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From what I have read I can use Animate dead spell to create undead and as long as I don't use them for nefarious purposes It is not a evil act. Is that something I can point to any GM and say this is official?
Casting an evil spell is not an alignment infraction in and of itself, as long as it doesn't violate any codes, tenents of faith, or other such issues.
Committing an evil act outside of casting the spell, such as using an evil spell to torture an innocent NPC for information or the like is an alignment infraction. Using infernal healing to heal party members is not an evil act.
I can't possibly define what every evil act could be. That is why I rely on GM discretion. But simply casting an evil descriptor spell is not an evil act in and of itself.
Casting the spell is not itself an evil act.
What you do beyond that may be.
Be prepared for some extreme table variation, as well as bringing a backup plan.
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I have been on PFSRD and it talks about making variants of skele's and zombies, but I can not find anything on official rule page or in my book about that being alright except for ultimate magic saying that it CAN'T make a variant, but nothing in regular that says that it can. I saw on PFSRD about an editors note, but I dont want to do anything without having sources cited.
I *believe* the rules for animating variant undead come from their individual entries in the Bestiary. As far as I've been able to tell, since the Additional Resources document doesn't list them as legal, then in PFS they are not available.
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Not really an answer to your question, but unfortunately in pfs play, none of your animated undead carry over between sessions. So you have to go find a corpse and spend money making it into a zombie only to have to do it all over next time you play. Gets expensive, and you don't get any more use from them than from summon monster spells.
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Not really an answer to your question, but unfortunately in pfs play, none of your animated undead carry over between sessions. So you have to go find a corpse and spend money making it into a zombie only to have to do it all over next time you play. Gets expensive, and you don't get any more use from them than from summon monster spells.
If you have the right resource - it is expensive - you can use blood money to mitigate the cost - but you do not start with any undead.
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Hello Zwolfe,
Not exactly related related with your question, I wish to point out that there will be heavy table variation on animating dead. In general, you can do it. Problem is how to do it without disrupting the mission and everything else on social level of play. Have backup options always in case you can't raise dead for some reason.
A bit related with your question, variant skeleton rules are acceptable and you can raise bloody skeletons and fast zombies. I am fairly sure (around 95% sure) that you can choose to raise such minions, but your bigger problem lies in cost of raise dead, which is... expensive. "Blood money" spell is exclusive spell from Rise of The Runelords book also, so GM's might require a copy of bought pdf for it.
Adam
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variant skeleton rules are acceptable and you can raise bloody skeletons and fast zombies. I am fairly sure (around 95% sure) that you can choose to raise such minions
If the rules for animating such undead are available in a legal source, then yes, absolutely.
However, I am unaware of any such sources.
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The big thing to watch out for with animate dead is that they don't last in between sessions: you have to reanimate someone every time, which can get expensive. One solution is to use Blood money if you have rise of the runelords.
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Yeah I know they dont carry over, which is very unfortunate. But I do really like blood money idea. Whats a lil HP damage.
Yes, well, blood money is strength damage, which is sometimes a bit scary for (strength-dumped) casters!
Good idea to have a wand of lesser restoration on hand, and the ability to use it.
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variant skeleton rules are acceptable and you can raise bloody skeletons and fast zombies. I am fairly sure (around 95% sure) that you can choose to raise such minionsIf the rules for animating such undead are available in a legal source, then yes, absolutely.
However, I am unaware of any such sources.
Its in the template for Zombie/Skeleton, which we do have access to (otherwise we couldn't animate anything at all).
Dumb question: Could I buy corpses of animals that are legally purchasable (at normal living animal cost, of course)?
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Dumb question: Could I buy corpses of animals that are legally purchasable (at normal living animal cost, of course)?
Probably. But its going to go away at the end of the session anyway, and what pathfinder has trouble comming accross corpses? (We advise you to tell the authorities they were like that when you got there) Also druids local 704 will likely break out the pointy sticks and set them on fire.
WHOOOOSH.
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Just take Profession: Gravedigger or Undertaker and have a bell and wagon on hand... "Bring out your dead!"
Steady source of raw materials!
Also as a Necromancer, check out the spells in the original Osirion book (they are PFS legal according to the Additional Resources), for some added pop. Boneshatter is a personal favorite.
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Its in the template for Zombie/Skeleton, which we do have access to (otherwise we couldn't animate anything at all).variant skeleton rules are acceptable and you can raise bloody skeletons and fast zombies. I am fairly sure (around 95% sure) that you can choose to raise such minionsIf the rules for animating such undead are available in a legal source, then yes, absolutely.
However, I am unaware of any such sources.
The problem being that that template is not legal.
All you get is a vanilla Skeleton or Zombie, as detailed in the Animate Dead spell from the Core Rulebook.
I did quite a bit of research on this when I was looking to make a Necromancer myself, and I was discouraged enough by the lack of allowed materials to go a different route.
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Its in the template for Zombie/Skeleton, which we do have access to (otherwise we couldn't animate anything at all).The problem being that that template is not legal.
All you get is a vanilla Skeleton or Zombie, as detailed in the Animate Dead spell from the Core Rulebook.
I did quite a bit of research on this when I was looking to make a Necromancer myself, and I was discouraged enough by the lack of allowed materials to go a different route.
There is no skeleton or zombie detailed in the spell, and for either entry they are templates applied to a corpse.
The creature description further references the spell, stating the additional HD cost of the various templates
Numerous variant skeletons exist, such as those whose bones burn with an unending fire and those who drip with gore and reassemble themselves over time. Both of these variant skeletons can be created using animate dead, but they count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting. Once controlled, they count normally against the controller's limit.
Perhaps the most dangerous variant skeleton, though, is the skeletal champion. This skeleton retains its intellect, and often any class levels it possessed in life. A skeletal champion cannot be created with animate dead—these potent undead only arise under rare conditions similar to those that cause the manifestation of ghosts or via rare and highly evil rituals.
Each of the following skeleton types modifies the base skeleton in a few key ways. Except as noted, these variations can be stacked with one another—it's possible to have a bloody burning skeletal champion.
Unless there is some posting that specifically limits the parameters of Animate Dead that I have missed (very possible), using the undead templates for Skeletons and Zombies is exactly what the Animate Dead spell does.
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Its in the template for Zombie/Skeleton, which we do have access to (otherwise we couldn't animate anything at all).variant skeleton rules are acceptable and you can raise bloody skeletons and fast zombies. I am fairly sure (around 95% sure) that you can choose to raise such minionsIf the rules for animating such undead are available in a legal source, then yes, absolutely.
However, I am unaware of any such sources.
The problem being that that template is not legal.
All you get is a vanilla Skeleton or Zombie, as detailed in the Animate Dead spell from the Core Rulebook.
I did quite a bit of research on this when I was looking to make a Necromancer myself, and I was discouraged enough by the lack of allowed materials to go a different route.
Why isn't it legal?
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The problem being that that template is not legal.All you get is a vanilla Skeleton or Zombie, as detailed in the Animate Dead spell from the Core Rulebook.
I did quite a bit of research on this when I was looking to make a Necromancer myself, and I was discouraged enough by the lack of allowed materials to go a different route.
I would love a quote or pointer where does it say that they aren't legal.
I admit that I am not as informed as I used to be, so I don't know if there was any change with Animate Dead spell, but from dozens of topics before and many comments before, nobody mentioned those variants being illegal.
From the legality point of view, I can't imagine why would such variants be banned anyway.
Adam
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Why isn't it legal?Its in the template for Zombie/Skeleton, which we do have access to (otherwise we couldn't animate anything at all).variant skeleton rules are acceptable and you can raise bloody skeletons and fast zombies. I am fairly sure (around 95% sure) that you can choose to raise such minionsIf the rules for animating such undead are available in a legal source, then yes, absolutely.
However, I am unaware of any such sources.
The problem being that that template is not legal.
All you get is a vanilla Skeleton or Zombie, as detailed in the Animate Dead spell from the Core Rulebook.
I did quite a bit of research on this when I was looking to make a Necromancer myself, and I was discouraged enough by the lack of allowed materials to go a different route.
What you need is something that states the option is legal, not something that states it is illegal.
The Animate Dead spell is legal, because it is a spell from the Core Rulebook:
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 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.
Skeletons: A skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones. If a skeleton is made from a corpse, the flesh falls off the bones.
Zombies: A zombie can be created only from a mostly intact corpse. The corpse must be that of a creature with a physical anatomy.
So, cool, we can use this spell to create a "Skeleton" or a "Zombie". There are statblocks for "Skeleton" and "Zombie" in the Bestiary. Yay. We're good to go.
But where are the rules for creating Variant Skeletons and Zombies? Those are found in the Bestiary. Unfortunately, according to the Additional Resources page...
Animal Companions: ankylosaurus, aurochs, brachiosaurus, dire bat, dire rat, dolphin, elasmosaurus, electric eel, elephant/mastodon, frog, goblin dog, hyena, monitor lizard, moray eel, octopus, orca, pteranodon, rhinoceros, roc, squid, stegosaurus, triceratops, and tyrannosaurus; Familiars: all familiars listed on pages 131-133; Feats: none of the feats are legal for play for PCs, animal companions, or familiars unless specifically granted by another legal source; Other: all creatures in this book are legal for polymorph effects (including a druid's wild shape ability) within the boundaries of each spell or ability's parameters.
...the rules for creating variant Skeletons and Zombies are absent.
Other Bestiaries have rules for using Animate Dead to create different types of undead as well (Beheaded, Necrocrafts, and Isitoqs, just to name a few). None of them are called out as being legal in the Additional Resources document, either. So, they are not.
This is the cornerstone of how the Additional Resources document works. If you wish to utilize rules from an Additional Resource, it must be listed as legal. If references to those rules are absent, then you cannot use them.
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The rules for creating a skeleton or zombie are part of the template rules found in Bestiary 1. They include the rules for variant skeletons and zombies as part of those rules (haste or remove paralysis for fast zombies, contagion for plague zombies, costing double hit die for burning or bloody skeletons).
Unless you're arguing that the animate dead spell can only create a human skeleton or human zombie, since those are the only ones with stat blocks, but I think it's pretty clear from the spell that that is not intended.
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I have a necromancer wizard (Thassilonian specialist boon), but he mostly uses spells not related to undead. He does keep a scroll of animate dead around just in case an opportunity arises. He took some giants from the antagonist in one scenario, though I did have to convince the Pharasman cleric to destroy them after we turned them on their masters.
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Now, granted, I WANT these rules to be available. As I said, I researched making a Necromancer previously, and it was that research that led me away from wanting to create one. I think creating variant Undead would be fun and cool, and add variety to what's available (which isn't much).
In looking for quotes from Campaign Leadership, Mark Moreland states here that Corpse Companions of the Bones Oracle also cannot have templates applied to them, and that only the base Skeleton or Zombie should be used.
I don't think it's much of a stretch to apply the same thinking (and the other reasons I've already outlined above) to the Animate Dead spell.
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It seems clear the extra templates (fast, burning, bloody, plague) are out. I'm still not clear, from here or that linked thread, whether when you can cast animate dead on a Gnoll you:
The other thread seemed to assume "Base Monsters Only" as the stat block in the Bestiary, but Mike said, "Yes" to "apply the template". Admittedly all of this was all 3 years back and for Undead Lords, now banned.
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@ Majuba
If Animate Dead is cast on Gnoll, you should receive zombie or skeleton with gnoll's stats.
Receiving Human Zombie would be changing the spell's effect. You also wouldn't be able to resurrect animals or anything else besides medium sized humanoids since there are no statistics for such creatures. This wouldn't make any sense at all.
@ Nefreet
I would argue that Mark's statement was for Corpse Companion's exclusively.
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I would think that the extra templates in the skeleton or zombie entries would actually support the standard Society rules on battle pets anyway. That higher level necromancer could raise one or two bloody burning skeletons... or a few dozen regular ones to clog up the field. As a fellow player at a table I know which I would prefer.
Also the limits you believe there are based on their not being listed on the Additional resources, would mean that every single non polymorph style spell that referenced a monster would be invalid. Summoning spells as well as the ARD lists what creatures are specifically available as Animal Companions, Familiars and "all creatures in this book are legal for polymorph effects (including a druid's wild shape ability) within the boundaries of each spell or ability's parameters.".
Note that that line which calls out specific spell/effect types completely leaves out all summoning and everything else, so are we to assume we can't use any of those abilities? Or are we to assume that we can use the legal spells and abilities as written since there is nothing written to change them?
I believe the latter, as I believe that the campaign leadership makes it a point to specify when an ability is changed or limited in play. And that is how I adjudicate any such occurrence at my table unless there is a strong argument for their intent to be otherwise, and I just don't see that here.
But show me a link actually discussing this issue, and I will reconsider my stance.
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The rules for creating a skeleton or zombie are part of the template rules found in Bestiary 1.Indeed. And those rules are absent from the Additional Resources document. Just as are the rules for creating other types of Undead.
EDIT: added some OOC for context.
As are the rules for the template. The additional resources page also fails to list monsters that are legal choices for the summon monster/nature's ally spells, so are we not allowed to cast those spells? What about the Celestial and Fiendish templates?
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As are the rules for the template. The additional resources page also fails to list monsters that are legal choices for the summon monster/nature's ally spells, so are we not allowed to cast those spells? What about the Celestial and Fiendish templates?The rules for creating a skeleton or zombie are part of the template rules found in Bestiary 1.Indeed. And those rules are absent from the Additional Resources document. Just as are the rules for creating other types of Undead.
EDIT: added some OOC for context.
Wrong. We have an additional resource that tells us the rules for using those stats in the game. Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally both describe under what circumstances you use those stat blocks. The difference is, bloody skeleton/fast zombie rules are found in the Bestiary and are not allowed for players.
These two situations would be similar if animate dead specified that you could make fast zombies, but not how to do so. Then we could look up the rules in the Bestiary to see what being a fast zombie meant. But this isn't the case. The rules for fast zombies are nowhere in player resources.
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As are the rules for the template. The additional resources page also fails to list monsters that are legal choices for the summon monster/nature's ally spells, so are we not allowed to cast those spells? What about the Celestial and Fiendish templates?The rules for creating a skeleton or zombie are part of the template rules found in Bestiary 1.Indeed. And those rules are absent from the Additional Resources document. Just as are the rules for creating other types of Undead.
EDIT: added some OOC for context.
Wrong. We have an additional resource that tells us the rules for using those stats in the game. Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally both describe under what circumstances you use those stat blocks. The difference is, bloody skeleton/fast zombie rules are found in the Bestiary and are not allowed for players.
These two situations would be similar if animate dead specified that you could make fast zombies, but not how to do so. Then we could look up the rules in the Bestiary to see what being a fast zombie meant. But this isn't the case. The rules for fast zombies are nowhere in player resources.
You forget one thing: that there is no such thing as a zombie or skeleton statblock. There is a human zombie, and a human skeleton statblock, but that isn't the same thing. Therefore, the only logical assumption is that the animate dead spell grants access to the zombie and the skeleton tempates, which include rules for creating variants. Just as the not-in-the-additional -resources summons are made available to players via a legal spell, so are the zombie and skeleton templates.
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Even if that's true. Alex, Animate Dead just specifies Skeleton/Zombie. I don't see anything allowing for variants, just the base template.
Edit to add: So we either go with the human skeleton stats for the Gnoll, or the base skeleton template for the Gnoll. Still looks like we could use a little guidance from Campaign Management. Maybe this will be the final straw and they'll just ban the spell altogether.
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You forget one thing: that there is no such thing as a zombie or skeleton statblock. There is a human zombie, and a human skeleton statblock, but that isn't the same thing. Therefore, the only logical assumption is that the animate dead spell grants access to the zombie and the skeleton tempates, which include rules for creating variants. Just as the not-in-the-additional -resources summons are made available to players via a legal spell, so are the zombie and skeleton templates.
Those templates do not include how to make the variant undead - they are treated as different templates in the book. (Formatted as if they were different templates that are added on - not as part of the same.)
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A bloody skeleton is still a skeleton. A fast zombie is still a zombie. The rules for creating bloody skeletons and fast zombies are wholly within the skeleton and zombie pages and are in no way unclear. Campaign leadership has, on many occasions, stated that they prefer not to change rules unless something goes against the basic tenets that our organized play is based off of (example: wizards getting spell focus instead of scribe scroll). And variant skeletons and zombies don't go against those tenets any more than the animate dead spell does.
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A three year old decision on a specific class feature? I don't see the connection to the Raise Dead spell, there is nothing linking the two other than the fact that both use undead. That would be like a comment on limiting Animal Companions being applied to Summon Monster. You are stretching the assumption of application.
Every skeleton or zombie is template based, the templates are the only way to keep the spell level relevant, especially if you want to limit the number of minions on the board.
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That's not what I was referring to.
I was pointing out that the claim, "Campaign leadership has, on many occasions, stated that they prefer not to change rules unless something goes against the basic tenets that our organized play is based off of", was erroneous, given the example of Mark's comment.
I understand one doesn't equate to the other. I mentioned that up thread. But I think it's worth mentioning, still.
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I still think Alex's point is correct, campaign leadership generally tries to avoid changing rules, even going so far as to ban something rather than alter it to fit, except in a few cases where they reign in a potential problem by giving (campaign specific) clarification.
If anything I would say that this is an example of the exception proving the rule. They prefer not to change things, and generally don't. Leaving us to use the rules as they are.
To those who believe that Burning Skeletons and Fast Zombies are available for creation, is it also your position that other Undead (such as those I linked earlier) can be created using Animate Dead as well?
I'm not sure about anyone else, and my stance on this issue has actually been going back and forth as I watch this discussion. Currently I'm believing it would be legal to create burning skeletons and fast zombies, so I'll answer.
I don't believe those other options would be legal. The spell itself in the CRB says "This spell turns corpses into undead skeletons or zombies (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) that obey your spoken commands."
Since the spell is legal, and in the AR it doesn't call out to exclude anything, I would reference just the Bestiary, and not Bestiary 2/3/4 in using this spell. Those other options you mentioned are not included in the Bestiary. If you reference the Bestiary as the spell states, the templates such as fast and plague are included in that entry.
Furthermore, the spell says it can create skeletons and zombies and doesn't mention anything else. I would say that you can use it to create a zombie, or a fast zombie (still a zombie) but not something that is listed as anything other than a skeleton or zombie unless specifically approved in the Additional Resources.