how to give a controlled undead to an npc/town?

[flamewolf393]

So in my idea to make a lawful good necromancer (dont even start on that its already made and legal and approved), I want a way that when I go save a town from monsters/invasion/whatever, I can leave some of my undead minions behind to forever guard the place without them having to count against my limited control pool. Is there anyway to do this?

Can I just command the undead "You shall now follow this persons commands instead of mine" to make that person his new owner even if he doesn't have an ability that would let him command undead?

Or is there maybe a way to create an uncontrolled undead to have some kind of purpose, like imbuing the command into the undead's makeup so it always follows that purpose without having to be controlled?

[flamewolf393]

Given that I never got a reply to this back when I made it, and am still interested in knowing what people think of it, I am necro'ing this post.

[Gildedragon]

Well probably giving them to the local clergy... Or create a trap of control undead or command undead

[Blackhawk748]

By RAW you can just tell them "You shall now follow this persons commands" and then drop them from your control pool and they will just do whatever their last command was, in this case, listening to that person. If you do this i am not responsible for any book based damage you incur.

Also Bad, no Necroing.

[Daefos]

The person you're giving the undead to doesn't need to be a spellcaster if you're just ordering the undead to obey them. Heck, give the thing to a level 1 commoner if that's how you wanna do it. The problem with this method is that undead technically remain under your control, even if you're delegating other people to command them in your stead, and count against your total number of controllable undead (generally your caster level multiplied by four, but there are ways of increasing that). Once you get to that limit, the first undead you controlled way back in that first town is now free to do what it wants. It won't listen to you because you don't control it, and it won't listen to whoever you left it with, because it only did that because you told it to. Generally, it's probably gonna start killing folk; not really ideal for Lawful Good.

The only way to truly pass control would be to release it from your control and have another spellcaster, preferably a cleric, immediately try to exert control over it themselves. If that's not possible, then the only really responsible things to do are take it with you or destroy it. It's just a problem waiting to happen otherwise.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You can give them an eternal wand of command undead. It will cost 4.420 gp, but it will allow them to keep up to six mindless undead under control. The spell lasts three days, and you can use it twice a day; it targets one undead each time and mindless undead get no save. Every day, you refresh two of your six commands.

If that's too risky, you can keep two soldiers and refresh every day, or, if your DM permits, you can craft a custom magic item, like a keystone set in the town square, that automatically does what the eternal wand does, except only for those specific undead. That should really cost about 70% less than a regular eternal wand, because it's immovable and inflexible, just like a class/skill restriction on a magic item.

Note that a chained command undead affects up to 20 targets, and still offers no save, nor any reduction in potency. In other words, you can control 20 mindless undead, of any level, for days at the time, with a single 5th-level spell.

[Nando]

You could probably get a - relatively - cheap magic item for that sort of thing, could you not?
Like a ring of continuous control undead keyed to that specific undead (probably not RAW-possible, but I guess you could at least ask your DM).
Could start a nice tradition thing in those villages... ;)


Edit: Zombie-ninjad...

[Jack_Simth]

Given that I never got a reply to this back when I made it, and am still interested in knowing what people think of it, I am necro'ing this post.

Another way is to, rather than giving them control of an undead, arrange for them to create the undead in the first place.

Method:
Get together with a Cleric (for whom Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell) and brew an oil of Animate Dead.
Then hand the oil to the townsfolk, and have them use it on a corpse.
When using an oil, the user is the caster, the item supplies the caster level, and whatever it's put on is the target.
This means that an Animate Dead oil will let a noncaster get mindless undead under their control.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Another way is to, rather than giving them control of an undead, arrange for them to create the undead in the first place.

Method:
Get together with a Cleric (for whom Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell) and brew an oil of Animate Dead.
Then hand the oil to the townsfolk, and have them use it on a corpse.
When using an oil, the user is the caster, the item supplies the caster level, and whatever it's put on is the target.
This means that an Animate Dead oil will let a noncaster get mindless undead under their control.
D'oh, simple and effective. This is probably the best way, unless you have a lot of Corpsecrafter-type abilities (you might be able to share those temporarily, but it's tricky).

[mabriss lethe]

You could also use Diplomacy on intelligent undead. Negotiate terms and treaties between the villages and, for example, a wight. It isn't very difficult to hit the DCs to ensure that the undead is friendly or helpful, and then work out a mutually beneficial partnership between it and the town. A standard treaty would include covering the wight's basic needs in terms of shelter and feeding off of livestock in exchange for defending the town and only turning enemies, volunteers or those beyond medical help (with approval of next of kin/local authority and a clause in the treaty that sets a limit on the number of other wights he can have in his spawn tree. )