Creating Constructs/Animating Undead/Summoning Planar Entities

[Jürgen Hubert]

Since the currently published rules somehow neglected to provide guidelines for

• Creating constructs
• Animating undead
• Summoning and binding extraplanar creatures

I thought I should give it a try. You can see my writeup here. I especially like how well the skill challenge system can represent the summoning process and how the summoner must overcome the will of the summoned creature.


What do you think of these rituals? And how do you handle this in your own campaigns?

 

[guybrush]

Jürgen, I really like these rituals. I still think there should be a power for summoning creatures during combat, but for other kinds of tasks, your summoning ritual is excellent. I love the construct and undead rituals too.

Just to clarify: these are just templates for rituals, rather than rituals, right? So a Wizard doesn't learn one ritual called "Animate (Construct)" and then use it to create any construct up to his level, but rather must learn the level 2 ritual "Animate Clay Scout" to create a clay scout homonculous, and the level 17 ritual "Animate Stone Golem" to create a stone golem.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Jürgen, I really like these rituals. I still think there should be a power for summoning creatures during combat, but for other kinds of tasks, your summoning ritual is excellent.

"Combat summoning" should probably a power of a specific class, or at least a power you can gain through something like multiclass feats. I wanted something for "off-screen" summoning that takes up more time, and can be done by anyone who knows the right rituals.

I love the construct and undead rituals too.

Just to clarify: these are just templates for rituals, rather than rituals, right? So a Wizard doesn't learn one ritual called "Animate (Construct)" and then use it to create any construct up to his level, but rather must learn the level 2 ritual "Animate Clay Scout" to create a clay scout homonculous, and the level 17 ritual "Animate Stone Golem" to create a stone golem.

Exactly - that's why each entry mentions that different creatures require different rituals to create/summon. The DM is encouraged to customize these templates - by elaborating on what kind of components you need for specific constructs or undead, or how the skill challenge works for specific kinds of summoned entities. For example, salamanders might work for rubies on a successful Diplomacy roll, while devils want the sacrifice of an innocent - and demons might not listen to Diplomacy at all.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I would also like to add that DMs are encouraged to customize summoning rituals for specific creatures. For example, Diplomacy might not work at all for demons, while angels might be immune to Bluff or Arcana. Some creatures might also be famous for fulfilling specific tasks - such as sphinxes guarding sites - and binding them to such a task might demand a lower complexity while tasks counter to the nature of the entity summoned might result in a higher complexity or be right-out impossible.

The DM might also specify what kinds of bargains with Diplomacy work best for specific creatures. Devils might demand a human sacrifice or tempting an influential person to sin. Salamanders might demand payment in rubies. And so forth - there's no limit to how these rituals can be customized within the overall framework.

 

[Anthony Jackson]

I would scale costs based on magic item values (probably just 'same as a magic item of the same level', not xp values, because the amount of money PCs have on hand follows the magic item values, not the xp values. This does mean it's generally more cost-effective to create a horde of weenie monsters than one big monster, but that's hardly out of genre, and you eventually hit diminishing returns.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I would scale costs based on magic item values (probably just 'same as a magic item of the same level', not xp values, because the amount of money PCs have on hand follows the magic item values, not the xp values. This does mean it's generally more cost-effective to create a horde of weenie monsters than one big monster, but that's hardly out of genre, and you eventually hit diminishing returns.

Hmmm. Probably a good idea, with appropriate scaling for minions, elites, and solos. I'll think a bit about which values to use...