PDA

View Full Version : large scale undead creation



Erith
2009-08-01, 11:59 AM
I'm working on a campaign that will focus on the main bbeg setting up an automatic undead creation factory. The group would either be trying to destroy it or prevent it from being made.

The main idea would be to use a bunch of tippyesque traps to automate undead creation. My original idea was to pao magically created rocks or iron or something into the oldest dragon I can, kill them with traps, create greater undead them with traps, and then mindraping them into being my loyal servants with a trap.

The problem I'm running into is that it looks like pao only lets me polymorph something into a creature with hd less than my cl or the targets hd, whichever is lower, and rocks don't have hd. It also might be nice to have undead other than dragons as my servants, but dragons hd are tied to their age, and i'm not sure about any other ways to mass produce xp.

Woodsman
2009-08-01, 12:03 PM
Spell: Plague of Undead

Animates 68 HD of undead as soon as you can cast it. Of course, I doubt you can make it into a trap.

Quirinus_Obsidian
2009-08-01, 12:14 PM
Spell: Plague of Undead

Animates 68 HD of undead as soon as you can cast it. Of course, I doubt you can make it into a trap.

Maybe not, but with a properly placed Contingency or 5 and a few Darkskulls here and there... the sky's the limit my friend.

Erith
2009-08-01, 12:14 PM
unless I'm misreading the srd, you can make any spell into a trap What book is that from?

Woodsman
2009-08-01, 12:16 PM
Spell Compendium.

Erith
2009-08-01, 12:28 PM
Plague of undead looks like it might be nice to have in the field, but one of my major goals is to get around undead control and creation limits by mindraping intelligent undead

quick_comment
2009-08-01, 12:30 PM
Mindrape any undead that creates spawn and then have them massacre a few dozen towns.

Radar
2009-08-01, 12:54 PM
Mindrape any undead that creates spawn and then have them massacre a few dozen towns.
Shadow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm)(or greater version) looks great for this plan. :smallamused:

Jair Barik
2009-08-01, 01:08 PM
Plague of the undead+Awaken undead both from Libris Mortis

Jack_Simth
2009-08-01, 01:13 PM
Plague of undead looks like it might be nice to have in the field, but one of my major goals is to get around undead control and creation limits by mindraping intelligent undead
Umm... Mindrape is a Mind-Affecting spell, so undead are immune. You'll need to use Polymorph Any Object on them before you can do that.

But what you want is a line of free corpses getting fed into a trap. So what you do:

A periodic Wall of Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfStone.htm) trap (for an unlimited supply of stone)
A periodic Fabricate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm) trap (to turn the walls into statues)
A periodic Stone to Flesh (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneToFlesh.htm) trap (to turn the statues into corpses)
A periodic Animate Dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm) trap (to make the corpses into zombies or skeletons)
An automatic reset Command Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandUndead.htm) trap (to give them orders - "go wait there" essentially).

After that, you just come by every now and again and cast a few Chained (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Chain_Spell,all) Command Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandUndead.htm) spells to harvest them for your armies.

That's if you want it as a factory, of course. No saves involved on the part of your materials, you get them waiting at the factory for X number of days, and you can walk by and harvest an absurd number of them, no problem, based on your caster level.

But if you're the DM, you can just handwave it.

Shinizak
2009-08-01, 01:16 PM
Dread wraiths are much better, they drain Con.

Keld Denar
2009-08-01, 01:42 PM
Fell Draining Flash Frost Locate City??? WIGHTOCOLYPSE!

Of cource, they aren't controlled.

If your baddy was cleric (clerics are better at this kinda thing), a DMM Fell Animate Greater Consumptive Field would be cool. Just walz through a city and anyone with like, 8 HP or less (99% of people) are automatically killed and animated as zombies under your control.

BRAINSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Irreverent Fool
2009-08-02, 05:51 AM
Fell Draining Flash Frost Locate City??? WIGHTOCOLYPSE!

Of cource, they aren't controlled.

If your baddy was cleric (clerics are better at this kinda thing), a DMM Fell Animate Greater Consumptive Field would be cool. Just walz through a city and anyone with like, 8 HP or less (99% of people) are automatically killed and animated as zombies under your control.

BRAINSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Locate City does not work that way. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72212&page=7)

You could just use minor creation, polymorph any object and animate dead. Once the thing is animated, it's an animated-whatever, it doesn't care about the polymoprh.

Me though? I'd have the factory's 'workers' scour the countryside for victims to bring back to feed to the wights or the shadows or other spawn-raisers. If you control the original creature, you essentially control its spawn as well.

Alternately, a bunny farm and polymorph traps. Polymorph baby bunnies into humans. Kill humans with shadows. Shadows raise.

obnoxious
sig

elonin
2009-08-02, 07:20 AM
It's funny that I had no problem with any of this (and may use some of it later) until it came to the bunny farm idea. Wiping out a small town/large village is ok but leave the bunnies alone!

Zergrusheddie
2009-08-02, 08:52 AM
Locate City does not work that way. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72212&page=7)

You could just use minor creation, polymorph any object and animate dead. Once the thing is animated, it's an animated-whatever, it doesn't care about the polymoprh.

Me though? I'd have the factory's 'workers' scour the countryside for victims to bring back to feed to the wights or the shadows or other spawn-raisers. If you control the original creature, you essentially control its spawn as well.

Alternately, a bunny farm and polymorph traps. Polymorph baby bunnies into humans. Kill humans with shadows. Shadows raise.

obnoxious
sig

I believe Keld Denar meant that the Locate City would not kill everyone there from damage. However, most of the populace are level 1 Commoners and Fel Drain deals 1 Negative Level. It would turn all the people who are now Level 0 into Wights.


It is so funny how people think:
Wiping out a city? No problem, we need the material 'components'.

Killing school children? See above.

Scouring the country to throw the commoners at the Shadows to make more Shadows? Ehh, we are Evil.

Going to a bunny farm to make Undead? You miserable bastard! Why would you hurt the bunnies?!

Jalor
2009-08-02, 08:58 AM
I have a Dread Necromancer lich who made a Shadow and a Mohrg. The Shadow makes spawn with no limit, and the Mohrg makes Zombies with no hit die maximum. I killed a bunch of peasants with the Shadow to make an incorporeal death squad, and the Mohrg just coup de graces everything larger than Medium to make meat shields.

Johel
2009-08-02, 09:18 AM
After that, you just come by every now and again and cast a few Chained (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Chain_Spell,all) Command Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandUndead.htm) spells to harvest them for your armies.

That's if you want it as a factory, of course. No saves involved on the part of your materials, you get them waiting at the factory for X number of days, and you can walk by and harvest an absurd number of them, no problem, based on your caster level.

But if you're the DM, you can just handwave it.

That's so broken and yet so attractive.
If the BBG is a 20th level wizard, he can control 20 undeads per casting during 20 days, so that's up to 400 undeads PER 5th LEVEL SPELL SLOT.

NOT 400HDs of undead, 400 undead CREATURES !!

I don't really like "Stone to Flesh", as the statue will just be a mass of flesh without stats. Would the statue of a dragon become a dead dragon, then ?

Alternative :
A rat (or bunny, or any inexpensive, fast-breeding mammals) farm.
A tunnel which open every so and then to lead rats to the factory.
A periodic Polymorph Any Object trap (to make rats into rhinoceros or any dangerous mammals with good stats and an intelligence of 2 or less.)
A periodic Wail of the Banshee trap (to kill the rhinorceros)
A periodic Animate Dead trap (to make the corpses into zombies or skeletons)

Any rhinoceros which isn't kill by the spell is then kill by the undeads. Even if a few undeads die in the process, that's no big deal, they costed you the price of raising a rat (and a fraction of the factory).

Result : an army of 400 undead Rhinoceros (or any dangerous mammals with good stats and an intelligence of 2 or less.) per 5th level spell slot under your control. That's up to 1.600 undeads without even trying.

EDIT : If you aren't concern by animal suffering but that cost is an issue, scrap the "Wail of the Banshee" and have a Cloudkill trap activate every 10 minutes.

Coidzor
2009-08-02, 09:22 AM
You do remember that you have dramatic license, right?

It'd be flavorful though if he had some kind of process that transformed the black onyx/obsidian/whatever it is the cool kids are using these days for necromancy, directly into the undead creature, with various size stones/piles being turned into different types which are then commanded by mind-raped-loyal undead which are able to command and rebuke undead, and who serve as lieutenants/squad leaders

Jack_Simth
2009-08-02, 09:34 AM
That's so broken and yet so attractive.
If the BBG is a 20th level wizard, he can control 20 undeads per casting during 20 days, so that's up to 400 undeads.

NOT 400HDs of undead, 400 undead CREATURES !!

20 "Per casting" - and a chained Command Undead is a 5th level spell, so that 20th level Wizard can do this a lot.

Of course, this is potentially doable by a 9th level Wizard... and if you just leave the thing running, the undead the thing produces will become free-willed (once the duration expires), so if you simply assassinate the guy once it's up, you've got a different problem.


I don't really like "Stone to Flesh", as the statue will just be a mass of flesh without stats. Would the statue of a dragon become a dead dragon, then ?

As listed in the Stone to Flesh spell (linked earlier): "an ordinary statue would become a corpse."

As the DM, just use the basic stats for the shape of the flesh and the intended result of the Fabricate's image, just like you would for Polymorph, and you're good to go.


Alternative :
A rat (or bunny, or any inexpensive, fast-breeding mammals) farm.
A tunnel which open every so and then to lead rats to the factory.
A periodic Polymorph Any Object trap (to make rats into rhinoceros or any dangerous mammals with good stats and an intelligence of 2 or less.)
A periodic Wail of the Banshee trap (to kill the rhinorceros)
A periodic Animate Dead trap (to make the corpses into zombies or skeletons)

Any rhinoceros which isn't kill by the spell is then kill by the undeads. Even if a few undeads die in the process, that's no big deal, they costed you the price of raising a rat (and a fraction of the factory).

Result : an army of 400 undead Rhinoceros (or any dangerous mammals with good stats and an intelligence of 2 or less.) under your control.
You're forgetting the Command Undead trap to go with this... but that should work as well. Downsides:
1) You need something to clear out the dead bodies from certain stages.
2) You've got saves involved that may need to be rolled (although if you do this right, most of those will be nat-20's only, so just 5%).
3) You still need to come along and feed the rats/rabbits/whatever.

Johel
2009-08-02, 09:53 AM
I edited the first post so that all information are summed up above.

Yep, that's 20 undeads per casting, for 20 days, so 400 undeads at a time per 2nd level spellslot you're willing to use. That's at least 1.600 undeads.

The "waste disposal" thing might be a problem.
You could switch of the factory everytime you come, cast the Chain Command Undead, then have them join the army.
Meanwhile, you "hire" (enslave ?) a group of maiden to clean the place.

Same for the "rat feeding".
You have the maidens do it as a reward ("-no gutt cleaning for you this week. You get to feed the rats and clean their pen. Say thanks").
They could drop the "wastes" to the rats. They aren't picky.

The "5% success for the saves" solved themselves by having the 95% of undeads around killing the "lucky" survivors.
You can also use 100 "Ray of Frost" traps to do the job instead of the "Wail of the Banshee" trap. Less efficient but less costly. Your call.
Scrap the Wail of the Banshee and have a Cloudkill trap activate every 10 minutes.

EDIT :
Cost :

1 "Polymorph Any Object" trap : 76.500 gp, 6.120 XP
1 "Cloudkill" trap : 22.500 gp, 1.800 XP
1 "Animate Undead" trap : 114.000 gp, 1.120 XP
Ratfarm : 1 gp / week ?
Slave maidens : 1 gp / week each ?


Polymorph Any Object (Rats to Rhinoceros) trap :
+500 gp × 17 × 9 = 76.500 gp
+40 XP × 17 × 9 = 6.120 XP
Cloud kill trap :
+500 gp × 9 × 5 = 22.500 gp
+40 XP × 9 × 5 = 1.800 XP
Animate Undead trap :
+500 gp × 7 × 4 = 14.000 gp
+40 XP × 7 × 4 = 1.120 XP
Material components for "Animate Undead" trap :
100 x 25 gp/HD x 40 HD = + 100.000 gp

Radar
2009-08-02, 10:13 AM
The "5% success for the saves" solved themselves by having the 95% of undeads around killing the "lucky" survivors.
You can also use 100 "Ray of Frost" traps to do the job instead of the "Wail of the Banshee" trap. Less efficient but less costly. Your call.
The answer to the problem is Cloudkill - no save death for low HD creatures or constant Con damage for others.

Johel
2009-08-02, 10:22 AM
The answer to the problem is Cloudkill - no save death for low HD creatures or constant Con damage for others.

*quick calculating*
Active for about 9 minutes, that's between 90 Con and 360 Con damage.
6+ HD creatures got half of that.
Cost : 22.500 gp, 1.800 XP

That's perfect and cost less XP than my "Ray of Frost" nonsense.
Timed activation every 10 minutes and that's a 100% kill

*Scrap the Ray of Frost*
*Write the Cloudkill*
*Replace Rhinoceros by Radar for the Polymorph spell, as gratitude*

Drogorn
2009-08-02, 11:35 AM
Homebrew an undead that oozes a black tarlike substance that infects victims with ghoul fever when they touch it. After that, command undead.

elonin
2009-08-02, 12:04 PM
On another angle are there decent undead maker for pc strategies that make it a workable strategy? For example the cheapest undead to make cost 100 gold to make each and die easily. While there is cheese available, I'd prefer to avoid that.

Jack_Simth
2009-08-02, 12:05 PM
Yep, that's 20 undeads per casting, for 20 days, so 400 undeads at a time per 2nd level spellslot you're willing to use. That's at least 1.600 undeads.
Correction: 5th level spell slot (well, unless you pick up a couple of Lesser Metamagic Rods of Chain Spell from the Magic Item Compendium (at 14,000 gp each), or use some other metamagic reducers). But yes - massive, massive army of mindless undead.

On another angle are there decent undead maker for pc strategies that make it a workable strategy? For example the cheapest undead to make cost 100 gold to make each and die easily. While there is cheese available, I'd prefer to avoid that.
Yeah. There's a lot of feats that boost undead you've made yourself, or help with controlling undead hordes. Corpsecrafter (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Corpsecrafter,all), Bolster Resistance (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Bolster_Resistance,all), Deadly Chill (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Deadly_Chill,all), Death Curse (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Death_Curse,all), Destruction Retribution (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Destruction_Retribution,all), Hardend Flesh (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Hardened_Flesh,all), Heightened Strength (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Heightened_Strength,all), Improved Animation (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Improved_Animation,all), Master of Undeath (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Master_Of_Undeath,all), Necromantic Might (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Necromantic_Might,all), Necromantic Presence (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Necromantic_Presence,all), Nimble Bones (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Nimble_Bones,all), and of course (to cheapen undead creation) Fell Animate (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Fell_Animate,all). This is ignoring the Core stuff, like the Desecrate spell's effect on animating undead.