create Undead to make a Ghoul out of a Rogue that's got 10 HD. After the spell is done, a Ghoul with 10 HD is created.

What EXACTLY determines the undead's HD/abilities with this spell?