Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mrfubar1961 Mar 12, 2013 14:36:40	I'm a 13th Level Warden. My party is Evil. Our ultimate goal is the takeover of our town, which is 100% good (Bahamut, Pelor). Last week my DM granted me a power (some things happened to allow this, not pertinent to my question) that he named Call to the Grave. It's an encounter power, with a range of 10. I can summon up to four undead minions, my level or lower. They would attack after me. So, my situation is that in a non-combat time period, I can use an encounter power once every 5 minutes. So, in 5 minutes I create 4 minion soldiers. In one hour, I have created 48 soldiers. In 10 hours, I can create 480 soldiers. That's a pretty large army. Aside from turning them on my party (they follow Vecna, while I and one other had our souls sold to the Raven Queen) and killing most of them off, which is an idea I'm toying with, the other option would be to create this large army and unleash them on the town guards. I realize with 1 HP they'll get killed off, so, I might have to wait 10 days and build an army of 5,000. (Might be trouble to hide them, but I suppose I could go out of town to do this.) Am I abusing the power, or, am I being innovative? My DM likes innovation. I don't think I'm cheating, I'm simply doing what the rules allow, I think. I'm a relatively new player (less than 2 years experience) so I'd certainly like some input from those more knowledgeable than I. Thanks in advance for your help.
#2 Omegasupreme651 Mar 12, 2013 14:42:32	Are you sure your DM is giving you the power to keep them "alive" longer than the 5 minutes in non-combat situations?  Meaning, if you create 4 in 5 minutes, are you aloud to keep those 4 past 5 minutes, or do they "die off"?......
#3 mrfubar1961 Mar 12, 2013 14:48:09	I asked him how long they live and he said "They're minions, they have 1 HP, so when they take any damage, unless you somehow give them protection, they die when they reach 0 HP". So I'm figuring that so long as they aren't acted upon by some other force, they should be ok. I'm looking at Wretch of Kyuss, and they have resist 10 necrotic, which is good since we have a lich in the party who deals 5 damage to those without resistance at the start of their turns.
#4 Centauri Mar 12, 2013 14:49:35	The DM is not obligated to allow your summoned creatures to stick around for more than 5 minutes. If he or she thinks its a cool idea, though, they can allow it, or allow you do accomplish the same thing in some other way. It's worth asking about, rather than trying to sneak one past a DM who sounds pretty open. Getting DM buy-in is important too.
#5 mrfubar1961 Mar 12, 2013 14:56:26	Huh. I didn't know about a 5 minute rule. The only book I have for reference is the Player's Handbook and I don't think there's anything in there about it. I could check the online compedium. But I suspect that you are right, that, if I can get the DM to buy-in, then I don't have to worry about what the rules say. Thanks for that tip!
#6 Centauri Mar 12, 2013 16:47:00	Huh. I didn't know about a 5 minute rule. The only book I have for reference is the Player's Handbook and I don't think there's anything in there about it. I could check the online compedium. But I suspect that you are right, that, if I can get the DM to buy-in, then I don't have to worry about what the rules say. Thanks for that tip! Just make sure he's aware of the rule. It's in the compendium under Summoning: "Duration: The summoned creature lasts until the summoner takes a minor action to dismiss it or until the end of the encounter." "Until the end of the encounter" is defined elsewhere as "about 5 minutes." If those minions are entirely independent, the DM is asking for problems with that power. Summonings, as you'll see under that entry, generally use the PC's actions, unless they have instinctual actions. Conjurations often don't have actions at all, but would also use the PC's actions, generally speaking. This approach is intended as a brake or balance on exactly the kind of thing you propose: even if a player summons more than one creature they won't have the actions to command more than about two of them usefully.
#7 mrfubar1961 Mar 12, 2013 17:36:20	Thanks all. I messaged the DM and his reply was that they last 5 minutes, and then go away before I can summon others. So much for the army.
#8 iserith Mar 12, 2013 18:24:58	If an army's what you want and the group thinks that's a cool idea, ask how it can be accomplished through adventuring that involves the whole group (or make some suggestions of your own).
#9 1stLevelSean Mar 13, 2013 7:11:43	Even without the 5 minute limit, are you constrained by the availibility of dead bodies? I don't know this spell, so perhaps not. This is a potentially game-breaking idea, so as DM I wouldn't allow it every day. But it's also a very cool idea, so maybe I would allow it for one encounter. If you really want to take out the town, go find the Staff of Summoning and wait for dark of the solstice when raised dead last until dawn. You have to watch out for players and their armies. One dwarf in my Next campaign wanted his back story to include 20 years of stealing babies and raising them to be his personal army of assassin-rogues. I disallowed this of course. What made it really odd is that this player is my own son.
#10 realdanl Mar 13, 2013 22:15:49	This power would be from the Death Master template in the DMG p. 178.  The template is designed to take a standard monster and turn it into an "Elite Controller (Leader)."  It contains no requirements of bodies on hand. The power likely wasn't designed with PC use in mind, so yes it can be potentially game breaking* -- but if the DM's willing to run with it for fun & flavor, and the other players are fine with it, then it should be okay. (*Game breaking because a monster is assumed to be most likely dead at the end of the encounter.  Because of this, they don't have daily powers, everything is "encounter."  If I were giving this power to a PC, I'd probably make it a Daily to keep it more in line with other PC summoning powers.) -Dan'L
#11 iserith Mar 14, 2013 0:52:34	As a DM, I'd find it very exciting for the players to want their characters to have an army of undead. I mean, why not? Raise up a shambling host of rot and bones and let's play to find out what happens!
#12 mrfubar1961 Mar 14, 2013 7:00:33	Thanks. It was the technical issue of the five-minute limitation that I was unaware of. I find that there's a huge amount of information required to be known to play well. I should rephrase that. You can play well if you simply want to go and kill monsters, etc., but if you want to find innovative ways to overcome problems, it really helps to know all of the rules. During one campaign, we found ourselves up against some huge beast (non-flying). It was in the middle of a chant, so we had a little time to prepare ourselves for death. Our standard weapons were going to be useless. Even our spellcasters were pretty much out of heavy duty spells. In order to get to where this beast was, we had to cross chasms. Along the way we found some potion that would enable us to become light as a feather, well, actually to levitate (I think this was Pathfinder, by the way). Drink too much and you'd find yourself plastered up against the ceiling of the cave. Well, out of desperation, I suggested that all spellcasters, etc., who had "mage hand" use it to take the bottles of potion up to the beast's mouth and drop them in. Guess what? It worked! The beast ate the potion, and the DM was listening to all of this and allowed the monster to literally float away through the opening in the top of the cave. He was a bit flustered because he'd planned the next two hours around this encounter! Instead, he gave us an automatic 2 level bump for sheer innovation. That was about our finest moment.
#13 Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe Mar 15, 2013 17:28:04	The DM is not obligated to allow your summoned creatures to stick around for more than 5 minutes. If he or she thinks its a cool idea, though, they can allow it, or allow you do accomplish the same thing in some other way. It's worth asking about, rather than trying to sneak one past a DM who sounds pretty open. Getting DM buy-in is important too. "Getting DM buy-in is important too. "
#14 Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe Mar 15, 2013 18:19:50	Thanks all. I messaged the DM and his reply was that they last 5 minutes, and then go away before I can summon others. So much for the army. There are some higher level spells intended for creating more powerful undead that can be used to create weaker undead that are more permanent, within the rules, somewhere, I think? If not, research one. If that seems too much trouble, you could always try to convince a bunch of evil priests and necromancers to help you........ Make a bunch of scrolls and burn them all in a single session; that might work. If you're high enough level to cast wish or miracle... that would be a good use for it... If CONTROLLING the undead army isn't an issue, you could always capture free-roaming undead, put them in cages, and then set them free in the midst of your enemies. Mwuahhahah!
#15 Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe Mar 15, 2013 18:25:36	As a DM, I'd find it very exciting for the players to want their characters to have an army of undead. I mean, why not? Raise up a shambling host of rot and bones and let's play to find out what happens! True... OP could ask some bards and scholars and priests if it's been done before through evil artifact. If such an artifact exists, make the effort to find it. It may require some awesome adventures into a lich's lair or into the underworld or some such. Maybe the party could work together to make such an artifact. Isn't that what powerful super-evil folks do, after all? Create the one ring or amulet or orb of the walking dead and have at it.
#16 Beldak_Serpenthelm Mar 15, 2013 18:53:04	If CONTROLLING the undead army isn't an issue, you could always capture free-roaming undead, put them in cages, and then set them free in the midst of your enemies. Mwuahhahah! Or maybe just keep them in Bags of Holding
#17 Sea-Envy Mar 16, 2013 16:19:50	If CONTROLLING the undead army isn't an issue, you could always capture free-roaming undead, put them in cages, and then set them free in the midst of your enemies. Mwuahhahah! Or maybe just keep them in Bags of Holding Not a bag of holding it should be an orb. Red and white with a disk emblam on the front And when you throw them at your enemies you can shout out "I choose you"