Negative channeling clerics

[Marculus]

I had a level three cleric bring an undead dragon from a previous scenario. He claimed you could carry over any one animated creature from a previous scenario. I did not believe that was possible. He also claimed the last GM told him it was possible. He was also flying with the dragon, riding it, using it's 70 move speed and used it's BAB on attacks. It was completely unbalanced, fortunately he was not able to use it due to size constraints, but he also found a spirit later in the game and was controlling that too.

I am not new to GMing but am new to this "animate dead" via channeling stuff. What is the official ruling on carrying undead over between scenarios, how many HD can a cleric control (and is it multiples)? Can a LN cleric channel negative energy or animate dead (it doesn't seem like a LN act)?

-Marculus

[plaidwandering]

You may not carry over animated undead from a prior scenario.

A level three cleric doesn't have access to any spell that would animate that either.

With command undead channel feat, you can command something up to your hit dice.

Animate, 4x your hit dice total, but can only create 2x hit dice at once(without desecrate), but it's a level 3 spell(so level 5 cleric)

LN alignment would be fine for neg channel and animate, but there's just no way for them to do this stuff yet.

The pulled nonsense on you flat out.

[BigNorseWolf]

.. and this is why you CAN"T bring something in between scenarios.

You do NOT want to see what followed Flutter home from the absolom Zoo.

[Ascalaphus]

Ah, I remember when our bard hijacked a giant anaconda. Next encounter the snake gets hasted and plucks the enemy priest right from atop his high altar where he's about to start sacrificing people. And then the priest found out that in this case the DC to concentrate on spellcasting while grappled was 40 plus spell level :P

[andreww]

When encountering a situation like this the onus is on the player to show that what they are doing is legal.

The guide is very clear which spells carry over from one session to another (almost none and animate dead isn't one of them).

A LN cleric can channel negative energy if they worship a neutral or evil deity. They can take the command undead feat and use it during a scenario. They can even cast animate dead when they hit level 5.

However, none of that carries over, anything you control or create is usable in only that scenario and dragging around your undead army can create all sorts of problems, especially in civilised areas.

[Muser]

Just fyi, the limitations of necromancy in PFS are just fine. Create undead etc gets ridiculous fast. I mean, it's fun with the right group, but can start escalating. I'm very careful about enemy hd's and natural abilities when running for our CotCT group since just about anything can become a tool for them.

I don't think I'll never get used to Bloody skeleton kuchrimas and undead bullettes. I'm glad they decided to not chase the fire-infused advanced mythic purple worm.

[Belafon]

There's plenty of people - even multistar GMs - that just aren't aware of all the rules. This weekend at PaizoCon I had a player sit down at my table with a level one tiefling cleric. "Oh?" I asked. "Did you have a boon or just haven't played him in a while?" "What do you mean?" he asked.

He had just started the character that weekend and neither of the GMs he had had for the first two games had told him that tieflings weren't a legal choice even though he had mentioned it during introductions. Fortunately he was level one so he could fully rebuild (just chose a different race for the scenario we were playing) and was gracious about it.

tl,dr: Just because the last GM allowed it doesn't mean it was right.

[Flutter]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Ah, I remember when our bard hijacked a giant anaconda. Next encounter the snake gets hasted and plucks the enemy priest right from atop his high altar where he's about to start sacrificing people. And then the priest found out that in this case the DC to concentrate on spellcasting while grappled was 40 plus spell level :P

Wild empathied an ooze once. Put mage armor, barkskin, and greater magic fang on it. It was our second most effective character.

Calming a carnivorous crystal down so it didn't keep screaming at the party was also fun.

[FLite]

plaidwandering wrote:

A level three cleric doesn't have access to any spell that would animate that either.

Scrolls exist... you could even get one for 2 pp

for that matter, a level 3 character could probably afford an oil of animate dead... for 1000 gp (750 for the spell, 25 x CL x 2 for the material components.)

That would get him 10 hd of follower.

But in any case, no undead do *not* carry over.

[Abadari]

"... an undead dragon from a previous scenario..." ??

Anyone know a scenario that a low level PC could play that contains "...an undead dragon..."? (don't post the name here...) That's likely where the player "picked it up". Perhaps he encountered it, controlled it (some way?), and his judge let him have it for that game. I can recall taking "control" of a zombie in a Core game (with my low level Cleric...), but I know you can't keep things from scenario to scenario. Things you pick up and use are good for that scenario only... Maybe we would need to mention that more often to the new players? "Yeah, you can use the (+1) ring for the rest of this game, but then we turn it in with the rest of our loot. Thems the rules."

[Fromper]

Yes, there is a 1-5 scenario with an undead dragon. I just GMed it a few weeks ago.

I just checked, and it has too many HD for a level 2 cleric to control it, even if has feats or traits to boost his CL by 2 or 3. And obviously, as others have pointed out, he can't maintain the control spell between scenarios, even on undead he should be controlling.

[Abadari]

yeah - he's just clearly confused. (shrugs) happens a lot...

I can recall one guy who had a surprising "To Hit" bonus on a second level fighter. When we asked for a brake down, it seems he was counting in all the +1's from bless spells - Spells that had been cast 2 adventures back. Basically, whenever someone said he got a +1 to hit, he just added it in permanently. He was most upset to have to remove them...