2o-Eyed Foe
First Post
I had an interesting situation come up in my game tonight and thought I would run it by the regular posters here to get some opinions.
A few weeks ago a fighter in my campaign found 'Night Caller' (a magic whistle which has the ability to animate a corpse as per the animate dead spell, for those who don't know) and has since had a zombie following him around. I also have a necromancer who has taken the Cold One feat from the Ravenloft setting. Now, this is a Forgotten Realms campaign, but I let him take the feat because it fit his backstory nicely and added some great flavor to his character.
Tonight, in the final epic battle of the current adventure, the fighter with the zombie was charmed by the PC's opponents, failed the opposed CHA checks and began attacking the party. He first began attacking the Cleric in the party because the charm casting opponent perceived her to be the most immediate threat. One thing led to another and the fighter eventually attempted to attack the necromancer who had the Cold One feat. According to the feat, non-intelligent undead ignore those with this feat unless they are attacked by the 'cold one'. This is where things got a bit tricky. The fighter, while carrying out the orders of the charm casting villain, instructed the zombie to attack the necromancer as well. This raised a few questions:
1) Does a non-intelligent undead creature attack a character with Cold One when it has been instructed to?
2) And if so, where is the line drawn? For instance, a magic user raises a skeleton, creates a zombie ..etc.. and instructs it to guard a doorway, attacking anything that passes through it. Some time later the necromancer with the Cold One feat passes through the doorway. Does the mindless undead attack the necromancer or ignore him as per the feat?
I do not like to stop the action during a session to sort out these types of uncertainties in the rules, so I ruled in favor of the party and said that the zombie would ignore the command. This was just a snap decision to keep things rolling and we agreed to discuss it later and set down a house rule for it. There was some discussion and a number of different ideas; opposed CHA checks, DC 13 wisdom based roll for the undead, and so on. I am sure that this type of situation will arise again at some point, because the necromancer has this feat, so I was hoping to have a decent solution for it by next session. Anybody have any ideas?
Thanks,
2o-Eyed Foe
A few weeks ago a fighter in my campaign found 'Night Caller' (a magic whistle which has the ability to animate a corpse as per the animate dead spell, for those who don't know) and has since had a zombie following him around. I also have a necromancer who has taken the Cold One feat from the Ravenloft setting. Now, this is a Forgotten Realms campaign, but I let him take the feat because it fit his backstory nicely and added some great flavor to his character.
Tonight, in the final epic battle of the current adventure, the fighter with the zombie was charmed by the PC's opponents, failed the opposed CHA checks and began attacking the party. He first began attacking the Cleric in the party because the charm casting opponent perceived her to be the most immediate threat. One thing led to another and the fighter eventually attempted to attack the necromancer who had the Cold One feat. According to the feat, non-intelligent undead ignore those with this feat unless they are attacked by the 'cold one'. This is where things got a bit tricky. The fighter, while carrying out the orders of the charm casting villain, instructed the zombie to attack the necromancer as well. This raised a few questions:
1) Does a non-intelligent undead creature attack a character with Cold One when it has been instructed to?
2) And if so, where is the line drawn? For instance, a magic user raises a skeleton, creates a zombie ..etc.. and instructs it to guard a doorway, attacking anything that passes through it. Some time later the necromancer with the Cold One feat passes through the doorway. Does the mindless undead attack the necromancer or ignore him as per the feat?
I do not like to stop the action during a session to sort out these types of uncertainties in the rules, so I ruled in favor of the party and said that the zombie would ignore the command. This was just a snap decision to keep things rolling and we agreed to discuss it later and set down a house rule for it. There was some discussion and a number of different ideas; opposed CHA checks, DC 13 wisdom based roll for the undead, and so on. I am sure that this type of situation will arise again at some point, because the necromancer has this feat, so I was hoping to have a decent solution for it by next session. Anybody have any ideas?
Thanks,
2o-Eyed Foe