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Since it came out, the Undead Lord Cleric has been banned in PFS. It's never really been clear why it was banned, although it's been speculated the choice was made for some of the following things:
- 1.) Because it was a little too Evil
2.) Because it could potentially cause issue with other Characters, such as followers of Pharasma, Iomedae, or Sarenrae (due to dislike of Undead)
3.) Because it allowed an Undead (or inappropriately themed) pet.
PFS has grown and changed a great deal, and I think it's time to reevaluate this choice. Clerics already have very few Archetypes out there that are player friendly, (as in designed for players to actually use). And, if we assume that any of the above mentioned reasons, even combined, was the cause for this particular one to have been banned, then why are other classes and archetypes that do nearly the same thing, some even better than this one, allowed without issue?
To start, while playing an Evil character has never been allowed outside of a few specific cases, there is no requirement that the Undead Lord be Evil. Furthermore, it is perfectly fine for even a CORE character to worship an evil deity, have the Death Domain, play a necromancer themed character, or otherwise play an "evil" themed character. All of this aside, it's also perfectly legal to Summon things like Demons and Devils, to have an Imp Familiar, a variety of Evil Eidolons, Planar Allies, or other forms of "pets".
Additionally, the list of classes and archetypes that might offend of cause interparty strife with other players, (such as followers of Pharasma or Paladins), has grown a great deal. As I mentioned, a Core Cleric, Sorcerer, or Wizard can already be a (N)necromancer and even raise and control undead style character. The base Oracle, likewise has the Bones Mystery which legally offers the Raise the Dead (Su) and the Undead Servitude (Su) Revelations. The Necromancy focused Occultist can effectively create undead unlimitedly for free, (over time), with Necromantic Servant (Sp) and is a walking battery of Desecrate, creating more powerful and more evil undead than normal with their base power Necromantic Focus (Su).
Thematically speaking, the entire Spiritualist Class with it's Phantom Spirit should be a walking blasphemy to the church of Pharasma one would think, (as the entire point of Pharasma's hatred of undead is that they escape judgment (temporarily) through the unnatural extension of their existence.
I don't really want to touch on every example that is legal or questionable in contrast the Undead Lord Cleric, but rather simple see if it is possible for PFS leadership to reconsider why this one was banned in the first place, and if it is something that really should remain banned? My personal investment in this is really twofold. For one, I'd like more options for the Cleric to open up. It's already got so few (playable) Archetype choices to go from, and I've never really understood why this one would have been banned. Secondly, I've seen more than once new players come in wanting to play one and having a character already built with the Archetype. It's a bit of an odd discussion explaining that it's not legal for play, but at the same time there are plenty of other options that do nearly identical things, some even better that are legal.
It seems like it would be really interesting to play, but not altogether powerful. The Archetype itself is pretty self limiting, forcing you take one Domain and losing the other, restricting you to a small handful of possible patron deities, and giving a few abilities along a theme that are fairly close to what a non-archetyped Cleric (or other class) with a similar theme can already do legally.
Even having an Evil Pet is otherwise allowed in PFS outside of this, though generally they would be much more powerful and versatile than the Skelly this archetype allows, (using wands, casting spells, significantly altering action economy).
An additional point to consider, Undead Lord may have been banned because all archetypes that potentially allow multiple pets, as this one does, tend to be banned. Odds go up if, as is the case here, you can have more pets than Summon Monster plus familiar would allow. Further, this archetype encourages that play style, which is anethema to Society table play
When considering this archetype, they have to consider the impact on turn length. There's ways you can already do more or less the same thing, but there's no need to encourage it. I imagine that's why it was disallowed in the first place.
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An additional point to consider, Undead Lord may have been banned because all archetypes that potentially allow multiple pets, as this one does, tend to be banned. Odds go up if, as is the case here, you can have more pets than Summon Monster plus familiar would allow. Further, this archetype encourages that play style, which is anethema to Society table play
When considering this archetype, they have to consider the impact on turn length. There's ways you can already do more or less the same thing, but there's no need to encourage it. I imagine that's why it was disallowed in the first place.
I can speak to the play style, I have a Summoner who Summons, a lot, you really have to be in your toes, (I carry a folder with monster print offs) and that is not for everyone.
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Im not relly sure I see how this would be any different than options that are already allowed, except they seem to do it significantly better. The CORE Cleric with the Animal Domain can get a permanent pet, as can the Core Druid. The base Summoner, Spiritualist, Cavalier, etc can also do this with a lot more variety and generally speaking their pets can do a lot more things.
The wording from the FAQ is also open enough that the Undead Lord's pet would easily qualify as a combat pet for limitations, as Im pretty certain that when this was banned, things like the Master Summoner where not.
It is however, somewhat difficult to argue as the original discussions on the topic, (and I'm certain it has come up more than once), prior PFS Leadership really made it a point to not give a reason why this was banned in the first place. Some thingz like the Vivisectionist where banned because they where deemed inappropriate to PFS play for different reasons, but the Undead Lord was pretty notably not banned for that reason. We really do not know why it was banned, as it really seems any potential arguement for it could be made, except no one knows what the actual problem is.
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Since it came out, the Undead Lord Cleric has been banned in PFS.
I do want to carefully point out that the Undead Lord WAS allowed when it first came out. It was removed from the legal archetype list on August 6, 2012 along with several other archetypes. That decision was based on actual in-game play.
It's never really been clear why it was banned, although it's been speculated the choice was made for some of the following things:
1.) Because it was a little too Evil
...
2.) Because it could potentially cause issue with other Characters, such as followers of Pharasma, Iomedae, or Sarenrae (due to dislike of Undead)
3.) Because it allowed an Undead (or inappropriately themed) pet.
From what I recall (from observations and discussions, I wasn't a VL or private to any inside info back then) the Undead Lord was causing a lot of interparty conflicts, particularly with worshipers of those three you mentioned. There were some pretty heated tables where Pharasmans felt they had to kill the Undead Lord's pets or risk losing their powers. Ditto - to a slightly lesser degree - for Iomedaens and Sarenrites. I saw more than one table where the conflict was only resolved when the GM got one of the players to play a different character (or a pregen).
The "number of pets" was another big issue. Some players could handle it without dragging down the game. From my experience, most couldn't.
The first issue in particular is not going to go away. If my Pharasmin cleric is sitting at a table and someone else brings an undead pet, one of us is changing characters or leaving the table. If the game is well in progress and someone starts creating undead I will politely ask them to please not do that because I WILL try to kill it. (I hope that doesn't come off as me being a jerk. I have another cleric who would have no qualms about animating undead if he thought it would help him. But I wouldn't do it if there was a Iomedaen paladin in the party.)
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From what I recall (from observations and discussions, I wasn't a VL or private to any inside info back then) the Undead Lord was causing a lot of interparty conflicts, particularly with worshipers of those three you mentioned. There were some pretty heated tables where Pharasmans felt they had to kill the Undead Lord's pets or risk losing their powers. Ditto - to a slightly lesser degree - for Iomedaens and Sarenrites. I saw more than one table where the conflict was only resolved when the GM got one of the players to play a different character (or a pregen).
The "number of pets" was another big issue. Some players could handle it without dragging down the game. From my experience, most couldn't.
Which I'm not necessarily disagreeing with in principle, but again, how is this somehow different from any of the multiple other cases that do the same thing, if not to a larger degree? Why then, is the entire Spiritualist class or any class that can Summon Evil/Demons/Devils, or any class whatsoever that has a pet allowed when this one thing is not?
Arguments over incompatible characters really has nothing to do with this Class, and is sort of a topic of it's own right about some of the general issues with PFS. But as I mentioned, the Spiritualist class, the Bones Oracle, the Cleric, Wizard, and Sorcerer all have base abilities that do the same thing in regards to certain other characters. I mean, how often do threads about Infernal Healing come up for exactly this reason?
So, is it really worth banning this one? PFS has come a long way since then. And to be honest, the Undead Lord Cleric is hardly the best way to have multiple pets. Unlike most other classes, they will not have an easy way to mass heal the field, only themselves, (at much later levels) and their one pet, while they either have to nuke the rest of the party and/or their other pets.
What would possibly do is allow for a playstyle for the Cleric which is somewhat absent, but pretty iconic. In the end, I'm just asking that PFS take another look at this based more off of all the other things that are allowed and consider it as an option.
:P
One pet is okay. Well, not okay, but at least not terribly annoying. As you say, there's plenty of ways for a companion to be part of a character. What an Undead lord can do, and what society play frowns on, is have one character with up to a dozen pets, each with their own initiative and actions to perform each round. THAT is what slows play to a crawl, and why leadership, and the master summoner and pack master archetypes are all disallowed, to name three examples.
Also, keep in mind, the summoner and spiritualist both lose their big pet when they summon the throw away ones, so there's that as a balancing factor towards turn time.
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This keeps coming up, but makes no sense. How can an Undead Lord have more pets than anyone else that has access to an Animal Companion, Mount, Eidolon, Improved (or not) Familiar, Phantom, or the like?
What is different than a Bone Oracle's or Necromancer Occultist's Undead Minion, which are perfectly legal? Is the argument based on that these minions are not classified as Animal Companions, Familiars, or Mounts?
Are you trying to refer to in combination with Summon Monster/Nature's Ally/Planer Ally spells?
Or multiclassing to maximize the number of critters you can have?
All of the above? All of the above are already perfectly legal, minus the Undead Lord, with the caveat that a DM can say no at any time if it's disruptive to play. (And I absolutely agree).
I thought I had preemptively countered this by showing that basically anyone with a pet could more easily do this with a better outcome. I'm not arguing this should be allowed, but rather questioning why this is somehow related to the Undead Lord that led to it being banned, when so many other things are not?
I mean a dedicated (and by that a mean stock) Herald Caller can very quickly blow the Undead Lord out of the water with the ability to communicate to all Summoned pets, buff at a distance, and hit them with healing regardless of close range.
Now, I'm not arguing that we should ban the Herald Caller, it's really one of the better Archetypes out there for the class, (mainly because so many others are so poor). Just trying to point out, if that is indeed the issue at hand, Undead Lord is not the one to be worried about. Add in that later FAQs about how many critters a character can have being mainly in the hands of the DM, I just don't see a reasonable case for banning this archetype, all things considered.
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The first issue in particular is not going to go away. If my Pharasmin cleric is sitting at a table and someone else brings an undead pet, one of us is changing characters or leaving the table. If the game is well in progress and someone starts creating undead I will politely ask them to please not do that because I WILL try to kill it. (I hope that doesn't come off as me being a jerk. I have another cleric who would have no qualms about...
So, what exactly gives you the right to dictate how others play the game? I find necromancers distasteful, but I find abandoning one of the core tenets of the society (Cooperate) moreso. The times I found my paladin at the same table as a necromancer, I just got over my hangups and worked with them for the scenario.
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So, what exactly gives you the right to dictate how others play the game? I find necromancers distasteful, but I find abandoning one of the core tenets of the society (Cooperate) moreso. The times I found my paladin at the same table as a necromancer, I just got over my hangups and worked with them for the scenario.
I can see both sides of this argument. I have a character that invested a lot of resources towards destroying undead, and if a necromancer was in the same party, it would create a lot of issues. But, RP things aside, we would have a conflict as there would be times where one or the other of us simply wouldn't be able to use class features for risk of "PvPing" the other, which is kind of BS. Granted, yes, I can set aside my backstory and deity's flavor, and all that (the game is supposed to be fun for everyone, right, and in all reality, I DM far more than I even play, so it's sort of irrelevant to me specifically), without much issue, but mechanically, there is still an issue.
BUT, that aside, the real issue is why is it ok for subject #1, #2, #3, -#20, but not ok for subject #21, the Undead Lord Cleric. This basically makes everything above this paragraph the irrelevant part of the discussion.
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From what I recall (from observations and discussions, I wasn't a VL or private to any inside info back then) the Undead Lord was causing a lot of interparty conflicts, particularly with worshipers of those three you mentioned. There were some pretty heated tables where Pharasmans felt they had to kill the Undead Lord's pets or risk losing their powers. Ditto - to a slightly lesser degree - for Iomedaens and Sarenrites. I saw more than one table where the conflict was only resolved when the GM got one of the players to play a different character (or a pregen).Which I'm not necessarily disagreeing with in principle, but again, how is this somehow different from any of the multiple other cases that do the same thing, if not to a larger degree? Why then, is the entire Spiritualist class or any class that can Summon Evil/Demons/Devils, or any class whatsoever that has a pet allowed when this one thing is not?
Arguments over incompatible characters really has nothing to do with this Class, and is sort of a topic of it's own right about some of the general issues with PFS. But as I mentioned, the Spiritualist class, the Bones Oracle, the Cleric, Wizard, and Sorcerer all have base abilities that do the same thing in regards to certain other characters. I mean, how often do threads about Infernal Healing come up for exactly this reason?
Absolutely. There are conflicts over other player issues, but the ones over undead tend to be the most difficult because of the very black-and-white nature of some of the deities' commands..."destroy any undead."
In the particular case of the Spiritualist, the phantom is specifically NOT undead but rather the spirit itself:
When a creature dies, its spirit flees its body and begins the next stage of its existence. Debilitating emotional attachments during life and other psychic corruptions cause some spirits to drift into the Ethereal Plane and descend toward the Negative Energy Plane. Some of these spirits are able to escape the pull of undeath and make their way back to the Material Plane, seeking refuge in a psychically attuned mind.
I don't know if there's any canonical information on whether or not Pharasma has already judged such souls, but it is certainly a lot more gray than an undead.
For the other examples you gave there can be character conflict. But those can be worked around as long as the players aren't being absolutely obstinate. "You summoned a shadow demon? As soon as I have incapacitated the woman trying to kill my allies I'm sending it right back to the abyss!" The same for a bones oracle raising a skeleton. Or "Don't you dare use that devil-stick (infernal healing) on me! I'd rather die."
For Undead Lord it's not a case of one player (or class) being obstinate to another. It's that two characters end up in an impasse where the only solution is to seriously impact one of their builds. In the Pharasmin cleric vs. Undead Lord example, it's not at all unreasonable for the Pharasmin player (or the GM) to think that adventuring with the undead companion would cause the Pharasmin to lose her class features. But if you force the Undead Lord to get rid of her companion she's basically given up a domain for nothing. It's that standoff that leads to the problem. Something has to give, and banning just the Undead Lord is the least impactful solution.
But honestly, my argument isn't what matters. It's that the argument exists. Unlike a lot of the theoretical arguments I've seen here on the boards this one was having real effects on games being played.
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The first issue in particular is not going to go away. If my Pharasmin cleric is sitting at a table and someone else brings an undead pet, one of us is changing characters or leaving the table. If the game is well in progress and someone starts creating undead I will politely ask them to please not do that because I WILL try to kill it. (I hope that doesn't come off as me being a jerk. I have another cleric who would have no qualms about...So, what exactly gives you the right to dictate how others play the game? I find necromancers distasteful, but I find abandoning one of the core tenets of the society (Cooperate) moreso. The times I found my paladin at the same table as a necromancer, I just got over my hangups and worked with them for the scenario.
...animating undead if he thought it would help him. But I wouldn't do it if there was a Iomedaen paladin in the party.)
I didn't dictate it, Pharasma did.
Personally I'm fine with changing to another character if someone shows up excited about her undead-controlling character. But not everyone is willing to do so (or has the luxury of 15+ characters to choose from).
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In the particular case of the Spiritualist, the phantom is specifically NOT undead but rather the spirit itself:
When a creature dies, its spirit flees its body and begins the next stage of its existence. Debilitating emotional attachments during life and other psychic corruptions cause some spirits to drift into the Ethereal Plane and descend toward the Negative Energy Plane, and make their way back to the Material Plane, seeking refuge in a psychically attuned mind.I don't know if there's any canonical information on whether or not Pharasma has already judged such souls, but it is certainly a lot more gray than an undead.
For the other examples you gave there can be character conflict. But those can be worked around as long as the players aren't being absolutely obstinate. "You summoned a shadow demon? As soon as I have incapacitated the woman trying to kill my allies I'm sending it right back to the abyss!" The same for a bones oracle raising a skeleton. Or "Don't you dare use that devil-stick (infernal healing) on me! I'd rather die."
For Undead Lord it's not a case of one player (or class) being obstinate to another. It's that two characters end up in an impasse where the only solution is to seriously impact one of their builds. In the Pharasmin cleric vs. Undead Lord example, it's not at all unreasonable for the Pharasmin player (or the GM) to think that adventuring with the undead companion would cause the Pharasmin to lose her class features. But if you force the Undead Lord to get rid of her companion she's basically given up a domain for nothing. It's that standoff that leads to the problem. Something has to give, and banning just the Undead Lord is the least impactful solution.
But honestly, my argument isn't what matters. It's that the argument exists. Unlike a lot of the theoretical arguments I've seen here on the boards this one was having real effects on games being played.
I've no doubt it happened, just wondering how relevant the Undead Lord vs Pharasma follower is in comparison to the rest of things that I've also seen come up. Even down to the NOT-Undead Cleric vs the Pharasma follower in the exact same case. Someone is going to "have to give up something to get nothing for that adventure". I agree, it sucks, as I just mentioned above, BUT that's a general problem with PFS, and the Undead Lord is not the issue here, but the out of game mentality causing more problems than it is meant to solve. You might also argue that all of those other classes are giving up less, but realistically, if said hypothetical character went those routes, they probably also spent different Feats or abilities to help build that character for something they are basically giving up.
As for the Phantom Spirit, the reason I quoted that exact same thing above, is because the actual reason that Pharasma (and thus her faith) have an issue with Undead is because Undead essentially cheat the system of Pharasma's judgment by not truly dying. It's not that they are "undead", but because they are, at least temporarily, beyond her power to judge the soul. It's also worth noting that Pharasma followers are allowed to use and control undead for the purposes of destroying undead and doing other things in Pharasma's name. As long as they eventually destroy those undead. And that's exactly what a Phantom is. The spirit of a once living person that didn't go to the afterlife, except unlike Undead, as far as I can tell, they never cross over. Them being an Outsider rather than an Undead type, (an out of game distinction only), really shouldn't matter, and by all rights, they should probably on the top 3 of Pharasma's Top 10 hit list.
Additionally, it is absolutely worth mentioning that according to Golarion lore, Pharasma also despises Dhampirs and Undead Bloodline Sorcerers, and yet, this never seems to be an issue in play.
This keeps coming up, but makes no sense. How can an Undead Lord have more pets than anyone else that has access to an Animal Companion, Mount, Eidolon, Improved (or not) Familiar, Phantom, or the like?
What is different than a Bone Oracle's or Necromancer Occultist's Undead Minion, which are perfectly legal? Is the argument based on that these minions are not classified as Animal Companions, Familiars, or Mounts?
Skeletal pet + command Undead feat (which the archetype gives for free, and weirdly enough seems to be pfs legal)+ summon monster. All the Undead lord can have running at the same time for every combat. Most classes and the society play FAQ work to limit the number of these you can have running at once, but the Undead lord is designed with that playstyle in mind.
Like I said, it's not the one big pet, but the dozen smaller ones that bog down play, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing up classes that have one big pet but not lots of little ones, or make you choose between them, as a counter point. If I'm missing the relevance, please educate me.
I just don't see a reasonable case for banning this archetype, all things considered.
If a society friendly version of the archetype gave a different feat instead of Command Undead, I might almost agree with you, but then the pharasma flavor kicks in. Since I think that was a particularly boneheaded choice for flavor on Paizo's part, I won't try to defend it, but it is a factor.
Correction: the flavor isn't silly. Giving a diety dedicated to the eradication of undead the Death domain, and never taking the opportunity to correct that choice (or simply changing the focus of the domain) as edititions change, THAT was silly.
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Skeletal pet + command Undead feat (which the archetype gives for free, and weirdly enough seems to be pfs legal)+ summon monster. All the Undead lord can have running at the same time for every combat. Most classes and the society play FAQ work to limit the number of these you can have running at once, but the Undead lord is designed with that playstyle in mind.
Like I said, it's not the one big pet, but the dozen smaller ones that bog down play, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing up classes that have one big pet but not lots of little ones, or make you choose between them, as a counter point. If I'm missing the relevance, please educate me.
The Core Necromancer Wizard gets a Familiar, Command Undead, and Summon Monster Spells for free at level 1.
The problem is that according to the FAQ, you are allowed to have 1 Familiar, 1 Mount, 1 Animal Companion, 1 Summoned Monster, 1 Eidolon, 1 Phantom, and any number of "non-combat" creatures out at one time. Yes, technically speaking, the Undead Lord's Skelly adds one more thing to that list, (as does the Oracle and Occultist).
If a society friendly version of the archetype gave a different feat instead of Command Undead, I might almost agree with you, but then the pharasma flavor kicks in. Since I think that was a particularly boneheaded choice for flavor on Paizo's part, I won't try to defend it, but it is a factor.
Correction: the flavor isn't silly. Giving a diety dedicated to the eradication of undead the Death domain, and never taking the opportunity to correct that choice (or simply changing the focus of the domain) as edititions change, THAT was silly.
Well, as I said, a level 1 Core Only Necromancer Wizard can also do this, but also has the huge advantage that they can opt to go with Improved Familiar soon afterwards too, and is actually much better at sitting back and allowing their minions to act front line while they hit magic at a safe range.
It's also become a lot easier to make a Cha based Druid for example that can easily have both an Improved Familiar and a full on combat Animal Companion.
I'm not really against Command Undead being swapped out, but in all reality, Clerics of Pharasma are absolutely allowed to control and use undead in the tasks of their faith, as long as they destroy them afterwards.
Or that the most fundamental tenet of Pharasma's faith is protecting tombs and the buried from desecration of graves and places of rest, which is basically what the entire Pathfinder Society Organization is all about. Just saying.
:P
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Well, there are a few issues there.
A.) an organization as nefarious as the Pathfinder Society really needs those sorts of character far, far more than those characters need the Pathfinder Society (except for B)
B.) there is no other game in town, (well there is actually), but for the sake of argument, lets assume that PFS is the only game there is, and if you are assuming that any "problem" classes/characters should just not be allowed and everyone should hold hands and hug, why not either just outright ban non-Neutral concepts and anything that, mechanically cares about anything.
C.) Wouldn't it be easier, better for the campaign as a whole, and a lot more fun just to ban the Pathfinder Society itself and go full on Aspis Consortium where morally, literally everything goes as long as you can get away with it?
D.) Not allow anything that has a mandated, flavor or crunch principle or behavior, or even just a tendency?
I mean, in essence I agree with you, just ban the Pathfinder Society, but . . .
Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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The first issue in particular is not going to go away. If my Pharasmin cleric is sitting at a table and someone else brings an undead pet, one of us is changing characters or leaving the table. If the game is well in progress and someone starts creating undead I will politely ask them to please not do that because I WILL try to kill it. (I hope that doesn't come off as me being a jerk. I have another cleric who would have no qualms about...So, what exactly gives you the right to dictate how others play the game? I find necromancers distasteful, but I find abandoning one of the core tenets of the society (Cooperate) moreso. The times I found my paladin at the same table as a necromancer, I just got over my hangups and worked with them for the scenario....animating undead if he thought it would help him. But I wouldn't do it if there was a Iomedaen paladin in the party.)I didn't dictate it, Pharasma did.
Personally I'm fine with changing to another character if someone shows up excited about her undead-controlling character. But not everyone is willing to do so (or has the luxury of 15+ characters to choose from).
The problem with this logic is that why are you working for an organization who actively helps and associates with undead and at times overtly evil undead. Its one of those things that makes no sense. Why would you work with that organization?
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So, what exactly gives you the right to dictate how others play the game? I find necromancers distasteful, but I find abandoning one of the core tenets of the society (Cooperate) moreso. The times I found my paladin at the same table as a necromancer, I just got over my hangups and worked with them for the scenario.
Exactly. What gives you(1) the right to dictate to that paladin player(2) how to play the game? If people want more role-play in Society, but then turn around and tell the Goodie-twoshoes that they are ruining their fun for doing what the paladin/Pharasmite/Whatever should be doing, what exactly is being accomplished?
(1) By you I mean a general you, not "you" you. I'm just borrowing the quote to play devils advocate.
(2) Playing a paladin in Society is just silly unless you are ignoring everything that a paladin is (IMO)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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When the ban came, I was playing a neutral Dhampir Undead Lord cleric of Urgathoa. The last adventure I ran him through, we were facing a priest of Urgathoa, and so I used that as an excuse as to why he was banished from the church, and why his little friendly spirit, who inhabited and animated animal skeletons, left him.
And I rebuilt him as a neutral Dhampir cleric of Charon, with a cacodaemon familiar, a little flying cornucopia of corruption who eats the souls of evil people.
Happy to help the Society leadership.
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Conflict happens over all sorts of things. Last weekend, there was a fellow player who nearly walked from the table because he didn't agree with the course of action that I was advocating and, until he started grabbing his things, he didn't express a significant case against what we were doing. We had to go to an OOC player vote on course of action and I got outvoted. I was pretty salty (both IC and OOC) about the situation and held very, VERY closely to what we agreed to, even to the party's detriment.
This sort of player and character conflict happens more as characters have more oppositional abilities and design choices. Undead + Pharasma has always been one of the clearest-cut problems, but I agree with DM Beckett's point - there are a heck of a lot of options on the table right now that already force this quite a bit. Heck, for me personally, I have a character that's not only Pharasman, but he also has a feat that would be rendered worthless by a party necromancer with pet and it would expose the party to additional risk for not being useful (Eerie Sense, which gives me hair-raising feelings if undead are within 60' at the beginning of each round). When we talk about "who gives up less" out of character, the scale is suddenly re-balanced a bit - automatic haunt/incorporeal alerts are really nice for avoiding things that can kill you. There are scenarios that I want to play with that character because they involve undead (most recently, 8-06 Reaping What We Sow) and I would bet that a fair number of necromancers have similar thoughts.
It's a really hard line to balance a core deity with such a specific proscription and a tremendous set of character options that violate it. That said, I can see the Corpse Companion of the Undead Lord being easily misinterpreted by players (several years in, I haven't even bothered scratching the surface of the animate dead rules - I wouldn't even know how to spot an inaccurately built one without pouring over sources and eating up table time) and that in and of itself is a significant concern.
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you are allowed to have 1 Familiar, 1 Mount, 1 Animal Companion, 1 Summoned Monster, 1 Eidolon, [OR]1 Phantom, and any number of "non-combat" creatures out at one time.
Fixed that for you. {no snark}
Undead Lord is simply too troublesome as a whole to bother allowing. Theme issues, pet issues, template issues, etc. Even the very best case I saw of an Undead Lord in play was troublesome. He did his utmost to hide the companion from any fellow PC who might be concerned, didn't summon additional templated critters, but still had a misbuilt companion that was far too strong. This by a VL who was quite solid with the rules in general.
Also, a paladin or Pharasmin playing with a necromancer wizard? The wizard can pick different spells for the day if it's an issue. My own doesn't even *have* animate dead. Bones Oracle doesn't *have* to choose a particular revelation, or use it that day. The Undead Lord pet though is pretty much permanently there, not a choice anymore than it's a choice to bring the druid's animal companion along.
Not worth the hassle.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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If it turns out in practice (and it did, apparently) that the Undead Lord vs. Paladins and Pharasmin/Sarenite/Iomedaean Clerics created too much table strife, it makes sense to ban one side or the other. After all, things that are too disruptive are banned.
So when there's a choice for PFS between three otherwise pro-team core deities, among which two really popular ones, and a core class, or banning one archetype, it's not a difficult choice.
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So why are all the other things legal that you keep bringing up, and not the Undead Lord? Possibly because PFS culture has evolved to the point where people are less jumpy. But the Corpse Companion also takes 8 hours to create, meaning you probably want to start with one at the outset of the scenario, immediately setting the stage for conflict. That's different from the oracle and occultist that create undead as needed for a short time.
And the Spiritualist phantom is expressly not undead. It might not be on the fast track to judgement, but quite a few spiritualists are built as a sort of social workers, taking spirits that otherwise would have gone undead, and coaching them until they're ready to pass on to final judgement. Pharasma would actually consider those to be doing good work.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Undead are bad aside, I have purely mechanical qualms with one ability:
Corpse Companion (Su)
With a ritual requiring 8 hours, an undead lord can animate a single skeleton or zombie whose Hit Dice do not exceed her cleric level. This corpse companion automatically follows her commands and does not need to be controlled by her. She cannot have more than one corpse companion at a time. It does not count against the number of Hit Dice of undead controlled by other methods. She can use this ability to create a variant skeleton such as a bloody or burning skeleton, but its Hit Dice cannot exceed half her cleric level. She can dismiss her companion as a standard action, which destroys it.
Where do you get the body and which type of creature can you access this way? Other similar options have a similar problem (the oracle revelations only summons a skeleton for rounds though, which is very different from a permanent companion you can equip and buff), but getting a body should be the main problem here.
Also undead are immune to a lot of things, which can destroy scenarios (though the same can be said for plant and construct companions).
Of course, the fact that all the class benefits only cost a single domain also makes this an extremly good deal.
If you really want to include this one, it really needs some kind of campaign clarification/limit when it comes to this ability. Under no circumstances should you be able to keep an undead you made in the scenario.