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View Full Version : Improving Summon Undead - what to add?



DragoonWraith
2010-06-30, 10:28 AM
The Summon Undead spells from The Book of Bad Latin and Spell Compendium are pretty much terrible. The allip is about the only saving grace in there (and that one's arguably problematic). One issue is a very stupid clause regarding HD and how it relates to CL - it prevents use of some of the Undead at the level you get the spells, including a fully 6 levels after you get one of them (Summon Undead IV has a Wyvern Zombie that cannot be used until CL 13). That's an easy fix - just ditch that line, it wasn't important anyway.

The other problem is that the five spells, in total, allow the summoning of exactly as many creatures as Summon Monster I. That means the SM line offers about 5x as many options as SU. This is just insulting.

Since I'm playing a Dread Necromancer, have been given the go-ahead to look into the issue by my DM, and know almost nothing about the Undead out there, can anyone recommend some for this? It would be much appreciated. CRs should be about equal to the CRs found in the existing Summon Undead spells, and those CRs should be relatively accurate, if possible.

Thanks!

G3N3R3L GHOST
2010-06-30, 10:46 AM
Playing a dread necromancer in the past was an awesome experience for me, so good choice in class first of all. I also saw how amazingly unamazing the summon undead line of spells was so I simply did not use them. Use your other undead making spells and apply your level 8 ability to really make an army of darkness. If you are bound to summon undead for whatever reason though your DM's ruling is probably the best bet as I have not seen any sort of fixes for these spells in my time.

DragoonWraith
2010-07-01, 12:10 AM
I agree that the class has plenty of other neat tricks. But the weakness of these spells just bugs me, so yeah, I want to fix it. I'm going to start going through my MM's tomorrow...

PId6
2010-07-01, 12:32 AM
Actually, the LM line is incredibly broken because it doesn't have the HD limit clause. SUIII summons any Huge skeleton, letting you summon Young Adult Red Dragon Skeletons, which have 19 HD and are CR 8, by level 5. The SpC version nerfed it a lot, leading to both saner and weaker summons.

The SpC list is quite underwhelming, but there are a few gems on there. Troll Skeleton from SUIII worked quite well against my players when I used it, and since it's 6 HD, it's available as soon as you get the spell. And, as you've mentioned, incorporeal undead like Allips can be overwhelmingly good against enemies that can't deal with them.

On the other hand, many of the creatures on the list are horribly misplaced (you can't actually use SUII when you get it as a wizard/cleric due to the HD of the monsters available :smallannoyed:), and you'll never have a use for zombies due to how high their HDs are compared to skeletons.

An alternative could be maybe using the LM's open ended list, but apply a limit based on CR, like, say, your CL must be at least 2x the creature's CR to summon it, with a maximum limit based on the spell. This prevents overwhelmingly powerful summons, while at the same time keeps the zombie/skeleton discrepancies from being too high.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-07-01, 12:39 AM
The best part about Summon Undead is that using higher level versions to summon creatures from a lower level list gets a set number of creatures, rather than getting just as many due to a bad roll. Any character I've played who's used these spells has done so as follows:

Summon Undead I: Pretty worthless unless you need a trap sprung.
Summon Undead II: Owlbear Skeleton for damage, Bugbear Zombie for a meat shield.
Summon Undead III: Troll Skeleton or 2 Owlbear Skeletons for damage dealers, or Ogre Zombie or 2 Bugbear Zombies for a meat shield.
Summon Undead IV: 2 Troll Skeletons or 4 Owlbear Skeletons for damage, or 2 Ogre Zombies or 4 Bugbear Zombies for meat shields.
Summon Undead V: 4 Troll Skeletons for damage, or 4 Ogre Zombies for meat shields.

The summon options with special abilities are situational at best. Summoning multiple extra attackers takes opponents' attacks off of PCs, they get in the way of opponents' movement, and the skeletons can put out a decent amount of damage especially when summoned into flanking positions. Plus ordering your Ogre Zombies to grapple medium or smaller opponents is just amazing, considering their reach and grapple bonus. It's probably a good idea to summon creatures whose DR the opponents can't overcome, so if they have swords and axes you get Skeletons and if they have greatclubs and heavy maces you get Zombies. Plus you can use your Negative Energy Burst and Mass Inflict spells to heal them as you damage opponents.

A Dread Necromancer is more of a controller class than anything. Use controlled minions and summoned monsters to get a tactical advantage. Get a Ghostly Visage familiar and have it always possessing you, in combat it can manifest over your face to force opponents to make a save or be paralyzed. It can also spend a standard action to focus its gaze on an opponent to force it to save again or be paralyzed anyway. You can get Dreadful Wrath or barring that Frightful Presence to debuff their saves and attacks, plus with Never Outnumbered and maybe even Imperious Command you can stack fear effects on an entire encounter. With so many debuffs and save-or-suck options on your spell list your opponents shouldn't ever have a chance of winning a battle against your party.