I have a problem with the 1st level spell Hide from Undead. We are playing an adventure with alot of undead enemies .. some are unintelligent and others are intelligent. The party uses a selfmade wand of Hide from Undead, moves through the dungeon and do everything they want until they meet a monster they want to fight or a intelligent enemy who resists the spell. They can talk, search the area, prepare for a fight etc. because nobody can hear, smell, see etc. them.
Now my questions:
What can i do to counter the spell in the case of unintelligent enemies? Last game they passed a CR7 encounter with a 1rst level spell and that was not the only encounter. The party is lvl5. Is the spell OP compared with Invisibility ? I thought Hife from Undead is something like Invisibility but only for Undead. Now is see that the spell is something completely different.
A rule question reguarding intelligent enemies:
If it fails, the subject can't see any of the warded creatures.
Intelligent enemies cant see warded creatures if they fail the save but they can hear, smell, blindsense etc. them ?
Thanks
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seems to me that RAI is that all undead are unable to use all those senses against the affected creatures.
To a degree, you should let your players be rewarded for leveraging a good strategy against the enemies. However, any one spell was never intended to be a 'win all situations' button; if the game is extremely Undead-heavy and the trick is overpowering them to the point that it's impacting the fun, you can still pull a few tricks.
A creature concentrating with detect magic can detect and eventually pinpoint the squares of invisible creatures;
As invisibility, you can 'outline' the PCs by immersing them in water, covering them with flour, having them walk on soft terrain or hitting them with Glitterdust;
Causing them to attack or touch an Undead creature will end the spell.
Traps don't care if you're invisible or not, and many of them actually operate on a Detect Magic trigger.
I'd recommend pairing unintelligent undead with intelligent masters that can command them to attack squares blindly, or even with non-Undead that can set them on alert. The occasional human necromancer can spice up what may otherwise become a drab infiltration.
Why not make a Zombie Door? A zombie door is both a portal and a monster, made of fused undead. As an added thematic element, it can be locked door made out of a fleshcrafted creature; and elsewhere in the dungeon complex you may find an object made of bone that looks like part-key, part-dagger. By thrusting the dagger into the ribs and twisting, the door unlocks.
That might serve the purpose of giving the BBEG some warning, and also make it creepy as hell. However, your players might feel like it's a ham-handed attempt to ruin their trick, so use it carefully.
Add some Vermin.
This.
You created a dungeon with a "single point of failure". The PCs found it, and exploited it to the fullest. As Troubleshooter said, do reward the party for their ingenuity. But start hedging your bets from here on.
Not every intelligent undead will fail it's save. Attacking those that succeed ends the spell, so mixing up the types will help.. The intelligent ones can probably command the unintelligent ones too.
Just be glad it's a wand of Hide from Undead (which lets you auto-ignore unintelligent undead) and not a wand of Command Undead (which lets you auto-control unintelligent undead)! ;-)