Somnus the Bonemender's page

By the way it's worded, no, the two cannot be combined. Fast Bombs doesn't actually reduce the time it takes to make bombs, or any other application of the bomb class feature, but rather gives the alchemist a special full round action involving bombs. Explosive Missle is a seperate standard action. While I can see how logically they can be combined, by the wording they cannot, due to the fact that Fast Bombs doesn't actually affect the time it takes to create a bomb, and so cannot "reduce" the standard action needed to use Explosive Missle.

On a thematic note, the ability to create bombs and infuse something with bomb energy are seperate discoveries and wouldn't interact as they are two different types of actions, creating and infusing. He knows how to create a bomb faster, but infusing doesn't become any faster because he knows a faster construction technique.

While you're correct that two discoveries don't directly affect each other, in the case of altering a bomb's substance it isn't an action. Each one typically says "When you make a bomb, you can choose X." where X is the substance effect of the bomb. This doesn't require an action. So in essence, yes, you could use Poison Bomb + Fast Bombs and create three separate bombs that each create a Cloudkill after-effect. I'm not certain on the rules of overlapping persistent area spells, but you could even center them all on the same space. By the time it truly matters they'll be facing pretty nasty stuff to begin with. I don't know about you guys, but if I could unload a semi-auto bazooka at a Balor, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And then run like hell.

The issue with the topic at hand (Explosive Missle+Fast Bombs) is that they both do imply specific actions. Explosive Missles states that it's a standard action - as Drejk mentioned, however, creating and throwing a normal bomb is also a standard action, as is almost any single attack action. Fast Bombs simply states that, while normally creating and throwing a bomb is a special standard action, now it becomes a standard action on par with a normal attack. RAW doesn't say you can do it (in this case it's a lack of approval rather than a lack of denial), but I would tend to agree with the above posters. It's only going to matter at level 8+, and theoretically the only time he'll be able to 'shoot' more than two bombs is at 15th level, when he'll have three attacks. Try it out. If it's too powerful when in combination with feats (Rapid Shot/Multishot, etc), simply say bombs aren't standard ammunition and the feats don't apply when shooting bombs.

To offer my own two-cents, I'll mention one of the predecessors of what this book may eventually become: D&D 3.5's Book of Exalted Deeds. There was a lot of crazy stuff in that book (Vow of Poverty? What were they thinking?), but one thing I did kind of like and would like to see addressed is things like the "good" diseases and poisons. I didn't particularly agree with their interpretation - I don't think poisons and diseases would simply "only affect bad people" if they were altered by the good powers-that-be - but I do think there could be some interesting results when good powers try to muck around with traditionally evil/vile/dastardly attack vectors.

Also, to expand on one of Mikaze's suggestions, how about rules/templates for good-gone-bad, or bad-gone-good, creating actual fallen angels or risen devils/demons/daemons/gremlins/qlippoth/holy-hell-there's-so-many-evil-outs iders. Unless you're planning on a neutral/good-evil-crossover sorta Player Companion, seeing similar interactions between good and evil and the blurring shades of grey in between could be very helpful for creating more three-dimensional characters. To mention the previous holy-text once again, I really dug the many character interpretations, especially "Redeemed Villain". Perhaps things like that could become some interesting archetypes?

Props to Mikaze for many, many cool ideas, as always.

Looking forward to this!

First off, to keep to the current topic, I agree with the absolute awesome-ness in that adventure idea. Especially with the PCs approaching a massive vault with loot-hungry eyes, and bringing about the calamity by their own actions. Some players might shrug off the guilt, but as a story I think it's pure 'gold.'

Additionally, I like the 'sin-eater shadows' in general. Anything that adds more flavor to undead and their origins, rather than making them the "I am the spawn of pure evil incarnate, bleagh~" kind is good stuff in my book. I'm trying to re-imagine ghouls in a similar way - driven to commit atrocities like carrion cannibalism ought to show more signs of madness than simply being evil. Still evil, certainly, but evil being battled against within the psyche of the undead creature, perhaps.

Also, to update my own current situation: coincidentally my GM and I decided that the strange series of feats was, indeed, getting a little too ridiculous. Since the rules for creating mass-combat armies was pretty vague to begin with, we figured my character could create and command one army of mindless undead in line with the sorts of armies our kingdom could create anyways. Having been refunded two feats, I find my pools a bit more reasonable now (though with the Undead Mastery feat from the Ultimate Magic book, still pretty high).

I still find myself wanting to try to come up with positively-aligned interpretations of undead - essentially creating more specific versions of the 'deathless' from Eberron. For skeletons/zombies it's pretty easy; for the more specific forms of undead I'm getting able to create these levels, I'm finding more difficulty. The interpretation of shadows you mentioned is great, and I may very well use that as inspiration when Create Undead, Greater rolls around at 16th level. But does anyone have ideas for the more physical undead? To give some specific things I'm thinking of trying to change, through rules caveat or more created spells or whatever else, I'll provide a small list:

-Ghouls/Ghasts hunger for the flesh of sentient mortal corpses, and spread disease with their natural attacks. I tend to think being infused with positive energy would change much of that, but maybe not? Maybe the positive energy allows them to be sated, but they still crave that as much as dead flesh? Maybe, as a white necromancer/juju oracle, you'd find yourself having to cast Cure spells purely to sate your awkwardly constructed creation? Instead of spreading disease with an attack, maybe they start imposing the penalties one might have from not eating for a number of days (of course no death from starvation - it would obviously be limited to imposing penalties or fatigue/exhaustion).

-Wights thirst for the lifeforce of living beings, which is sated through their level-draining natural attacks. How would this be altered by positive energy? I've had a hard time imagining it, since force-feeding positive energy seems like giving it the very thing it hungers for. Would it become perfectly sated, and being so, simply collapse/become undone? The direct opposite of energy-drain would likely be healing and instilling temporary hit-points, but that wouldn't functionally work on a natural attack. I'm really at a loss here - and realizing that basically creating a string of custom-made creatures just to satisfy my character's ambitions is becoming much more hassle to me and my GM than it is helpful to the story.

I'm certainly growing increasingly aware of the 'can of worms' I've been opening up. Still, I'm not against the idea of significantly altering undead through my character's machinations. The crux of his driving motivation is to prove himself to Pharasma - the only non-evil deity that's still a patron to Bones oracles - and is currently trying to do so by re-creating the Bone Tower in the mortal realm. I'm planning to let him go a bit crazy/obsessive about it, and who knows what'll happen if an invading army manages to destroy the tower along with his hopes and dreams. As always, loving the thread and the ideas/feedback in it. Keep up the *good* work!

The take-away I got from this;

*You cherry picked revelations from two different Oracles,
*created a custom spell that radically changed the nature of the undead allowing you to heal them without having to prep inflict spells,
*used three possibly homebrew feats to vastly increase the number of undead you could control,
*ignored daily undead command control breakage rules, and
*allowed skeletal (champion) and (fast) zombie templated creatures to retain the various special qualities and special attacks they should have lost per the template(s) and
*then had a balance issue?

Gosh. I wonder why?

Take-away whatever you like. It seems you misunderstood my intention, so I'll explain some of your points further; I did fail to provide full context.

-I didn't cherry-pick between two different Oracles. I was allowed to pick a single revelation from a Mystery that also deals with undead. Incidentally, being allowed to do so is why my post was relevant to this thread in the first place.

-Kingmaker is an AP where the players move gradually from typical party-fights-the-dragon combat to mass combat. The current authority on said mass combat, as well as a good number of aspects of the Kingmaker game, is a third-party book, basically a collection of rules. This book (Book of the River Nations, from Jon Brazer Enterprizes) details that an army of 100 creatures (one could assume 1st level warriors) is, in mass-combat, the equivalent of a creature of its' CR (in this case, 1/3 if I'm not mistaken). When the feats increasing my characters undead HD pool were allowed, it was in the interest of allowing him to later command an army in mass combat. Even controlling bloody/burning skeletons, the CR of 200 of such creatures would be about a CR3 creature in mass-combat. I can explain the details of mass-combat more fully if necessary, but hopefully I've clarified the reasoning behind what I posted before.

-The custom-created spell was a story element as much as an attempt at making creation of undead more functional - a reaction of my character trying not to summon hoards of evil creatures. This was done before I had even found the Juju revelation I had 'cherry-picked,' as well as prior to the addition of a second player playing a Cleric (ironically of Pharasma, you can imagine the discussions).

-The by-passing of the command undead rolls was actually suggested by the GM, as Kingmaker deals with months and years of game time, much longer than a typical setting.

-My mis-handling of the undead templates was intended to illustrate that: 1) I am fallable, and 2) dealing with undead as a player involves a great deal of research, book-keeping, and understanding of rules that aren't often pointed out in an easily accessible place and/or in great detail (such as how to apply multiple templates).

Overall I wasn't trying to whine/brag/panhandle for compliments over how over-powered my character was or anything of the sort. I was trying to offer a practical look on the fundamental topic of this thread. Dealing with undead is dark, complicated, and interesting. The rules for creating undead are sparse, logically so since the creative director himself said he didn't want undead to turn into the next anti-hero. Playing an undead-controlling class - which was written in official books, and thus supported *at all* - is still very tricky and requires a great deal of interpretation and working with the GM. Whatever you take from this is up to you. As for me - grappling with complex issues of honor, society, and near-blasphemy - I'm certainly enjoying every bit of it.

It's taken me the better part of the morning to skim through this thread, and I've been loving every minute of it. It really reminds me of how these games are an anthropologist's dream, exploring every facet of culture and perception imaginable. I thought I might contribute in a different way, however. I'll apologize in advance for the imminent wall-of-text attack.

To put things into context, I'm a player who's been enjoying the Kingmaker Adventure Path. About the time the AP first came out, I fell in love with the Oracle class; where droves of ambitious adventurers were out seeking power all-day-every-day, the Oracles represented a different path: being cursed with power. I felt that nothing could exemplify this idea better than the Bones Mystery, playing a neutral-leaning-good innocent soul who, by fate, was tormented by the whispers of the gods of death at every turn. Thus I made Bonemender, a reluctant harbinger of death and undeath, pitting his will and force-of-personality (read: Charisma) against the 2/3 Evil deities, attempting to push his destiny in a direction of his own choosing.

So, fluff aside, I'm here to offer a more practical view of playing a would-be non-evil-corpse-raiser.

Going for capital ownership of creep-factor, I made Bonemender a Mordant Spire elf with the Wasp Whisperer racial trait. I found the Juju Mystery some time after beginning the game, so the GM was kind enough to allow me to take the Spirit Vessels Revelation as a Bones Oracle. 90% of the feats I chose involved creating undead, and as of now the party has just achieved 13th level, approaching the 5th module of the game. My thoughts may not be entirely well-ordered, but hopefully someone will be able to see how these sorts of classes affect a real game.

--Starting out my character was no more powerful than any other character. I had to get to 6th level as an Oracle before I gained access to animate dead, and at that point I could raise basic skeletons and zombies. Given the nature of the game, the GM allowed an obscure-and-possibly-homebrewed series of feats designed to increase ones' HD limit for undead (by a factor of x2 at 5th level, x5 at 10th level, x10 at 15th level). At the very beginning of being able to cast the spell, having a couple undead minions was fairly balanced. Once the party downed a number of trolls, however, I found that having 6 or so burning/bloody troll skeletons was starting to upset the balance of power. Sometime later, I also found the same problem bringing ~30 or so skeletal archers. Being able to take down two trolls by myself at 6-7th level, in one round, without my character actually acting could probably be properly called overpowered. This was the first hump - concessions were made and rules adjusted. We had just begun to form our fledgeling nation, so I assigned the majority of my normal mindless HD limit as guards.

--Around the same level I began to realize that, as a divine sorcerer with limited spells known, keeping both the cure spells (learned automatically) and inflict spells (chosen by me) was taxing my ability to be anything more than a general directing my undead. Being the creative pain-in-the-behind I am, I created a spell the same level as animate dead that allowed me to convert the energies that powered undead bodies from negative to positive energy (I'll post the spell here later if requested). This was to allow myself to maintain my minions as well as be the party's healer. Again, at the lower levels it wasn't much of an issue, and seemed to solve the problem nicely.

--Fast-forward several levels. By 11th level my character had a pool of some 300 HD of mindless undead sitting somewhere accumulating dust. In theory, I could bring them with the party to explore what wilderness remained untamed, but at that point, why bring my party-mates? Having the revelation that allowed for the Command Undead feat to be used, my GM allowed me to have a similar pool of undead that could be non-mindless (allowing, through the purchase of a create undead scroll, to create Gulka, the unstoppable horror - a mini-boss add at the end fight of one of the modules, now turned to my nefari--er*cough*.. righteous purpose). I was limited to taking with me the undead I controlled in this pool. We did away with the daily save to escape dominance as a matter of preventing more book-keeping. Having one or two more advanced, hard-hitting undead minions seemed to work well for a while, and while I was always limited by what was thrown against me, my ability to apply templates to near-end-boss creatures seemed to be causing the GM a few headaches.

--At 12th level I gained access to create undead. This is where the real can-of-worms (or should I say can-of-wyrms?) problems began. From the beginning I had gained access to a 6th level spell which, by its' nature, could create CR 1-2 creatures (Ghouls/Ghasts): 2HD creatures that, while having a paralytic attack and the ability to create spawn, would never survive anything my party would be facing. Alternately, I discovered the Juju Zombie, my bread'n'butter. This seemed to me to be the only real option. Juju Zombies and Skeletal Champions didn't lose hardly any abilities; they gained greater defensive abilities, and better ability-score adjustments; they could be applied to classed creatures, allowing the creation of PC-level minions and beyond. But this also meant that they were giving me access to minions that typically went above my own class level in CR, and were typically unbalancing in some regard. The lack of options in what I could create was often frustrating - I had to either be a one-man-army, or leave out the creatures on which I'd spent most of my feats thus far. Not to mention the fact that now my custom-created spell, which fundamentally altered the nature of the undead itself, was being applied to much more potent undead. I was having to contemplate re-tooling everything I created with create undead.

--I'll give you some examples of our more recent play. At 12th level my character had a Control Undead pool somewhere around 80 HD through the use of feats and such. I had raised 6 Will'o'wisps as Fast Juju Zombies - at the time I was assuming they lost nothing, since the Juju Zombie template was applied last, and no selection under the template indicates any abilities are lost. So I had 6 flying, naturally invisible helpers, immune to two energy types, and all magic that applies SR except Maze. They got two touch attacks to deal 2d8 electricity damage (I read later the extra attack from a Fast Zombie should be a slam, but couldn't for the life of me imagine how a Will'o'wisp could do anything other than its' natural attack). We trekked through the swamps in our newly-acquired land, and I was making short work of most of the first encounters. I traded a couple Will'o'wisps out later for some acquatic creatures with a swim speed and grappling abilities (two Ahuizotl). Those creatures then died in a fight with four Adult Black Dragons. Being unable to raise a 14HD creature as a zombie just yet, we later fought two Nuckelavee, and I raised one as a skeletal champion, similarly assuming it retained all its' abilities. Only in the fight with the dragons did my character ever really do anything, and the exploration of the swamps proved to be a series of headaches for my GM. We're going to have to re-tool things once again - if I try to use everything at my disposal it's horribly unbalancing; if I try to use nothing, I'm woefully lacking in direct-damage abilities and spells, and typically end up as some sort of play-thing for a round or ten. (Btw, I hate Herzou demons...)

Hopefully all of that wasn't too hard to wade through. Undead are exceptionally variable as villians, and putting this power in the hands of a player seems to be unstable at best, derailing at worst. I'm an experienced player, so making concessions, adjusting my play-style and approach, even ad-hoc'ing rules and working with the GM, isn't a huge deal, but it's been pretty constant. Even now I feel like, if given free reign, my character could take on most of the major fights in the module on his own with almost no effort. That being said, I've loved the character development and storyline of the character almost more than any other I've ever created. Bonemender is a tortured, somber, creepy font of undeath, trying with all his might to bend it to a good cause.

Next step: going crazy, creating Graveknights, and trying to merge a re-creation of Pharasma's Bone Tower with an elven super-tree. We'll see how things progress. =)

Some back-story before I get to this tale of unwitting demise:

Having been playing Kingmaker over the course of the past several months as a Bones Oracle, my party had opted to take on Falgrim Sneeg's small army of werewolves in the south of our lands as quickly as was possible. With a bit of preparation we launched our attack, and though I'll spare you the full details, we eventually found ourselves facing Sneeg and his massive troll friend, Golka. In a very close fight, my party gets the best of them both. Being a Bones Oracle, however, I decide to keep the body of the troll for use later.

After a few more levels, as well as a short trip to Daggermark for a special scroll, I manage to turn Golka into a Juju zombie. Having a feat or two to specialize in creating undead, Golka retains all the things that made her bad (fighter/barbarian levels, high natural AC, massive Str + specialization in a Large-sized Greatsword), and is then enhanced by bonuses to strength, DR, a huge list of immunities, the works. She's become a terrifying beast, and now accompanies my reluctant (hah) necromantic Oracle wherever he goes. Imagine my elation as this creature guards myself and my comrades over those next few weeks; imagine my anguish as my party and I enter the final room in Vordakai's complex...

Name: Golka
Race: Troll Juju Zombie
Classes/levels: Fighter 4/Barbarian 1
Adventure: Varnhold Vanishing
Location: Vordakai's Tomb
Catalyst: Horrifying Daemonic-Undead Monstrosity
The Gory Details:

Our party finds a secret entrance into Vordakai's tomb/throneroom just in time to see Vordakai finish calling a being of horrific guise and terrible purpose: a graveknight. Part undead and part daemon, the being of bone and fel energies lumbers forward to meet our party head on. Dark energies issue from its' soul-infused form to burn our bodies and chill our souls. Fully 3/5 of our party gives in to their fears of this monstrosity and flee before it into the previous chambers of the tomb. All that remain are myself, our Duke the sorcerer, and Golka.

Even before I think to set Golka to doing what she does best, a sinister aura threatens to wrest control of her from my Oracle's clutches. Only after rushing to her and Protecting her from Evil does she make the Will save to not be controlled by our foe in what would certainly be the end of us all. Having regained control of her, I direct her to battle with the horror before us.

The two monsters clash. The graveknight strikes blows that deal great harm, and would do much more to the living; Golka's immunities serve her well. Twice Golka strikes the creature with her blade of choice, a giant mithril greatsword, and is struck twice in return. Thrice she strikes the following round, cleaving chunks of unnatural bone and sinew from the graveknight's frame, but finally the foe seems to find his footing, and strikes two critical strikes against my poor undead companion (oh, how cruel for Pathfinder to have revoked what would have been her deathright immunity). The graveknight is lumbering, on his last leg, but he has done the damage - Golka falls a second time, to rise no more.

Having struck the creature with spells as it battled Golka, my sorcerous Duke and I manage to finish what we started - a full set of magic missles ends the graveknight even as Vordakai had stepped up to heal it with his Lich's touch. With the terrible creature snuffed, the rest of my party rushes back to battle Vordakai. Still, though we managed to get through what is undoubtedly the most terrible and incredible battle we've yet to face, I cannot revel in the glory of our victory, for I have lost a friend.

Golka, though you tried to murder us, you murdered many for us as well. You will be remembered.