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Greeting all-
Long story short, i'm planning on building a Tiefling Occultist with the Necromancy Implement School using the Undead Servitor as an expendable meatshield/flanking buddy.
Since the Undead Servitor ability doesn't say "as Animate Dead" or such wording as the Conjuration's resonance power says, is it more or less up to table variance how players would react to such an act?
I could eventually get the Animate Dead spells later, and those might ire good aligned clerics and whatnot. but the Focus power of the Necromancy school has vague wording in that regard.
Thanks.
Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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I've always reasoned that since there's a time limit on it, it's at least "less evil." Since there's no official word on how it works, but also a core feature of the class, I'd say it's allowable. But yeah, expect table variation. I've played with Paladins who allowed me to do my thing, because their players understood I wanted to do my thing, and they didn't want to be a stick-in-the-mud.
I can say though, Necromantic Servant is pretty cool. It might not be as awesome as an animal companion, but you can do cool tricks with it. Since you summon a skeleton, they're proficient with scimitars and light armour. When I raise my companion at the start of a dungeon, I throw a better armour on him, give him a keen scimitar, and buff him with some Transmutation spells. Legacy Weapon (usually Bane) and Size Alteration are amazing on it. And that's on top of whatever else you can do. It's a bit of a Mental Focus sink, but DR5/bludgeoning is pretty cool, and being able to immediately restore HP is nice as well.
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I've always reasoned that since there's a time limit on it, it's at least "less evil." Since there's no official word on how it works, but also a core feature of the class, I'd say it's allowable. But yeah, expect table variation. I've played with Paladins who allowed me to do my thing, because their players understood I wanted to do my thing, and they didn't want to be a stick-in-the-mud.
I can say though, Necromantic Servant is pretty cool. It might not be as awesome as an animal companion, but you can do cool tricks with it. Since you summon a skeleton, they're proficient with scimitars and light armour. When I raise my companion at the start of a dungeon, I throw a better armour on him, give him a keen scimitar, and buff him with some Transmutation spells. Legacy Weapon (usually Bane) and Size Alteration are amazing on it. And that's on top of whatever else you can do. It's a bit of a Mental Focus sink, but DR5/bludgeoning is pretty cool, and being able to immediately restore HP is nice as well.
Where does it say that Human skeletons are proficient with Scimitars and Light armor?
The build i have in mind, was intended to use Servitors are meat shields and/or flanking buddies.
Transmutation & Conjuration at 1, Necromancy at 2, Illusion at 6 with the intent on getting the Shadow Conjuration focus power at 9th. as it stands, building it is a mess...
That said, Palix, a tiefling approaches the party-
"This is Bruno," says my Tiefling, presenting a skull "His cult tried to kill me in hopes of summoning whatever my abyssal lineage spawned from. As you can see, didn't end well for him. Since he tried to kill me, i want him to experience death a thousand times over. Though, understand that his soul has left this plane and all is left are his bones... STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK! Also, this is Puppy," while presenting a fox skull for the Soulbound Puppet ability...
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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I've always reasoned that since there's a time limit on it, it's at least "less evil." Since there's no official word on how it works, but also a core feature of the class, I'd say it's allowable. But yeah, expect table variation. I've played with Paladins who allowed me to do my thing, because their players understood I wanted to do my thing, and they didn't want to be a stick-in-the-mud.
I can say though, Necromantic Servant is pretty cool. It might not be as awesome as an animal companion, but you can do cool tricks with it. Since you summon a skeleton, they're proficient with scimitars and light armour. When I raise my companion at the start of a dungeon, I throw a better armour on him, give him a keen scimitar, and buff him with some Transmutation spells. Legacy Weapon (usually Bane) and Size Alteration are amazing on it. And that's on top of whatever else you can do. It's a bit of a Mental Focus sink, but DR5/bludgeoning is pretty cool, and being able to immediately restore HP is nice as well.
Where does it say that Human skeletons are proficient with Scimitars and Light armor?
From the undead entry:
Proficient with its natural weapons, all simple weapons, and any weapons mentioned in its entry.Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Undead not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Undead are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
So whenever I raise it, I slap its broken scimitar out of its hands, hand him a better chain shirt and scimitar, and he's good to go.
I think I also saw somewhere that undead are proficient with things it's holding as it was being raised. I still wish to play a Gnome necromancer who puts random things in their hands before raising them so I have a yoyo-wielding army of undead maniacs.
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I've never heard that last point, so I wouldn't count on that. But good catch on the scimitar, I'm looking at my first occultist and this goes into my quiver of ideas for sure!
That last point from Kwinten has something to do with the Skeleton and Zombie templates. Each template has a version of this:
Attacks: A skeleton retains all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature, except for attacks that can’t work without flesh. A creature with hands gains one claw attack per hand; the skeleton can strike with each of its claw attacks at its full attack bonus. A claw attack deals damage depending on the skeleton’s size (see Natural Attacks). If the base creature already had claw attacks with its hands, use the skeleton claw damage only if it’s better.
So it is not that they are proficient with whatever they were holding at the time, but with whatever they were proficient with. So a skeleton of a monstrous humanoid is proficient with all simple weapons and the weapons in its bestiary entry, and an outsider skeleton is proficient with simple, martial, and whatever is in its bestiary entry.
Unfortunatly, humans are defined by their classlevels, so they do not have standard proficiency with stuff. Which means you check the human skeleton bestiary entry, and see they are proficient with Scimitars, light armor and shields (because they have an armor proficiency), as is mentioned in the undead entry