What the heck, a black dragon skeleton?!


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Dark Archive

So, last week I was playing in PFS and a Oracle pulled out a M size black dragon skeleton (BDS) and used animate dead. This BDS destroyed everything. I asked how he obtained the BDS and he said bones are mundane items and they are in the core book. When I looked through the core book I couldn't find anything on dragon bone materials...

This is my question:

Where can you purchase dragon bones in PFS, are they in a specific book, or what?!

-Thanks!


No you cannot purchase skeletons, and you cannot carry them over from scenario to scenario, he is in error and your GM should have told him so. He is required to have the books at hand for anything his character has so he should be able to show them GM where the Black Dragon skeleton comes from, of course he won't because its not available.

Dark Archive

So the only way he could actually have a black dragon skeleton is if a GM put it on your inventory tracking sheet? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just started playing last month!

Grand Lodge 4/5 ** Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver

It is a pretty awesome cheat.

Dark Archive

And the guy who did this is also a GM!

Shadow Lodge 3/5

You can't get a black dragon skeleton; there's certainly nothing like that in the core rulebook. How did he convince anyone of that?

GMs can't just add things to Inventory Tracking Sheets - they're for the player to add purchased (or sold) items to and other people can audit it, nothing else.

5/5 5/55/55/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

The only way to acquire a black dragon skeleton is to kill a black dragon during the scenario. Then spend the cash on the onyx to animate it.

There are no qualifications to GM beyond having a pfs number (hence the stars :) )

Dark Archive 5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

yeah....

thats just plain old cheating

and a horrible GM to not call the player out on it..

Shadow Lodge 3/5

I've got to ask, did you get a chronicle sheet for this?

You can't normally replay scenarios, but when you play a game like this where the GM and a player have completely broken the scenario, it seems like it would warrant an exception? Is that considered an illegal table?

Grand Lodge 4/5 ** Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver

Hmm, I wonder... if I saw this kind of thing (outright cheating) between a GM and a player and said something to them about it and they both think it's in the rules, but no one has a way of proving it, and they continue on with it, what should I do? Do I go to a VO?

5/5 5/55/55/5

10 people marked this as a favorite.
roll4initiative wrote:
Hmm, I wonder... if I saw this kind of thing (outright cheating) between a GM and a player and said something to them about it and they both think it's in the rules, but no one has a way of proving it, and they continue on with it, what should I do? Do I go to a VO?

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance.

3/5

When I pull up to a table with some of my characters that use lots of different things and tend to be much more complicated than the average character, some DMs just allow me to do whatever. I try my best to police myself as best I can, but I could see people taking advantage of that as well.

Many GMs do not have the time to learn so much new stuff, and let the players do things themselves to keep the game rolling.

I admit I had players convince me about wrong rules when I was brand new that significantly changed the game.

Liberty's Edge 2/5 *

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Whilst its possible ignorance can be involved, the fact that the guy is using Animate dead (which is not the lowest level of spells) means they have some game experience and a fair few scenarios under their belt. More than enough time to know the rules. I lean towards the malice over Ignorance (as BigNorse puts it)

4/5 5/5 **

I wonder if this player thought that he could just collect up

Scenario Spoiler:
the black dragon skeleton's bones at the end of Night March of Kalkamedes
and keep reanimating them.

1/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

It is a little odd that I would be miserable at table with something so ridiculous but it makes me laugh so hard to read.

4/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Matthew Pittard wrote:
Whilst its possible ignorance can be involved, the fact that the guy is using Animate dead (which is not the lowest level of spells) means they have some game experience and a fair few scenarios under their belt. More than enough time to know the rules. I lean towards the malice over Ignorance (as BigNorse puts it)

I used to think that way. But I've gotten to know several players who Just Don't Get It, despite playing regularly. Either they completely ignore Pathfinder outside of game time or they just can't get their heads around the rules, there are some people who still ask me how many hit points their character gets when leveling him up to 7th level or how many stat points and where they can put them. They can be clever people, they just don't understand how the game works for whatever reason.

So, without knowing the people involved, I still give them the benefit of the doubt and presume ignorance until proven otherwise.

Shadow Lodge 3/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Sitri wrote:
It is a little odd that I would be miserable at table with something so ridiculous but it makes me laugh so hard to read.

It is that crazy.

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

5 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm surprised he had the sense of decorum to stop at a black dragon skeleton. Don't titans have skeletons? Doesn't Orcus have a skeleton?

(flips through the high-level Bestiary 4 entries) Okay. Most of those don't have a skeleton.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Chris Mortika wrote:

I'm surprised he had the sense of decorum to stop at a black dragon skeleton. Don't titans have skeletons? Doesn't Orcus have a skeleton?

(flips through the high-level Bestiary 4 entries) Okay. Most of those don't have a skeleton.

I'm guessing he went with the most HD he could animate at once.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Dan Simons wrote:
I wonder if this player thought that he could just collect up ** spoiler omitted ** and keep reanimating them.

Nah, he grabbed all the ones from

Spoiler:
Year of the Shadow Lodge
, so he could have bunches of them at different sizes.
3/5 5/5

Dan Simons wrote:
I wonder if this player thought that he could just collect up ** spoiler omitted ** and keep reanimating them.

That was a Zombie anyway.


I would hate to see the rest of the backpack he used to just "pull out" the dragon skeleton!

Grand Lodge 5/5 ****

@bobhope69
Thanks for bringing this up. PFS works best if there is a degree of self policing.

First - players should know what is / isn't allowed. If this fails

Second - there is the GM who should stop mistakes. It is one of the burdens we carry. If this fails as well

Third - there is the community. If it is too egregious then I hope more people will follow this example and either speak out at the table or will post it here

Mike and the VO's can't be everywhere.

So thanks again for posting and I hope you have more fun in the next game

Scarab Sages 3/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

It's a material component for a spell, with no listed cost. I've been told I CANT take skeletons with me from scenario to scenario because they are mundane items, and don't have a price listed anywhere. So basically, animate dead is almost useless in society play. Thanks for clarifying, I tried to find something saying I couldn't do this, but didn't. This clears it up a bit, I shall no longer make dragons.

Scarab Sages 3/5

Also, it's because I was using lesser animate dead. I'm limited to medium sized undead, and can only create one per casting.

4/5 ****

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Sumedocin wrote:
It's a material component for a spell, with no listed cost. I've been told I CANT take skeletons with me from scenario to scenario because they are mundane items, and don't have a price listed anywhere. So basically, animate dead is almost useless in society play. Thanks for clarifying, I tried to find something saying I couldn't do this, but didn't. This clears it up a bit, I shall no longer make dragons.

I'm pretty sure bones are the target of animate dead. Not a cost-less component found in all spell component pouches.

Dark Archive 4/5 ***

1 person marked this as a favorite.

A corpse is not a material component for the spell, its the target. The material component is the 25g onyx per HD of the target.

5/5

Pirate Rob wrote:
Sumedocin wrote:
It's a material component for a spell, with no listed cost. I've been told I CANT take skeletons with me from scenario to scenario because they are mundane items, and don't have a price listed anywhere. So basically, animate dead is almost useless in society play. Thanks for clarifying, I tried to find something saying I couldn't do this, but didn't. This clears it up a bit, I shall no longer make dragons.
I'm pretty sure bones are the target of animate dead. Not a cost-less component found in all spell component pouches.

Yep.

PRD
Animate Dead

School necromancy [evil]; Level cleric 3, sorcerer/wizard 4
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead)
Range touch
Targets one or more corpses touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no

Grand Lodge 5/5

5 people marked this as a favorite.
mcruggiero wrote:
I would hate to see the rest of the backpack he used to just "pull out" the dragon skeleton!

GM: What do you do on your turn?

Player: [sing]I pull out the leg bone and connect it to the ankle bone.[/sing]

4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Thod wrote:
Mike and the VO's can't be everywhere.

Being a VO is far far from a guarantee of rules knowledge. One of my local VO's usually has the least rules knowledge at a table, and is asking other players when questions come up. Not saying he's not fun to play with, but if the party wanted to they could stomp him with rules cheating.

Just like GM stars and running a good game. I've played quite a few games now with a five star GM who is mediocre at best. I recently played 2 games with a guy who had never GM'd a game in his life and it was some of the best storytelling I've had in PFS.

My experience is someone's "ranked" expertise has little to do with their actual knowledge or skill at running a game.

5/5 5/55/55/5

What kind of pathfinder has trouble running across bodies?

(some of them you may or may not have made that way...)

Sovereign Court

Sumedocin wrote:
It's a material component for a spell, with no listed cost. I've been told I CANT take skeletons with me from scenario to scenario because they are mundane items, and don't have a price listed anywhere. So basically, animate dead is almost useless in society play. Thanks for clarifying, I tried to find something saying I couldn't do this, but didn't. This clears it up a bit, I shall no longer make dragons.

Quite the contrary. If you carry around the onyx, just wait until after your first fight and presto, you have your undead minions.

Just hope the rest of the party is fine with it. ;)

EDIT: And answered by BNW ... that'll teach me to respond before scanning the full thread.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

What would be funny...

After V-C briefing:

GM: anyone want to buy anything?
Player: is there a graveyard nearby?
GM: huh?!
Player: well I need a skeleton.
GM: um, OK, make a stealth check

4/5

Sumedocin wrote:
It's a material component for a spell, with no listed cost. I've been told I CANT take skeletons with me from scenario to scenario because they are mundane items, and don't have a price listed anywhere. So basically, animate dead is almost useless in society play. Thanks for clarifying, I tried to find something saying I couldn't do this, but didn't. This clears it up a bit, I shall no longer make dragons.

Its not worthless, though it is much less powerful than in a home game. You'll have entire scenarios where there won't be anything worth raising. I can think a of at least two scenarios where the first encounter gives you something so good though that it can nearly solo the rest of the scenario.

The big problem is animate dead requires "an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead", which means you need a lot of onyx, or you'll be wasting a lot of 25 GP's animating things you may only have for one encounter. If you can get blood money that helps a lot.

Also, try and play more modules. You'd get a lot more value out of animating in a module, much more worth your resource investment, which isn't small by any stretch of the imagination. I suspect a necro spends more on disposables than a gunslinger.

Scarab Sages 3/5

I can't keep anything animated beyond the one scenario since permanent effects end, and I can't keep skeletons or other corpses from one scenario to the next either. I already know about the onyx cost, because I will have to buy different value onyx gems ahead of time and guess at a creature's HD when I want to raise it. Since here is no price listed for a skeleton, I can't buy it in PFS rules to my understanding, unless someone can post a source stating otherwise. Also, for pulling it out, skeleton is in a sack, sack is in a handy haversack. Move action to retrieve the sack, free action to drop the sack, spilling it's contents, standard action to cast animate dead. It's the only way it's possible to do it in combat without a full corpse being lugged around, which is a hassle and far heavier. As far as consumables go, at least one third of my total GP if not more will have been spent on just onyx by the time the character retires.


I don't see why you wouldn't be able to pick one up in a scenario and keep it forever.

3/5

DiscOH wrote:
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to pick one up in a scenario and keep it forever.

Well the PFs staff created a list of spells that carry over, and it is a small list to keep things smiple.

Plus you should see all the brouhaha about undead raises/commanding necros teamign with paladins and the silliness of people not gettign along being jerks.


DiscOH wrote:
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to pick one up in a scenario and keep it forever.

Items you pick up tend to disappear into a void, confiscated by the pathfinder society no matter how hard you tried to sneak by them with your skills and sold back to you for an enormous price. Trust me, I'd have much better doors and decorations in my house if otherwise.

Actually you can nab pretty much anything as long as its just roleplay and not a mechanical benefit. If I remember right anyway.

Dark Archive 2/5

Sumedocin, where do you get the idea that dropping a handy haversack will spill it's contents? The description says you have to put your hand into it and pull out the desired item.

Pretty much it will cost a move action to pull out a bone of the skeleton. At 206 bones, that's a lot of move actions (I'll round up to 200 since who cares about the ear bones). :)

One maybe can get away with it if they come out strung all the bones together like some anatomy models. Good luck asking your party to wait a day or two just manufacture your skelly only to be smashed in the first round of combat.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

He said the bones were in a sack, inside the haversack. So, he retrieves the sack with the bones in it, then dumps it out.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
roll4initiative wrote:
Hmm, I wonder... if I saw this kind of thing (outright cheating) between a GM and a player and said something to them about it and they both think it's in the rules, but no one has a way of proving it, and they continue on with it, what should I do? Do I go to a VO?

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance.

Hey, that's my motto. I hear people say it around me all the time.

Anyways, as long as he has Profession (paleontologist), this seems perfectly sensible to me. As long as the party can hold the enemy back for an hour or so.

Dark Archive 2/5

Awesome! Carry on =v)

Of course you have to prep the bones . . . but we don't need to go into that discussion. But at least we can see where Profession (Butcher) comes into play.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Sumedocin wrote:
It's a material component for a spell, with no listed cost. I've been told I CANT take skeletons with me from scenario to scenario because they are mundane items, and don't have a price listed anywhere. So basically, animate dead is almost useless in society play. Thanks for clarifying, I tried to find something saying I couldn't do this, but didn't. This clears it up a bit, I shall no longer make dragons.

typically the corpse is one that you either just made... or dig up. It is not one found in a spell component pouch. It is one of those things. So there is no reason you can't use animate dead IN a PFS scenario as long as you use a fresh corpse you either create by killing someone or something, or you find one in a tomb or grave.

Bringing a corpse/skeleton with you as a spell component.. is something you can't do.

4/5

If you really want skeletons you could use a bone oracle. They have a revelation, that in particular when combined with the elf or aasimar FCB, could prove useful in this regard.


Kryzbyn wrote:
He said the bones were in a sack, inside the haversack. So, he retrieves the sack with the bones in it, then dumps it out.

Does Animate Dead specify it re-assembles the body?

No, it does not. In fact, it requires the body to be "mostly intact".

So there you go. At best the necromancer will have a pile of helplessly twitching individual bones.

-j


Jason Wu wrote:
Kryzbyn wrote:
He said the bones were in a sack, inside the haversack. So, he retrieves the sack with the bones in it, then dumps it out.

Does Animate Dead specify it re-assembles the body?

No, it does not. In fact, it requires the body to be "mostly intact".

So there you go. At best the necromancer will have a pile of helplessly twitching individual bones.

-j

That's when you take a point in Craft(Tailoring) or (Taxidermy).


Sure. I suppose the enemy combatants will patiently wait as you take the time to assemble the body?

I mean modern palentologists using powertools, lifting equipment, and teams of helpers take weeks to assemble dinosaur skeletons. I suppose a fantasy character with likely low strength shouldn't have too much trouble putting a dragon body back together in the heat of combat, right?

-j


Jason Wu wrote:
Sure. I suppose the enemy combatants will patiently wait as you take the time to assemble the body?

Hmm... What if I put points into Perform(Tailoring) instead so I can give them a show while they wait? I mean, I don't want to bore them or anything*. May as well give them and the party a dance and a show and maybe a light dinner while I do all this.

* Okay, unless I can bore them to death. Two birds one stone!


Jason Wu wrote:
Kryzbyn wrote:
He said the bones were in a sack, inside the haversack. So, he retrieves the sack with the bones in it, then dumps it out.

Does Animate Dead specify it re-assembles the body?

No, it does not. In fact, it requires the body to be "mostly intact".

So there you go. At best the necromancer will have a pile of helplessly twitching individual bones.

Interesting interpretation... where do you get the idea that it doesn't?

For that matter where did the 'mostly intact' come from? I'll admit I haven't read much in ultimate magic or ever focused on necromancers... but just going off the Animate Dead spell...

CRB wrote:


School necromancy [evil]; Level cleric 3, sorcerer/wizard 4
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead)
Range touch
Targets one or more corpses touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no

This spell turns corpses into undead skeletons or zombies (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) that obey your spoken commands.
The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to
remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of
creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are
destroyed. A destroyed skeleton or zombie can’t be animated again.

Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you
can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a
single casting of animate dead. The desecrate spell doubles this limit.

The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely.
No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can
control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you
exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your
control, and any excess undead from previous castings become
uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released. Undead you
control through the Command Undead feat do not count toward
this limit.

I suppose there could be some nitpicking with the term 'corpse'... but frankly, skeletons have always been 'held together' by magic, not muscle and cartiledge...

Casting time on the spell is a standard action, and I don't see anything in there about any preparation or planning ahead of time before casting the spell, nor do I see anything about the length of time the corpse was dead. It could be bandit #1 from the last attack... or the bones of the Ancient King of Whatever tomb your in...

/shrug.

I think the issue here, has to do with 'where' he got the skeleton... not just in him animating it.

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