Panicing D&D 3.5 DM!

[Sorrock]

About 2 months ago myself and few other friends started up a Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 group. We've had prior experience with 4th edition and some(very little really) with 3.5.

I volunteered to Dungeon master for the campaign and everything has been running oddly but alright for the few weeks its been running and the party has progressed to level 3.

Now for the part I'm having trouble with. One of the player characters has been playing a dread necromancer throughout the campaign, as far as I see hes been min-maxing his build as much as he can towards resurecting undead minions and using them as his fighting style. The unsettling thing is that he claims he can have red dragons following him and doing his will later on in the campaign and that he can use hordes of zombies to fight the encounters for him.

So far hes been able to control a few zombies through rebuke which have been a giant pain for me, as he sends them into rooms first, activating traps and so on. He has also kitted them out with heavy Armour to make them into walking tanks (factoring in the terrible minuses to attack) that he just uses to wall himself off from encounters, where the entire party hides behind them.

Something about everything he does seems game breaking and now he wants to use the 'book of vile darkness's' sacrificial rules to become more powerfull. It may be due to inexperiance that I am having such difficutly comprehending how much more powerfull he is then the rest of the group, or perhaps he is in fact exploiting rules I havn't noticed.

Any advise on what I should do would be great! Thanks for reading!

P.S. I havn't set any restrictions on rule books, purely because its an evil/monster campaign. (probibly not my best idea)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Second part is easy - repeat after me 'No Book of Vile Darkness!'

Keep saying that every time he asks.

For what it is worth say the exact same thing for the Book of Exalted Deeds. If someone asks about the Book of Exalted Deeds tell them 'No Book of Vile Darkness!' Okay, maybe not exactly the same thing, but 'No' is a good start.

The first part takes more work. Take a good look at the rules for his class, seeing if he has any math 'mistakes'. Given what he has said, I suspect that you will find some.

The class has some very real weaknesses - a poor reflex save, for example, means that being behind a wall of armored zombies does not protect him from, say, Fireball.

Clerics will do bad things to his undead minions.

Zombies don't swim well to begin with. Armored zombies swim like rocks.

Poor Fort saves also mean that poison will do nasty things to him, as will any spell with a Fort save.

Make sure that any spells he is using are on his spell list - Dread Necromancers have a limited list of spells.

The Auld Grump

 

[NewJeffCT]

It's been a while since I looked at the Dread Necromancer, so, hopefully I don't mess anything up here.

However, if he is running undead "minions" there will be good aligned clerics that will be out the destroy the undead, and likely whoever is creating them.

As the Auld Grump says above - anything that requires a Reflex or Fort save will be a weakness for the dread necromancer. And, Reflex saves will also be tough on the zombie bodyguards, as the zombie template starts off with a -2 to DEX.

Undead are generally pretty weak in 3.5, unless the dread necromancer can apply his charisma bonus to their hit points or similar. Remember also, when the necromancer rebukes undead, it will last for 10 rounds, or one minute.

If you have two or three foes charging past a zombie, the zombie will only get to take an AoO on one of them. Plus, the zombies cannot take full round actions in 3.5E, either. I think they can only do partial actions. So, if you have a mobile foe, the zombies will be generally pretty pathetic against them - the mobile foe will be able to attack and then move and keep out of the range of the zombies. The zombies can move or attack, but not both. So, if the zombie has to do more than take a 5 foot step to get into melee range, they won't be able to attack. The zombies will be even slower if they're weighted down with plate armor as well. Plus, they will likely being going towards the end of the initiative, as they get a minus to their iniative.

Also - agreed with above - no Book of Vile Darkness or Book of Exalted Deeds.

 

[Marius Delphus]

So the dread necromancer has come up with a literal "meat shield." You're about to make yourself an expert in how undead work in D&D 3.5, so embrace it. Sit yourself down with a copy of Heroes of Horror and the PHB, DMG, and MM, and get some quality page-flipping time in.

No Book of Vile Darkness -- seconded.

Create situations that the zombies can't help with -- seconded.

Make sure you know the rules that apply to the character better than the player does -- seconded.

Sounds like the main thing I'd look at is the rules for rebuking and commanding undead. First, the DN can only command an undead if he has twice as many levels as the undead has HD (assuming he makes his turning check and damage rolls). Otherwise it's a rebuke -- the affected undead just cower and do nothing. Second, the DN can only command as many HD of undead (through his rebuke ability) as he has levels. Standard human zombie: 2 HD. [EDIT: The command undead spell doesn't appear to have a HD limitation, but only works on one target, and the DN won't be able to cast that until 4th level anyway.]

By "terrible minuses to attack" I assume you mean you're treating the zombies as non-proficient with the armor they're wearing -- good plan, IMO. Make sure the DN is accounting for where he gets the armor... encumbrance included (if for some reason the DN is carrying around a bunch of armor just in case he encounters a zombie).

If the zombies are making the encounters too easy, go ahead and let the DN use them, but turn up the heat. Create encounters that force the DN to *use up* the zombies. As in, he can't use what's left of them (and the armor gets munched or destroyed along with them).

Make certain the zombies interpret the DN's orders literally to the point of stupidity. Zombies have an INT of —, which means that they can't make judgment calls or react to changing circumstances, and they don't have any capacity for reason whatsoever.

If you want to be a real pain in the neck and risk a lot of friction with the player, you could enforce the bit where the PHB says it's "a standard action to give mental orders to a commanded undead." As in one undead. This would really deprive the DN of the moment where he says, "To me, my minions!" so you may want to tread lightly here.

Make certain to enforce the Single Action Only special quality.

Don't confront the DN with undead that he can rebuke. He can summon zombies with summon undead, but those don't last.

Later on, the DN will be able to cast animate dead (when he reaches 8th level), but by that time Small or Medium (2 HD) zombies will be a speed bump for the enemies he'll be facing.

Bring on at least a few enemies that can't even be made into zombies once defeated -- plant (including fungal) and ooze monsters don't have skeletons, for example.

[FURTHER EDIT: And of course none of this is meant to imply that you need to compete against the character or try to shut him down. Just make sure that, if he wants to use his abilities to the fullest, (a) you know exactly what those abilities are and can do, and (b) he gets challenged accordingly.]

HTH. HAND.

 

[Filcher]

Much less important, but still relevant: don't forget the social aspect that comes when navigating the world with rotting bodies. At some point you well step beyond the dungeon ... run a political intrigue adventure or two, or even something as simple as an adventure set in the city, and see how it goes down.

 

[Angrydad]

PC's building a zombie horde? Flying enemies with breath weapons or other area attacks are hard for slow moving grounded zombies to handle. Baddies with ranged attacks are also effective.

 

[AngryMojo]

Honestly, it may make the most sense to just kill the zombies fast enough that constantly raising them becomes more trouble than it's worth.

Also remember that there's a limit to how many HD worth of undead that he can control using rebuke. One good AOE spell and you can pretty much wipe the floor with low-level baddies.

 

[jefgorbach]

bottom line: he can min/max to his heart's content, but ultimately his choice of undead minions is limited to the selection, you as dm, decide to provide ... so while he may WANT a flight of undead dragon minions to further his concept, they tend to be solitary creatures to begin with and quite paranoid so the chances of finding a single dragon corpse/skeleton (let alone several) without personally slaying it himself is highly unlikely.

 

[Sorrock]

Just posting to say thanks to everyone who advised me! You're all so helpful ^^ I wasn't aware that zombies can't make full attacks and that they could only use 1 action per tour so that's a fantastic boon!

Thanks again,
Sorrock.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

About 2 months ago myself and few other friends started up a Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 group. We've had prior experience with 4th edition and some(very little really) with 3.5.

I volunteered to Dungeon master for the campaign and everything has been running oddly but alright for the few weeks its been running and the party has progressed to level 3.

Now for the part I'm having trouble with. One of the player characters has been playing a dread necromancer throughout the campaign, as far as I see hes been min-maxing his build as much as he can towards resurecting undead minions and using them as his fighting style. The unsettling thing is that he claims he can have red dragons following him and doing his will later on in the campaign and that he can use hordes of zombies to fight the encounters for him.

So far hes been able to control a few zombies through rebuke which have been a giant pain for me, as he sends them into rooms first, activating traps and so on. He has also kitted them out with heavy Armour to make them into walking tanks (factoring in the terrible minuses to attack) that he just uses to wall himself off from encounters, where the entire party hides behind them.

Something about everything he does seems game breaking and now he wants to use the 'book of vile darkness's' sacrificial rules to become more powerfull. It may be due to inexperiance that I am having such difficutly comprehending how much more powerfull he is then the rest of the group, or perhaps he is in fact exploiting rules I havn't noticed.

Any advise on what I should do would be great! Thanks for reading!

P.S. I havn't set any restrictions on rule books, purely because its an evil/monster campaign. (probibly not my best idea)

Hello and welcome,

Firstly: No Book of Vile Darkness! I understand you are playing in an evil campaign but even still, this book gives too much power to PCs compared to their level. Balancing things becomes much trickier if you allow this book.

Secondly: Know the rebuking/commanding turn rules and apply them. The primary restriction here is that:

At any one time, the cleric may command any number of undead whose total hit dice do not exceed his level.

If your Dread Necromancer is 3rd level, he can command up to 3HD worth of undead. Considering that Zombies start at 2HD, he is going to pretty much be limited to controlling 1 Zombie. If he has any others around, they will have to be rebuked to stay in line (where if he rolls well enough to command them, the Dread Necromancer will have to accept the new zombie as the one under his command). While possible, I think your Dread Necromancer is going to have a tough time controlling any more than a simple zombie that should be easily dispatched or avoided by their enemies. If he wants to use the zombie to trigger traps, that is cool but eventually the trap is going to be severe enough to destroy the zombie.

At 4th level, he will gain access to 2nd level spells and control undead. This is when is going to have his little group of zombies. However, the Zombies controlled by this spell act on simple "heard" instructions as against ones "mentally" controlled by commanded undead. They really act dumb and literally to any commands. Remember that you the DM determine how the mindless zombies interpret the commands given them. Don't go out of your way to frustrate the player but at the same time, this is no crack SWAT team by any imagination.

Perhaps the thing to do is accept that this is what the player wants to achieve and allow him some measure of success in the endeavour. However, every so often, his "horde" is going to be cleaned out every so often by tough encounters and religious zealots and so he will have to rebuild his troops from scratch.

Balance is the key, making sure that other Players at the table have their time too. If this continues to be a problem, sit the player down, commend him on his ability to craft a super-effective PC but then explain the issues you are having and get him to assist with a solution.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise