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magic8BALL
2007-03-29, 11:42 PM
So I have a Epic level blackguard. I want an undead army at my disposal.

I want an item that grants me something similar to the Leadership feat, but all the followers are lower order undead (zombies, skeletons, for lower levels, and ghasts and ghosts or something for higher levels), with their CR being equvilent to their ECL for arguments sake, and the cohort being a higher order undead (a mummy, Lich, Vampire or the like).

Im thinking possesion of this item reduces your leadership score by 4, and the the followers are only partially real (like a shodow evocation or something), and may be dismissed or sommoned forth as standard action.

So now for the nitty-gritty-ness: Cost? (200 000gp is well within the price limit) Actual effects (yes I want it to be powerful, but not TOO powerful)? Creation requirements?

The tough thing with this is the actuall effectiveness of the item depends on the character's HD and CHA score. Maybe there could be 2 versions: a Lesser (max Leaderhip score 15) and a Greater (max Leaderhip score 25) "Orb of the Undead Legion", or whatever it is called.

I leave this to be talked over... I need to run.

Legoman
2007-03-30, 12:12 AM
Well let's see here - Shadow Conjuration, Greater allows you to emulate a 6th-level spell, such as Summon Monster VI. SM-VI gives you an average of 3 CR 4 Creatures.

A Leadership score of 23 will normally get you those creatures, as well as 90 1st levels, 9 second, and 5 third level, as well as a couple fifth and sixth level followers.

Since doubling the amount of creatures increases the CR by two, those 3 CR 4 creatures are roughly the same as 12 CR 1's, which would again be roughly the same as, say, 30 skeletons. So, we're casting the spell three times for the skeleton horde, another time for the group of second levels, again for the third levels, and once more for the fourth.

So, we have an item that casts a seventh-level spell effectively 6 times. If we're doing it as a standard action, all that summoning is basically taking place within a time stop.

So, something that casts a Ninth level spell once, and then a seventh 6 times.

CW timestop would cost 275,000 on it's own, and a CW Shadow Conj. would cost 163,800.

Plus, no space limitation means double the cost, so talking a cool million. If you want to mitigate that price, you can make it a 1/day thing for the aforementioned 200,000.

It'd summon about 90 skeletons, 9 skeletons with two levels of fighter (bonefletchers!), 5 ghasts, and 4 vampire spawn to captain it, once a day.

Fizban
2007-03-30, 12:15 AM
I'm pretty sure there's already a feat that gives you "undead leadership". Or a PrC. I'll go look.

Edit: yup, the book is Libris Mortis, the feat Undead Leadership. Basically the same as normal leadership, with a +2 for undead and -4 for living. There's a table for cohort and follower level equivalencies for some common undead, such as zombies, skeletons, and ghouls.

Now, suggested pricing in the Arms and Equipment Guide for an item that grants the user a feat is 10,000-25,000, more if it has higher prerequisites. I don't know how this would react to leadership though. But since you can just take the feat yourself....

magic8BALL
2007-03-30, 02:56 AM
So mechanically, 1/day I can pretty much shadow conjure an undead hoard 1/day for 200, 000gp without the need for high HD and CHA?

Here is a sugestion then, for the two items, pricing based on the two very helpful posts above.

Orb of the Undead Legion
The posessor may summon an undead hoard once per day. Upon the comand word, dark mists eminate from the orb that materialise in 10 rounds into a legion of skeletons. The hoard remains for 24 hours, or untill dismissed. The hoards size is based on the possesors leadership score (see p106? of the DMG). Each skeleton follower has as many HD as indicated by 'level' on the table. The Undead cohort is an undead NPC, chosen by the creater (a Lich, Mummy, Vampire or such of an apropriate level to the possesors Leadership score) The posser takes a -2 penalty to his leadership score, this may effect any followers he has from the Leadership feat, or another Orb of the Undead Legion the character may have. There are two versions of these orbs: Lesser and Greater. Lesser Orbs have a maximum leadership score of 15, and Greater Orbs have a maximum score of 25. These maximum scores cannot be increased in any way.
CL 17, Greater Shaddow Conjuration, Cost: Lesser, 50 000, Greater 200 000.

Yeah, I'm not at home, so the format probly isn't spot on. I'll fix it up when I get some rule books in my hands.

Legoman
2007-03-30, 10:25 AM
Looks pretty good - keep in mind though that if you get only skeleton with hit die, you're going to miss out on some of the more nasty aspects of undead - paralyzing touches, turn resistance, etc.

Also, my item took into account that it used a time stop - so everything would show up all at once within a standard action.... You might need to make the item at least somewhat sentient, so that it can cast the spells itself while in the timestop.

magic8BALL
2007-03-30, 11:08 PM
Not every item is simply "the item casts a spell", particularly wonderous items. I'm thinking even making up my own version of the Leadership table, with its own effects.

And reading Shaddow Conj. Greater... why did I think it would be cool to have the skeletons shaddows? But I want the skeletons to clearly not be of the ordinary mindless type, so ststs for "Legionare's of the Orb" are on the way. Partial Incorpreality, regeneration, and enough intelegence to fight as a team.

Also, in the intrests of balance, what is the equivilent to anti-undead in D&D? A good outsider type thing? This is so there could be a good version of this item... or perhaps the legion depends on the possesor (evil summons the undead, good summons the... other things...). These good things will need to be balanced against the undead things... so I'll be on my way...

Ivius
2007-03-30, 11:33 PM
The literal opposite of undead would be living creatures. Though the Orb of the Furry Legion wouldn't work out to well... Celestials?

Legoman
2007-03-31, 07:32 PM
An orb of the Dead Legion? A legion of martyrs turned celestials?

SmileyX
2007-04-01, 02:41 PM
wouldn't the literal opposite of Undead be those positive energy undead from Eberron? If regular undead are powered by negative energy, they're opposite would be positive energy powered corpses right? Because technically the opposite of living is dead :smallbiggrin:. Maybe you can use the Martyr idea for some fluff? It would require you to make a whole bunch more of custom monsters probably though. Good luck!

Gralamin
2007-04-01, 08:30 PM
wouldn't the literal opposite of Undead be those positive energy undead from Eberron? If regular undead are powered by negative energy, they're opposite would be positive energy powered corpses right? Because technically the opposite of living is dead :smallbiggrin:. Maybe you can use the Martyr idea for some fluff? It would require you to make a whole bunch more of custom monsters probably though. Good luck!

The Opposite of Living is Undead. Dead is 0, Living is 1, Undead is -1. (-1 is like 1, only its not :smallamused: )
By This definition, Positive Powered Living Creatures is the opposite, or Normal Creatures.

More reasons for the opposites

You can resurrect or animate a corpse ( +1 or -1 Respectively)
You cannot go directly from Undead to Living or vice versa [With few exceptions. A wish could do this, It may also be argued Vampires can]
Positive Energy Heals Living creatures, and Harms Undead. Negative Energy 'Heals' Undead creatures, and harms Living Creatures.

Kyace
2007-04-01, 11:31 PM
Going the boring way, I went to figure up what the rough estimate for a wonderous item that lets the weilder use Control Undead (7th level spell), Animate Dead (4th level spell), Create Undead (6th level spell), Create Greater Undead (8th) and Secret Chest (5th) as a command word would cost. Command undead is a continuous effect since you don't want those undead hurting you while you sleep.

*The command undead to let you control the undead, the different create/animate undead/dead spells to form the undead and the secret chest to give you a coffin to hold them all in.

The resulting prices:

For an item that allows you to control 40 HD of undead and turn every dead body you come across into a new undead (from the list of skeletons, zombies, ghoul, ghast, mummies, mohrg, shadows, wraith, spectre and devourer) would cost around 1,205,350 gp.

If you want the version without create greater undead, it only costs 917,350 gp and you can create skeletons, zombies, ghoul, ghast, mummies and mohrg.

If you really just want some zombies and skeletons, the item costs around 722,950 gp.

If you have other ways to create your undead and just want the basic package, something to let you control them and a magic coffin to hold them all, it will run you just 646,050 gp.


If you want the break down, read the spoiler below.
Costs:
25k in black onyx gems for creating the undead.
5050 gp for the focus for the coffin.
560k for control dead as a continuous effect in an wonderous item (spellcaster level 20).
81k for secret chest as a command word(cl 9)
50,400 gp for animate dead as a command word (cl 5)
194,400 gp for create undead as a command word (cl 18)
288,000 gp for create greater undead as a command word (cl 20)


Technically, you might have to pay for the black onyx for each undead creating spell, but I figured the DM is being nice and allowing them to share the same gems.

Also, if this wonderous item doesn't take up a slot, the prices double. If I had to guess a slot, I'd say a helm or a robe.

Edit: Sorry mixed up control undead and command undead. Fixed.

Fizban
2007-04-02, 12:16 AM
The Opposite of Living is Undead. Dead is 0, Living is 1, Undead is -1. (-1 is like 1, only its not :smallamused: )
By This definition, Positive Powered Living Creatures is the opposite, or Normal Creatures.

More reasons for the opposites

You can resurrect or animate a corpse ( +1 or -1 Respectively)
You cannot go directly from Undead to Living or vice versa [With few exceptions. A wish could do this, It may also be argued Vampires can]
Positive Energy Heals Living creatures, and Harms Undead. Negative Energy 'Heals' Undead creatures, and harms Living Creatures.
I disagree. The opposite of living is dead. The opposite of undead is unliving. The closest thing we have to unliving is the dealthess type, effectively postive energy undead.

Deathless (found in the BoED and Eberron) are healed by positive energy and harmed by negative energy, but are not alive and so share many of the immunities and resistances of the undead. They are rebuked by turning and turned by rebuking, and react strangely to spells such as command undead and undeath to death.

magic8BALL
2007-04-02, 04:18 AM
These undead fueld by positive energy intrigue me... would there be 'normal' creatures fueld by negative energy? By normal, they reproduce, tranfereing genetic information from generation to generation?

If so, there would now be four diametric opposites of creatures... just like real imagionary "complex" maths:
+1
-1
+i
-i

For those not into imagionary numbers, and complex maths:

i is an imagionary number, such that:

i^2 = -1

Imagionary numbers are expresed as multiples of i.
A complex number is the sum of a real number and an imagionary number:

a+bi

where a and b are real numbers