(Mechanics Discussion) Spells that should be different than they are

[Shackled Slayer]

Animate dead. As a person who loves pet magic classes, it's a spell near and dear to my heart. But it's objectively awful. I always ask for special permissions as a player character when playing a necromancer, or else i just dont bother.

There are spells in pathfinder & D&D 3e that just suck, either because they are underwhelming for the level they are or they are so restricted that it's obscene. What's a spell or a handful of spells that you feel are just overburdened to suck? How could they be re-worked to function well for their level and not just be terrible spells?

For me, I'll start with the "----- dead" spells. Every level of dead spell is restricting. I can't legally cast the lowest of them until level 5, which is animate dead, and then i need to have a permanently burnt spell slot to maintain my undead lackey(s). This gets worse if i have a GM who is a particular stickler for rules and enforces the repeated casting of animate dead just to control it. And animate dead only gives me a zombie or skeleton, literally the weakest possible minion. A gaggle of goblin minions would be more fearsome, and would probably last longer.

I can understand why this was done, a necromancer could potentially get waaayy out of hand if given freedom to animate and control as many undead as they wanted without restriction, but this doesn't mean every necromancer's spell needs to be restricted like class 4 narcotic substances. So what's the fix?

When i GM i completely re-vamp the spell. I prescribe animate dead as a level 1 spell that still raises a skeleton or zombie. It loses the permenantly burned spell slot as a necessary means to control the undead, replaced only with a single major restriction; you can only control a number of undead equal to your caster level. If you are a level 1 necromancer, then you can control a single undead of animate undead's created creatures.

Now it actually makes sense to take this spell, as when you are level one, any creature that can kill a zombie could kill you. You also aren't burning the spell to maintain the undead. You still have no reliable way of healing it unless you take a heal undead spell specifically for the purpose of patching up your lackey, which means you are either constantly rotating out undead or build a commited necromancer, losing the spots for an extra burny-zappy-freezy spell. I feel that this makes allot more mechanical sense, especially when you considder most things you start throwing at the players after level 2 are full well capable of demolishing any lowly zombie or skeleton.

What do you think of this? And what spells do you think are actually pretty dead in the water without a substantial amount of GM tweaking or allowance? How do YOU go about fixing them?

[Jay R]

You are trying to make necromancers more powerful. Fifth level spells aren't supposed to have permanent effects you can take away with you.

Wall of Stone is permanent, but if you want one where you are now, you have to cast it now. Similarly, your specifci complaint ("then i need to have a permanently burnt spell slot to maintain my undead lackey(s)") is that you want this one spell to last much longer and travel with you, as the average spells don't.

Necromancers on that level aren't supposed to start building a permanent army; they supposed to use the materials at hand for the task at hand.

But to be fair, I have no interest in playing an Evil character. So I'm not in sympathy with your goals in the first place.

[Darth Ultron]

Animate Dead seems to be at the right level, 3rd, so that you have to be a necromancer of at least ''above super weak''. I don't think a 1st level guy should be animating a whole city of undead.

I add hundreds of spells to the game, so I have plenty of lesser animate dead type spells.

But more so: I don't think animating dead is really a ''spell'' type thing. Spells are for a lot more immediate effect. You don't cast a spell to get a humuclus or any other constructs. So that puts the spell animate dead for more a 'quick' undead force...not a long lasting undead army. For that, you'd want more of a ritual type magic effect.

[Shackled Slayer]

@ Jay R, Im really not trying to make necromancers more powerful when i bump down animate dead. At first level, as i mentioned above, you would be animating 1 dead guy. That's it. You absolutely cannot raise more than that at any given time until you level up beyond first level, under any circumstance. What's more, dead manipulating spells on the large are plan ahead type deals, taking multiple minutes to perform, which translates into something like ten or so rounds (if we calculate a round at 6 seconds in game time). And the payoff is a skeleton or zombie, which are arguably the weakest lackeys possible. Players can often knock them out with one or two hits. Also, i feel that your assumption that im playing an evil character is misplaced. Necromancers dont necessarily have to be evil characters, despite the sinister nature of their craft.

@ Darth ultron, it's not an army. At level one you can only animate a single zombie or skeleton with how i have the spell set up. Even when you reach level 20, that's still only 20 undead, assuming you only use the level 1 animate dead spell. While from the DM perspective that may as well be an army, most can't stand up to a single fireball, which could decimate the lot of them in a single blast. I honsetly feel that having to get to caster level 5th in order to get a CR 1 undead is kind of ridiculous, especially when that CR 1 creature has a total HP of 10. I do agree though that it should be a ritual to raise permanent undead, but the raise undead spells are all somewhere between one turn cast and ritual, most of them taking several minutes at least to perform.

[Feantar]

Very easy solution, see this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#skeletalMinion), implement as is in pathfinder.

Well since Lesser Animate Dead is Cleric 2, you could houserule that for a necromancer. It wouldn't be really unbalancing. For level 1, a single 1 HD skeleton or zombie would not be unbalancing. Consider:

A single HD skeleton is equivalent to a 1 HD Hireling Warrior (Trained Hireling), which costs 3 sp/day. While one could argue that this is minimum wage, animate dead is also a class specialty and is the equivalent of a bard (non-cheese) diplomancing a hireling to keep their wages low. Such an animate dead costs 25 gp. To make animate dead worth more, you'd have to keep your undead creature up and running for 83 days. While, yes, animate dead lasts forever, most adventures don't, most of those days would be worthless and 83 days on, an 1 HD skeleton would be worthless.

Not to mention the upkeep of a skeleton in combat. You can always hire another hireling and just lose 3 sp, the new skeleton costs 25 gp.

It's best to approach animated undead as treasure.

Note: Animated undead cause havoc in combat durations. I was just arguing utility. If you're going to use multiple minor minions in combat, use mob templates.

[Jormengand]

I would suggest porting the 3.5 summon undead spells over to pathfinder. PF also has Lesser Animate Dead (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spells/animateDead.html) which only makes one undead per casting but can make more up to the standard limit, which is second level.

The main thing I dislike about all the dead raising stuff is the material component, but then I usually hate the economics of consumables anyway.

[Grod_The_Giant]

For me, I'll start with the "----- dead" spells. Every level of dead spell is restricting. I can't legally cast the lowest of them until level 5, which is animate dead, and then i need to have a permanently burnt spell slot to maintain my undead lackey(s). This gets worse if i have a GM who is a particular stickler for rules and enforces the repeated casting of animate dead just to control it. And animate dead only gives me a zombie or skeleton, literally the weakest possible minion. A gaggle of goblin minions would be more fearsome, and would probably last longer.
Are you talking about 5e Animate Dead? Because nothing I can see and nothing I've ever heard about the 3.5/PF Animate spells makes you permanently burn a spell slot-- you cast the spell and get 2*CL HD of undead, and you can cast it again to hit the maximum of 4*CL HD.

[Zanos]

Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about. 3.5/PF animate dead is great. Having 4 HD per CL of undead is fantastic. That's two giant skeletons with greatswords with double your HD at a pretty trivial cost.

[Boggartbae]

Gonna agree that animate dead in 3.PF is one of the most powerful things a character could be doing, and that you don't need to cast it every day.

Also, in Pathfinder, they made create undead WAAYY better by letting it give people a whole bunch of templates, so that spell is good now too.

[Shackled Slayer]

Oh fudge your all right. I've been playing 5th ed recently as a PC and got things mixed up between 5th ed and pathfinder. Lol whoops! Pathfinder's version is actually allot more reasonable for it's leveling, now that im looking it over.

But eniugh about animate undead, this is about all kinds of spells!

[weckar]

But to be fair, I have no interest in playing an Evil character. So I'm not in sympathy with your goals in the first place.

Who said Evil? Nobody said evil.

[unseenmage]

Simulacrum. As is it's a mess of open wording and playerbase assumptions. Even with the designer q&a thread answers about it there are a host of issues.

Should have at least retained 2nd editions percentage chance to retain or not retain memories or some facsimiles thereof.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Sending.

A 4th/5th level spell that lets you send a 25 word message and get a 25 word response from any distance. Very useful!

However, it's a bit high level for what it does, and it has a 10 minute casting time.

Even the Pathfinder adventure path writers seem to forget that last fact. Often times they will have an NPC 'cast sending to warn their master' moments before they attack the PCs, etc., which ought to take them 10 whole freaking minutes! They should probably just make it a standard or full round action to cast, even if saying 25 words in 6 seconds might be difficult (especially if you're not sure what you're going to say in the first place).

[Shark Uppercut]

Also, in Pathfinder, they made create undead WAAYY better by letting it give people a whole bunch of templates, so that spell is good now too.

That's cool and all, but you still need to be CL11 to make a fricking Huecuva which is a CR2 monster. You need to be CL18+ to make iconic undead like Mohrgs.
The mere existence of interesting undead presupposes legions of high level up to epic level necromancers making minions that couldn't possibly be useful for them. It's like if there were rules for Alchemists fusing together their own chimaeras, but you have to be epic to make a Chuul.
And this is still pointless because the powergamers aren't messing around with quirky random undead, they're murdering armies with squads of 4HD minotaur skeletons with masterwork greatswords and a few cryohydra skeletons. Animate Dead is far worse that Create Undead.

Simplest solution? Remove Animate Dead from the game, make it a class feature like Animal Companion or Eidolon, or...

Very easy solution, see this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#skeletalMinion), implement as is in pathfinder.

See, this guy gets it.

Create Undead and Greater Create Undead are fine because the undead aren't under your control.
Commanding undead by turning has its own built in control cap, because class features are slightly better rounded than spells. Maybe put a HD limit or creature limit on Command Undead too.

Also make the level requirements for Create Undead slightly lower, so you could create an equal CR undead to what you could get from Summon Monster.

[Lord Haart]

I can't say with absolute certainty that Darkness sucks for it level (though i think it does), but it is infamous for how often the writers themselves forgot what it does.

[Shark Uppercut]

Sending.

A 4th/5th level spell that lets you send a 25 word message and get a 25 word response from any distance. Very useful!

However, it's a bit high level for what it does, and it has a 10 minute casting time.

Even the Pathfinder adventure path writers seem to forget that last fact. Often times they will have an NPC 'cast sending to warn their master' moments before they attack the PCs, etc., which ought to take them 10 whole freaking minutes! They should probably just make it a standard or full round action to cast, even if saying 25 words in 6 seconds might be difficult (especially if you're not sure what you're going to say in the first place).

Exactly! The "email and/or cell phone" spells are fairly restrictive.
Message is a lvl0 spell, so your Wizard can start from the begnning with magic walkie talkies. But eavesdropping is a static Perception 25, so right around lvl7 your little radios become obvious to most enemies. Time to get magic items of telepathy, right?
Whispering Wind is pointless. Moves at 6mph, can't even track individual people, limited to 1 mile/CL.
Likewise, when are we even supposed to use Helping Hand? It can only go 5 miles.

The Teleports are much better, but since they require higher level spells none exist in an E6 or E8 game, if you care about that. And in an E10 game casters of that level are so rare they're probably too busy being the leaders of powerful organizations.