Command undead spell - unlimited?


Rules Questions


I always knew that the command undead feat, control undead spell, animate dead spell and a lot of other ways to control\create and enslave undead were limited to the number of HD the master can control (commonly it's 2x level).

Just recently i took a better look at the command undead spell and not only doesn't it allow a save for unintelligent undead it has no mention on any limit of HD that can be under control. and it lasts for days per caster level.

that makes monsters that can cast it at will, able to have vast armies of unintelligent undead at their call as long as they have dead bodies to use it on.

Take the Orphne for example, beside at will command undead it has animate dead 1/day and an aura that work as the desecrate spell which mean it can control legions of undead and animate undead of up to 24 HD each!!

do you guys think this was intended or an oversight?

on a relevant note. what is the strongest medium sized zombie one can animate? (up to 18\36 HD, as the zombie abilities are all depended on it's hd this will mostly depend on the race).
while searching i came up with this item which without desecrate can bring up to 18 hd of zombie once a day and command undead 3 times per day (cl 9). that mean the owner can rotate up to 27 zombies under his control. (with a cost at ~27k gp. this is about 1k gp per zombie, seem like a burgin)

Liberty's Edge

Animate Dead spell
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.

Command undead Feat
You can control any number of undead, so long as their total Hit Dice do not exceed your cleric level. (They are a separate pool from those you control with animate dead.

Command Undead Spell
This spell allows you a degree of control over an undead creature. If the subject is intelligent, it perceives your words and actions favorably (treat its attitude as friendly). It will not attack you while the spell lasts. You can give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do. Retries are not allowed. An intelligent commanded undead never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing.

A nonintelligent undead creature gets no saving throw against this spell. When you control a mindless being, you can communicate only basic commands, such as “come here,” “go there,” “fight,” “stand still,” and so on. Nonintelligent undead won't resist suicidal or obviously harmful orders.
(Essentially a "charm" undead spell. Yes, you can control an unlimited number of non-sentient undead, but you can give only very basic commands and need to be present to command them again. You don't get an army, you need a mob. "Go in that direction." they obey the order forever. Any kill is incidental as the order is to march in that direction, so they will fight only what stops them from obeying the order.)

So I think it is intended. The Command Undead Spell allow the caster to set up an unlimited number of guardian undead in an area: "Kill any living thing entering this area."; this is more or less the limit of the commands you can give.
"Go in that direction and kill anything that lives." is a valid command, but they will spend time killing bushes, trees, animals, and anything that lives and they can perceive.


zza ni wrote:

I always knew that the command undead feat, control undead spell, animate dead spell and a lot of other ways to control\create and enslave undead were limited to the number of HD the master can control (commonly it's 2x level).

Just recently i took a better look at the command undead spell and not only doesn't it allow a save for unintelligent undead it has no mention on any limit of HD that can be under control. and it lasts for days per caster level.

that makes monsters that can cast it at will, able to have vast armies of unintelligent undead at their call as long as they have dead bodies to use it on.

Take the Orphne for example, beside at will command undead it has animate dead 1/day and an aura that work as the desecrate spell which mean it can control legions of undead and animate undead of up to 24 HD each!!

do you guys think this was intended or an oversight?

on a relevant note. what is the strongest medium sized zombie one can animate? (up to 18\36 HD, as the zombie abilities are all depended on it's hd this will mostly depend on the race).
while searching i came up with this item which without desecrate can bring up to 18 hd of zombie once a day and command undead 3 times per day (cl 9). that mean the owner can rotate up to 27 zombies under his control. (with a cost at ~27k gp. this is about 1k gp per zombie, seem like a burgin)

Correct, Command Undead is unlimited (in theory). I GM'ed an evil gestalt campaign a few years ago and one of the players was a Gravewalker Witch / Juju Oracle with Agent of the Grave 5 between levels 7 and 11 on her Juju Oracle side, and she got the Command Undead spell from the AotG5 ability, and then used Command Undead to "juggle" any undead that she came across, or to "juggle" the undead that exceeded her Animate Dead bucket's HD maximum. She had a legitimate army of undead following her around.

The only limitation regarding the amount of undead you can control with Command Undead is based upon how many times you can cast Command Undead per day and succeed. Mindless/Unintelligent Undead don't get a save, but Intelligent Undead do-- and you have to continuously make Cha checks vs. the Intelligent Undead whenever you tell them to do something they don't want to do. Intelligent Undead absolutely pwn because some of them can cast spells and more importantly, you can give them complex commands (like "go hide in the forest east of the city walls and wait for my signal, once I give you the signal, I want you to command the other mindless undead to kill the archers on the wall, then climb the wall using these ladders, and then hold that wall because you're covering our retreat), so make sure you have a high Cha; you don't want your Command Undead to fail on these guys, nor do you want them refusing your requests. Command Undead lasts for 1day/level, so once this ends on a particular undead, you simply recast Command Undead on that day. Once you have 20-30 undead under your control, you have to "juggle" them in order to keep them under your control.

You can make the "juggling act" even better if you take Extend Spell Metamagic and the Undead Master feat, because you can turn the 1day/level duration into a 3day/level duration. So if you were level 15, you could control an undead for 45 days rather than only 15 days. At the end of this 45 days, simply recast Command Undead on each undead that has had their duration end.

2nd level Pearls of Power and Magical Lineage (Command Undead) can allow you to cast a massive amount of Extended Command Undead spells per day using nothing but 2nd level spell slots.

Always, always, always, cast Desecrate spells before creating undead with Animate Dead because they get created with significantly more HP and HD, and if the HD amount exceeds your Animate Dead bucket's HD maximum then the undead won't be under your control, so immediately take control of the undead with Command Undead. Similarly, if you create an undead with Create Undead, it is not immediately under your control, so be ready with a Command Undead and add it to your army as well.

The most important thing is just making sure you have enough Extended Command Undead spells available every day to manage this. You might even need to use higher spell slots if you run out of 2nd lvl slots. Because any undead that you fail to Extended Command Undead either because you don't have enough spells or if they're intelligent and they resist, then they will attack you and you'll be forced to destroy them. <--- and this creates sad necromancer noises

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Pro-GM tip: Once my PC Necromancer had a metric crapton of undead in her army, this complicated combat greatly. Per RAW, each of those undead are supposed to act on their own initiative and be controlled by the Necromancer PC herself. But this was causing her turns to take FOREVER, and she couldn't leave the table to get drinks/snacks/bathroom breaks, and each of the PC's were getting bored waiting for their turn. So, I had her make up character sheets for each undead and put each sheet in a plastic sheet-cover and place them into a binder. When we got into combat, she would hand 3-6 sheets to each of the other 4 PC's, and each of the other PC's controlled 3-6 of the undead for her, while she also controlled 3-6 undead herself. That way each PC stayed engaged and the necromancer wasn't hogging combat.


Ryze Kuja wrote:
Pro-GM tip:

Another good suggestion to handles such situations is to limit commands issued per round, and to have undead act in groups with a maximum number of groups you can command… any groups that don't get new commands simply repeat their last action/command.

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