Unhallowed Creature & Shrine-Blessed Creatures

[Mortavius]

Hello all,

I'm currently about take my PC's into Renchurch, and I have a question.

The templates for the Unhallowed & Shrine-Blessed creatures say they get a +4 bonus to save vs. channelled negative energy.

Why the hell would an undead want to save against that? Wouldn't it heal them?

I would assume they get a bonus to save against channelled positive energy, but that isn't mentioned anywhere. The spells Desecrate and Unhallow mention these effects, but I'm not sure if these templates are supposed to mimic those spells exactly or if they are just derived from them and altered.

Does anyone have any ideas, official errata, or seen anything like this?

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

Mortavius wrote:

The templates for the Unhallowed & Shrine-Blessed creatures say they get a +4 bonus to save vs. channelled negative energy.

Why the hell would an undead want to save against that? Wouldn't it heal them?

Yeah, the AP’s templates for undead in Unhallowed/Desecrated areas are confusing in that regard. The actual spell descriptions are accurately represented in the “Renchurch Features” section. To recap:

In an Unhallow spell area, the DC to resist negative channeled energy is raised by 4 for all creatures, not just undead.

This has no effect on negative channeling to heal undead; there is no associated DC. Negative channeling to control undead (i.e. with the Control Undead feat or Necromancy wizard school feature) is harder for undead to resist--no doubt a useful feature for the necromancers of Renchurch--as is negative channeling to damage living creatures.

The AP lists this as a profane bonus. But possibly due to a cut-and-paste error from the text of Hallow, it’s listed as a sacred bonus in Unhallow’s spell description, which would mean it stacks with the +6 profane bonus to negative channeling DCs Desecrate grants near permanent shrines, for a +10 total. I'm assuming the AP is correct, and running it as a non-stacking profane bonus.

Also, the DC to resist positive channeled energy is lowered by four for all creatures in an unhallow area, making it harder to damage and turn undead there. Desecrate doesn’t affect the DC to resist positive channeling.

So the net effect of being in Renchurch is that save DC vs. negative channeling to harm the living or control undead is four higher, except in the especially desecrated areas, where it’s six higher. The DC vs. positive channeling to harm or turn undead is 4 less everywhere.

[Mortavius]

Ahh, I'd never considered the idea of using negative energy to control the undead. That does make sense.

I was also quite concerned if they got a bonus vs. channelled positive energy; it looks like they don't get one, but the DC they have to save against is 4 lower.

That answers all my questions, thanks so much for the response!

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

My pleasure. I hadn’t really thought about the control undead aspect of it either, until you raised the question, but there it is.

I can’t decide which would be more fun in Renchurch: a positive channeling cleric of Pharasma swinging Raven’s Head, or a negative channeling cleric of Pharasma with Command Undead telling undead to destroy themselves.

Maybe a Versatile Channeling cleric/holy vindicator of Pharasma with Command Undead swinging Raven’s Head!