Theorycraft Symbol of Healing for Undead Campaign

[Oli Ironbar]

Not sure if I'll actually get to do this with our own adventuring party, but it could be fun to plan out and then have the NPC's use it for dramatic effect:

Symbol of Healing (Permanent 10k gp, CL 10)
CL 15 for 2d8+15 positive energy
persistent from metamagic gem
empower from collaborative thaumaturgy (spellcasting services in large town)
?? maximize and widen from other collaborative thaumaturgies??
(not sure if these is legal or GM would prohibit)

Are there other ways to up the effectiveness against undead?

[TxSam88]

so each undead encountered makes a save of takes 31 damage once per day??

I suppose it' ok, but a wand of fireballs would deal way more damage, and cost way less

[Pizza Lord]

Consecrate Spell will maximize the spell's damage against undead. It won't stack with Maximize Spell, but it is only a +2 spell level increase instead of +3. It would mean those it heals aren't maximized, but you asked about damaging undead.

Crypt Spell will effectively sicken any undead that fail their save for 3 rounds or so.

But I don't really think this is the most effective spell, since it only works once on any creature in 24 hours. I would much rather go with a permanent wall of fire (granted, that would hurt everyone), a permanent one. Even without maximizing it, you're getting 2d6 + 15 (assuming CL 15) and that doubles against undead passing through it. It's less if they're standing near it, but still doubled.

The range area covered is a little less if you do ring form (about 35 radius at CL 15), depending on if you have the flames pointed inward or outward. You could even probably link a non-permanent (or maybe GM will allow it) to a greater glyph of warding to trigger if any undead enter its area to have it form a ring around them, basically cooking them slowly or fast if they have to pass through (and the flames are opaque, so can't really attack or target through them well).

[Oli Ironbar]

Pizza Lord wrote:

But I don't really think this is the most effective spell, since it only works once on any creature in 24 hours. I would much rather go with a permanent wall of fire (granted, that would hurt everyone), a permanent one. Even without maximizing it, you're getting 2d6 + 15 (assuming CL 15) and that doubles against undead passing through it. It's less if they're standing near it, but still doubled.

The party on its own could definitely clean up faster, but we are talking hordes of unintelligent undead, so a scout or just someone with a potion of fly could strafe to the center of their cluster, activate, move to another position nearby, wait for them to get to close again, and rinse and repeat.

For effectiveness, I wonder -- who is reading the HP limit of Symbol of Death applying to Symbol of Healing?

My hot take is that the limit is overridden because it's subordination to the spell effect of killing creatures:

"When triggered, a symbol of death kills one or more creatures within 60 feet of the symbol (treat as a burst) whose combined total current hit points do not exceed 150."

"functions as symbol of death, except [*when triggered*] all creatures within 60 feet of the symbol of healing instead are bathed in positive energy and heal 2d8 points + 1 point of damage per caster level (maximum +15)."

Symbol of death specifies which creatures by HP total, Symbol of Healing specifies all creatures.

[TxSam88]

Oli Ironbar wrote:

The party on its own could definitely clean up faster, but we are talking hordes of unintelligent undead, so a scout or just someone with a potion of fly could strafe to the center of their cluster, activate, move to another position nearby, wait for them to get to close again, and rinse and repeat.

Again, a wand of fireballs could be used in the same manner, and up to a certain point would be way more cost effective.

[Oli Ironbar]

TxSam88 wrote:

Oli Ironbar wrote:

The party on its own could definitely clean up faster, but we are talking hordes of unintelligent undead, so a scout or just someone with a potion of fly could strafe to the center of their cluster, activate, move to another position nearby, wait for them to get to close again, and rinse and repeat.

Again, a wand of fireballs could be used in the same manner, and up to a certain point would be way more cost effective.

Run that math by me? Selective is an option but can it heal friendlies?