Is it just me, or is the animate dead spell really broken in this edition? Let's take a 6th level necromancer wizard for example. Such a wizard can animate zombies that each have 28 hp and deal 7 damage on average with each attack. With a single 3rd level slot expended per day, he can maintain control over 4 of them. Assuming they all hit, that's 28 damage per round.
A 6th level fighter with 18 Str and a longsword, by comparison, deals an average of only 17 damage if he hits with both attacks. Granted, the fighter will have a higher attack bonus, but still. I don't think it's okay for a character's pets to even come close to the party fighter, let alone surpass him. And that's just the zombies. The wizard can still attack himself. Unlike the poor ranger, who has to spend his own actions to make his pet attack, a wizard can command his entire shambling horde and still gets his own action to do whatever else he wants to do.
Each of these zombies has as many hit points as a 3rd level fighter by themselves. As bad as that already sounds, it gets worse. If the wizard spends all three of his 3rd level slots per day, he could have as many as twelve zombies at his command. TWELVE. That's just at level 6. At higher levels, the wizard can have potentially well over a hundred zombies! If the wizard is worried about making all of those zombies get in melee range to attack, he could just make skeletons instead, which all marvelously spawn equipped with short bows.
I thought the summoning spells were bad, with their potential to fill the battlefield with dozens of animals and elementals, making a mockery of the "action economy" and making everyone else at the table want to throw their books in frustration. But at least the summoning spells require concentration. Animate dead has no such problem. It's not like corpses are usually in short supply in dungeons, either.
I really want to give the designers the benefit of the doubt. Did I read this correctly, or is this really the game-breaking nightmare that I think it is?
What about spells with area effects? A necromancer can summon undead minions, but a enemy spellcaster could destry them enoughly soon.
We should see the module about henchmen and monster pets.
All it takes is one enemy priest to counter all those undead.
The fighter cannot be so easily disuaded.
Summoning/animating/etc spells have always been a bit of an issue, and one of the tradeoffs returning to the oldschool style from 4e was that these sort of builds might be possible. If you really find that summons eat up too much time at the table or otherwise ruin the action economy, you can probably just ban them at your table.
In terms of more by the books mechanical consideration, note that at the point you get this (5th/6th level), Clerics have Destroy Undead, providing a very symetrical mechanical counter. 28 hit points (assuming zombies) is also exactly the average of a fireball, also appearing at exactly the same level. So, while its true this tactic might trivialize certain encounters, it will also be trivialized by other mechanics. It also has very poor scaling; the undead are only gaining 1 hp/level, and no improvement on saving throws, so they'll rapidly be even more trivially destroyed. A necromancer blowing a large amount of their spell slots on this, only to have them eaten up the first time their zombie pack encounters an aoe, is going to be a suboptimal character after that.
There are also roleplay considerations:
- Where are you getting these humanoid corpses? Assuming you're not constantly fighting humanoids, killing and raising them, in the best circumstance you're grave robbing, in the worst you're possibly murdering innocent people.
- Personally, I wouldn't have animated skeletons magically spawn weapons, regardless of what the apendix stats look like. You're using a given skeleton as a component of the spell - its pretty logical that it will come with whatever is on hand, and if that's nothing, oh well.
- Congratulations, you're now the local Evil Necromancer and teams of adventurers are out to get you? 
Valdark wrote:
danyc wrote:
Bluenose wrote:
Luis_Carlos wrote:
FallingIcicle wrote:
FallingIcicle wrote:
The spell is not broken. Every day you have to recast it so its eating up a precious spell slot. The undead can do some damage which is nice but they will be destroyed pretty quickly. Unless casters can animate huge or bigger creatures I don't see a problem with the spell. The skeletons and zombies do not have intelligence so they won't be tactical combatants. They won't provide flanks unless it is by accident and they can cause problems for pc's as they just wander into the fight and can cut off optimal positioning for them completely by accident.
DLfan wrote:
Valdark wrote:
FallingIcicle wrote:
FallingIcicle wrote:
danyc wrote:
The spell is not broken. It works fine. A bit too fine actually. I would say it is overpowered, and must be held in check by roleplaying constraints (as suggested above) in order not to let the necromancer outside the rest of the team. But that is just my personal opinion. I will probably ban it for player characters.
Why is nobody mentioning that it requires an action to command each spell's worth of undead? (The wording of the spell is that you can command minions raised "with this spell" as opposed to "all minions you control"...) They do what you command them to, but you have to take the time to command each spell's minions individually, and those commands are subject to whatever limitations the DM puts on. Additionally, you cannot command any of the undead which are too far from you.
It's a decent spell. It has some up sides, no doubt about it.
But raising an undead army and having it be super efficient in all circumstances? No.
zombies are moving at 20ft per round. So they are more defensive than anything else. Everybody smart enough to keep the distance has no problems with zombies.
The action economy is one concern, but with martial characters being able to make multiple attacks, that cat is already out of the bag. I would be more concerned about disposable undead to spring traps, deliver payloads, etc. or the utlity of having X amount of henchman at your disposal.
The biggest concern for me isn't even the balance of the spell, it's the ability for a single player to control literally dozens of creatures, monopolizing the game and slowing it to a crawl. It makes a mockery of the entire notion of an action economy. It's pretty ironic that they make a ranger spend his own actions to control his ONE pet, but they let wizards animate dozens upon dozens of undead.
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
autolycus wrote:
Free range skeletons: now in the Organic section of your local store!
Agreed about the timing of reasserting the control of the spell. Prolific necromancers must leave a wake of chotic undead wherever they go. Love it!
FallingIcicle wrote:
I don't see a problem. Skeletons and zombies are hardly powerful enough to do much at higher levels.
FallingIcicle wrote:
danyc wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Spells in 5e are treated as discrete instances in the rules. If people in this thread want to ignore that convention, they can. But I maintain that by RAW you can command the undead raised by the spell (meaning one casting of one of the spells—animate/create) as a bonus action on each of your turns.
You can choose to allow your necromancer to control 100 undead simultaneously, or you can choose to allow them to control small sub groups of their undead army, and have the rest on autopilot (which means they defend themselves and carry out whatever their last task was) ...
I just think that all the worry about how potentially overpowered the spell is happens to be tied up quite nicely when you treat the undead as being subject to an extremely sensible stricture such as each individual casting being a different channel of the necro-band which needs to be addressed. It winds up far more balanced, and something which makes for a great adventure framework when used by the DM to populate the lair of a big bad.
Do as you please. I know how I'm handling it at my table.
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
I think you guys know that I'm big on parity between casters and non-casters, and Necromancers animating the dead don't seem to be a problem. You have to expend a slot to animate them and expend at least one additional slot to maintain them (depending on how many you have). Also, if you don't spend the slots to maintain them, they could turn against you if you don't plan ahead and lock them in a basement or something.
With regard to comparing the skeletons and zombies to ranger pets, don't the ranger pets improve as you level? I've had a couple of tests this week so I haven't had the chance to read my newly acquired PHB as thoroughly as I'd like.
Valdark wrote:
It takes all of 4 necromancer skeletons to overshadow the Ranger's pet. The Fighter gets obsoleted by 16 or less.
They are more vulnerable to AoE, but less vulnerable to single target effects.
obryn wrote:
The 1 minute casting time totally balances this spell. WotC thinks so.
Twinbladez wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Twinbladez wrote:
Atheosis wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
I love how all of this is white room instead of actual play examples. I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.
onceMoreIntoBreech wrote:
A good many counters to the skeleton horde fall into one of two categories:
(1) Congratulations; the whole game is now about challenging Necromancer Ned and his Skelly Bros, so he's successfully abducted the spotlight indefinitely, or
(2) Stuff that can challenge Necromancer Ned's Traveling Skeleton Tour will also overpower the rest of the party.
In other words, yeah, clerics and crazy dragon AoEs will do it. But look what it's done to your campaign.
Twinbladez wrote:
Well comparing raising and hiring mooks (which the Gm controls and cost money) to a horde of skeletons that only cost spell slots is a little foolish, as skeletons are also 100% loyal, can act as trap disarmers, can carry heavy loads and tank for you simply by blocking corridors plus the DM has to let you hire mooks, say they exist and say the price, basically existing by fiat, this spell actively declares you have an army at will.
The source of new corpses isn't exactly a problem considered most adventures (especially ones where a skeleton squad would be useful) involve alot of corpses.
Here's the problem with your interpreation of commanding them: Then commanding them is useles, even if you have 2-3, if you can't command them individually then even 2 skeletons are near impossible to control which makes the spell completely useless, you are obviously intended to be able to control multiple skeletons with one bonus actions, but even if you give general commands: attack this target until dead, move into this shape, if the DM starts actively mistinterpring your orders then he's being a dick.
Twinbladez wrote:
Yeah except you can animate with the spare spell slots at the end of the day to recoup losses (and you will have spare slots in my experience) and even if you lose your entire skeleton army you are still a near fully functional wizard (because I personally use 4-5 spell slots on them) and that is the worst case (Where you say a defeated skeleton dosen't count as a pile of bones)
Another thing to remember in all this is the skeleton army is literaly spending spell slots, if you lose your whole army and switch to just casting spells (even for days or weeks of play) you lose nothing, literally nothing
Twinbladez wrote:
Ah darn I had a response written up but a stray backspace key ruined it, i'll have to rewrite sorry if this is a little more barebones than before, i'll try and take your points piece by piece, from top to bottom:
1. Heres the problem here, an army of hirelings requires these steps:
A) Have enoug hirelings around to hire for needs
B) They are available to be Hirec
C) You have the money
D) They are loyal enough/useful enough to not suck
The skeleton plan requires:
A) HAve enough bones (I like to use cemetaries ancient battlefields, crypts etc)
B) Cast spell
C) If you GM wants you to provide shortbows
I personally can either buy shortbows for cheap (far cheaper than hired muscle) or take some time off to fabriccate them for my army, usually you can buy them (Fabricate just takes time which you can usually between adventures)
2. To render them to bones either have your druid friend get some nice flesh eating bugs to help (or any carrion beast really) or find all ready decomposed (See previous statement about ancient battlefields or other sources)
As for efficiency consider this:
A) Your fireball takes up the action for the round, so even assuming I dont want to waste more spell slots I can cantrip or use other actions to do very powerful effects, adding to my DPR.
B) You waste time killing my skeletsons they have had a use, if they die to traps they act as trapfinding spells, if they die to monsters (remember necromancers add + Wiz level to skeleton HP) they are eating up your actions, defending for the fight (Most monsters lack AOE)
C) If your monster has AOE (like the dragons) I'll probably consider it valuable enough to stun, using my lovely contaigon (such a good necromancy Spell) to stun you for 3 rounds minimum, this also goes for clerics or evil priests, if I can't reasonably stunlock you then sure I might have to let my skeleton army stick out, or I can spread them out to make you waste turns killing some of them and hitting them instead of the party
3.
We rule you can give individual commands for as otherwise the spell is useless as written then because if you are supposed to be able to chose their actions any casting of the spell above 3rd level (or even a 3rd level spell if a necromancer type) will gain you, 2+ Skeletons/zombies, meaning that if you cannot command them individually they can't be commanded individually (as you can't move them together because they would end up in the same square), and if the GM wants to spend time doing my turns for me feel free.
If you you want me to give general commands sure, but considering they are a ranged blob of archers it's hard to see how you'd move them ineficiently, sure I can't super spread them out against AOE but as I said previously I'd just stun the target, giving me time to spread them out or kill it. the GM has to actively move them in a deliberatley negative way for general commands to be less useful (the most I need them to do is: Stand in a room /corridor to block attacks and/or Kill a thing, remember I can control them each round with a bonus so I can just say "Fire a vollet at X" next round "Fire a volley at Y" "Fire at the closest enemy" to make them split fire relatively efficiently.)
4. and 5
Again (sorry this gets repeated alot) you spend monster time and actions killing my army (which unless you use a very specific subset of monsters is alot of equivalent monster turns) I all ready got value out of it, I don't need to do Damage them just absorbing an ogre's swings really is valuable enough, far more than a fighter getting pasted to the ground.
Twinbladez wrote:
Where are you getting 36 hours from? Are you saying that the party needs to stay awake for 24 whole hours before they can sleep? That seems really stupid.
Twinbladez wrote:
As for your ruling so basically the party has to stay awake for 24 hours since the last rest to benefit? How the **** is that supposed to work? Are you really ruling that as RAW or RAI? When you can (more rationally) point out the rest benefit applies at the end, so the rest only has to end after 24 hours since you woke up. Otherwise all adventurers are insomniacs and avoid sleep for 24 hours forever, never sleeping at the same time and slowly cycling sleep through the day (each time 8 hours later than before?) because no, that's really stupid.
Even so 24+8 is 32 dude? Basic freaking math here
As for repleneshing the spell, if it ever becomes a problem due to time concerns, have your skeletons kill eachother asyou have a basic sense of time? (or keep scrolls of the spell, or just you know rest every day and recast it at the same time)
Edit: This guy below me knows whats up.
Twinbladez wrote:
I think at 20th Level a Wizard could control well over 100 skeletons/zombies on an ongoing basis, provided they're willing to sacrifice some hours each day re-casting spells.
They can cast 15 level 3 spells a day basic, which could be used to renew control of 60 zombies/skeletons if they wanted. Once per day they could also use Arcane Recovery to gain an extra three castings, taking it up to 72 controlled zombies/skeletons.
On top of that, he/she could name Animate Dead as one of their 2 'Signature Spells' which gives an additional 'free' casting (increasing the above from 72 to 76). A Signature Spell can also be recast over and over again with short rests inbetween, renewing control of 4 extra zombies per casting - each of which requires 1 minute (casting time) plus 1 hour's rest.
Spend nearly 11 hours a day on the above and you'll sustain an army of 116 zombies/skeletons.
It's no problem for the Wizards to climb to that number of skeletons/zombies if they need to create them. Any number of the above spell slots can just as easily create the undead (provided bodies are available).
I think my math is correct?
Has anyone not considered the obvious here? Your adventuring party doesn't exist in a void, but as part of a larger world. A known Necromancer will likely be hunted mercilessly. For one simple reason: Once he stops controlling his undead army, they revert to typical undead behaviour which is to mass murder every living thing nearby, including the party if they are still around when he loses control. So if your Necromancer wants to spend his entire life hiding from society while his friends go drinking and spending their hard earned gold, well, let him ;)
Twinbladez wrote:
A 20th level Necromance should be the climactic villain in a campaign.
How long do you think 120 skeletons or zombies is going to slow down an adventuring party?
DemoMonkey wrote:
"Then there's the Meteor Swarm or whatever else you 20th level Wizard enemy can come up with."
Doesn't the number of undead already assume the Necromancer is using all of his spell slots to maintain control of the army? No Meteor swarms.
I mean sure, it will take time to kill them all. But making the (very reasonable) assumption the party has at least one cleric, that horde of undead is a speed bump, not a deathtrap.
DemoMonkey wrote:
Or if the party is asleep, naked and armed only with bananas.
I posted that math about how you could get over 100 undead under your command at level 20 ... but I never meant to imply it'd be a reasonable tactic. Developing such a massive undead horde would probably be a major adventure plot on its own, requiring dealing with haters and attracting other attention. Maybe a Liche drawn to the quantity of necrotic energy etc.
From a pure gaming point of view, other players would hate me if combat involved me making 100+ attack rolls!
But from a pure math point of view it's fine.
Regarding the undead returning to uncontrollability at the end of the 24 hours, that's not a problem - if you have to, simply order them to destroy each other which would only take minutes. But honestly, you should be able to keep several dozen under control even if you're only devoting a small portion of your magic to them - at least, if you're at those very high magic levels.
I think a lot of magic needs to be understood within its wider impact, especially regarding the mistrust that would arise against a caught-out illusionist, a conjurer who fakes money, an evoker who causes collateral damage or an enchanter who brainwashes etc. None should go without consequences as long as they are fun or good for the plot. Necromancers shouldn't be the only taboo spellcasters, at least not when other spellcasters begin using their magic in overly forceful, deceptive or creepy ways.
DemoMonkey wrote:
Out of curiosity, what if an enemy were to restrain the necromancer and cast silence centered on the necromancer? Or, alternatively blanket the battlefield with a few silence spells. Wouldn't that mitigate the effectiveness of the undead "army" if not negate it altogether?
Inaubryyn wrote:
I'm surprised this is causing such consternation. Are people's groups plagued with powergamers who will claim their necromancers are spending days building-up a large mob of undead that will clearly make things less fun for other players?
Surely there are a gazillion good reasons why a player can't do it e.g. having to use carts/horse to travel fast along regular roads, having to travel tricky footpaths that zombies will fall off, shambling undead being too noisy to allow for stealth, local militia attempting to deal with the problem etc. It just seems like the easiest thing in the world for a good DM to keep under control.
Plus, a necromancer can't keep taking several days out of an adventure to rebuild his/her army to such a scale.
EDIT: They fitted over 100,000 people in the Superbowl stadium, so a rampaging company of 100 or so stupid basic undead is hardly city-shattering.
The reason I considering finding bones easier than finding people to hire is well that the bones don't have any variables and are actually really common., everyone leaves a corpse so long s you have a stripping method or time you can just do it (even have your skeletons pick the bones clean with simple knives), I can objectively state that these bones become useful to me. The player hiring armies requires them to go through a lot of steps of the DM saying yes, yes they exist, yes they are here, yes you can afford them, yes they are actually useful yes they are loyal and aren't going t run the firt time you fight a grue. I know that ancient battlefiels require effort to find but once I have found them my work is done, as opposed to someone trying to raise an army of hirelings. (This is again assuming that both are equally common, if we are taking a world centric view wherein the word exists as in then by any basic understanding of how wars work over time you will have lots of corpses around, unless you also assume there are an equal number of other necromancers fighting for the bone resources) hell, you take a bunch of country bumpkins and ask them to give you their dead in return for benevolence, depending on the culture they may not respect the dead (this is a little closer in requiring GM approval than the hireling example but still)
As for why we rule command that way, here's the thing ignore the skeleton army and assume you have 1 guy with 4 skeletons he controls, nothing taken to the extreme: If you rule that each skeleton has to take the exact same actions then he cannot control them directly, as he cannot move those 4 guys to the same place. That is why we rule that way (and partially because no one wants to control that many guys) because the individual command cannot work with even 1 casting of the spell let alone the 4 I use.
As for fireball vs skeletons, lets assume I hit about 4 targets with the fireball, as 1 target per Pc for 8d6 seems a good number to compare, as any more targets probably will overkill:
That averages 3.5*8*4 damage assuming they don't save, which for the sake of this argument let's assume they don't = 112 damage Right? Off the bat straight to someones face
Let's also assume for the sake of fancyland that attackers and defenders are autohitting eachother to, each skeleton does 1d6+3+proficiency damage (lets go with proficiency +3 straight down the line) so 9 damage *4 = 36 damage per round, it takes 3-4 rounds of fire to equal that fireball in damage utility (I'm not going to count the fact im free to cantrip out damage or do other stuff, just spell slot to spell slot, though I still say not having to spend an action to ouput that damgae is key to the action economy bonus). If you asume they skill 1 skeleton a round in combat thats 36+27+18+9=90 Damage Done before they all die, which is still close to the fireball but also they absorbed a lot of damage. An argument could be made for alpha strke bonus of fireball (but it also causes friendly fire) but you can see fireball isn't so hot.
Again i'm not assuming too many targets because fireballs high damage counter can be easily wasted if you are fighting swarms of small things, thats what burning hands is for.
And I only have to explose my skeletons to as much attrition as I chose, remember they are ranged attackers so if I want to have them screened behind me only suffering ranged counter fire that works too, if I need to save them for a big boss fight i can order them to wait behind them bring them with us, sure they arent useful for the rest of the day but they do amazing single target DPR for their spell slot (Fireball against a single target would only do 8d6 = 28 damage a round for the spell slot, which these guys beat ((I know you wouldn't use fireball against a single target but still)).
As for replacing the fighter, ask this question: What is a fighter bringing that a second wizard (With near his fullspell complement) and a couple more skeletons dosen't, they do good damage. Remember my 20 fighter DPRing skeletons is 4 spells, leaving you at near full spells for the day to continue to be a wizard, just you also put out this nice amount of damage.
As for the comment about this spell being mainly for worldbuilding and not player use, 2 questions: 1. why is it taking up page space in the PHB: You don't build enemy casters like players (that way lies madness) and if it's not meant for our use why is it in this book and yes I am assuming everything in the PLAYERS handbook is meant to be used by any players 2. This game is designed and created to be played, if this entire strategy is supposed to be GM limited: Why is a necromancer a viable character build in this book? Like I get that 100 Skeletons is taking it to an extreme but is seriously using a few spell slots to make some skeletons that game breaking? Im using 4 to get more DPR and more ablative HP (addmitely in different chunks) than a fighter.
Edit: For the guy above me... that isn't too much to work around: Buy carts for them, every adventure has downtime in between for R&R and planning, save the skeletons/use them in smaller numbers and salvage from the dead of people you fight and kill. Like a GM Shouldn't have to step in and say "Don't cast this spell in the book more than once or you BREAK EVERYTHING AND ITS WRONG", seriously 4 casts, thats about as many times as I might cast fireball in a day and they managed to not make firebally suddenly stupidly good if I do it or require the GM to go "Sorry you need to spend lots of time charging up your fireball resources otherwise this is stupid"
Twinbladez wrote:
Before I reply how many skeletons is too many, tell me that? is it 1 casting for 4, or 2 castings for 8 or 10. If your only response to this spell is "WELL MY GM WOULDNT LET YOU GET BODIES" then why is the spell in the book? Why does this spell need constant counterplay by the DM instead of having A) A hard limit on the number of skeletons you can control or B) Concentration (though that mechanic is laughably easy to ignore, at least the concentration check part).
Edit: Also a pet peeve, your campaign does have bosses even if you refuse to call them, when your party prepares to fight a powerful wizard that's a boss, go to hunt a dragon's horde, just because you seem to not want to call them that they still exist, fights you want to save your power for.
DemoMonkey wrote:
autolycus wrote:
Technically I don't think we left, and that's a good thing honestly because the things that make good PC rules don't always translate to good monster rules.
Twinbladez wrote:
I doubt this is practical in any form.
First, you need a pile of corpses. These are rather hard to carry around with you. If you are fighting anything other than a non-medium/small humaniods... resupply is an obvious issue.
Second, the casting time is 1 minute, so you need to do this well ahead of the encounter and then travel around with the zombies.
Third, I don't see your numbers. You only get one zombie per casting with a 3rd-level spell slot, three with a 4th, five with a 5th-level slot, etc. A 6th-level wizard could only have three and that would cost him all his third level slots.
Forth, I don't see where these magically have weapons. You would need to supply them. This means carrying weapons around with you as they get killed, supplying them with arrows, dealing with destroyed or damaged weapons.
Fifth, bringing zombies with you in many combat areas is a hassle or even hinderence. In narrow dungeons they would simply get in the way of other PCs. They block doorways and hallways, Their numbers spread out your marching order meaning that folks aren't in easy reach for buffs or out out of view as the party snakes around corners, doorways, pits, etc. They are slow. You have to repeatedly command them around unusual areas. Climbing, swimming, pit, ropes, avoiding traps, etc. is all difficult. Commanding them (and having so many) pretty much means that stealth and surprise is out -- enemies will hear or see you coming.
Sixth, traveling with them is extremely difficult. You can't take them on horses, small boats, rafts, areas where you need to fly, etc. In most campaigns you can't take them into any type of settlement.
Seventh, you are virtually assuring negative reactions with anyone you meet. Most people will likely attack them (and you) on sight, flee, be afraid, or otherwise react negatively.
Eigthth, using them in combat is a hassle. It means your party can't use AoEs so easily, your cleric can't turn undead, your melee types will constantly have them in they way as will archers trying to fire at people. This is especially true of opening rounds, narrow passages, etc. until you get an action to order them to move. Turned zombies would be a massive hassle as they could flee back into the party's path or block escape routes. If you want them to do different things -- you need to start wasting actions.
Nineth, they will likely get destroyed fairly quickly. At 6th-level, a single enemy caster would likely take most out in one spell. At 6th-level, turning, 8d6 fireballs, etc. will easily destroy them all in one go. Guiding light, magic missile, etc. would destroy one per hit. Any 6th-level martial would likely destroy one in a round (multiple attacks) as would any ogre, giant, or other monster you would have that round. Again, you now have the issue of finding corpses to get them back.
Tenth, at any point past about 8th-level, they are pretty much useless. They would have all the negatives and the positives would get less and less useful. They will have a hard time hitting anything and the damage against CR 8 oponents likely isn't worth it..
In 3.5, I rarely saw any parties enter dungeons with large numbers of trained dogs, animal companions, low-level hirelings, animated dead, etc. They quickly became more trouble than they were worth in order to transport, manage, and command. In 3.5 I also rarely saw folks trying to summon large numbers of lesser creatures. The d4+1 creatures 2 CRs lower, quickly became folder. Using a 3rd-level spell to summon 4 badgers was pretty much sill -- ogres just ignored them and just accepted the damage (if they could be hit).
IMO, you will see the spell used selectively. Summom a few and then give them duties such as guard duty, walking into traps, or sending them in as distractions in prepared attacks against known enemies.
BW0222 wrote:
"The spell doesn't have concentration or a hard limit because necromancers raising undead armies is *a thing that happens in fantasy worlds*.
Animate Dead doesn't require "constant counterplay form the DM". It requires the DM consistently apply the consequences of raising an undead army, instead of just assuming that any character who can *cast* animate dead is *entitled* to have an undead army on call.
Again, you're making the assumption that just because your character is game mechanically capable of achieving something they are entitled to have it handed to them on a plate. They aren't. I'd be *exactly* as happy to let a necromancer raise an undead army as I would be to let a fighter raise an army of mercenaries. If your necromancer can raise an undead army in downtime then your thief can rob every nobleman in the kingdom and your cleric can recruit themselves a cult of loyal fanatics."
yes If a spell is in the book yes a player should be expected to use it, Now please answer my question: How many undead is a ridiculous abuse of this spell? 4/8/10/12/20? because seriously, i can out DPR the fighter (And have more ablative HP than him, and combined carrying capacity). Im just going to bold this right here, you keep avoiding this question with MY GM WOULDNT ALLOW THIS so if you will tell me how many skeletons a necromancer could have following him "Reasonably" by your worldview then i'll show you how usueful they are, remember, the skeletons all ready outpoerform fireball (because again, I can just cast a cantrip to make them outdamage it even if you kill 1 a round (which you won't)). How many skeletons can I reasonably have follow me in your game as a necromancer, when my stated goal is to be a necromancer fighting evil with my undead.
If your response is "NONE BECAUSE DONT BE A NECROMANCER" then why is it in the book, and the next person to say "For Evil necromancers" I swear to god you can just save it, the player's handbook does not need rules for stuff that isn't used by the players, it's a waste of time effort and pagespace when you could just put all these spells Not for players in another place (like an appending in the Monster manual).
Also Again, you have situations you have a simulated play cool, you will still eventualloy have bigger stronger foes the party prepares to defeat, that is a boss. Like D&D is a game about combat, 90% of the rulebook is devoted to murder, it's cool that you have these strange situations but fireball isn't aspell used for unique gameplay efects or for strang situations. Yes you can do noncombat stuff in D&D but most of the rulebook is about murder and fighting, you can do wonderful things in D&D but that isn;t because of the system thats because your GM is making things up on the fly.
BW002 Please read the thread but for breivtys sake:
Seriously, 1: Dosent need to be a human pile of bones, just bones that magically assemble themselves (were using skeletons as they are better than zombies)
2: Do it at the start of the day like I do?
3:Read the spell splat about reaserting control, it goes 4/8/10/12 (for 3rd spell slot and up)
4: Shortbows are not hard to come by, if you want me to manually equip them i'd use heavy crossbows myself but still, either fabricate or a small GP Cost
5: Skeletons are ranged combatants so have them move behind your group as a ranged blob if that is an issue, or in front (if your party is primarily ranged) to screen
6: by the time you have them (I usually start skeletoning about 8th levelish) you can buy extra carts or wagons, and just have the skeletons ride along, adventurers arent exact lacking in disposable income, or you just cary the bones in a big chest or bag of holidng (actually if they cant breathe maybe the could be stuck in a bag)
7: Tel the skeletons to wait outside of town, or just again have a bag of holding of bones if you need to talk to people, how is this different than a drow player caharcter? or even a half orc?
8: if you are going into a tomb where you need to spam turn undead then just shelve them for a day, have them take today off, or just kill the undead because they are actually really good at killing
9: How many monsters have fireball? Most of them just have basic attacks, even so remember your skeletons are getting tougher as you level (+wiz level hp) yes they are vulnerable to AOE but so are you as a party of 4 people, just use your wizards abjuration to coutnerpsell and screen like dealing with any other wizard (or antimagic field). And again, most monters don't have AOE
10: That is actually flat out wrong you know that? You do realise this edition has massively flatter math so much so that an adult red dragon only has ac 19 right? Plus they gain your proficiency bonus on all damage rolls (if you are a necromancer) The flatter math means only stuff like the tarasque is really out of their reach for reasonable damage applied, and they do really good damage, like at 16th level they are doing 1d6+9 per skeleton with a shortbow.
Twinbladez wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
A large part of the issue is that animate dead allows the mage to amass extra minions and followers, regardless of whether or not they can run aorund with 60+ undead even just keeping 5-6 on hand all the time is a big help and can really alter how a battle goes, if only because the enemy wasted a turn taking out bonies instead of PCs, or just to use as trap bait even. While a non-mage has to PAY their minions, and gets in trouble if they spend them like copper.
As a cheesy aside, the Demiplane spell at Magic Level 8 is a fun place to 'store' zombies etc. I quite like the idea of spending just one action to open a dimensional door to a secret room you created, and watching all your zombies pour out! Level 8 spell though, as I say, and it needs a flat surface.
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Twinbladez wrote:
BW0222 wrote:
Equipping them isn't hard, a lot of potential skeletons and zombies attack you pre-equipped. Goblins and orcs are hardly known for their deeply ingrained love of, and skill with, unarmed combat.
Plus if you're coming out of a cultist cleansing you probably have a bunch of concealing cloaks you could use.
They have a myriad of uses, beyond combat DPR, and will not unionize.
Creating a game in which animate dead isn't useful is hard with ACs not skyrocketing into the stratusphere.
The only real limitation is when you start trying to get insane numbers of the bastards or using your higher level spell slots, and even then it can be worth it for a time.
The biggest problem is clerics and other adventurers really.
A lot of them tend to see undead and assume its fight time.
How much flesh and bones dust is your character going to carry? Your character will also need to find a pile of bones or a corpse for the first casting alone.
I've a feeling if you want to keep your zombies around for more than a couple days the locals are not going to take kindly to you.
Twinbladez wrote:
After the first casting guess who you can get to do your schlepping? Also considering the spell can be cast anywhere you can take a 10 minute break finding an opportunity after you clean out a dungeon, or cult sanctum isn't hard.
As for the locals, who gives a whoop? They wouldn't be tolerating a bunch of sellswords and magic users wandering around town mixing with the decent folks if they weren't either jaded or desperate. If they were smart they'd start keeping the bones of their ancestors and charging adventurers for them.
I mean if the couldn't do jack about the guy who was raising the undead horde besides paying you and your buddies to off the smegger then what exactly are they gonna do to you once you've done so and collected your pay, and all the loot the blighter had lying around? Hire another party? Well that looks bad don't it? another team of adventurers comes in and finds out how these townies reat their succesful mercs?
If you're tearing up public or private property to gather your horde, yeah sure they have a beef with you, but it's not even registered as an evil spell anymore.
Unless the local kingdom actually enforces some sort of ban, there's no reason not to have a swarm of undead once you learn this spell, supporting a maxxed swarm would be an issue, but maintaining 5-9 bonies should be no problem.
And local ordinances do not constitute a balancing factor.
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
rampant wrote:
rampant wrote:
Bastards hide the loot in mini-caches scattered randomly about the woods, it'd take years to collect my sandard goblin bandits fee if I had to hunt it all down myself, and skellies are useless at searching. Some peasant figured out that if they make themselves too hard to pillage the really clever mercs don't get a chance to get to the burning.
Carrying bags filled with stuff on the other hand they can do just fine.
Sure shoveling and sorting the loot may be abit beyond them but carrying it? that's easy.
As long as I'm animating bandits and raiders and not tearing up public or private graveyards to get the bones on what grounds do the locals have for objecting? Sure zeds might be a tad stinky, but so's manure and chamber pots and war skunks (it involved a dwarf ranger/druid with a pathological hatred of horses), skeletons on the other hand don't even smell after a week or two, less if you've got a decent lab.
Personally, I woudln't even allow non-humanoid bones, which was the basis of my post much earlier in the thread where this spell basically requires you to be a murderer or a graverobber (and thus probably quite the public enemy) if you're not fighting a majority of humanoid enemies.
The relevant sentence can be legitimately parsed either way in English: (a pile of bones or a corpse) of a... vs. (a pile of bones) or (a coprse of a..), but given the context (printed in the PHB, references explicit names 'skeleton' and 'zombie' which are both defined in the appendix of the PHB with statblocks for humanoids) and KISS (it seems overly complex and strange that the spell would allow the creation of skeletons of any variety, but only humanoid zombies) I would not allow you to assemble conglamerations of other bones or use the spell for non-humanoid skeletons.
I will admit that either way is probably RAW (again, blame the English language), but I think my way is both RAW and RAI so I'm likely to favor that.
All of that said, this spell is perfectly balanced in any sane campaign. And if it's an insane campaign, who gives a goblin's backside about balance. If you want to look for places where Necromancy needs some errata, it's Contagion.
'Sanity' is not a balancing factor, especially when you really mean: 'play the game the way I play it/expect it to be played'.
The simple fact is that this spell has insane potential, and a lot rides on rather vague language regarding the created minions' user interface.
Anyone who compares the # of undead and type you can control in this edition to 3rd or before is insane if they think this one is OP in comparison.
Why focus on Animate Dead, when clearly no one is suggesting Clerics doing this are a problem. Maybe what you're wondering is if the necro school ability is too strong? That's what makes the trash stronger and doubles them, if you're worried about strong trash.
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As it stands, you don't create "stronger undead" ... that's still TBD if higher CR zombies / skellie exist (and if you can create them with animate dead)
Oh I realize it's better than 3e, that said it still wrecks the action economy and gives mages a source of cheap disposable minions.
The problem is they're trying to make a spell that should be a plot device or a mcguffin. Same with summons.
We've not abused it fully in my games; we'll see how it really breaks things. If they end up being hard to manage trash, then this becomes theorhetical only. That said, the internets are famous for people (over?)reacting based on reading something before really putting it into practice.
Frankly, 4e was annoying with it's interrupting MtG-like actions and chain sequences. And nothing is as slow as my buddy Jerry, who could make a single-attack in any game take hours.
Agree w/ you on the specifics of the command/control - though I still think they are largely trash. The only thing I find remotely worrying is the Wizard boosties and its potential - like maybe that 6th level thing should be spread out a bit. Again, I'm not ready to say it's truly broken or anything, because I've not seen it as such yet.
rampant wrote:
Y'know, here's my favourite story about a necromancer (I have a whole folder of these)
So, once obtaining the regents for the Summon Famillier spell he gets his famillier, a rather dumpy rat. Thing is, he doesn't know much about rats at all, aside from "They're supposed to like cheese". So he hunts down cheese whenever he can, eventually leading to an interest in cooking and getting a side-job as a butcher. Very good way to dispose of excess monster parts you aren't using for study or resserection.
However after this store goes well, making a modest profit, the necromancer realises he has no passion for this. Instead, his passion is for cheese. Over the years he and his famillier have sampled some of the finest cheeses in the world. He studies how to make cheese, and sells off his dungeon-earned gains to purchase a plot of land and some animals. Goats, cows, the usual stuff.
However, he's a necromancer. And while you can't get a skeleton to milk your animals, your skeletons sure can be guards and manual labour. And paying the townsfolk discreetely to help with the complex stuff, he had a business under way. Of course he needed a place to age his cheese, somewhere safe. So what to do? Simple! Head back to all those old dungeons they cleared of bandits and monsters, fortify them, and keep a skeletal guardforce on hand to protect the cheese as it aged
With his cheese manufacturing handled, he eventually moved onto beer as well and brought a tavern in town, turning it into a massive success and a headquarters for the party. And not just a place for the high-end cheese lover, he catered to all aspects of the community with his products
Also its totally a front for his rogue party member's thief guild, and every week a bunch of shadowy figures watched dissections of corpses in the basement, but its a nice cheese tavern aside from that.
FallingIcicle wrote:
Well for one that isn't a lair attack the dragon has, it can either:
Make a 20ft wide geyser of flame (so it hits 4 skeletons)
Make people make a dex save or prone
Make a poisoning cloud
(This is if it isn't stunned as the dragon must make the lair action which it can't if stunned)
Shasarak wrote:
ChristopherGroves wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Well My point was either i can give them all a general order and the GM moves them intelligently, e.g. they can't ****up "Move here kill a thing" or "Circle this thing shoot it" or I can order them individually.
Edit: basically baring some very wierd use cases an archer block of skeletons will always be effective at doing damage and having to order them as a block isn't a downside (I prefer to order them individual and read the spell that way, as does my GM but reading it the other way still leaves them incredibly effective)
I have a low level Necromancer, and choose to use only one 3rd level slot to maintain my 4 zombies - zombies because so far I haven't had any opportunity to animate a skellie. Seriously, none. It's a pretty fast-paced campaign, and in a world with necromancers and various unearthly powahs running about, folk tend to look after their graveyards. Plenty of dead humanoids to turn into zombies, though.
I've had a hell of a time using them at all.
In corridor fights they tend to get in the way of the fighters. Obviously I can't bring them into town without risking a lynching - three times now I've had to go on without them (one when a town came under attack while we were in it, a second time when we chased kidnappers into a dungeon below the temple, and a third time when we left a town on skyships in a kickass pirate / chase scene). In room-fights they're more useful, though mainly to provide a meat-shield. That +4 to hit never improves, so they suck a bit at doing damage. And as a meat-shield they do tend to go down pretty often.
I do consciously choose not to raise a bigger force (because it would be boring as hell, and I may as well just stay at home and pretend I'm playing, if all I want is to let my minions do the work), but really I can't see many DMs or many settings allowing free use of an army of skellies. I mean, imagine a fight against a big baddie - if he sees a hundred skellies, why would he do anything else but kill the necromancer? Isn't t basically painting a great big target on you? And if you're wandering around the countryside with 100 skellies in tow, aren't you *likely* to get curb-stomped by scared locals - whether they send in the army, or hire adventurers? Or assassins?
Or, say you're in a corridor, entering what you hope is the lair of the Big Baddie. It's a nice wide 2-person-abreast corridor. Do you go in fisrt? Probably not. So... what? You tell your skellies to "advance and kill", and 24 manage to enter on the first turn. Better hope that wasn't the room with the hostages, eh? But whatever, even if it is the big baddie (the rogue scouted first)... 24 skellies with bows won't do THAT much damage, and they sure aren't stealthy. The big baddie gets a nice slow build-up, and plenty of time to think of something tricky, or to just flee (damn necromancer - a-ha! But there is a weakness, yes?) and then stalk the party until they get a chance to kill the necromancer himself.
A big part of why a small band of adventurers can be so powerful is that (story-wise) most enemies don't expect 4 people to be that much of a threat. You're most of the way into a fight before the bad-guys realise they're outmatched. If you come as an army, surely any bad-guy is going to take the hint?
Basically, if you want to play like this, with an army of skellies, as a DM I'd let you, but if you want to be ultimate-power-man, then I'll play the game you seem to want to play. Your enemies will target YOU, not the tank. They will hire assassins. They will prepare for YOU next time, not the whole party. They will stalk you to work out which one is the necro. They will hit your camp at night, from the sky, and land directly on you, and attempt to paralyse you, mince you, skin you, grab you and fly off with you, knock you unbsconscious, drop you from great height, and otherwise murder your face. Because honestly, there's nothing more obvious and flashy as 100 skellies mobbing around you within 60 feet. Realistically, presented with the option of slogging through 100 skellies, or just killing that one squishy wizard, any half-bright bad guy is going to take the easier option.
If players want to play heroes-vs-baddies, then as a DM that's what I'll play. If players want to play "skew the stats to maximise damage output in the spreadsheet", then I'll play THAT instead. But I doubt you'll like it.
I would have a zombie prepared thusly;
1. Chosen from a strapping specimen (to ensure high baseline HPs)
2. Marched into a smokehouse for a week, so when they come out they are no longer rotting and nasty...
3. Armed and armoured as heavy foot soldiers with chainmail & shields (AC 18) and Maces (1d6+4 and upwards)
... and a skeleton thusly;
1. Prepared from a big framed specimen (to ensure high baseline HPs) by a taxidermist (could be my character with the right background...) who pads out it's frame so armour sits well on it
2. Armed and armoured with studded leather including a leather mempo-style mask to cover the skull-face etc. (AC 14), Shortsword (1d6+5) and Light Crossbow (1d8+5)
Not a bad pair of henchmen for the sacrifice of a third level spell slot in my opinion... and not entirely socially impossible as only relatively close-range examination would flag them as undead.
On the flipside - I think the very limited version of Animate Dead is a great shame - where is the ability to animate undead animals or large creatures etc.???
If there is nothing in the MM or DMG I will design such a spell to suit - that's for sure...
SmellyTerror wrote: