Animate Dead I-IX?

[Cthulhudrew]

Don't know if this is the right forum to post this, but I was curious if anyone had ever thought of doing a series of Animate Dead spells equivalent to the Summon Monster/Summon Animal spells already existing?

Seems to me it might be pretty useful (more useful in some ways than existing Animate Dead/Create Undead spells, if shorter in duration), as well as allowing for the creation of "real" Necromancer types- for instance, they could do the cleric/druid "Spontaneous" Animate Dead by swapping out a prepared spell of the equivalent level.

The existing Animate/Create Undead type of spells could be renamed/reworked into something like the Planar Ally/Planar Binding spells in order to accomodate more "long term" undead allies.

Anyone see any potential problems with this approach that I might be missing?

 

[Scion]

isnt there something already very like that in libris mortim? I am pretty sure they have a way to add undead to the various charts (although I believe that it uses the 3.0 version of various undead and not the 3.5 version, still).

 

[Raylis]

There are Summon Undead I-IX in The Dragonlance Campaign Setting and in Magic of Faerun

-Raylis

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Wow! Those were some quick responses! Thanks!

I thought I'd heard something similar was in Libris Mortis, but can't seem to find the posts now (and I don't have a copy of it- thinking of picking it up, though).

Didn't realize it showed up in Magic of Faerun, too. In any case, sounds like it wouldn't be a problem to implement, then. Cool!

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Yep, the Summon Undead spells from Magic of Faerun are in Libris Mortis. Very fun spells, though power level is dubious at points...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

You mean to tell me they still haven't fixed those Summon Undead spells? I was playing in a FR game a while back and someone summoned a Huge skeleton to fight the party. In 3.0 that would be a CR 2 critter with 26 HP. In 3.5 it's either a CR 6 advanced megaraptor skeleton or it's a cloud giant skeleton, either of which have a CR that's higher than the guy summoning them. We ran away, and then I found out that WotC basically just copied and pasted the spell from the 3.0 book to the 3.5 book. No errata, no nothing. Now they've done it with Libris Mortis, too? I'll be damned if I ever pick that book up then.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!

Of course, if it's in LM, does that mean it's legal for Living Greyhawk play? The possibilities...

 

[Li Shenron]

Yep, the Summon Undead spells from Magic of Faerun are in Libris Mortis. Very fun spells, though power level is dubious at points...

Are they changed in any way? I used to think the MoF ones were quite weak...

 

[Geoff Watson]

Are they changed in any way? I used to think the MoF ones were quite weak...

The spells aren't changed, but the skeletons and zombies in the MM have been greatly improved for their size.

Geoff.

 

[Li Shenron]

The spells aren't changed, but the skeletons and zombies in the MM have been greatly improved for their size.

Geoff.

What an incredible oversight by the authors :\

 

[Quinnman]

Yeah - just checked the spell-description...

A 5th-level wizard can summon a Huge Cloud Giant Skeleton (CR7) with 110! hps and a full attack of +18/+18 with damage 1d8+12/1d8+12!!!
On top of that comes a grapple check of +28!, 15 ft. reach, speed 50 ft. and a friggin strength of 35! (think of what you can do with 35 in strength - at level 5!)

Its utterly insane!