| Kayerloth |
cant you just use the Heal spell to insta-KO them?
Well yes and no. Yes it's a pretty nasty spell to use on Undead. No it won't insta-KO them. It'll do 10 damage/level up to 150 damage and the target will get a Will save (which is a good save for Undead creatures). Or go with Mass Heal which raises the damage cap to 250 damage and obviously can effect multiple targets as well. With either spell the undead cannot be brought below 1 hp. Note for comparison sake that 10 damage per level is roughly the equal of saying 3d6 damage (an average of 10.5) per level so even if the target undead make the save they are still taking more damage than if hit by a Fireball and fail that save. Follow up with something like Sunburst and any undead wobbling about with 1 hp (or otherwise heavily damaged) are now destroyed.
As for:
Is there way to take command w/o using that command undead feat? Is there something else I can use if im confident in my ability to beat a CL (or casting stat) check.
Probably something along the lines of the previously mentioned Control Undead spell is what you are looking for.
EDIT: Hmmmm the previous post mentions Control Undead ... but the spell they are talking about is Command Undead. Control Undead is 7th level and is more the equivalent of Dominate (whereas Command Undead is 2nd level and parallels Charm rather than Dominate). If the target is non-intelligent you probably want Command Undead, if intelligent then more likely you want to use Control Undead. Keep in mind if you use Command Undead it suffers much the same limitations as using Charm
Person/Monster does namely => "Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the commanded undead (regardless of its Intelligence) breaks the spell."