[Pathfinder] Raise Dead on the bones of a Crag Linnorm

[crimsonstride]

So I'm not a very experienced GM, and I know it. Hell, I'm the first to admit it. My only other experience with 3.5 rules was years ago in High School, and the farthest we ever got was level 7. But currently my players have come across an ancient bone graveyard containing the massive skeleton of a Crag Linnorm, and they plan on raising it as their undead minion, something which they seem to have a lot of fun doing. (So far they have had countless undead minions, including humanoids, Mammoths, Bulettes, Piscodeamons, and a 6 armed Shiva like skeleton armed with scimitars our cleric named Rattlegore.)

But now they see this graveyard, kind of like the huge boneyard in the Lion King, which originally was supposed to be a simple run-in with a Bull Mastadon seeking to protect it's herd, and the game nearly grinds to a halt. We start discussing the reality of resurrecting this ancient Linnorm corpse (which the local centaur revere as the bones of a god or something) and according to the rules, it all seems legit. My real question here is, how can I deal with this in a GM stand point, aside from not allowing this monstrosity inside cities, towns, and holy places?

Here's some more background information. There's 3 players, 2 of which are Wizards, 1 is a Cleric. They're level 9, almost 10 and we're running Kingmaker, currently on book 3 (The Varnhold Vanishing.) The book doesn't give me any idea of what to do when faced with this dilemma, so that's why I turn to you guys. Or could I be overreacting? Like I said I have very little experience GMing past level 7, so seeing colossal sized undead land dragons stomping about the Stolen Lands kind of intimidates me.

TL;DR: Party of undead-raising rules-lawyers want to raise a Crag Linnorm as their personal plaything, and I need advice on how to deal with it, or limit it's potential.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm betting you've overlooked the hit dice cap on controlled undead.

Generally, a caster can only control up to 4X his HD worth of undead. A single crag linnorm skeleton should take up more than half if not most of a 7th level caster's capacity to control undead. A crag linnorm zombie should be out of the question.

(how many HD does a crag linnorm have anyway?)

[crimsonstride]

Well they can have up to 20 HD of undead following them, the Crag Linnorm is only 15 hit die, so it's totally in their capabilities to res the damn thing. What i'm more worried about is how powerful this thing might end up being after the ritual. Just it's size category alone intimidates me some.

Edit: Make that 36 HD.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well they can have up to 20 Hit die of undead following them, the Crag Linnorm is only 15 hit die, so it's totally in their capabilities to res the damn thing. What i'm more worried about is how powerful this thing might end up being after the ritual. Just it's size category alone intimidates me some.

I thought you said 7th level? That'd be 28hd worth of control.

Anyway, at 15hd that linnorm does indeed take a substantial chunk out of their control capacity. Remember, undead HD are among the weakest of racial HD. 15d12 gets the critter 97 or 98hp, and BAB 11. You don't get itteratives with natural attacks so that's one attack with its primary at +11 (+str and probably nothing else) and one attack with each secondary at +6 (+str). But that's pretty much the whole critter. It can't fly, it can't think, it has no special abilities at all. If I'm remembering the mastadon's stats anywhere near right, this thing will be pretty close to scrapped after that fight. If it turns out to be two mammoths (hint hint) then it'll probably be outright destroyed.

Edit: oops, misread. They're 9th level not 7th. Did they change the control cap in pathfinder to 2X the caster's level?

Edit 2: saw your edit, they didn't change the control cap after all then. A zombie might be a bit more worrisome, but it'll take up almost their entire control cap and it'll be slow as molasses. Limited to only that 1 attack each round and it'll even slow travel time since it can only take one move at a time.

Anyway you slice it though, this thing is just a big mindless brute with no ability to repair itself. Keeping it will probably be more trouble than its worth in the long-run. If they're all going the necromaster route you'll need to change your game to accomodate that. More group encounters will be necessary.

[Deathkeeper]

Create Undead asks for a corpse to raise as a zombie/skeleton/mummy, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't intended to be used on powerful magic beings (especially one that already has a connection to death in its death curses). Although technically the spell never even specifies that it can be used on a non-humanoid.
A linnorm, according to the bestiary, is rumored to be connected to the world of the Fey or even monstrous gods. Either of which would present a pretty decent reason to suggest it can't be raised by a mere lvl 9 mortal.
Or, you could say that they DO raise it, but it becomes intelligent (it is a magic being, it's not the weirdest thing to happen). It then resists all their uses of Command/Control Undead, and flies off. They have to then fight said Crag Linnorm Ravener as a boss at the end of the campaign.:smalltongue:

[crimsonstride]

Hmm. Well if it's true that the thing won't end up as powerful as I'm imagining it to be, then I don't think I'll have much of a problem with it then. I appreciate the insight. Like I said, I'm pretty new to the whole 3.5 scene, only having played it barely in High School. I'm GMing Pathfinder now and I'm finding myself to be really rusty, and sometimes down right intimidated by the rules, but overall it's a refresher from the crazyness of 4e.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hmm. Well if it's true that the thing won't end up as powerful as I'm imagining it to be, then I don't think I'll have much of a problem with it then. I appreciate the insight. Like I said, I'm pretty new to the whole 3.5 scene, only having played it barely in High School. I'm GMing Pathfinder now and I'm finding myself to be really rusty, and sometimes down right intimidated by the rules, but overall it's a refresher from the crazyness of 4e.

Undead minionmancy is pretty easy to deal with until they start conjuring up the wierder stuff.

If they persist in minionmancy, just throw a couple extra creatures into the encounters in the module. You won't run into any real trouble until they start creating incorporeal, ability draining undead.

[Jeraa]

Anyway, at 15hd that linnorm does indeed take a substantial chunk out of their control capacity. Remember, undead HD are among the weakest of racial HD. 15d12 gets the critter 97 or 98hp, and BAB 11.

Not in Pathfinder. Undead have a d8 hitdie, but can use their Charisma modifier as bonus hitpoints instead of Constitution. But as the skeleton template sets Charisma at 10, it gets no bonus hit points. So it would only have 15d8 hitpoints, or an average of 67.5 hit points.

[navar100]

So I'm not a very experienced GM, and I know it. Hell, I'm the first to admit it. My only other experience with 3.5 rules was years ago in High School, and the farthest we ever got was level 7. But currently my players have come across an ancient bone graveyard containing the massive skeleton of a Crag Linnorm, and they plan on raising it as their undead minion, something which they seem to have a lot of fun doing. (So far they have had countless undead minions, including humanoids, Mammoths, Bulettes, Piscodeamons, and a 6 armed Shiva like skeleton armed with scimitars our cleric named Rattlegore.)

But now they see this graveyard, kind of like the huge boneyard in the Lion King, which originally was supposed to be a simple run-in with a Bull Mastadon seeking to protect it's herd, and the game nearly grinds to a halt. We start discussing the reality of resurrecting this ancient Linnorm corpse (which the local centaur revere as the bones of a god or something) and according to the rules, it all seems legit. My real question here is, how can I deal with this in a GM stand point, aside from not allowing this monstrosity inside cities, towns, and holy places?

Here's some more background information. There's 3 players, 2 of which are Wizards, 1 is a Cleric. They're level 9, almost 10 and we're running Kingmaker, currently on book 3 (The Varnhold Vanishing.) The book doesn't give me any idea of what to do when faced with this dilemma, so that's why I turn to you guys. Or could I be overreacting? Like I said I have very little experience GMing past level 7, so seeing colossal sized undead land dragons stomping about the Stolen Lands kind of intimidates me.

TL;DR: Party of undead-raising rules-lawyers want to raise a Crag Linnorm as their personal plaything, and I need advice on how to deal with it, or limit it's potential.

Do you actually mean "resurrection" or do you mean "animating". At level 9 the cleric can only cast Raise Dead on a creature who died within 9 days so he can't raise the "god" at all. When he can cast Resurrection at 13th level, the limit is a creature that died within 130 years. He still couldn't resurrect this "ancient god". True Resurrection wouldn't work either. It would take a Miracle and even that might not work as it literally becomes a god call to do something like this, way beyond the power of an 8th level spell effect.

As for animation, in addition to the HD limit, there is a legitimate way to prevent the animation. The graveyard is Hallowed ground. If the cleric really wants to take the time to cast Unhallow to break the protection, that will take a day. Someone will notice to interrupt the process. The centaur and his friends for one. A cleric and/or druid associated with the deity in whose name the graveyard was Hallowed would be forewarned.

Edit: Unhallow only counters, not dispel, Hallow, so casting Unhallow might not even work.

[crimsonstride]

Do you actually mean "resurrection" or do you mean "animating".

Yeah, sorry, should have been more specific. They want to Animate it as an Undead minion. I Know the finished version is going to be weak, however I just don't know how weak. The Kingmaker path has a tendency to underwhelm the players sometimes, and I'm already having a little trouble keeping the fights long and deadly enough to actually be challenging. If they manage to get a super-ally like this on their side it could just get worse.

I really like the idea of it being hallowed ground though. It makes sense, and the centaur clearly worship the bones, maybe I can do that, or work it in some how. The Cleric does have unhallow though, and he's been dying to try it out for sometime. I'll need to research it.

[Jeraa]

If for some reason you don't want them to have it, just say that some of the skeleton is missing. Animate Dead needs a mostly intact skeleton to work.

Or it appears the skeleton in all there, when in fact its actually the remains of more then 1 linnorm, so still can't be animated.

[Absol197]

If for some reason you don't want them to have it, just say that some of the skeleton is missing. Animate Dead needs a mostly intact skeleton to work.

Or it appears the skeleton in all there, when in fact its actually the remains of more then 1 linnorm, so still can't be animated.

Don't say that! They'll find a way to fuse the two skeletons together, and it'll be some kind of skeletal abomination linnorm!

Since the main problem is that oyu don't know how powerful it will be, and because I like statting monsters, I'll tell you what: I get off work in a couple of hours, and I'll stat this beastie up as both a skeleton and a zombie, so you can judge for yourself. Let me know if that sounds good!

~Phoenix~

[crimsonstride]

Since the main problem is that oyu don't know how powerful it will be, and because I like statting monsters, I'll tell you what: I get off work in a couple of hours, and I'll stat this beastie up as both a skeleton and a zombie, so you can judge for yourself. Let me know if that sounds good!

~Phoenix~

I would appreciate that, but you really don't have to. I think they're already on the verge of statting it, and even adding variants to it like Bloody Skeleton for the regen factor.

[Absol197]

I would appreciate that, but you really don't have to. I think they're already on the verge of statting it, and even adding variants to it like Bloody Skeleton for the regen factor.

Be careful with them adding too many extra factors!

And as I said, I like doing it, so I will! Having the stats yourself will let you see how well you can work the beastie into the other combats you have planned. The thing I think you'll have to worry about most is its reach: a caster can stand right next to the thing and use it as a shield: it attacks anything that gets near with its superior reach.

Using a consecrated area might be a good idea (pun intended, and assuming that they haven't already done things to make it impossible), so it's a bit weaker than normal. As a DM, I would be iffy about my players getting something like that...Make sure they have enough black onyx, or else they can't do it!

And this reminds me of that one time...In a desert campaign, my players included a true necromancer. They got attack by the BBEG who was using things called Crawling Apocalypses - giant, mummified, sandswimming krakens - to fight his war. They wer fighting two of them. The necromancer cast control undead at one. The only way it could fail was if the CA rolled a nat. 1 on its Will save, which it proceeded to do. So they had a pet mummy sand-kraken! Until the next turn, when the NPC paladin that didn't know it was controlled (and wouldn't have cared, anyway) finished it off.

So, the necromancer turns his attention to the other one. He casts control undead again. I laugh; "Okay, well, the likelyhood of me rolling another nat. 1 is - " Pretty good, apparently :smallsigh: :smalltongue: .

~Phoenix~

[crimsonstride]

"Okay, well, the likelyhood of me rolling another nat. 1 is - " Pretty good, apparently :smallsigh: :smalltongue: .

~Phoenix~

HA! I love it. We've had a bunch of crazy rolls too in our game, including the death of one of our rogues because he failed a fort check multiple times after eating some bad buzzard meat. He ended up dying from crapping himself to death. True story.