Corpse Explosion - Custom Spell

[Qc Storm]

If you've ever played Diablo 2, I think you remember the unique spell of the Necromancer, Corpse Explosion.

Renowned for its great scaling power (damage based on monster HP) and abundance of material component (dead dudes), every necro worth its salt spent at least one skill point on it.

I would very much like to see it in D&D (and point me to it if it already exists) but I believe it does not. What would it be like?

For those who have not played Diablo 2, Corpse Explosion targets an enemy corpse, and makes it explode (hence the name). It creates an AoE blast of blood and bones that deals damage based on the monster's HP while alive, to all other monsters nearby. It could spark some crazy chains.

[gurgleflep]

If you've ever played Diablo 2, I think you remember the unique spell of the Necromancer, Corpse Explosion.

Renowned for its great scaling power (damage based on monster HP) and abundance of material component (dead dudes), every necro worth its salt spent at least one skill point on it.

I would very much like to see it in D&D (and point me to it if it already exists) but I believe it does not. What would it be like?

For those who have not played Diablo 2, Corpse Explosion targets an enemy corpse, and makes it explode (hence the name). It creates an AoE blast of blood and bones that deals damage based on the monster's HP while alive, to all other monsters nearby. It could spark some crazy chains.

There's a Diablo 2 D20 game including the LoD expansion. Sadly, I don't know where to get it. It may or may not be in there, if it's not - homebrew may be a better forum to ask for this spell in.

[Maginomicon]

The "Death Throes" spell would fit, except that it only affects your own corpse.

I have a vague hunch that there was something in one of the Faerun books that does what you're looking for.

There might also be something in the BoVD.

[Slipperychicken]

Seconding reposting this to the homebrew section.

It would probably deal like 1d6 or 2d4 damage per HD of the creature whose corpse is used. Blood and bones should be Piercing/Bludgeoning damage. The damage should be good, since it's hard to find high HD corpses, and even harder to position them properly for detonation. Spell Resistance wouldn't apply (the entrails are dealing damage, not the magical energy itself), and it would probably be a 10ft radius burst with a reflex save for half.

Also, there's a corpsecrafter feat which makes undead you create explode in negative energy when slain, so you could look to that as a reference point.

EDIT: I think Exemplars of Evil or Spell Compendium has a spell that turns people into suicide-bombers, more on that once I can access my books.

[KillianHawkeye]

FWIW, you could totally make an effective D2 Necromancer without spending any points in any of the direct attack skills. Summoning FTW!

[Qc Storm]

Seconding reposting this to the homebrew section.

It would probably deal like 1d6 or 2d4 damage per HD of the creature whose corpse is used. Blood and bones should be Piercing/Bludgeoning damage. The damage should be good, since it's hard to find high HD corpses, and even harder to position them properly for detonation. Spell Resistance wouldn't apply (the entrails are dealing damage, not the magical energy itself), and it would probably be a 10ft radius burst with a reflex save for half.

Also, there's a corpsecrafter feat which makes undead you create explode in negative energy when slain, so you could look to that as a reference point.

EDIT: I think Exemplars of Evil or Spell Compendium has a spell that turns people into suicide-bombers, more on that once I can access my books.

That sounds about perfect. What level would it be?

And assuming there is a Greater version, which explodes enemies killed by corpse explosion, how many levels higher should that one be?


FWIW, you could totally make an effective D2 Necromancer without spending any points in any of the direct attack skills. Summoning FTW!

Of course, but spending even a single point in the skill gave you a tool that would be useful for your entire career. And also something to do with your Mana. The damage didn't scale off skill level, only the Radius did (and +skills did a great job at increasing that.)

[lsfreak]

I'm honestly not sure how well basing it off hit dice or base hit points would be. The problem is they vary so much; see undead with wildly inflated hit dice in order to make up for a lack of Con score, while at the same time mooks will often have low hit dice making the damage flat-up worse than the normal 1d6/CL. As a result, I'd tentatively say 2d4 per hit dice of the target corpse, but it's kind of a shot in the dark, at 2nd level if the radius is 10 feet or 3rd at 20 feet. It would be less prone to abuse at 2d4/CL, but then, since the spell requires a corpse, it may be that it's only really useful when you can abuse using low-CR high-HD enemies like undead, and basing it off CL makes it fairly useless compared to more typical blasts.

I think the takeaway is that how it should be built, and its usefulness, kind of depends on the campaign, moreso than most blasting spells. D2 has a specific playstyle that really benefits Corpse Explosion-type spells, while 3.5 may or may not have that. Building the spell to assume a D2-style combat will make it woefully underpowered in other circumstances, while building it assuming mooks aren't getting slaughtered every few seconds would make it horrifically overpowered when they are.

[KillianHawkeye]

Of course, but spending even a single point in the skill gave you a tool that would be useful for your entire career. And also something to do with your Mana. The damage didn't scale off skill level, only the Radius did (and +skills did a great job at increasing that.)

Actually, if you're going to play a summoning Necro, it's in your best interests NOT to destroy corpses because you need them to spam skeletons and revives. Anyway, summoning requires so many skill points that I even regretted the one point I spent on Life Tap.

Man, now I wanna play Diablo again.... :smallsigh:



But for a D&D game where you don't get the chance to turn every corpse you find into an undead abomination? Sure, explode some of them corpses! At the very least it makes a pretty funny way of thwarting Raise Dead. :smallamused:

[Slipperychicken]

That sounds about perfect. What level would it be?

And assuming there is a Greater version, which explodes enemies killed by corpse explosion, how many levels higher should that one be?


For the "normal" version, I think what I described would be roughly 2nd level, assuming a damage cap of like 20HD worth of explosion. An uncapped version, or one with a radius larger than 10ft, would probably be 3rd level. A version which was both uncapped damage and had a large radius (20-30ft) would be around 5th-ish.

A chain-splosion version I imagine would be around 5th-7th (?), assuming it has some maximum (equal to 1/2 caster level number of creatures?) on the number of corpse-explosions it would cause. Even then, such a spell could devastate clusters of foes, so that would take tweaking.

With uncapped chain-sploding, that would be around 8th or 9th, if it's allowed at all? It would have the potential to decimate huge gatherings of foes with a single casting, which is truly awesome power, even considering the setup required. That would probably take testing to figure out if such a spell could even be balanced.

[Alefiend]

Differences in play style are going to make this very problematic.

Spells like Corpse Explosion in D2 worked well because you had minions or party members creating new corpses for you, and were immune to friendly fire. You could pop some CE right under a barb's feet and he'd just be annoyed he wasted the mana for that last Whirlwind.

In a tabletop game, there is no immunity to friendly fire, and there's a very good chance that your corpse creators will be within the spell's radius—melee gets a face full of shrapnel, and so do typical ranged builds, which operate best at 30' or less.

Add to this the fact that you're destroying your own loot (no rational GM will let you detonate bodies hard enough to kill people but let the corpses' gear survive) and you have a very situational spell, one that's best used to start an ambush.

[atomicwaffle]

as of patch 1.10 (now in 1.13d) the corpse explosion skill in the game functions as such.
-80 - 120% of corpses max HP in damage
-50% fire damage
-50% physical damage
-Increased skill points increase the range of the blast radius
-Only damages enemies

The secret to making corpse explosion effective was the curses amplify damage (for physical damage) and lower resist (for fire damage) although usually you just ended up using amplify damage.

Hope this helps in your brewing

p.s. my fav class and fav skill of it in that game