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So a necromancer in Golarion has immediatly some ennemies : Pharasma clerics.
Nah...its not the Pharasma Clerics the Necromancers need to worry about...
Its the Pharasma Inquisitors...especially the Neutral Evil ones
So a necromancer in Golarion has immediatly some ennemies : Pharasma clerics.
Nah...its not the Pharasma Clerics the Necromancers need to worry about...
Its the Pharasma Inquisitors...especially the Neutral Evil ones
I would say it's the LE inquisitors that they need to worry about. NE and CE ones are just as likely to ignore it, mainly due to being able to live with the 'laws' of god and man occasionally not being inforced.
A LE inquisitor who decided that Undead were not kosher would be the worst nightmare you could imagine for a necromancer. Even Paladin's would likely give the Inquisitor a pass, if he's a well known hunter of undead and necromancers.
Paladin : "Hey, that woman over there reeks of evil, why are we even talking to her, much less joining her on a raid?"
Bard : "Are you kidding? Do you know who that is? That's Ursla Deathbane!"
Paladin : Whistling impressedly. "Seriously? Wow, I would never have thought anyone that is infamous for taking out necromancers and undead would have an aura that nasty."
Bard : "Huh, that's because you never listen to may tales in town. The last necromancer she took down she skinned alive and wrapped in salt soaked bandages, and then healed him every hour for 3 weeks, until he finally died."
Paladin : "Meh, ok, now I see why. I'm not thrilled about working with her, but as long as she limits her evil to other evil creatures, I'll avoid smiting her until after we've taken out this death cult and their zombies and skeletons."
Someone mentioned Dexter earlier as an anti-hero. He's more like a LE Inquisitor, someone who enjoys causing pain and suffering, but has a personal code against killing innocents, for some reason. So he restricts himself to evil victims.
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If there is one good thing from these endless arguments, it's the various ideas I see that make me want to write my own campaign setting.Why do you think I'm here? To win an argument on the internet? (:
For every one thread I comment on, I read a dozen more. There's a lot of good ideas everywhere you look. . .
It's more expensive, but cheaper in the long run since it doesn't eat, sleep, and can work all three shifts without stopping, which means it can do the work of 3 mules and saves on upkeep. It's also a stronger mule, because being a zombie gives you a +2 strength bonus, meaning the mule is essentially a greater-than-average pack animal.I've never considered buying an undead mule.
That cost (50 gp) is based on the material components of the spell, but surely the cost of a spellcaster casting the spell should be factored? Perhaps a fraction of the 150 gp it costs to have a cleric cast the spell at minimum caster level (when paying for standard spellcasting services)?
I guess if a commoner is ok working with a creature made through dark and sinister magic -- like in a kingdom where undead (and dark and sinister magic) are embraced, that's fine. But in 3.5, where Pelor was considered the standard deity of common folk, I'd imagine that kingdom would be the exception (and not the norm).
Also, you better tie that undead mule up!
When left unattended, zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour.
Please keep in mind that this started with a conversation with Wraithstrike, and I (notedly) used an example from a 3rd Edition game, in which case skeletons and zombies had not been refluffed to attack things if left untended. That's entirely something new to the Pathfinder fluff.
Speaking of fluff...
Zombies are unthinking automatons, and can do little more than follow orders. When left unattended, zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour. Zombies attack until destroyed, having no regard for their own safety.
Although capable of following orders, zombies are more often unleashed into an area with no command other than to kill living creatures. As a result, zombies are often encountered in packs, wandering around places the living frequent, looking for victims. Most zombies are created using animate dead. Such zombies are always of the standard type, unless the creator also casts haste or remove paralysis to create fast zombies, or contagion to create plague zombies.
Humorously, it seems not as much has changed as I believed. Skeletons have no fluff in the PRD that says they wander killing stuff. It then says that zombies are basically limited to their orders, but must unattended are found looking for people to kill. However, it then explains that most zombies that are left unattended have been told to kill everything (explaining why the mindless zombie who cannot make choices would suddenly decide to start killing people), which explains why zombies try to kill people and explains wandering undead in the exact way that 3E did.
So, I guess as long as your last order was "kill everything that's alive", you could safely leave your zombie-mule doing a whole lot of nothing.
As for the price, I was indeed counting it from the perspective of having someone to cast the spell for you for free, because the example used a benevolent necromancer who was gifting a farmer with an undead pack animal. It's true that it would indeed be much more expensive without that (208 gp total for a zombie mule).
However, in a necrofriendly government, skeletons and zombies would likely be encouraged and likely discounted or given away for the purposes of agriculture and the like. After crafting a magic item that uses animate dead 1/day to animate up to 10 HD of undead per day, you could have adepts use it to produce undead without expending a lot of expensive material components to do so. Meanwhile, you make more in taxes by allowing the farmer to use undead work animals because it would increase his productivity greatly.
Also, in case anyone is curious, a magic item that can animate 10-20HD of undead per day, usable as a spell-trigger item, would cost the following: (750gp*3*5)+(200 gp material components * 50)/5 = 2,450 gp. It would animate 10 HD of undead by default, but in the radius of a desecrate spell, it could animate up to 20 HD at a time (and was created with the appropriate amount of material components to do so). This item recharges each day, and can be used by someone with sufficient training (such as a 1st level adept, cleric, wizard, oracle, or someone who can hit DC 20 on a Use Magic Device check).
I'm rather partial to a large onyx orb that you hold in your hand, myself.
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All this over 53 spells...
In case you are wondering, here are the spells that have "evil" marked as a descriptor, or can be evil depending on what was summoned/called (at least based off of the d20pfsrd spell db):
Align Weapon
Animate Dead
Blasphemy
Contagion
Create Undead
Create Greater Undead
Curse Water
Death Knell
Desecrate
Dispel Good
Elemental Swarm
Magic Circle against Good
Nightmare
Planar Ally, Lesser
Planar Ally
Planar Ally, Greater
Planar Binding, Lesser
Planar Binding
Planar Binding, Greater
Protection from Good
Summon Monster I
Summon Nature's Ally III
Summon Nature's Ally IV
Summon Nature's Ally V
Summon Nature's Ally VI
Summon Nature's Ally VII
Summon Nature's Ally VIII
Summon Nature's Ally IX
Symbol of Pain
Unhallow
Unholy Aura
Unholy Blight
Agonize
Hellfire Ray
Malediction
Vision of Hell
Signifer's Rally
Infernal Healing
Infernal Healing, Greater
Canopic Conversion
Summon Elemental Steed
Tomb Legion
Enemy's Heart
Corruption Resistance
Defile Armor
Divine Vessel
Follow Aura
Pain Strike
Pain Strike, Mass
Retribution
Shadow Projection
Rift of Ruin
Infernal Healing
Infernal Healing, Greater
Vision of Lamashtu
Happily there are 914 other spells (in the d20pfsrd) to play with. It does take a concerted effort to keep finding only evil spells to cast for all situations versus only "bad guys". At that point, as a GM, I could take a good guess and say that you are aiming at playing an evil character, or want to go that way.
Yes, a spell with the [evil] descriptor is an evil act.
Neutral casters have more flexibility, but no paladin could ever cast it, and I would determine that a good cleric would also not be given access to that spell by their good deity.
Evil for detect and smiting purposes has to do with character alignment, not spells known/cast. A neutral caster could know and cast evil spells without being evil, and therefore would not be detected as evil and could not be smited (smitten? that just sounds wrong...).
It's "smote". Yeah, I know it's years later. Sue me. :)
The verb smite, meaning to inflict a heavy blow, is traditionally inflected smote (in the past tense) and smitten (in the perfect tense and as a past participle). Some dictionaries list smited as an alternative past-tense form, but it has always been far less common than smote in published writing.
You cast raise thread for this?
You cast raise thread for this?
More like thread resurrection. That's a lot longer than one day per caster level.
