I'm playing in Skull & Shackles as a 10th level character, whoever my Goblin who gleefully burns all writing has been deemed inappropriate for the game, so I'm making a new character. So I am planning on making a caster who uses posses object to steal enemies ships, but am having issues hitting the 32 caster level that I will need to take over the big ships.
I'm thinking going Dhampir(Jiang-Shi-born) wizard, and using the favored class bonus to up my caster level, so I'm looking at CL 15, plus one from and Ioun Stone, +1 from a tatoo, maybe plus one for Bloatmage. That allows me to posses and animate Gargantuan ships (keelboats) but not the Colossal ones (which are most of them). I guess I can read a scroll of Deathknell on a chicken to get another caster level, but that only puts me at 19, 11 short.
What am I missing?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, Andy. Have you ever thought of building your own undead boat? Imagine a ship made of creaking bones and stretched skin, the souls of the dead moan in the sails as it cuts through the water. In windless weather, your skeletons pull at the oars, tirelessly.
Your character idea would work as an NPC, but I wouldn't take too kindly to a player who (while clever) sought to dominate the game by creating such a distraction. Such a necromantic thief might find himself hunted by certain clerics and paladins who find undead to be abhorrent...
Another member of the party is a undead lord who is storing the body of a giant dragon turtle for later to make his own boat. So we've got the undead boat covered, and really I just want him to make undead sharks to pull us around on rafts.
I'm not trying to dominate the game.
Aren't there undead who have aura's that buff necromantic spells?
But looking at the description of the spell, why do you need a caster level component at all?
Deathwine looks really good.
This spell functions as magic jar, except you transfer your mind to a single object, animating it as if using animate objects, except your mind controls the object as if it were your own body. You cannot speak or cast spells while possessing the object. Because your original body is effectively dead while under the effect of this spell, this temporarily suspends disease, poisons, and other afflictions affecting you.
The bolded part is why I think caster level matters.
By the way...
A ship under the control of a pilot cannot be animated with animate objects without the pilot's consent. An animated ship moves as the caster directs. It needs no crew other than the caster, who is considered the ship's pilot. An animated ship's statistics, such as its hit points, do not change.
Source: Skull & Shackles Player's Guide
I don't know if this effects the character you want to build, but it might.
It looks like the favored class bonus on Dhamphir was 'errated' to only 1/4 per level instead of 1/2, so getting to 32 caster level would make him too much of a one trick pony, which is a shame. But it's still fairly easy to get to a 16 caster level to posses a keelboat and ride around.