Awaken Undead Question

[Fouredged Sword]

Does a awakened undead creature regains any EX abilities of the base form.

Inate Spellcasting is not labeled as anything in the stat block, and thus ether defaults to natural or ex, depending on who you ask.

Does that creature regain it's natural spellcasting?

For example.

A Dread Necromancer finds himself a great wyrm gold dragon skeleton after years of reaserch to find the body.

He desicrates the area and raises the skeleton as a dragon skeleton. He then reads a scroll of awaken undead on it.

Does it regain it's dragon spellcasting after it is awakened?

Working on a character / bbeg by the way. Wants to create a undead dragon god to rule the world becuse he was kicked out of his kobold tribe for practising necromancy.

- To do this he needs chains of undead dragons, each allowing him to raise more. He wants to create an epic circle casting to create a god useing 100s of powerful undead dragons.

[Gullintanni]

The usual debate here centers around a couple of clauses:

1. In the Rules Compendium it states that any ability that is not specifically called out as Ex., Su. or Sp. is a natural ability.

This implies that Spellcasting, not being called out as any of the three categories, is a natural ability.

and...

2. In the Monster Manual, Spellcasting is listed as a Special Ability. From SRD:

Special Abilities

"A special ability is either extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural in nature."

Accordingly, since spellcasting is neither supernatural nor spell-like, it must be extraordinary.

The debate that follows tends to circle around primary sources, namely, whether or not the primary source for rules is the Rules Compendium, in which case it overrules the Monster Manual, or whether or not the Monster Manual is the primary source for this rule set.

I leave the interpretation to you, but from a balance perspective, a Druid who uses Shapechange to turn into a Dragon inherits all its Ex. and Su. abilities. If Spellcasting is Ex. then Druids gain up to around 20th level Sorcerer casting in addition to their Druid casting while Shapechanged...do you really need to supercharge arguably the most powerful class in the game? Rule as you will. In terms of Awaken Undead...do you really think that your Cleric or Wizard should have a second primary spellcaster under its influence?

The official rules conflict, so I tend toward ruling in favor of sanity, and accordingly consider Spellcasting to be a natural ability. I take the Rules Compendium as the primary source in this instance.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yes, but I want, in the end, for my party to discover that the epic battle they are fighting is with the minions of my level 11 dread necromancer kobold.

He creates a awakened great wyrm gold dragon zombie, who PAO's an awakened great wyrm pryismatic dragon zombie who creates...

I want to story to end with the players sitting down with the gods and rewriteing the rules of magic to remove the ability to make such a chain.

Double points if the players characters are part of the patheon next game as TN gods of balance who prevent any upstart from abuseing the rules of magic to the point of unbalanceing the world.

- But for this to work, I need it to be completely by the rules or one of my palyers will complain (they always do)

- besides, wouldn't shapechange allow a druid to get the spells anyway? Spellcasting isn't a spellike ability (thouse are defined fairly strongly as imitateing a particular spell or effect) so it would have to be ether EX or SU, and the druid assumes both EX and SU of his form with shapechange?

edit - he can't take the form of any dragon with 19th level sorcerer casting until way into epic levels (HD cap on shapechange). The best form he can get only has 7th level casting. Not broken by any sense of the word. There are lower level spells that give you a higher psionic progression for much lower spell level.

[Gullintanni]

Yes, but I want, in the end, for my party to discover that the epic battle they are fighting is with the minions of my level 11 dread necromancer kobold.

- besides, wouldn't shapechange allow a druid to get the spells anyway? Spellcasting isn't a spellike ability (thouse are defined fairly strongly as imitateing a particular spell or effect) so it would have to be ether EX or SU, and the druid assumes both EX and SU of his form with shapechange?


Spellcasting is only an Ex. or Su. ability according to the Monster Manual. According to the Rules Compendium, it is a Natural ability. For game rules, Rules Compendium is the primary source, ergo, Spellcasting should be a Natural ability.

Some try to argue that the Monster Manual is the primary source for monsters, and therefore, the Special Abilities clause therein is the primary source; but spellcasting is mentioned in more places than just the Monster Manual, so the rules governing it are not, IMHO, monster rules, they are in fact better classified as game rules, and therefore Rules Compendium remains the primary source.

That's just my interpretation, and there are merits to arguing either way. Like I said, my primary reason for favoring Rules Compendium is that it produces balanced gameplay results (relative to the alternative anyway). The RAW is ambiguous.

Ultimately, if you're the DM and you want your Awakened Dragons to cast spells then go for it. If you're looking for a basis in the rules that isn't just Rule Zero...well...the RAW is ambiguous. That's the best you're really going to get.

EDIT: Regarding brokenness, there may not be anything broken about a 9th level spell granting 7th level casting to a character, but Awaken Undead is a 6th level spell, and using it on a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon Zombie would grant it (and subsequently your Kobold) access to 19th level spell casting. If you ask me, pretty broken. This is assuming of course that spellcasting is an Ex. ability. Which, IMHO, it isn't.