Undead Master

[Rocky Williams 530]

Hi. Undead master feat, from Ultimate Magic, reads

PRD wrote:

Undead Master

You can marshal vast armies of the undead to serve you.
Prerequisites: Spell focus (necromancy), the ability to cast animate dead or command undead.
Benefit: When you cast animate dead or use the Command Undead feat, you are considered to be four levels higher when determining the number of Hit Dice you animate. When you cast command undead, your duration is doubled.

Command undead feat does not allow you to animate undead, just control it. So, unless something is very off, the feat allows the number of undead you can create and control to be counted as 4 levels higher for that spell and/or feat, right? Maybe a FAQ to show proper wording would be nice?

[oneplus999]

Yeah I noticed this the other day. It obviously wouldn't mention Command Undead if it didn't affect it, so I just pretend it applies to all HD values in the feat.

It also makes the feat near-worthless for animate dead because animate dead has two HD limits: one that determines the highest HD you can animate (2xlevel), and other that increases the max hd you can control (4xlevel). So if this feat really only impacts the ANIMATE limit, it does squat to increase the size of your undead army.

RAI clearly did not mean for this to be the case, so it's safe to treat it as increasing all HD limits related to these spells, despite the wording, imo.

[SnowHeart]

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but I've seen a few of these threads with the OP marked as a FAQ candidate but never an answer nor an errata, and no clear resolution in any of the ensuing discussions. This thread seems just as good as any other to necro, so...

I'm not usually so blunt with Paizo-written material, but this feat has a badly written description. You don't animate anything with the Command Undead feat, thus to say the caster is able to animate more HD when using Command Undead is nonsensical.

If I break the first sentence of the benefit into two parts (first on animate dead, second on the command undead feat), this is what I get:

1: When you cast animate dead, you are considered to be four levels higher when determining the number of hit dice you animate.

Over a caster's life-time (and unlife?), he can animate a theoretically infinite amount of undead. The question of how much he can control at any given time is handled separately (and quite explicitly) in that spell's description, so I would think this refers to how many HD the caster can animate in a single casting of the spell. Fine. Clear enough.

2: When you use the Command Undead feat, you are considered to be four levels higher when determining the number of Hit Dice you animate.

o_o ... What?

You don't animate anything with the Command Undead feat. *deep breath* Alright, the CU feat wouldn't be referenced here if the UM feat had no effect on it, so... what's the effect? An increase to the will save? Maybe, but it could have explicitly said so. That leaves an increase to the number of HD you can control in this particular "bucket" of undead HD (which is what Sean Reynold's post HERE states)? If the latter (that the pool of controllable HD is increased), does that then mean the interpretation of the feat's applicability to animate dead (which refers to how many you can animate... not control) is incomplete, and the number of HD of undead in the animate bucket is also enlarged by the increase in caster level?

*grumble*

IMO, this feat description needs to be errata'd to address number of HD to be animated in a single casting, number of HD that can be controlled (via the animate and command HD "buckets"), and (if true) that it impacts the Command Undead feat's saving throw.

[George Nelson 940]

My question about the wording of the rule is a bit different.

Undead Lord Cleric Archetypes gives you the Command Undead Feat. Does this qualify for command undead pre-req? because if it does, a human undead lord can take Spell focus Necromancy, and Undead Master.... At First Level giving a 1st level character the ability to control 10 HD worth of undead.

So erratta may be in order here

[Tyrion_86]

The feat description is "You can marshal vast armies of the undead to serve you."

"Vast" is amount of ... no?

I think the feat should increase the number of your bucket undead, not only the power of undead controlled. I hope that this feat will solved in FAQ someday (sorry, I know that this post came one year later than the last post).

[Kaeroku]

SnowHeart wrote:

<snip>

Animate dead states:

Quote:

This spell turns corpses into undead skeletons or zombies that obey your spoken commands.

The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are destroyed. A destroyed skeleton or zombie can't be animated again.

Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can't create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. The desecrate spell doubles this limit.

The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released. Undead you control through the Command Undead feat do not count toward this limit.

Note that none of the above uses the word "animate" in the same context that it uses the words "create" and "control." I posit that the same argument you made for how the Command Undead feat should be handled ALSO applies to how the Animate Dead spell should be handled. Specifically, I'm reading it this way: the only place in the Animate Dead spell that the word "animate" is used, are not the places where the descriptions for how many you can create and control are listed. Create and control are the distinguishing terms, animate is not. Thus, the effects of a feat which modify the Animate Dead spell apply to all related effects in the Animate Dead spell, as the feat refers to the spell HD, and doesn't call out one over the other specifically.

Animate Dead talks about "control" and "create," it does NOT talk about animating. We can argue that "animate" means only the creation part of the spell, we can argue that "you animate" suggests your influence over them. So it can go either ways. My argument is that it logically makes sense to apply it to both, generally, because there is no specification, and the rule of Pathfinder is that general applies unless there is a specific override.

Moreover:

Quote:

The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled.

The emphasis suggests that no matter how many you're allowed to control, you will *always* control *at least* the number you create during a single casting. So, even if Undead Master does only apply to the create limit (which is dubious, considering the wording,) it would still allow you to raise creatures as though you were at CL +4, and retain control of them, at least until you cast it again.

Interestingly, this means a level five spellcaster with just Undead Master (feat), Desecrate and Animate Dead (lesser) should be able to create & control 72 HD worth of minions in a single cast, regardless of how you interpret which of the two stats Undead Master applies to. He is level 5, functioning as +4 for Animate Dead so CL 9, *4 Animate Dead HD per CL, *2 Desecrate. This is without traits and another feat to raise CL.