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I am a GM currently running the Jade Regent, and afterwards my players wanted to play Carrion Crown. It is still a month or two away, we are on the final book of JR, so they have time to think of their characters.
One of the players wanted to try a Juju Oracle. The concept of being able to raise undead that were his own alignment (if intelligent), that likely being Lawful Good, was very intriguing, and he had the whole 'white necromancy' feel to it. I thought it may be a bit of a challenge in a Pharasman heavy campaign, but was open to the idea.
On doing some research, and hearing about the things he wanted to be able to do with the mechanics, I am getting less sure about keeping it in.
First off, I should mention that the initial concept of non-evil undead doesn't *really* bother me. I did find out that it wasn't supposed to be something that got in, but still.
The player mentioned that Juju Oracles get the ability to use Create Undead as a 5th-level spell (for juju zombies only), and with Spirit Vessels, they can be non-evil undead and the spell loses the evil descriptor. That part seemed ok, but then we went into the details of the spell.
Let's assume he is a 10th-level Oracle and now has the ability to do this. One of his companions, a 10th-level Wizard, dies. The Oracle spends 500 GP (50 GP per Hit Die) and brings that Wizard back as a Juju Zombie. The wizard's alignment will change to the oracle's (in this case, LG) which may cause some personality changes, but overall, the Wizard is himself.
Better yet, he's an improvement. A Juju Zombie, being Undead, is now immune to a lot of things that the Wizard was vulnerable to as a human. As an undead, he now also gets his Charisma bonus instead of Con to hit points and Fort, which for some people can be quite the improvement.
The Wizard gets a +3 natural armor bonus, channel resistance +4, DR 5/magic AND slashing (or 10/magic and slashing when he gets 11th level), and fire resistance 10. He becomes immune to cold, electricity, and magic missile. Why magic missile? WHO KNOWS. :)
If this wasn't enough, he also gets Str +4, Dex +2, a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks, and Improved Initiative and Toughness as bonus feats.
AND THEY KEEP ALL THEIR CLASS LEVELS AND ABILITIES. o.O
Assuming the party is okay with the idea of being undead, why *wouldn't* they want this? It costs 1/10th that of a Raise Dead and they get some amaaaazing bonuses for the conversion.
Am I missing something? Am I misinterpreting how this works? If not, then by 10th level, I foresee everyone being changed into a juju zombie because they would be so much better at everything. If this is all accurate, then I think I may have to ban the Juju Oracle, because this is just nuts.
If you feel the need to ask, the answer is most likely "no".
well, everyone's martial offense would be slightly higher, but hit points would be drastically lower unless power gamed in advance. which may not provide much as much survivability as thought. and it makes healing harder to come by. especially from looted potions.
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One thing I can think about is this:
Spirit Vessel says the Oracle channels a Wendo Spirit into the corpse. Which means, that yes the Zombie might still be a 10th level wizard, but it is not the wizard raised as zombie. It's a different "soul" inside that body now, if zombies even have something like that.
So you could say that if this is done on a PC he turns into an NPC, end of story. Possibly under the control of/friendly to the oracle, but still an NPC.
Also in a Pharasma heavy campaign: Pharasma most likely will not care if its a real zombie, a juju zombie or a zombie made out of candy, it's still a zombie and therefore an abomination in her eyes and she'll smite the s#+& out of it if she can (or rather her followers will in her name).
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The question is: Am I understanding how this works as I stated above? Am I interpreting the rules correctly? Because as it stands, this seems way too powerful.
There may or may not be a Pharasma presence. Their social interactions could definitely be impacted, but there are spells to fix that (transmutation-like). If I am interpreting it right, I am worried that the below is waaaaay too much for 500 GP (as opposed to the usual 5000 and two negative levels for Raise Dead). Mostly all the benefits of being undead.
- To retain all your class levels.
- All the abilities that being an undead brings, including: Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms). Immunity to bleed, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning. Not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength), as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects. Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
- +3 natural armor bonus.
- Channel resistance +4.
- DR 5/magic and slashing (DR 10 if 11th+ HD).
- Fire Resistance 10, Cold/Electricity Immunity, magic missile immunity.
- Strength +4. Dexterity +2.
- Improved Initiative, Toughness.
- Climb +8.
So, the rules question, again, is this. Can a Juju Oracle, at 10th level, assuming willing party members, kill them all and raise them all as Juju Zombies (at the cost of 500 GP each) using Create Undead?
Their hit points/fort *may* be less (though the other members are a Bard and Sorcerer so far, so maybe not). Social interactions *may* be more difficult, and Pharasma may be pissed. I am trying to make sure I understand the rules properly enough. If I do, I'll likely just ban it because that is way too much power for way too cheap :)
What's the rules question?
If he missed anything, I guess.
But I think the Advice forum would have been a better place for the post, kinda a border case :)|
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well, everyone's martial offense would be slightly higher, but hit points would be drastically lower unless power gamed in advance. which may not provide much as much survivability as thought. and it makes healing harder to come by. especially from looted potions.
Hit Points and Fort may drop, that is true. The main great bonus is the sheer amount of immunities that being Undead provies, in addition to two free feats, a +8 skill bonus, a +6 ability score (overall) boost, natural armor, DR, etc. It's crazy. :)
As for healing, all they need is a cleric that can take Versatile Channeler. Or some wands of inflict. Not too hard to overcome.
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One thing I can think about is this:
Spirit Vessel says the Oracle channels a Wendo Spirit into the corpse. Which means, that yes the Zombie might still be a 10th level wizard, but it is not the wizard raised as zombie. It's a different "soul" inside that body now, if zombies even have something like that.
After a quick scan, that's my take on this. This isn't raising someone as a zombie, it's creating a new undead creature out of their body.
Why don't you just tell them it's not possible to do that and/or it effectively kills the character anyway (i.e. the player no longer controls them)?
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I could do that. Of course, that then opens the door for worse things. It's now a lawful good undead with all the same junk as the player that used to control it. It doesn't automatically serve the Oracle, but it's LG, I'm sure he convince it to come along (after all, if the oracle couldn't make use of the Juju Zombies he raised, then what is the point?) What about the player whose character it was?
Honestly, same soul or not, allowing the player whose PC it was to keep control of it would be the best sort.
As it stands, I think my question was already answered. It doesn't seem like I'm misinterpreting the *rules* at all, since I'd have to come up with flavor ways of preventing it. I will likely just ban this specific mystery (add it to my list of 5 things or so that are a no-no) and just let the player know. He has a while to come up with something new. :)
Thanks all.
If you allow the player to keep control of the new undead, then yes, there's not much you can do to prevent this.
If you say "Yes you can do that, but then it's an NPC and John has to roll a new character" then well John might whack Bob on the back of his head real hard when Bob thinks about raising his beloved wizard as a zombie.
Also one more thing:
Undead get utterly destroyed once they reach 0 HPs. Boom, gone. No raise afterwards possible anymore. No healing them from negative hitpoints.
That's a major drawback.
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I've never been sure about undead that hit 0. They are destroyed, yes, but are they still a corpse? It's never been very clear.
As for being an NPC, that is still a possibility, and I have had Animate Dead/Animal Companions/Cohorts be NPCs in the past. Still, 500 GP for a kick-ass NPC (or however many he wants) is worse then just letting the players control them. If I am going to limit his control and have NPCs he makes walk away because they don't want to help, then he probably wouldn't have wanted that character in the first place. If I do let them help, well, that just is Super Leadership Extreme.
As for John walking Bob on the head? Not these players. They wouldn't care in the least. :) They'd leap at the chance to make a new character and wish their old one the best life as a new super awesome undead crime fighter.
As it stands, I think my question was already answered. It doesn't seem like I'm misinterpreting the *rules* at all, since I'd have to come up with flavor ways of preventing it.
I think you and I have different views on what "flavor ways" or "fluff ways" are.
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Even without this the juju oracle is overpowered.
You can control 6 HD/level of zombies with Animate Dead and your zombies have maximized hit dice. Slap heavy armor on a zombie and you get 16-18 AC. Give it a heavy shield (may as well, it'll never full attack) and it's 18-20 AC. Make it a tower shield ant it's 20-22 AC. I believe they retain natural armor as well. At level 5 that's 30 HD worth of wall of meat. The god wizard needs to use today's spells and actions to control the battlefield. Juju oracles control the battlefield before initiative is rolled. How's that for action economy?
This was also a big worry. I use MapTools and a digital screen to help speed up gameplay, and even then, the Master Summoner took up way too much time. I had all the summoned characters pre-statted in MapTools and attacking/saving was just a click of the button here and there, but already it was too much.
A lot of animated zombies with armor PLUS the idea of intelligent juju zombies with class levels? Guh.
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I'm just saying don't use a hammer when a screwdriver will do.
Don't ban the JuJu mystery, ban raising PCs. Just tell him the spell fizzles and doesn't use the components the first time he tries it.
If he does it again, make him pay for it.
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Tweaking it is fine, to a point. When it takes away part of the reason he's interested, there's no difference between tweaking it or banning it. He won't want it either way. The focus is around the Juju Zombie and Juju Items. The Juju Zombie template just seems too broken. Normal zombies at least remove all the class features and such, but juju zombies are nuts.
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One thing I can think about is this:
Spirit Vessel says the Oracle channels a Wendo Spirit into the corpse. Which means, that yes the Zombie might still be a 10th level wizard, but it is not the wizard raised as zombie. It's a different "soul" inside that body now, if zombies even have something like that.So you could say that if this is done on a PC he turns into an NPC, end of story. Possibly under the control of/friendly to the oracle, but still an NPC.
Exactly this.
So you could say that if this is done on a PC he turns into an NPC, end of story. Possibly under the control of/friendly to the oracle, but still an NPC.
How does this help game balance? Presumably the players who lost their PCs this way would be permitted new characters. So now you have a full group, plus a bunch of loyal NPCs with the powers of a PC and undead immunities.
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So you could say that if this is done on a PC he turns into an NPC, end of story. Possibly under the control of/friendly to the oracle, but still an NPC.How does this help game balance? Presumably the players who lost their PCs this way would be permitted new characters. So now you have a full group, plus a bunch of loyal NPCs with the powers of a PC and undead immunities.
This.
Put a limit to how many he can keep raised at a time?
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Not sure if someone said it but there was an faq or a posting from one of the paizo staff which said it wasn't intentional that the jujuzombies can be good and that all undead are created evil.
So a LG juju oracle would create evil undead wich means he/she would not remain LG for long.
Ok, you seem convinced it's overpowered. A lot of people here gave you ways how you can try and deal with this, but you don't seem to want to use them, or think it doesn't do any good.
Then, yes. Go ahead and ban the mystery. It's totally within your rights as GM. Juju only appears in the back of a single AP-book and was never reprinted in a "real" book, so you might disallow it only on those grounds.
Not sure if someone said it but there was an faq or a posting from one of the paizo staff which said it wasn't intentional that the jujuzombies can be good and that all undead are created evil.
So a LG juju oracle would create evil undead wich means he/she would not remain LG for long.
The OP mentioned that in his post, but said he doesn't want to use it.
Not sure if someone said it but there was an faq or a posting from one of the paizo staff which said it wasn't intentional that the jujuzombies can be good and that all undead are created evil.
So a LG juju oracle would create evil undead wich means he/she would not remain LG for long.
The DM is free to disregard this errata and go by the original written version.
And like Blackbloodtroll here already said, he's doing just that now. The problem lies elsewhere.
I may look like Blackbloodtroll to the untrained eye, but I assure you, I'm not him, nor are we related.
My apologies, I've gotten used to him using that avatar. You're both awesome, though :D
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People love necroing threads about necromancy, I suppose.
People love necroing threads about necromancy, I suppose.
Yo dawg, I heard you like nec... ...
Sorry, I'll show myself out.
Contributor
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No. (Joking tone)
My thought on "loyal NPCs" was that, even if LG, the Wendo might have other goals which draw them (and maybe the party) away. Speaking as someone who is currently running Book 6 of the Path, the villain could easily capitalize on this opportunity.
Now return to sleep, thread. Your time has passed.