While the Necromancer's away....

[Chester]

So, if a Dread Necromancer goes adventurin', he leaves his undead minions to guard the keep. If someone attacks the keep, tries to get in, visits, etc., how do the skeletons and zombies tell the Necromancer about it? Is there some way for animated corpses to report what occurred?

Let's go by 3.5 rules.

[Ettina]

The way I play it, mindless undead minions do exactly what they've been told, no more or less.

If the necromancer hadn't given any specific orders, they'd fight back if attacked, but would not do anything to report what happened. (Though the corpses and destruction might give it away.)

However, a clever necromancer could arrange a code by giving the right commands. 'If you are attacked and one of them escapes, after the fight is over, move the symbol of Nerull onto the bedside table.' It would have to be very specific, and they still couldn't report anything unexpected.

Alternatively, you could use Awaken Undead on one of them before you leave. If his Int gets above 3, then if he survives he could tell you what happened.

[OldTrees1]

The Necromancer's Followers and Cohorts tend to be better equipped to communicate long distance.

Although even they will have problems. The long range message spell Sending is Clr4, Sor/Wiz5. However a once per day Sending magic trap (targeting you) that sends a predetermined 25 word message can be triggered by a Skeleton ordered to "When INTRUDERS, activate TRAP A".



So I would have:
At 6th-7th level:
A 1/use magical trap of Sending "Intruders in the base" would cost 1960gp (1400+560=50g*4*7+4xp*4*7*5gp/xp) activated by a follower.

At 8th+ level:
My Cleric Cohort would cast Sending.

[Judge_Worm]

The bodies of the redead tell him everything he needs to know.

Although, most likely a half-decent Necro is gonna have at least 2-3 intelligent undead lieutenants (maybe even free-willed), who can coordinate the mooks and if the situation gets dire one can flee so a survivor(un-survivor?) can relay news of the catastrophe.

Of course, there's always Speak With Dead.

[atemu1234]

Awaken one whose job is to observe what occurs; give him a scroll of sending for emergencies.

[Extra Anchovies]

Awaken one whose job is to observe what occurs; give him a scroll of sending for emergencies.

Ooooh! Ooooh! You could make it a talking skull, too! That would be awesome. I want to do this now.

[darksolitaire]

Ooooh! Ooooh! You could make it a talking skull, too! That would be awesome. I want to do this now.

Now we just need to Empower and Maximize Awaken Undead to push that 4+d6 Int to 13. And bestow that skull some mode of movement.

[Inevitability]

Or take a couple followers with a single level in the ghost class. They are immune to most things short of spellcasters and can just fly into a wall and watch things from there if anything can harm them anyway.

Add on some way to give them mindsight and telepathy and you got yourself the best detection system out there.

[Phelix-Mu]

Or take a couple followers with a single level in the ghost class. They are immune to most things short of spellcasters and can just fly into a wall and watch things from there if anything can harm them anyway.

Add on some way to give them mindsight and telepathy and you got yourself the best detection system out there.

I think the wall is still opaque even for non-corporeal beings, could be wrong though. But it could poke it's eyeballs out, maybe. I'd probably give it some of the cover bonuses. Same problem occurs to my druid all of the time with earthglide.

There is implication in Libris Mortis that uncontrolled mindless undead attract evil spirits or some such, which drive them to act aggressively and seek to kill the living. Not sure at which point they become uncontrolled, depends on what the dread necromancer is doing, I suppose, but beware that there is some basis for DMs to have mindless undead do otherwise than just stand around in the absence of their creator/master (albeit a shaky basis).

[Extra Anchovies]

I think the wall is still opaque even for non-corporeal beings, could be wrong though. But it could poke it's eyeballs out, maybe. I'd probably give it some of the cover bonuses. Same problem occurs to my druid all of the time with earthglide.

I am certain that there's a sentient species somewhere that has eyestalks. Just get a few of those, then they can poke their eyes out of the wall, leaving everything else concealed.

[Phelix-Mu]

I am certain that there's a sentient species somewhere that has eyestalks. Just get a few of those, then they can poke their eyes out of the wall, leaving everything else concealed.

Which, while it would make them harder to see and hit, probably still leaves them vulnerable to any effect that needs access to some part of the creature to work (and which can affect an incorporeal target, of course). It's either in the wall and totally safe, or partially exposed and some degree of not-totally safe.

But it's a matter of diminishing returns.

Alternatively, polymorph some of the undead into objects? I'm pretty sure there is a way around the standard immunities with enough cheese, and the gaps in PaO's RAW are so big you can drive half a pantheon through them. If you can confer Lifesight, Soulsight, or the like on one, then it might have a detection method that doesn't require eyes (since, uh, we seem to have gotten rid of those...lol).

[drack]

If you're doing brew I'd suggest the rolling eyeballs here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?278418-%28Creature%29-%28Spell%29-Organ-Undead-Nightmares-of-Anatomy-%28P-E-A-C-H-%29
Generally I don't go with brew, but I tend to consider those pretty balanced, and if you think not argue with the brewer and you'll get a reasonable argument and if you persist you may end up in middle ground.

If not... Most undeads can't really report. My tip would be to get something with some intelligence like a ghoul or awakened undead (or any other intelligent undead under the sun moon :smallwink:) and have it deliver the message, but a mindless undead wouldn't do much i that instance. It's simple enough to have any sort of intelligent undead or seen a bound outsider there to report afterwards though, but you're gonna need to be able to make or find and intelligent undead first.

[Inevitability]

Or, in case of the incorporeal thing, you could also make all the walls out of glass/ice/some other transparant material. Or get a few walls with an invisibility spell cast on them.

[LTwerewolf]

Depending upon level, one would make the assumption that an advanced learning would be used on animate dread warrior. Then simply have the dread warrior(s) report back via whatever magical means.

[drack]

Or non-magical means, we mentioned a zombified dragon?

[atemu1234]

Or non-magical means, we mentioned a zombified dragon?

AWAKENED Zombified Dragon! All the more fun, and all the more hit dice.

Though, granted, if you had a Zombie Dragon, you'd probably want to ride it, not have it guard your summer home.

[drack]

Can always have a giant zombified bird to fly your messenger. Anywho why folks don't often awaken their zombified/skeletal dragons is that animate dead can give you 2X your CL, 4X your CL with desecrate, 6X your cl with death bound and desecrate (make sure to watch your 4X command limit on HD controlled when you do this), whereas awaken makes them uncontrolled, and rebuking only lets you command up to half your effective rebuking level in HD That's quite a step down just to make it intelligent. Much easier to cut it open and stick a ghoul inside. Everyone likes an undead with an extra face protruding from the skin, somewhat human in appearance, and with more intelligence then the great bruit from which it protrudes. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: I'll also add that I always give my necromancer characters of reasonably high level a beautiful summer home which totally needs a small army of more zombie dragons then I take with me on adventures. :smallbiggrin: After all isn't it part of what makes necromancers so great to have a huge hoard somewhere?

[Fouredged Sword]

You can spellstich an undead to give them access to the sending spell as a 4th level cleric spell. So long as that undead is unalive at the end of combat it can send you a message. In fact, it can report in at any time you instruct it to.

You can also command your rebuked undead as a standard action with no distance restriction. You can command it to send you a status update at any time.