Considering the consequences of necromantic rituals.

[druid91]

So, I've been thinking about something of late. In a past game, the DM gave me a ritual that allowed me to animate crawling claws, with the main 'limiter' being downtime and a gentlemans agreement between us. Now this worked fine for the time but it seems to me that there are a lot of potentially useful undead in the MM, that a necromancer has no way to create.

So, I was thinking that perhaps offering would be necromancers the option to trade a spell learned for a ritual, the ritual would have to coincide with the undeads MM entry. For example, a flameskull requiring the skull of a spellcaster.

But I'm unsure how to limit spamming of the rituals and how to rule on control of the undead created thereby. Also what would be level appropriate?

[Boci]

Cool idea, I like it, especially requiring a spellcaster's head. Flaming skulls have 16 intelligence, so one obvious solution to prevent spamming and abuse is that the necromancer has no control over it, and must negotiate with it. Even as an evil creature, the creature would likely at least listen to a necromancer who created it. As for spell level, equal to their CR (maybe throw in an additional +1 for good measure) is probably fair, so 4th or 5th to create a flaming skull.

[Pyon]

Make the ritual have a very hefty cost. Either a moral cost, or financial one. I love the idea of this though, it's just perfect to give your undead army an undead general.

[erradin]

I like what has been said about making the ritual costly, or else limiting the control the caster has. All I would add to the control element is that the ritual prevents the newly created undead from directly harming its creator for 24 hours, if you do go that route.

Another thing to consider is limitations on the ritual itself. Perhaps the ritual requires a certain event which can only occur so often: like a certain phase of the moon. Perhaps the ritual exhausts the character and the ritual cannot be performed while exhausted.

Or, if you want to be very specific, It uses the skull of a spellcaster, but the caster must have died to a cold spell. Perhaps the ritual requires the bones of a sentient magical creature to form the base of its structure and give it power. The bones must have the proper symbols carved into them, a task which takes no less than 6 hours.

Any combination of small limitations could potentially limit abuse. :)

[napoleon_in_rag]

For example, a flameskull requiring the skull of a spellcaster.

I like this idea. It has a lot of potential as an adventure hook.

Like your low level party gets hired to kill a medium level magic user only to find out they were hired by a necromancer who wants the head to make a flame skull. Or some one gets hired to kill your party's mage for the same reason...

You could associate a type of undead with each class, like death knight with fighter obviously. So a necromancer would be forced to seek very specific corpses for rituals, adding depth to the campaign.

An obvious limitation would be that the campaigns Wizards Conclave, for example, would be very unhappy about getting sniped to make flame skulls. The thieves guild would hate necromancers because they turn thieves into..... whatever undead you make out of thieves. It would explain why Necromancers are so hated beyond the fact that they are the stereotypical bad guys in a campaign.

[Kane0]

Examples for Flameskulls:

- Completing the ritual gives you 2 levels of exhaustion, and you cannot perform the ritual again with exhaustion levels.
- You need the skull of a dead spellcaster, preferably with a casting stat of at least 16 and capable of 3rd level spells or higher.
- Only one flameskull can remain under your control at any given time.
- The components of the spell come to a cost of 100 - 1000 gp per CR of the creature you are attempting to create. This makes up various inks, incenses, crushed gemstones and other materials used during the ritual. Some of these items cannot be found though mainstream, legal means.
- The ritual requires a sacrifice in blood, either from you or a victim. This results in HP damage that can only be healed magically.
- You cannot have both a flameskull and a familiar at the same time.

Any or all of these are little things that will add up, so losing a flameskull you made is a real hit to your time, money and effort.

Death Knights might require the preserved corpse of a fallen (Oathbreaker) Paladin, or in a pinch Acolyte background eldritch knights and war clerics.
Crawling claws only those buried alive, scratching at their coffin lids in an attempt to escape
Banshees only work for maidens
Ghouls and ghasts might only be available from people that performed or were subject to cannibalism / famine
Wights only those that killed or were killed by relatives.
Etc

[Mith]

Personally, I would rule that a necromancer can dominate and control intelligent undead creatures they have created for a short time, and gain a Persuasion bonus against any creatures that they have created. It makes more sense to me for a Master of the Undead to have some form of control over their undead horde. I really like the idea of the specific requirements needed for the ritual to create the intelligent undead.

[Coidzor]

Some number + Charisma modifier for control for some undead, say, 1+Cha Mod for a particularly powerful but not very willful undead. Maybe something like Xd4+Cha Mod for weaker undead that are mostly going to be flavorful background stuff or serve as guards for the party's resting area rather than be part of their adventuring minions, where X could be character level or character level/2.

And then for more willful undead, then you'd run into Loyalty and run them like NPC henchmen as per the DMG, just with their particular Undead ethos and mindset. So you'd have to spend time cultivating those relationships and grooming them to be your lieutenants. Possibly even using Downtime training to give them some extra hit dice and durability or maybe even class levels.

That's all I got for offhand ideas, at any rate.

[Kane0]

Base it off proficiency bonus?

Eg you can control intelligent undead of a total CR up to your proficiency bonus, or a number of intelligent undead up to half your proficiency bonus.