i have a dread necromancer in my group and we are just about to hit the observatory in the whispering cairn. this is really the first encounter with undead so the guy is so gonna start commanding undead, my question is this, does he just need to command them using a normal turning check is is there some kind of opposing roll for filge because he is the one that created the? im guessing that the former is true. help would b gateful but i got 2 weeks now to figure it out due to holiday.
To my knowledge there is no test that Filge would get to make. One of the downfalls to the arcane necromancer archetype in my opinion. If he has the spell control undead (not sure the level, but I doubt Filge can cast it) he could use that to regain control, but then the party cleric/dread necromancer could just use another turn undead attempt and Filge would have wasted a round and a spell. One idea would be to change Filge to a cleric, or grant the observatory some sort of Desicrate effect, where undead are harder to turn. I haven't gotten to this part of the adventure yet, so I don't know if it should be that big of a deal though (Filge getting his undead commanded). My party, in their imesurable brilliance, has no cleric, so I haven't given the issue much thought until now.
I think only the experimental undead in the tanks should be
unturnable.
You can walk all the ghost's family members back to the farm
then destroy and rebury them.
This will prevent lost parts and such.
Note that having Filge's victiums help bring him down has
poetic irony and I would love to hear how it works out.
Look carefully at the hit dice of the undead in the observatory. If I recall, added together they have quite a large amount, and it should be difficult for a low level character to control them all. This is why there was some suggestion in the beginning that Filge was likely using scrolls to control them to begin with. He is not high enough level to create and control the undead that are there. Since at least some of the undead are going to end up still under the control of Filge, your dread necro's ability should not be too much of an unbalancer. Plus, you get the chance to allow one of your character's ablilities to shine. Never a bad thing. This can be a very tough encounter to begin with. My party ended up trapped on the second level with most of the undead, while one of the larger ones blocked the staircase giving access to Filge. No deaths, but it was close.
excellent. im looking forward to this as so far the poor dready has been outshone by both bow wielding ranger and thief. the necromancer is only lvl 2 so i doubt it will make too much trouble but i cant see him letting them go afterwards either once he is shown that this is what he can do. ill let everyone know how it works out in the end.
I don't have the books in front of me, so I'm fuzzy on the details, but here is what you are looking for:
-If you are 4th level, you have access to the spell Command Undead. This pretty much gives you control of undead independent of their HD.
-You might want to not solve the ghost's problem, as he is a low-HD ghost and thus perfect for your Rebuking(Command). I seem to recall that he has 2 HD and no Turn Resistance, so he's perfect as a sybject of yout Rebuking as he is hard to kill and a real devil in combat.
-If you need more Necromancer info, do a Google Search for the Revised Necromancer Handbook. That should answer any general Necromancy questions you might have.