Susano-wo
2010-07-05, 08:15 PM
After seeing the improved Familiar pic in Complete warrior,
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/cw_ag/75439.jpg
I really wanted to make a Lawful Good Halfling Necromancer (I know, my mind works in bizarre ways sometimes. The way I thought of to do this would be to, instead of raising corpses, you use a modified version of speak with dead to obtain their consent to be used later. Perhaps their souls are stored in gems, or jars, a bone from their corpse, etc.
Then you cast a modified animate dead, that creates undead of legal combinations under the normal create undead spell description. When the undead is destroyed, the soul is released, though the caster could, by using a full round action(?), cause the soul to return to the receptacle.
I see the need to get volunteers to be probably more than a balance to the ability to summon the undead you wanted then and there (well, after an hour). Am I wrong? would this be overpowered?
And the other question is the benefit for the dead soul. Since its a pact, the easiest way for a benefit would be a requirement of the caster. Something along the lines of avenge my death, make sure that my family is provided for, etc. If he does not make reasonable attempt to fulfill this (and by reasonable, I mean if you have to put off, say, avenging his death, that's ok, but you can't just skip town and 'get around to' doing it at some indefinite point in the future), he loses his souls, and becomes tainted; unable to use this version of the spell until he atones for his mistreatment of the dead.
Some of this I think is related to the culture I came up with, but the only thing that's really important is that he would be traveling from his land for the first time, where it would be an honor to serve again after death, so though he would have some already prepared, the difficulty in convincing new souls to join up for him should balance out the creation of whatever undead you wanted for the situation with enough prep time
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/cw_ag/75439.jpg
I really wanted to make a Lawful Good Halfling Necromancer (I know, my mind works in bizarre ways sometimes. The way I thought of to do this would be to, instead of raising corpses, you use a modified version of speak with dead to obtain their consent to be used later. Perhaps their souls are stored in gems, or jars, a bone from their corpse, etc.
Then you cast a modified animate dead, that creates undead of legal combinations under the normal create undead spell description. When the undead is destroyed, the soul is released, though the caster could, by using a full round action(?), cause the soul to return to the receptacle.
I see the need to get volunteers to be probably more than a balance to the ability to summon the undead you wanted then and there (well, after an hour). Am I wrong? would this be overpowered?
And the other question is the benefit for the dead soul. Since its a pact, the easiest way for a benefit would be a requirement of the caster. Something along the lines of avenge my death, make sure that my family is provided for, etc. If he does not make reasonable attempt to fulfill this (and by reasonable, I mean if you have to put off, say, avenging his death, that's ok, but you can't just skip town and 'get around to' doing it at some indefinite point in the future), he loses his souls, and becomes tainted; unable to use this version of the spell until he atones for his mistreatment of the dead.
Some of this I think is related to the culture I came up with, but the only thing that's really important is that he would be traveling from his land for the first time, where it would be an honor to serve again after death, so though he would have some already prepared, the difficulty in convincing new souls to join up for him should balance out the creation of whatever undead you wanted for the situation with enough prep time