Confused about Summon Undead [Archive] - Wizards Community

Confused about Summon Undead [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
wilson1225
10-08-06, 02:47 PM I'm the DM for my weekly D&D game and one of the characters in the campaign is a True Necromancer, who often makes use of the Summon Undead spell. The spell description for summon undead is annoyingling brief and raises a lot of questions. For instance if I cast Summon Undead III it says I can summon a ghoul, huge skeleton, or large zombie.
My issue is the table doesn't list any particular types of skeletons or zombies. Is it legal to summon a cloud giant skeleton as a "huge skeleton"? It seems horribly overpowered considering one of the options is to summon a Ghoul, not to mention Summon Undead IV summons a ghast or alip (why would you do that if you could summon 2 cloud giant skeletons).
Assuming you shouldn't actually be allowed to summon a cloud giant skeleton as a huge skeleton does anyone know of any appropriate stats for a huge skeleton I can use in my game?
Paxar
10-08-06, 03:11 PM In the Spell Compendium, pg. 215, it has a sidebar list of appropriate summons.

For summon undead III it lists- Ghoul, troll skeleton, or ogre zombie
Yaeri
10-08-06, 03:21 PM Hmm, comparing the hit points and damage output of these two, it seems quite silly indeed.
The rewrite in spell compendium sounds more reasonable.
Vincentmun
10-08-06, 06:47 PM The problem with Summon Undead is it wasn't updated to 3.5 rules. In 3.0, when making skeletons or zombies it didn't matter what the base creature was. All large zombies, whether troll or ogre or whatever, had the same stats. In 3.5, they made zombies and skeleton into templates. So, an elven skeleton has different stats then a dwarf skeleton.

What I would do is have the necromancer's player write up a few different zombies and skeletons of different sizes. Then compare the CRs against other creatures on the list for a specific spell level, such as the ghoul for Summon Undead III. If the CR is within a point or maybe two, it shouldn't be to powerful.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
wilson1225 10-08-06, 02:47 PM	I'm the DM for my weekly D&D game and one of the characters in the campaign is a True Necromancer, who often makes use of the Summon Undead spell. The spell description for summon undead is annoyingling brief and raises a lot of questions. For instance if I cast Summon Undead III it says I can summon a ghoul, huge skeleton, or large zombie. My issue is the table doesn't list any particular types of skeletons or zombies. Is it legal to summon a cloud giant skeleton as a "huge skeleton"? It seems horribly overpowered considering one of the options is to summon a Ghoul, not to mention Summon Undead IV summons a ghast or alip (why would you do that if you could summon 2 cloud giant skeletons). Assuming you shouldn't actually be allowed to summon a cloud giant skeleton as a huge skeleton does anyone know of any appropriate stats for a huge skeleton I can use in my game?
Paxar 10-08-06, 03:11 PM	In the Spell Compendium, pg. 215, it has a sidebar list of appropriate summons. For summon undead III it lists- Ghoul, troll skeleton, or ogre zombie
Yaeri 10-08-06, 03:21 PM	Hmm, comparing the hit points and damage output of these two, it seems quite silly indeed. The rewrite in spell compendium sounds more reasonable.
Vincentmun 10-08-06, 06:47 PM	The problem with Summon Undead is it wasn't updated to 3.5 rules. In 3.0, when making skeletons or zombies it didn't matter what the base creature was. All large zombies, whether troll or ogre or whatever, had the same stats. In 3.5, they made zombies and skeleton into templates. So, an elven skeleton has different stats then a dwarf skeleton. What I would do is have the necromancer's player write up a few different zombies and skeletons of different sizes. Then compare the CRs against other creatures on the list for a specific spell level, such as the ghoul for Summon Undead III. If the CR is within a point or maybe two, it shouldn't be to powerful.