Hey guys, just started looking at the Words of Power and wanted a second opinion on a rules phrasing:
Undeath (Death)
School necromancy [evil]; Level cleric 2, sorcerer/wizard 3
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
Target Restrictions selectedThis effect word can only target the corpses of dead creatures. These creatures rise as either skeletons or zombies, as decided by the caster. These undead follow the caster's commands to the best of their limited ability. They remain undead creatures until destroyed. The caster can create at most 2 Hit Dice worth of undead per caster level with each casting of a wordspell with this effect word. The caster can control no more than 4 HD per caster level of undead creatures. If additional undead are created, the caster chooses which undead to lose control of to get back under the limit.
Does this wording make room for special variant raises, like bloody or burning skeletons, fast zombies, etc., or is this plain ol' nothing special zombies they this raises? The 2 HD limit keeps the very best that you could do with this a 1 HD variant, given the rules on raising the dead, but just curious if there's any wiggle room in there since the wording seems somewhat ambiguous.
I don't see why you couldn't. At level 3(cleric) you can create 6 hd of undead overcasting(or 3 hd of a variant skeleton). Variant zombies don't count as double as far as the bestiaries say.
Good find on those zombie rules, or lack thereof. Saw the rules for skeletons and assumed they were the same across the board. This seems like a fun low level villain, level 3 Undead Lord Cleric who's using ancient dark word magic, I can dig it. Would be capable of quite the horde if built right too, if it was a human, you could rush Undead Mastery at this level, maybe get a magic tattoo or spell specialization. All in all, could be rocking 24+ variant zombies and skeletons. I'm eager to potentially throw a low level team against this, could give them an entire small dungeon's worth of encounters off of one 3rd level baddie.
I actually didn't find it. I saw it as a note on the Zombie page on d20pfsrd.com.
You know what really rocks about the Undeath word?
Animate Dead: Material component. Range of touch. 3rd level(cleric)/4th level(wizard/Sorc).
Undeath: no material component. Range of close, 2nd level(cleric)/3rd level(wiz/Sorc).
Words of power are just all plain fun...especially when you throw out one spell that does the buffs of multiple spells at higher levels...usually less duration but for one battle it's pretty decent
Ah, well good info either way, I think once my own Oracle of Bones hits level 5 she's going to need to pick up Experimental Spellcaster, because as noted, these can make for some pretty dang cheap, yet effective zombies. Being able to mix it with traditional spells like Desecrate makes it just grand.
Awesome to see this works, first person I ever spoke too about Words of Power bad mouthed them pretty severely, glad I decided to read up on them anyway.
Words of Power can make for great Necromancers, Conjurers, and Evokers.