Venture Captain Richard Dangle's page

I really don't want to put a damper on your concept, but it might be better just to have a class with an animal companion in that case.

Some GMs may give you an alignment infraction for doing that. Kind of a major problem. But if you can justify it to your GM, then in theory that would work.

EDIT:

The major problem with a build that relies primarily on undead minions is getting reliable access to those minions. Short of the method you suggested, it's really not possible in PFS because of the rule where they expire at the end of the scenario. Unfortunately that's what the Animate Dead spells are balanced around, so it kind of breaks them a bit.

Fortunately your mystery will let you grab an undead minion (and a pretty good one at that) with a revelation so that should alleviate some pain.

I've had success with using undead as a secondary play style.

If I take the Resist Life revelation, does that mean I can use inflict wounds spells to heal myself?

Yes that is correct, however you will damaged by channeled positive energy that harms and immune to channeled positive energy that heals. Not too bad, just ask any positive energy clerics in your group to be careful.

It doesn't sound like that is the focus of your build, but if you would like a more powerful version of this feature, the 8th level Death domain class feature lets you heal from any type of negative energy while still healing from positive energy.

Animate Dead is very inconsistent as far as its usefulness depending on what creatures are present in the scenario and how creative you are with using your undead minions.

Anything you raise loses all of its class levels. So if you're looking for something beefy and strong, most enemies you encounter in PFS are out the door; you're basically limited to animals, magical beasts, dragons.

But human zombies are still very useful for other things, like triggering traps or carrying things (like a portable altar for instance), or being mobile silence beacons. You just have to be creative, is all.

Well worth the onyx, in my opinion.

You can give your undead weapons but they'll have the weapon proficiencies they had before dying.

Disguise might work, but I suspect GMs might want to assign a penalty of some kind to disguise an undead creature as.. not undead. There's no documented case in the CRB so expect it to be very swingy.

We've treated the variant skeleton and zombie templates as legal at our lodge. It helps resolve a lot of ambiguity in what kind of skeleton or zombie you get from raising a given creature, as the rules for applying the zombie/skeleton template are pretty clear cut.

It makes far more sense to me to use the templates than to just toss out a random skeleton or zombie that doesn't correspond to the creature being animated.

Honestly, the cost of onyx is not that bad for what you get. 25gp per hit dice is easy to manage.

This topic has some guidance. Seems to be very similar.

Set has a particularly excellent post on the matter.

Ways to look at her three central 'portfolios;'

1) Gluttony can be a selfish and destructive force, when dealing with nations and cultures where food can be scarce, and many go hungry. At the same time, it is a holy thing to Urgathoa, and, therefore, a 'godly' thing, to feed one's hunger. Stuffing oneself can be seen as not just feeding oneself, but also making sacrament to the goddess, and, by proxy, feeding her as well, sharing every bite, every taste, every sensation, with the goddess, as a prayerful act of obeisance. To those who go hungry, their hunger too is a holy thing, a trial imposed upon them by the goddess, who is as consecrated by their pangs of hunger as she is by the full bellies of those who are more successful, and, therefore, *obviously,* more deserving. (Since, like the wretched poor, anyone who is hungry is clearly lazy and undeserving of a full belly. Tell the bums to get a job!)

2) Disease is a proving ground. Like war, like nature, like predators, like storms, like famine, the existence of disease winnows out the weak (and / or foolish) and strengthens the entire race. A plague is a forge, that burns away the rotten ore of a community, and leaves behind only those with a constitution of shining steel, fit to repopulate the community with the blood of the strong and the hale. It is no more evil than war, or a hungry lion, or the treacherous sea, all forces that also serve to cull the unfit from the human pack, and so make the races of man stronger, healthier and more deserving of (eventually) eternity, than those who fell to these worldly threats (which, in most cases, are no threat at all to the undead, leading us to point 3). As with hunger, being ill is a sign of disfavor, but remember that Urgathoa is a god, not a mortal, and her ways are sometimes fickle or obscure to our eyes. Even her most beloved may suffer a terrible illness, not as punishment, but as *lesson.* Just as Zon-Kuthon may 'bless' those he especially loves with excruciating torments, so too may Rovagug savagely destroy those followers he most treasures, and Urgathoa place the scars of pox on the faces of her favored mortal children.

3) The undead. Some small-minded simpletons who know nothing of the way the world works may call them 'unnatural.' Nothing that exists in nature can be, by definition, 'unnatural.' Negative energy from another dimension infuses the undead, granting them animation, and a semblance of 'life.' But what is 'life?' It is meat and blood and bone given animation by 'unnatural' positive energy, from another dimension. Meat and blood and bone, given animation, by positive energy, or negative energy. Neither is 'natural' to the material plane, and undeath, as a state of being, is not evil. It does indeed defy the 'law' of Pharasma, who, being a goddess of scoffs at universal law, or the tenets of mortal morality, is something of a hypocrite to attempt to impose her own (utter lack of) morality or ethics on others.

Gluttony is an easy angle to go for. Undeath is a little more difficult, but you could spin in a non-evil way. Any necromancer in PFS has this issue, and I've seen most of them address it with the "utility" point of view.

For instance, I see undeath as a second chance to make up for mistakes in life!

The aura is going to be a challenge.

The opposite (being unable to exclude PCs from a negative channel) happens a lot when PCs are stealthing or invisible. Just kind of happens sometimes.

EDIT:

My other point is that Mike Brock's own view (shared by myself, and most of the posters in the thread) is the superior way to read the rule.

Superior is pretty subjective. Especially when dealing with the interpretation of deliberately ambiguous rules. I'd say allowing the players to consensually make the a deliberate tactical decision to puts another PC at risk is the right thing to do, but that's just my opinion and there's nothing particularly superior about it. But I'd certainly advocate it!

Animate Dead is only really expensive when raising non-humanoid creatures with lots of hit dice. Because Humanoids are so prolific in PFS, use of Animate Dead does not become financially taxing enough to be a problem.

If you do choose to animate a creature, the resultant undead loses all hd gained from class levels. Meaning that if you raise a humanoid creature, you basically pay for 1hd worth of onyx for a minion who can carry stuff for you and absorb fire. It's not so bad. Depending on your build, it can open up a number of interesting strategies, like having mobile silence/aura beacons.

Obviously, animating a non-humanoid creature yields the highest potential for a combat ready undead, but they can get expensive.

APPARENTLY, it's frowned upon to drown Aspis Consortium agents for the Glory of Hanspur.

I still don't see a problem, but whatever.