Special Conversion Thread: Moldvay's Undead

[demiurge1138]

Phase door: makes sense.

Electricity immunity is good, but we should also add fire resistance 10.

I think we should change the written command to something more like a symbol spell, either pain or weakness. Written greater command is weird. We could, alternatively, give it an actual greater command as a spell-like ability.

Demiurge out.

 

[freyar]

All that sounds good to me. I also agree with changing the written command to a symbol. Why not do both and also give it greater command as an SLA? If it can essentially animate 4 stone golems, it needs to be a high enough CR to go with that. Maybe we should even bump the HD.

 

[Shade]

All that sounds good to me. I also agree with changing the written command to a symbol. Why not do both and also give it greater command as an SLA? If it can essentially animate 4 stone golems, it needs to be a high enough CR to go with that. Maybe we should even bump the HD.

You raise a good point. Stone golems are CR 11. At best, this guy will be on par with them. Perhaps a further HD bump is necessary. We have a long way to go before we tread on the turf of the even-more-super-mummy, the hunefer, clocking in at a whopping 50 HD!

Perhaps we should decide on the target CR for the ka first, and work backwards from there.

As an aside, we can always limit it to 1 stone golem, and grant more with so many additional HD, too.

 

[freyar]

Maybe the easiest is to give it 1 stone golem plus 1 per two additional hd (max 4)?

For the symbol, maybe fear, persuasion, or pain for the writing. Do we want any limits on how many per day, or is the full-round action enough of a limiting factor? Edit: symbols normally take 10 minutes, so should we lengthen the writing time?

 

[demiurge1138]

If we wanted to keep the ka weaker, we could replace the stone golems with large animated objects.

And I think we should lengthen the writing time on the symbols and give it greater command.

Demiurge out.

 

[freyar]

If we wanted to keep the ka weaker, we could replace the stone golems with large animated objects.

This is something we really need to decide, I guess. It's a big power drop, though, if we use animated objects. Were 2e stone golems significantly weaker than 3.5?

 

[Shade]

This is something we really need to decide, I guess. It's a big power drop, though, if we use animated objects. Were 2e stone golems significantly weaker than 3.5?

They appear essentially the same (same HD, same immunities, etc.)

 

[demiurge1138]

So if we want to keep the stone golems (which I think we do)... the ka's going to need a significant boost. Make the CR 15, work our way back? I say 15 because EL calculations are easier for 2 stone golems (EL 13+15 for the ka = EL 16) or 4 (EL 15+15 = EL 17).

Demiurge out.

 

[Shade]

CR 15 sounds good.

Advancing a mummy to CR 15 gives 48 HD! That's a bit much.

The CR 15 hullathoin has 16 HD. The CR 15 deathshrieker has 18 HD. The CR 14 nightwing has 17 HD. The CR 16 nightwalker has 21 HD. A CR 16 gravecrawler has 16 HD.

So I'd say our target HD range is in the 16-20 range.

 

[freyar]

I'm going to say we should go on the low end and pick 16 HD (though I could see 17 easily enough). It seems to me that most of the ka's abilities are spell-casting in nature -- greater command, "summoning" stone golems, the symbols -- even though it's probably competent in melee too.