Sir_Chivalry
2018-01-17, 12:00 PM
So in my Savage Tide game, one of my players is playing a Dread Necromancer and has become enamored with the idea of a Bone Ship http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/bone-ship/. However, the creature is (besides being pathfinder and therefore needing a once over with the adaptation eye) significantly more powerful than a Devourer, the undead option Greater Create Undead gives to CL 20 casters
With no options directly available and with the bone ship being far above even the most powerful pre-epic necromancer's skill to create, should I allow my player access to it (perhaps with an Epic Spell later on in the game) or should I instead encourage the player to buy a Bone Skiff http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/vehicles/water-vehicles/bone-skiff/, which rather than a creature is a vehicle with creature-like abilities and then look towards bridging the gap between the skiff and ship with magic items and vehicular upgrades?
As it stands, the differences if I do go that path are:
-Ship is one size category bigger (likely not important)
-Ship has a way to self-heal (much more effectively than the standard undead healing in Libris Mortis, also likely not important due to at-will negative energy touch of Dread Necromancer)
-Ship as a creature is able to act independently (likely going to be an expensive option)
-Ship has ranged attacks (4 cannons and a once per 1d4 rounds combined attack) versus the skiffs 6 melee attacks
-Ship has a 1/minute circle of death (unlimited number of times per day?) which sounds like a fairly easy to price magic item at least
-Ship has an area around it that shakens and staggers enemies (VERY likely to be a gamebreaker)
As it stands, the number of encounters the bone ship or an upgraded bone skiff would actually affect at the end of the campaign in Savage Tide is minimal, as the ship has little ability to get onto land where the majority of harder encounters are. It would trivialize the sea-based encounters and travel time random encounters though
With no options directly available and with the bone ship being far above even the most powerful pre-epic necromancer's skill to create, should I allow my player access to it (perhaps with an Epic Spell later on in the game) or should I instead encourage the player to buy a Bone Skiff http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/vehicles/water-vehicles/bone-skiff/, which rather than a creature is a vehicle with creature-like abilities and then look towards bridging the gap between the skiff and ship with magic items and vehicular upgrades?
As it stands, the differences if I do go that path are:
-Ship is one size category bigger (likely not important)
-Ship has a way to self-heal (much more effectively than the standard undead healing in Libris Mortis, also likely not important due to at-will negative energy touch of Dread Necromancer)
-Ship as a creature is able to act independently (likely going to be an expensive option)
-Ship has ranged attacks (4 cannons and a once per 1d4 rounds combined attack) versus the skiffs 6 melee attacks
-Ship has a 1/minute circle of death (unlimited number of times per day?) which sounds like a fairly easy to price magic item at least
-Ship has an area around it that shakens and staggers enemies (VERY likely to be a gamebreaker)
As it stands, the number of encounters the bone ship or an upgraded bone skiff would actually affect at the end of the campaign in Savage Tide is minimal, as the ship has little ability to get onto land where the majority of harder encounters are. It would trivialize the sea-based encounters and travel time random encounters though