Post/Author/DateTime	Post
spectralent 12-04-05, 03:15 PM	I have created a dread necro PC for a campaign, and have taken the undead leadership feat. I have a vampire as my cohort and have managed to obtain one of those rods that doubles the amount of undead i can control 9(18) per HD.none of this was a problem with the DM at time of taking. I then amassed an army of skellies and zombies, and my vampire cohort has made herself an army of vampires. again, at the time, no problem. Now i wish to send my army to defeat an evil barons ( It has been going on in my hidout, so he won't know), and all of a sudden, every person in the world wants my staff, and they are all level draining! and whenever i die, the only thing around is the ressuruct spell that drains a level (can't remeber the name). Am i being unreasonable with what i was doing, or is it my DM who is wrong? i am the only one targetted by these thieves by the way...
Gailbraithe 12-04-05, 03:21 PM	One the one hand your DM sounds like he's being a bit heavy-handed -- abusing level draining and all -- but on the other hand, you are amassing an army of undead using a magical staff. That does tend to draw attention from the wrong sorts. It does sound a bit like your DM is unenthustiastic about the idea of you wiping out his bad guy with an army of undead. He may feel you're trying to cheat him out of a final confrontation and chance to show off his baddies. I'm not sure what you can do except back off and try a different approach that meets less resistance.
Santherus 12-04-05, 03:26 PM	Plus note as per libris mortis that your cohort doesn't get to keep his own personal army of vampire spawn. Perhaps if you tone things down to an extent where the actual rule that's been overlooked is followed, then you may have better luck with your DM.
spectralent 12-04-05, 03:43 PM	nowhere does it say that cohorts you have cannot create spawn, PH, DMG or LM EDIT:page ref if possible
spectralent 12-04-05, 04:19 PM	[QUOTE=Gailbraithe] It does sound a bit like your DM is unenthustiastic about the idea of you wiping out his bad guy with an army of undead.QUOTE] They are a distraction (think of it like frodo and sam going off to destroy the ring whilst the free peoples attacked mordor itself), of course big larry is coming with us (my strength 37 zombie brown bear)
Wizards_White_Knight 12-04-05, 04:35 PM	Yes, you are ebing unreasonable. DMing is hard work. It takes what, 30 mins to make a character? Imagine having to do that every week. Then working out a story line. Figuring out battle tactics. Balancing treasure and experience. Providing an atmosphere that is fun for everyone. Then along you come with your army of despair. Kill off his BBEG quickly, without him getting to use it. Totally alter his storyline. (I don't care what you say, an army of undead is going to have an impact on world history). Totally screwing over battle tactics. (Risght, so if the wizard went here, I was supposed to do thta, and then the fighter would get caught in the crossfire...but what about the 20 zombies sucking on my arm?). Getting a whole lot of goodies and levels for doing...squat all. Stealing all teh fun for the DM, and possibly the other players as well, simply because...you like zombies. If the only way to stop all this from happening is to take away your staff, then I'd rule that in game, it blew up and you took 400d6 "stop ruining my game" damage, to be healed as soon as you agree that the staff is upsetting balance. I'd also rule that the staff exploded into a bag of gems worth exactly what the staff was worth. WWK
spectralent 12-04-05, 04:49 PM	BUT, when i took the feat AND when amassing an army, there was no problem. Its only when i turned my horde on the evil baron that there was a problem. What else did he think they were oging to do? sit there and rot?
Vaelan 12-04-05, 05:07 PM	Yes, you are ebing unreasonable. DMing is hard work. It takes what, 30 mins to make a character? Imagine having to do that every week. Then working out a story line. Figuring out battle tactics. Balancing treasure and experience. Providing an atmosphere that is fun for everyone. Then along you come with your army of despair. Kill off his BBEG quickly, without him getting to use it. Totally alter his storyline. (I don't care what you say, an army of undead is going to have an impact on world history). Totally screwing over battle tactics. (Risght, so if the wizard went here, I was supposed to do thta, and then the fighter would get caught in the crossfire...but what about the 20 zombies sucking on my arm?). Getting a whole lot of goodies and levels for doing...squat all. Stealing all teh fun for the DM, and possibly the other players as well, simply because...you like zombies. If the only way to stop all this from happening is to take away your staff, then I'd rule that in game, it blew up and you took 400d6 "stop ruining my game" damage, to be healed as soon as you agree that the staff is upsetting balance. I'd also rule that the staff exploded into a bag of gems worth exactly what the staff was worth. WWK How dare a player solve a problem creatively! How dare they jump off your railroad! :rolleyes: I'm glad I don't play with anyone like you.
mythSSK 12-04-05, 05:27 PM	How dare a player solve a problem creatively! How dare they jump off your railroad! :rolleyes: I'm glad I don't play with anyone like you.I DM for WWK and have played under him before - he's really not all that bad :) . --- Personally, I don't think your DM is being creative enough. The BBEG is an evil baron? Barons have political power, so why not have him use it? Obviously, he's doing a little bit of it now, with the whole baddies-coming-after-your-staff thing... but it's also obvious he's trying to not completely gimp your undead army thing because it seems you've been working for it for a while and he doesn't want to just take it away from you. I mean, sure, you have an army of undead, but how powerful are they individually? If they're mostly zombies and skeletons, then a few well-placed widened fireballs from the barons wizard friend should probably take out a good many of them. Or, perhaps the evil baron (warded against alignment detection, of course) appeals to the church of Pelor for help? Pelorites + undead = not happy necromancer. WWK, if the DM had wanted to not run a campaign like this, then he would have spoken to spectralent about it. @spectralent: I think you are being slightly unreasonable just posting this here. First sign of trouble in a game, evil plan not going completely perfectly, and you come whining to the "What's a Player to Do?" boards? Work it out in-game. You're a spellcaster, and sounds like a high level one at that, so you should have protective magic coming out of your ears. Team up with the church of Vecna or Wee Jas, hire some real wizards to ward your lair properly, turn your vampires into ninja-assassins. You're a powerful necromancer in a fantasy world... of course people are going to be after you!
Templetroll 12-04-05, 05:28 PM	BUT, when i took the feat AND when amassing an army, there was no problem. Its only when i turned my horde on the evil baron that there was a problem. What else did he think they were oging to do? sit there and rot? The DM should have paladins and good clerics ride to the rescue of that poor beleagured baron who has been set upon by the evil undead army. That would be more interesting, at any rate.
Wizards_White_Knight 12-04-05, 07:46 PM	How dare a player solve a problem creatively! How dare they jump off your railroad! :rolleyes: I'm glad I don't play with anyone like you. I have no problem with creativity. I do have a problem with disruption. If I spend 4 hours + a week creating a game for YOUR enjoyment, I dont want to be hit with crap like that, forcing me to make on the fly decisions (which I suck at. Ask Mythssk!. "Hmmm, yeah you can do that Myth. How would it work? *Insert Myth making an ad-hoc rule*") and effectively wasting 4+ hours of my life. The problem does lay with the DM for letting it get that far out of hand, but you shouldnt complain when he tries to rectify the situation.
Gworraent 12-04-05, 09:30 PM	at least you didnt take the extra cohort or extra followers feat from Heroes of Battle muwahahahahahha
Varia 12-04-05, 10:29 PM	I have no problem with creativity. I do have a problem with disruption. If I spend 4 hours + a week creating a game for YOUR enjoyment, I dont want to be hit with crap like that, forcing me to make on the fly decisions (which I suck at. Ask Mythssk!. "Hmmm, yeah you can do that Myth. How would it work? *Insert Myth making an ad-hoc rule*") and effectively wasting 4+ hours of my life. The problem does lay with the DM for letting it get that far out of hand, but you shouldnt complain when he tries to rectify the situation. Disruption sounds like a problem, although I would submit that players, by their very nature, are disruptions, thats sort of their purpose. :P However, the player has been building this army for a LONG time by the sounds of it. How, precisely, would this army somehow come as a surprise that would force the DM to make ON THE FLY decisions? Why, precisely, did none of the however-many hours a week of campaign-creating take into account the fact that there was an undead army out there? The DM would have to be either thoroughly inattentive to the players and their plans/goals, or so totally set on the course of the conflict that he envisions that he refuses to allow a player-created option, which is classic railroading. Either is a failure of the DM. The DM is making a world for the players enjoyment? Then paying attention to what the players are doing and what they enjoy would sorta be a prerequisite, dontch think? And this DM doesnt seem to be doing that. Cant think why an army of zombies would be so much of an issue that a DM would have to strain themselves to react on the fly anyway. A couple hundred zombies and skeletons arent a major threat to a castle, so they can be more or less ignored unless directly supported by the players, in which case the contest is between the players and the BBEG anyway, just the way the DM likes it. And if theyre not supported, then theyre just a distraction (as this particular player indeed intends them to be) and again it comes down to the players vs the BBEG after they use the distraction to sneak inside, as it "should" be. So whats the problem? The baron does have a castle, yes? Last, ignoring the "I'm being petulent" method proposed to get rid of the staff, the staff isnt the problem. Whether its 100 zombies or 200, theyre still just zombies, and just roadkill to any reasonable baronial defense without direct support. The problem, the dangerous part of his forces, are the vampire and all its minions. I dont know how many it has, but just a couple could mop the floor with the entire zombie army, and I'm willing to bet that the cohort has max minions and the minions have max minions and so on in a neverending pyramid. Add in the 3 billion children-of-the-night swarms that the combined forces can summon, inside oron the castle walls and wave bye-bye to the barons house. The zombies from the staff are nothing, merely a decorative toy to tide baby necromancers over till they can get a decent cohort. *Hugs* Varia
mythSSK 12-04-05, 10:34 PM	Listen to the Varia, for she is wise. Praise be to the Varia.
Wizards_White_Knight 12-04-05, 10:37 PM	You have a problem with attentiveness too, I think. Assume youre his DM. He's been building this army for a LONG time by the sounds of it. How, precisely, would this army somehow come as a surprise that would force you to make ON THE FLY decisions? Why, precisely, did none of that 4+ hours a week of campaign-creating take into account the fact that there was an undead army out there? You would have to be either thoroughly inattentive to the players and their plans/goals, or so totally set on the course of the conflict that you envisioned that you refuse to allow a player-created option, which is classic railroading. Either is a failure of the DM. Youre making a world for the players enjoyment? Then paying attention to what the players are doing and what they enjoy would sorta be a prerequisite, dontcha think? Cant think why an army of zombies would be so much of an issue that you would have to react on the fly anyway. Couple hundred zombies and skeletons arent a major threat to a castle, so they can be more or less ignored unless directly supported by the players, in which case the contest is between the players and the BBEG anyway, just the way you like it. And if theyre not supported, then theyre just a distraction (as this particular player indeed intends them to be) and again it comes down to the players vs the BBEG after they use the distraction to sneak inside, as it "should" be. So whats the problem? The baron does have a castle, yes? *Hugs* Varia Yes, but I am not his DM. His DM has a problem with the undead army. His DM doesn't want it to happen, for whatever reason. So his DM is trying to remove the staff. That is fine. If I were DM, and it got to the point where one of my players had an undead army, it would be because I allowed it in the first place and had no issue with it. But as I pointed out earlier, DM's have the final say into what characters are allowed. DM's control the feel of the campaign, and if they dont insane necromancers calling his cohort daddy, or insane necromancers calling hsi cohort "Big Larry the brown bear" then the DM has every right to say no. If he has made a mistake and said yes previously, the DM is allowed to take away that previous decision, as long as it doesnt come out crippling the player. (As I said in my first post, he should replace the worth of the item). I was asked my opinion. I gave it. I have not once insulted anyone. Varia, you challeneged my word maturely, although you challenged me in particular, and that is uncalled for. A previous post challenged me personally, and that isnt on. My opinion is yes, the player is being unreasonable for complaining about the loss of an overpowered item. I do not want to be involved in a flame war. Stop making this personal. If anyone else disagrees with me, do so without the insults and the personal references. Thanks, much appreciated. WWK Edit- Myth, you smell like poo :D
Varia 12-04-05, 11:04 PM	Spectralent- Just look on all those people coming to swipe your staff as an opportunity to upgrade your cohorts minions with better ones! After all, while you can have minions-aplenty, its doubtful most of them are much better than commoners at their base. Minions with levels are SOOO much sexier! :) Erm, is a necromancer vulnerable to level draining?? How odd. If the baron is flexing political muscle to sic staff-hunters on you, can you use your vampires influence abilities to divert it? As a DM, 3 billion vampires coming at me would be an issue, I admit, but then again I'm too experienced to permit that to sneak up on me in the first place. If it were that easy to do then it would have been done already. It hasnt, therefor it isnt that easy. So it would merely be an issue of figuring out why it hasnt been done and then implementing those reasons, problem solved. But the staff? Go nuts. *Hugs* Varia
Varia 12-04-05, 11:52 PM	WWK- Sorry, missed the last line in my original quote where you agreed it was his DMs fault. Didnt mean to get quite so personal at you, personally. ('Scuse the phrasing. :P ) I've gone back and edited the post to be more WWK-friendly. :) We do seem to disagree on what precisely that fault is though. You think that the fault is that the DM made a mistake in allowing the staff/army. If a DM makes a mistake he is entitled to correct it, but, as a side issue, I think the methods chosen by this DM are arbitrary and unreasonable. I think the fault is that the DM appears to be arbitrarily acting to negate the option of using an army to attack the baron so that the necro/baron conflict will play out in the manner the DM desires, which is railroading. As reported (and I am aware that the reporting party may not be entirely... accurate in their reporting), the NPCs shouldnt even know there is a necro/army/staff there to come attack/steal in the first place, and yet they come... And as I said in my original post, I dont consider the staff to be a threat in the first place if all its doing is making little zombies, so not only does the DMs attempt smell of railroad, its smells of ill-informed railroad. It is another mistake, and combined with what I feel to be the arbitrary methods being used to attack the staff (and the potentially dodgy justification for the attacks (ie- how do they know he's there)), inclines me towards the believing the less charitable explaination- that he is railroading, rather than trying to correct a mistake. Spectralent- Are level-drainers common in the world, or are all these level-drainers coming after you unprecedented? Is there any justification for the NPCs knowing where you are? It doesnt take long to vamp someone up- what prevents you from mugging a village somewhere, vamping everyone in sight to max your minions quickly, and swarming the baron before he knows what hit him and before the staff-hunters can wear you down? And then disposing of the excess minions you dont want to try to have to feed, of course. *Hugs* Varia
Wizards_White_Knight 12-05-05, 12:21 AM	Following that above formula, the Staff would require a corpse. So obviously, a few dead bodies go missing, or if you are particularly evil and in a bit of a hurry, any sort of body will do. The missing people/bodies would bring attention. Even if it doesnt go that way, increased undead activity surely would. Any cleric who happens with 1 mile of that area would surely feel the negative energy. An undead army does not make it easy to be inconspicous. And any evil baron worth his salt would have divination magic aimed at his foes. Thats first lesson learnt at Evil Baron Acadamy. The first thing the DM should do, if he wants the player to lose the item, be it the unbalancing factor or not, is speak to the player. Ask him to drop it. Offer equal value treasure. If not, in-game attacks. Give enemies equipment equaling half the value of the staff. Set it so the enemies will die, but manage to destroy/steal the staff. If that doesn't work, then you need to speak as a group. The DM should explain hsi grievences. If that still doesnt work, volunteer the DM chair to someone else. If no-one takes it up, everyone loses all their equipment and characters as you have to start a new game. So somewhere along the line, there will be a reasonable compromise. WWK
spectralent 12-05-05, 08:11 AM	its roughly 200zombies+skellies, and 50 vampires. a few of the vamps are necros, so they conributed to that. No, level drainers are NOT common, and no-one should know where my lair is (exept the other PCs, but they are neutral/evil/corrupted good too) and the people who are doing this seem to be fairly random. And as for the church of pelor intervening, we actually saved the few clerics that were left from horrible destrution at hands of said baron. Oh, and i am not a wizard, i am a 17th lvl dread necro. The clerics didn't know i was a necro though... so i can't imagine asking for help going down too well... he hasnt said anything to me. He just started a bunch of level draining staff obsessed freaks on me. alot of which can't even use the staff. The dead bodies were provided by the massacre of the town of Hilbron which was set fire too. i think the public beleives the corpses burned. That was also the baron.
Lenarior 12-05-05, 08:31 AM	Sounds to me like your DM fell asleep for a long time and when he woke up you had an army of undead. As I see it there are several ways to solve the problem ingame like your DM is trying to do by stealing the staff. If however the campaign was meant to turn out this way, just keep playing. If your DM allows you to stop everyone who tries to steal the staff that means he gives you a chance to keep going with it. Perhaps your don't have a problem at all. Talk things out with your DM and ask him if he realy has a problem with your power-level or if he is just working his campaign around your plans, toughening up the oppostition. As a personal note, I find your campaign overpowered even if you are at level 17 and would never allow that kind of power until perhaps epic levels. That's just me though and I hope you enjoy your style of play.
Spike_Fightwicky 12-05-05, 09:41 AM	Just my thoughts on the issue: The army of skellies and zomboids shouldn't be a problem, especially when dealing with an EL 17 BBEG. As has been mentioned, all he has to do is whisper "Undead Army attacks" into the ear of any Pelorite, and they'll bring down righteous fury post haste. Even if they think they owe your character for saving them, they'll smite those undead, because it's what they do. Even without their help, if Lord Baron BBEG can't deal with an army of 'lowbie' undead, he's not much of a threat to begin with. Regarding the vampires, your vampy cohort cannot make vampires. When a Vampire kills a mortal via energy drain, it creates a Vampire Spawn, not a full fledged vampire. Vampire Spawn do not have the "Create Spawn" ability, and Vampire Spawns don't keep their class abilities, they're a seperate creature altogether. So you can't make a 'Vampire Chain'. Also, regarding coffins and their accessibility: If a vamp (or Vamp Spawn) doesn't reach his/her coffin in 2 hours after getting dropped, game over - the vampire's gone forever. So your covert Vampire minions wouldn't dwell too far away from 'home' (9 miles to be safe if on a dangerous mission). So either your DM is using special rules that allows a large army of "vampire chains" to exist, or your vampires are being used incorrectly. A single Vampire and an army of Vampire Spawn isn't nearly so bad as an army of full fledged Vampires. It seems to me that the only problem is being new to how vampires work.
Traevanon 12-05-05, 11:37 AM	Perhaps the DM gave a good try at putting up with this character and its hundred minions without outright banning the class and item. Perhaps eventually he discovered that he just didnt want to play Warhammer Fantasy and actually ultimately wanted to form the adventure and campaign around the small party rules that 99% of the books are designed for. I'm only speculating now, but perhaps you have changed the entire complexion of the campaign into something the DM doesnt really want to run. Playing army using D&D rules is tedious and beyond the scope of what the game was aimed for. It is an adventure game. Think Indiana Jones, the Mummy, the Goonies, Tomb Raider or (heaven forbid) The Hobbit. It is not able to handle large scale battles such as the Siege of Gondor or Army of Darkness. They can be simluated, but only very badly. The DM often winds mishmashing something halfway because they dont have time to create an army of characters from scratch. And then on top of that the have to run a combat with a system they have to mostly create on the fly. Generally, if the DM is nice the player's carefully considered minions walk over them. And the problem continues. That said the use of large scale battles as a backdrop for a plot like in Lord of the Rings or Dragonlance is fine. Being in control of the subjectiveness of an "on the fly" army combat system and being responsible for objective rulings becomes an innate conflict of interests and one your DM was unwise to attempt and is wise to now wish to avoid. It is perfectly acceptable for your DM to want to control the scale of the game, no matter how late the attempt may be. Often times DMs want to allow players so much freedom that it becomes a burdon that only shows up after a while. Retire this character. As an NPC he can romp over the countryside with his minions at will. As a PC he is only fun for you. Marvel at his Large Numbers (tm) and then set him free.
trollbill 12-05-05, 01:58 PM	BUT, when i took the feat AND when amassing an army, there was no problem. Its only when i turned my horde on the evil baron that there was a problem. What else did he think they were oging to do? sit there and rot? It doesn't matter why your DM allowed you to do this. He now apparently feels this was a mistake. Forcing him to live with the mistake is not good for the campaign. Everyone makes mistakes. Good DMs correct them. The only problem I see here is in how he is correcting it. Maybe instead of insisting the DM should let you do whatever you want because he made a mistake, you should work out some means of helping him correct the mistake that is more to your liking than his current methods.
Spike_Fightwicky 12-05-05, 10:47 PM	My apologies, I was wrong about the "Vampire Spawn". Apparently the SRD is witholding some information on the "Create Spawn" ability. A vamp CAN make full fledged vamps if it sucks someone who's 5 HD or more. However, it can't control more spawn than twice it's own HD. If your cohort is a vampire (ECL=8+Character Level), that means that she's only level 7 (as per Undead Leadership rules, ECL of cohort is 2 less than ECL of Player)... So she can have 14 vampire minions of her own, and she'll be easy to kill. Should have gone for a lich ;)
spectralent 12-07-05, 01:17 PM	So she can have 14 vampire minions of her own, and she'll be easy to kill. Should have gone for a lich ;) They can have 14 minions, and their 14 minions can have 14 minions and those minions of the minions can have 14 minions... you get it? Anyway, last night the DM explained that he didn't like the way i was approaching the battle. I aggreed to give up my staff and vampire hench in return for the gp spent creating the army and the staff. I got a lich hench instead. Much better :) It was a fun game and now the campaign is closing. But it was fun whilst it lasted. Oh and im DMing for the club now, cos hes leaving. It is not easy to manage two clubs...