Necrotic Skull Bomb

[Shadowbite]

I'm deciding on an Advanced Learning Spell for my now lvl 12 Dread Necromancer, and I just saw Necrotic Skull Bomb from Champions of Ruin.

Cool spell in general and then I looked at the cast time....

1 Swift Action

Can that be right? It's an aoe level drain that requires enemies to save vs. fort. only 5th level and a swift action. Seems pretty awesome. Am I just getting overawed by the speed of the cast or am I right that it's pretty damn awesome?

[WeeFreeMen]

Aside from the fact that most monsters will have a pretty high Fort save.
It is indeed pretty awesome. Especially with the flavor it adds to your character as a Necro.

Enjoy. ^^

[Runestar]

It's fort save: negates. Which I feel justifies it being a swift action AoE enervate.

But yeah, that too caught me by surprise too when I first saw it. :smallbiggrin:

[Darrin]

Am I just getting overawed by the speed of the cast or am I right that it's pretty damn awesome?

Yes, very cool spell. Also, best spell name, ever.

The swift action is supposed to be balanced out with the Fort save, and the "negative levels don't last long enough" to be permanent. Enervation is still a better spell, due to the no save and there are a lot of other metamagic shenanigans you can load on top of a ray. Actually, pairing up an enervation (which lowers the target's Fort save) with a NSB chaser works very nicely.

Also, Kyristan's Malevolent Tentacles in Shining South (p. 47) might be worth a look. All the fun of Evard's Black Hentai Collection, only now the tentacles are made of negative energy and any grappled target must make a Fort save every round or gain a negative level.

[TroubleBrewing]

*Snip*

Holy crap, I'm building a character around this RIGHT NOW.

My super villain name will be "The Straw".

[Shadowbite]

Thanks everyone for the responses. My main conflict is choosing between Necrotic Spell Bomb and Revive Undead from Spell Compendium. Necrotic Spell Bomb would be the more offensive option but Revive undead is the insurance that I can build up my team of favorite undead without worry of demise.

Though my good friend has said that Revive undead is a waste because you can assume that you will progressively get better and better monsters to turn into undead. And the 1 HD loss is kind of rough.

What do you guys think?

[Jack Zander]

Thanks everyone for the responses. My main conflict is choosing between Necrotic Spell Bomb and Revive Undead from Spell Compendium. Necrotic Spell Bomb would be the more offensive option but Revive undead is the insurance that I can build up my team of favorite undead without worry of demise.

Though my good friend has said that Revive undead is a waste because you can assume that you will progressively get better and better monsters to turn into undead. And the 1 HD loss is kind of rough.

What do you guys think?

Forget about revive undead. After you drain all your enemies levels you can raise them instead. Good necromancers never get too attached to their disposable minions.

[Metahuman1]

Funny thing about NSB, it let's you provide some healing for your minions as well if there in the aoe.

[Necroticplague]

I think necrotic skull bomb is in the same category as great cleave: it's mostly designed to be used against a group of creatures that are much weaker than you, instead of one creature as strong as you.

[tyckspoon]

Though my good friend has said that Revive undead is a waste because you can assume that you will progressively get better and better monsters to turn into undead. And the 1 HD loss is kind of rough.

What do you guys think?

Depends on the kinds of undead you have. If you're just using zombie/skeleton bruisers, then go with Skull Bomb; those are easy enough to replace, and you can have Skull Bomb double as a light AoE buff for them. If you're making Dread Warriors, Awakening Undead to get special abilities and feats back, or just using some more powerful and exotic undead in general (zombie/skeleton dragons with the special templates from Draconomicon, for example), then take a look at Revive Undead, because it will probably be easier to use that than to try and find another corpse with the special qualities your special undead had.

[Zaq]

I think necrotic skull bomb is in the same category as great cleave: it's mostly designed to be used against a group of creatures that are much weaker than you, instead of one creature as strong as you.

I don't think that's particularly more true for NSB than for any other AoE effects. Besides, negative levels are nasty, and this is one as a swift action. Even with a save to resist, it's basically a quickened 1st level spell that does a negative level (with a 5th level save, no less). Not too shabby. Obviously, every AoE is better against multiple foes (not including ones that have a maximum number of HD they can target, but they're weird), but a negative level as a swift action is not immediately worthless even against a single foe. Perhaps not the best use of a 5th level spell that you can find, but surely not a useless one.