Which skills do I use? Also a curse question.

[KindOfGoodGuy]

In pathfinder if I have a Wizard who becomes undead, would I still be using the wizard skills I had accumulated or would I switch to just the skills that the undead are given? Or would I use both?

Also in the description of "Bestow Curse", it states that you can give someone "–4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks.". If I want to only give someone the reduction to their will save by removing the reflex/fortitude, attack rolls, and ability/skill checks, how powerful can the will reduction become?

[kenjigoku]

In pathfinder if I have a Wizard who becomes undead, would I still be using the wizard skills I had accumulated or would I switch to just the skills that the undead are given? Or would I use both?

What sort of undead are you becoming? If you become a non-intelligent undead, you basically lose your character. If you become an intelligent undead that does not have a template, then you basically lose you character. If you become an intelligent undead that is a template then things get interesting.


Also in the description of "Bestow Curse", it states that you can give someone "–4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks.". If I want to only give someone the reduction to their will save by removing the reflex/fortitude, attack rolls, and ability/skill checks, how powerful can the will reduction become?

Bestow curse does the whole shebang. You cannot reduce the other penalties to increase the penalty to the will save. All of them take a -4 penalty.

[KindOfGoodGuy]

What sort of undead are you becoming? If you become a non-intelligent undead, you basically lose your character. If you become an intelligent undead that does not have a template, then you basically lose you character. If you become an intelligent undead that is a template then things get interesting.



Bestow curse does the whole shebang. You cannot reduce the other penalties to increase the penalty to the will save. All of them take a -4 penalty.

Well then I guess I have lost my character. To make a long story short, I died but got brought back by the cleric in the party as a decently high health skeleton. The DM ended the session there though and forgot to tell me if I had to roll up someone new (he probably has low wisdom irl).

[Urpriest]

Well then I guess I have lost my character. To make a long story short, I died but got brought back by the cleric in the party as a decently high health skeleton. The DM ended the session there though and forgot to tell me if I had to roll up someone new (he probably has low wisdom irl).

You also won't be an especially high-health skeleton. Skeletons lose all their non-racial hit dice, so the skeleton the cleric created is probably a pretty weak one.

[kenjigoku]

Well then I guess I have lost my character. To make a long story short, I died but got brought back by the cleric in the party as a decently high health skeleton. The DM ended the session there though and forgot to tell me if I had to roll up someone new (he probably has low wisdom irl).

Sorry to hear about that, and Urpriest is right. Since all the HD are converted and rerolled he probably made a really cruddy skeleton.
Best of luck on your new character :)!

[Dalebert]

Bestow curse does the whole shebang. You cannot reduce the other penalties to increase the penalty to the will save. All of them take a -4 penalty.

From Bestow Curse (http://www.pathfindersrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/bestow-curse): "You may also invent your own curse, but it should be no more powerful than those described above."

So it's really a DM call. FWIW, I think they mean to allow a completely different sort of curse rather than just piling up on one thing. Those are already pretty serious penalties and piling a lot onto one thing is an arguably much more powerful effect. I might say -6. Of course, you have to get past their will save once to get it on them so... *shrug* Honestly, those are all seriously debilitating effects so it's intended to be a pretty powerful curse. I might even let you just apply -6 to all saves if I were DM.

Sucks about the skeleton thing. FWIW, I've heard a conflicting answer about how powerful the skeleton can be. I specifically asked if there's such a thing as a 4 HD bloody kobold skeleton and I was told that yes, it is possible. I don't fully understand how though. I don't think it has anything to do with pre-death class levels.

[Psyren]

I woiuld let you get an additional -1 for each save you removed. So if you wanted to focus on will saves, you could go up to -6, but they would have no penalty to their reflex or fort in exchange.

But as Dalebert rightfully said it's a dm call.

[Chronos]

Why would you want to use Bestow Curse to lower an opponent's saves, anyway? You're presumably setting up to hit them with something else-- Why not just lead off with that something else to begin with?

[kenjigoku]

Why would you want to use Bestow Curse to lower an opponent's saves, anyway? You're presumably setting up to hit them with something else-- Why not just lead off with that something else to begin with?

Because they possibly don't want to fail with the higher level spell and don't mind using a lower level spell to help guarantee their success.

I typically like to chain Bestow Cure and Unluck before shooting off a high level Will based save or die spell.


From Bestow Curse (http://www.pathfindersrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/bestow-curse): "You may also invent your own curse, but it should be no more powerful than those described above."

So it's really a DM call. FWIW, I think they mean to allow a completely different sort of curse rather than just piling up on one thing. Those are already pretty serious penalties and piling a lot onto one thing is an arguably much more powerful effect. I might say -6. Of course, you have to get past their will save once to get it on them so... *shrug* Honestly, those are all seriously debilitating effects so it's intended to be a pretty powerful curse. I might even let you just apply -6 to all saves if I were DM.

I disagree. Quoting your own text
... it should be no more powerful than those described above... emphasis bold. Each of the effects should not exceed a -4 penalty, even if you weaken a corresponding penalty. Otherwise you are setting an arbitrary bar of "more powerful". If I were allow your added assumption that we can reduce the detriment of one or more saves to benefit the other, I would just allow them to go full bore and plant a -12. Reducing each save by 4 is detrimental to the opponent in multiple ways allowing your party (that awkward group of loser you hang out with as an all might wizard) to become more effective as well. In fact, the versatility of what is affected by the curse makes it more power IMO and is much better than tanking a single save. But then we are arguing Wizards v. World and Party v. World and I think the point becomes moot.

[Psyren]

Quoting your own text emphasis bold. Each of the effects should not exceed a -4 penalty, even if you weaken a corresponding penalty.

It's really a DM call as I said above. You could argue that a bigger penalty to one save is equal to a lesser penalty to all saves - much like Protection From Spells provides a smaller bonus than Moment of Prescience despite being the same level.