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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 5885834" data-attributes="member: 63">When you have a player who wants to do something that is not explicitly covered in the rules, you can either say no, or you can say yes. So . . . um, say yes (with a few appropriate caveats). How hard is that? Player: "Dear GM, at 1st level we fought a spellcaster who zapped us with necrotic energy and commanded undead. Why can't I do the same thing at 1st level?"GM: "Did you ask? Okay, you're asking now. If it matters to you so much, sure, we can make it work."Now, there's a limit to how much any given character can learn, at least at low level. And the game designers haven't yet included options for commanding hordes of undead, so we're going to have to improvise. How about this? Instead of playing a 'wizard' with access to lots of spells, we limit you to just necromancy, at least until 5th level or so.  To balance that out, you get a pet zombie who improves as you level up, sort of a cross between a druid's pet wolf and a familiar."Player: "But the necromancer had a whole swarm of undead. I want a swarm of undead."GM: "You're being a little greedy. He was not a '1st-level NPC who could command a swarm of undead.' He was a 1st-level NPC who, in order to be a challenge for your party, was encountered along with a swarm of undead that were cooperating with him, but weren't under his control. So hypothetically you might be able to manage this. Your main pet zombie, it'll do what you say regardless. But the other ones you'd have to feed regularly, and they probably wouldn't work well with a party of living adventurers."</blockquote>

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