General of Undeath Spell (SC)

[Ogrork the Mighty]

The general of undeath spell (Spell Compendium, p, 102) allows you to increase the number of HD of undead you can control by an amount equal to your caster level for a duration of 24 hours. It's an 8th-level cleric spell.

Is this underpowered? A 15th-lvl cleric will be able to control up to an additional 15 HD worth of undead for 24 hours at the cost of an 8th-lvl spell. I dunno, it just seems a little weak to me.

 

[Henrix]

I agree that it looks pretty useless. :\

 

[Evil Monkey]

I agree that the version of that spell in SC is pretty useless as written. That's why my campaign still uses the version from Player's Guide To Faerûn, where the limit is increased by 5x your level.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I imagine the designers thought 5x your level was too much but then went too far the other way. I'd expect a significant spell component for 5x your level though, especially if the duration is still 24 hours.

 

[foxwick]

It's FR, so of course it is crazy overpowered. The FR version is only V, S, DF, and has a duration of 1 day/level!

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I should have known!

 

[Beowolf]

just hold on a sec, mabye its just that i think that at higher levels that skels and zombies are not nearly effective or useful but think about it, how is having tons of extra undead overpowered? even if you pimp out your legions with good equipment and mabye some magic goodies they will still get their ass kicked. even going with undead monsters instead of just huminoids has its limitations, especially since they will lose most good abilities. at higher levels they cant cut it compared to most tough beasties, and it was never like you had the best corpses for animation just lying around.

i just find that necromancers are limited in the undead that they can effectivly create and control, really skels and zombs being the only trustworthy minions and the only ones who wont attack you when you create them, plus its a pain for good/neutral necs who cant make any decent undead that wont ravage the country side if they turn their back.

and how about go with allowing the 5X or somthing and just make the components more expensive or do somthing like force the wizard to go into a trance or somthing to proporly controll all of the undead.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I don't have a problem with the numbers, it's the lack of component and extended duration. If the spell lasts 24 hours or 1 day/level and you can cast the spell at will (i.e., no components), then that pretty much means you have a constant undead army. Which can be problematic from a game balance point of view.

 

[Beowolf]

i see what you mean about the components and that, although it would be hard to put a price on it that was fair, but id say my suggestion of having the nec be tied up by having to concentrait on maintaining control would be a signifigant cost.

honestly my problem is despite D&Ds high fantasy theme its basicly impossible to create your own undead army, even the dm would have to invent stuff for an npc to do it. even if using the combined resourses of an entire country it would be unlikely that you could get that many high level necromancers together to actually create an army. it can be even more difficult to enlist the help of powerful undead that can create their own minions aswell either because they too will have limits or its just impossible to get them to cooperate (CE and all)

im just ranting here but i like the idea of mass combat added on to d&d if only as a backdrop (though i like do like the stratagy/roleplaying/leadership about running mass battles) but i just like to see said backdrop and campain events to be within the rules without the dm having to create new rules/spells/ etc.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

That's what epic spells are for.