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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 1825075" data-attributes="member: 1465">As an artifact, I would expect it to be VERY powerful. In the hands of a PC it effectively goes very far in power, since it seems to allow for an unlimited number of undead at your service, with the only limit that you create not more than 1/day, so it may take a long time to build an army. It also allows to become a vampire or a lich, which is definitely a huge boon, but won't simply fit in most campaigns - and if it doesn't fit in your campaign, it doesn't matter the power, you just run the risk of turning the game into something none of the players want - however it's usable only by evil characters, so the typical party would simply try to get rid of the rod.OTOH in the hands of an NPC it doesn't seem extraordinary powerful. I mean... what's the difference between a Lich with this Rod and a Lich with 100 undead minions? It's the same <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> So it's just up to the DM to choose how many undead there are in the lair serving their master, no matter how the master managed to create them. It would be very different if it created undead 1/round, that would be terribly powerful...The spectre-spawning ability is scary for the players but it's quite in line with what happens when fighting several undead, so I think it's fine.The possible insta-kill on critical is IMO the most effective feature against the PC, especially since the crit range is 18-20! That is definitely what a DM sould be most worried about when using this artifact.I join the others in the opinion that the description is too large. Beside the fact that you obviously had fun in designing the artifact, which is good of course  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> , having such a long detailed description about how it works it very very little useful in practice... for example:- why specifying all those options of controlling what the summoned undead are doing? just go with something like "the wielder of the Rod is telepathically linked to all undead created by the Rod within X miles, and has full knowledge and control over them".- why bothering with the huge list of every possible undead created? when used by the BBEG, the DM already knows which undead minion should be in the adventure; when used by the PC just choose a random undead or at most roll a d20 to see how many HD it has and that's it- do you really need all those details about becoming a Lich, or what happens when the Lich dies, blah blah... what is the chance that this actually has a part in the game? remember that everything which the players will NOT see didn't have any need for being specified beforehand. A PC decides he wants to use the Rod to become a Lich? Only at that point you may need rules for that, and definitely not "immediately"  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> These are just suggestions about how to write a description of such an item. The item itself, as I said before, is fine as it is.</blockquote>

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