The Woes with Wights (Moderating Memetic Minions)

[Warchon]

Just wanted to open up a discussion on how to deal with players who get control of a monster that copies itself and controls those copies. Undead are the obvious culprit here--wights, vampires, vargouille, etc--but I'm sure there are some peripheral cases and this can hopefully cover those as well.

I'll be laying out some options as I see them. If others have thoughts that I feel are distinct enough to warrant their own entry I will include them here as well.

The standard case here is going to be a necromancer who has a wight in her Rebuked control pool, though these rules should also work when the the wight is a cohort or a PC. I'll widen this scope if enough significant deviations are raised.

I have ordered them roughly in procession from most to least catastrophic.

Option Zero: Rules As Written (The Lynchpin)
Necromancer tells their pet wight what to do. Pet tells his offspring what to do. Recursion is absolute, and an unscrupulous PC can control a nation sized army of undead in short order.

The Good: Might be interesting in an extreme high powered campaign, alongside a party with Pun-Pun and other NI abuse builds.

The Bad: Total campaign destroyer. Even a relatively modest player will quickly amass an army capable of destroying any reasonable foe with zero effort.

The Ugly: If the pet OR the necromancer is killed, the puppet strings are cut entirely and unless somebody quickly identifies and takes control of a new "head wight."
Even a careful effort to buffer this problem can make things worse: picture a cleric who makes Wight 1 make exactly 1 offspring, makes Wight 2 make exactly one offspring, repeats this thirty times, then stashes the first 20 wights in safe places they can teleport to to reassert control of the horde in the event their lieutenant dies.
Sounds smart, but you've actually just created twenty boss monsters for low level adventurers to reach and kill--and ANY of those wights dying disrupts the chain.
****. Did I just write a whole campaign world by accident?


Option 1: No Recursion (A Rebel Without A Casual Relationship)

This scenario encompasses several possibilities. Maybe you rule that somebody whose free will is compromised can't exert mental control and the secondary wights are free.
Maybe the primary wight is required to follow commands but the controller can't stop him from commanding secondary wights according to HIS liking. Perhaps you institute an opposed check (Will saves, opposed charisma, sense motive--would you obey YOUR boss if you thought he was under hostile mind control?) and let the necromancer keep -some- of the secondary wights.

Pros: You're allowing your necromancer to keep a small stable of commanded undead, enough to let him feel like a badass without overwhelming every encounter.

Cons: Dr. Reanimator over here needs to keep a VERY tight leash on his corpses. One slip up and you're probably getting a wight plague--one that may very well actively plot against your party.

Other Considerations: Probably the most likely method to lead to a TPK: Total Planet Kill.

Option 2: The Non Compete Clause (Please Spay Or Neuter Your Pets)

When taken as a familiar, the Vargouille explicitly loses its ability to propagate. Taking that as a precedent, your can simply rule that the same is true for any baddie taken as a thrall.

For Better: Your necro still gets a fierce ally, with none of the headache. They can still inflict the negative levels, after all, just not start the apocalypse.
As a side benefit, this path is approved by Bob Barker.

For Worse: Player may feel cheated out of the best part of enslaving a wight.

For the Swarm: Beware of sneaky tricks like releasing control of their wight mid combat with the expectation that it will breed. Have a plan ahead of time so you know how you are going to deal with this when it comes up.


Option 3: The New Nemesis (The Student Exceeds the Master)

Perhaps the most nuanced way to deal with it, even if it's almost entirely house ruled. Tell your player ahead of time that when her wight spawns, the new spawn will not enter her rebuke pool but the primary wight's effective hit dice will increase. So a 4HD wight with a 4HD spawn will take up 8HD in the pool and control the youngling on her behalf.
Do NOT tell her ahead of time that when the effective hit dice exceed cap, the pet will break control.

The satisfaction: This lets your player get a few spawns safely, especially if you are using templates instead of letting your wight turn both rabbits and Storm giants into 4HD medium creatures. It also encourages her to play favorites and protect their primary above the others.

The saddest fact: Because rebuke pools are generally quite small, this strategy will bump up against its limits pretty quickly.

The sadist faction: Spawning undead are usually intelligent. You can turn this affair into a major plot hook--have the primary wight play along after it regains its freedom, and wait for an opportune moment to strike--maybe killing off an important NPC or stranding the party somewhere dangerous. Suddenly the party has a canny foe hiding out in the wilderness building their doom, and they have a race against time to put him down.

[Zaq]

Honestly, I’d probably lean towards the “spay and neuter your deaders” option just because it’s the only one that doesn’t spiral out of control. If you’re a DM imposing that rule on a PC, be very up-front with them about what you’re doing and why, but I think it’s the best option long-term.

Real Talk: any player who whines about not being able to make a geometrically growing wave of undead is the kind of player who won’t be deterred by the “aaaand here’s how this can go horribly wrong” elements of the other options you presented, which means you’re going to eventually be lunging for the worst-case scenario. Since your stated purpose is to avoid that sort of thing, the only option that makes sense to me is the one that simply can’t multiply.

I briefly considered saying something about enforcing the “game of telephone” effect as the orders from the Prime Necromancer are relayed down the wight-chain, but then I realized that doing so would be a horrifying violation of Grod’s Law, so now I feel ashamed. Don’t do that. Remember kids, you cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use.

[Lapak]

Interesting thread about finding the right balance for a factor that comes up a lot.

I like your house ruled solution; if you wanted it to extend a bit, you could adjust how much spawns down the chain impact the cap - only 1/2 their HD count against the master, or they only push the cap by 1 HD ever, or that kind of thing.

It could apply more broadly than to necromancers, too, by the by - using the same method for monster-spawns goes a long way towards explaining why intelligent undead wouldn't immediately overwhelm the world. Apply a Rebuke-style cap to the number of spawns an undead can control and you'll see fewer Wightpocalypses or Vampire Empires - they don't want free-willed rivals, but if they get too careless with their spawning that's what they'll get.

[mabriss lethe]

Having run an evil campaign where this was an explicit goal, here's how I ran it.

THE AGREEMENT: The players agree to limit total number of in combat minions to 1 per party member, unless i say otherwise for special circumstances. To speed up combat, a minion will default to acting on the master's initiative count. Excess minions will be used as "off stage plot fodder and noncombat npcs" otherwise i'm not approving this character. Please note that if the chain of command is broken for controlled minions, they will be free to act as they wish.

So yeah, they could spread the plague of undeath as far and wide as they wanted, but they had to take steps to ensure they wouldn't lose control, and could only take a small contingent of disposable bodyguards.

[King of Nowhere]

one thing to ask is why whight don't take over the world.they are intelligent enough and they can spawn.
So, apply whatever reason stops them from killing the whole planet (generally, adventurers whittling down their numbers) and appply it. If the party goes around killing people to feed their whight army, I expect it will lead to seriious consequences.
I'm not sure if you can make whights out of animals, but just in case, houserule that you can't.

[Darth Ultron]

The basic thing is ''how" are the spawn controlled? No type of telepathic communication or distance is ever mentioned. So the only thing to conclude is that the control is in person and verbal. Simply put, unlimited awareness and communication with controlled spawn would be enough to note another special ability in the stat block....and it's not there.

So Necromancer can tell controlled undead A to tell controlled spawn undead B to do something, all close together and in person. And to go even a couple more 'spawn' down the line and you really get problems.

1.No free will. The undead are robots. In short they will do exactly what they are commanded to do, but, nothing else. The only possible exception is that the undead might defend themselves, but other then that they will do as they are told....but then some will say they won't even defend themselves too.

The problems with no free will are a legion. The undead won't even react like a 'simple human' or even an animal. They will only do exactly as they are told. Tel the undead to ''guard a door", and they will do only that. If anything else happens, even right next to them, they won't react.
A classic is like you command undead 8675309 to ''kill any elf you see'', then much later make a treaty with an elf lord and then walk past undead 8675309. What does the undead do? Kill the elf.

2.Endless. Tell and undead to do something and they will....forever. Tell the undead to walk in that direction, and they will, forever.

It's bad enough that they won't react to things at all, but it's worse as they will simply do what they are told...forever...even if it makes no sense, until they are commanded to do something else.

3.Self Destruction. The undead will do what you order them to do, even destroy themselves. They have no sense at all of preservation. You tell them to 'walk north' right into a Wall of Fire...and they do so. Of course, this also means anything dangerous they ignore and follow their orders.

4.Interpretation. The undead will do as they are told, to the best of their understanding. Most undead only have 'average' intelligence, so they might understand what they are told...maybe not. But really any orders given should be very clear. If they are not clear, and direct and precise the undead might do something unwanted to 'follow it's orders'.

And it's bad enough if the undead simply does not understand your orders and commands.......but it's a whole other problem if the undead is against you.

5.The Starscream. The undead must follow commands and orders.....but that is it. Otherwise it is free to do as it wants. It can do anything it is not ordered or commanded to do. And if it's intelligent, it won't like being controlled and ordered around and will always be looking for a way to escape and/or kill it's master. At the very least it will look for ways to disrupt it's ''masters" plans.

6Pre-Programing Woes. Knowing the above, you might give an undead a bunch of commands about what they can and can not do and put some serious blocks on them. Of course, this comes with a huge cost.

For the simple example, in 1990 you tell Undead 42 ''never attack any elf unless I tell you to directly". Then, in 2020 you get attacks by a bunch of elves. What does Undead 42 do? Nothing. They are still following the order you gave 30 years ago.

And it only gets worse when you give hundreds of undead hundreds of commands over years and years.


Also note the huge chain of command problem: if undead 1975 is destroied, then it's spawn are all free. And all the newly free spawn now can order their own spawn around....


Side Note: Old D&D had a nice rule for this. On the night of the Full Moon, all undead are freed from any control and can not be controlled until the next night. Also a couple holy/unholy celebration days a year of the gods of undead/afterlife/life/suffering/freedom or such also free all undead. And there also was the once a year New Years Day of No Magic where all controled undead were freed.

[Warchon]

I'm not sure if you can make whights out of animals, but just in case, houserule that you can't.

This is getting tangential to the topic, but I'm inclined to comment because the rules as written are interestingly counterintuitive.

Generally, wights are born two ways and then there are two ways to make them.

First, negative levels make Wights unless stated otherwise (many undead that level drain their victims to death make copies of themselves). Specifically, they rise as a wight on the next night.

Second, wights make wights explicitly. It seems strange to call this out directly, but wight-made wights rise in 1d4 ROUNDS. This ability explicitly applies to humanoids ONLY.

As for how to build a wight, the simple method is to just make a wight. It doesn't matter what died, just put a standard w ight into play and you're done.

Or you can apply the Wight template (Warning: Dragon Magazine content). The template can be applied to "any corporeal creature except constructs, oozes, and undead" which is curious because their spawning ability STILL calls out humanoids alone as valid targets.

Based on this discrepancy, I tend to believe that wights still make wights out of almost anything, but humanoids rise much faster.

Unless, of course, houserules like the one you suggested are applied.



I like your house ruled solution; if you wanted it to extend a bit, you could adjust how much spawns down the chain impact the cap - only 1/2 their HD count against the master, or they only push the cap by 1 HD ever, or that kind of thing.

It could apply more broadly than to necromancers, too, by the by - using the same method for monster-spawns goes a long way towards explaining why intelligent undead wouldn't immediately overwhelm the world. Apply a Rebuke-style cap to the number of spawns an undead can control and you'll see fewer Wightpocalypses or Vampire Empires - they don't want free-willed rivals, but if they get too careless with their spawning that's what they'll get.

Loving this. Not only did you just simplify the whole system, but you've put a ready-made intercoterie political intrigue system into play in the generally-treated-as-mindless-even-though-they're-not undead community.

Wights overestimating their own spawning softcap and creating unwanted splinter groups.
Ghouls holding a vampire prince hostage, threatening to disband an entire canton unless their demands are met.
Hell, you just created a believable justification for the Camarilla and that's not even in this system.

[Warchon]

1.No free will. The undead are robots. In short they will do exactly what they are commanded to do, but, nothing else. The only possible exception is that the undead might defend themselves, but other then that they will do as they are told....but then some will say they won't even defend themselves too.

This and a lot of what follows it is true only of -mindless- undead. The rules as written don't go into any great detail (anywhere that I've seen anyway) on the exact level of control provided by rebuke, but it would seem counterintuitive to expect it to render intelligent undead mindless. I don't know of any spell or magic that does so, short of actually turning a subject into a mindless creature.

Most DMs that I have encountered have felt that a rebuked zombie that isn't carefully monitored would attack party members. It seems reasonable to think that a rebuked vampire that isn't actively prevented would..uh..become a rock star? Or enroll in high school over and over? Whatever it is that vampires do.

[Darth Ultron]

This and a lot of what follows it is true only of -mindless- undead. The rules as written don't go into any great detail (anywhere that I've seen anyway) on the exact level of control provided by rebuke, but it would seem counterintuitive to expect it to render intelligent undead mindless. I don't know of any spell or magic that does so, short of actually turning a subject into a mindless creature.

Why are you going to 'mindless creature'? You can have no free will and still have your mind be controlled.

[Warchon]

Why are you going to 'mindless creature'? You can have no free will and still have your mind be controlled.

Of course. But do any compulsions turn you into an automaton? Even Dominate Person explicitly allows them to look after their own basic well being, let alone any forms of control that let an unfancy level 2 cleric command someone.

[Darth Ultron]

Of course. But do any compulsions turn you into an automaton? Even Dominate Person explicitly allows them to look after their own basic well being.

Well, no core spell turns anyone into an automaton.

All the rules really say is you get control. But even if the undead does defend themselves...they still must do as they are told.

[Warchon]

Well, no core spell turns anyone into an automaton.

All the rules really say is you get control. But even if the undead does defend themselves...they still must do as they are told.

Yeah the rules--like a LOT of the rules surrounding undead--leave a lot of questions unanswered. It's basically up to each GM to decide on base behaviour and on just how far control goes. Kind of like a Rule Negative One.

[Darth Ultron]

Yeah the rules--like a LOT of the rules surrounding undead--leave a lot of questions unanswered. It's basically up to each GM to decide on base behaviour and on just how far control goes. Kind of like a Rule Negative One.

Yes, though the general point is that they to exactly what they are told.

Maybe you can order then to destroy themselves...maybe not, the rules don't say.

[Warchon]

Yes, though the general point is that they to exactly what they are told.

Maybe you can order then to destroy themselves...maybe not, the rules don't say.
I'd lean away from that interpretation for a number of reasons. One is that -every- compulsion in the game (afaik) breaks if suicidal orders are given. Even the most ironclad ones allow extra saving throws.
Another is that Good clerics can already destroy an intelligent undead outright with the same roll. Allowing the Evil one to command the same provides a case where the evil cleric gets all the same options as the Good cleric and then some, where it seems intended for the two options (turn/destroy vs rebuke/command) to be relatively equal.

I hadn't given much thought to self destructive commands on rebuke before. More research may be called for.

[Darth Ultron]

I'd lean away from that interpretation for a number of reasons.

Well, there is some on the other side:

1.Constructs to obey like automatons.

2.Summoned Creatures do obey like automatons

3.Mindless Creatures obey like automatons.

4.At all times the simulacrum remains under your absolute command. Seems more then ''just" command.

[zlefin]

interesting ideas.

I suspect i tmight be better to just directly address unlimited growht minions.


I'm thinking I like a mix of options 2 & 3: spawn that would exceed your minion cap just aren't spawned.

[AmeVulpes]

And it's bad enough if the undead simply does not understand your orders and commands.......but it's a whole other problem if the undead is against you.

5.The Starscream. The undead must follow commands and orders.....but that is it. Otherwise it is free to do as it wants. It can do anything it is not ordered or commanded to do. And if it's intelligent, it won't like being controlled and ordered around and will always be looking for a way to escape and/or kill it's master. At the very least it will look for ways to disrupt it's ''masters" plans.


I'd lean away from that interpretation for a number of reasons. One is that -every- compulsion in the game (afaik) breaks if suicidal orders are given. Even the most ironclad ones allow extra saving throws.
Another is that Good clerics can already destroy an intelligent undead outright with the same roll. Allowing the Evil one to command the same provides a case where the evil cleric gets all the same options as the Good cleric and then some, where it seems intended for the two options (turn/destroy vs rebuke/command) to be relatively equal.

I hadn't given much thought to self destructive commands on rebuke before. More research may be called for.

Command Undead -EDIT: Wizard spell, just to clarify-( https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Command_Undead ) covers this, but may not apply to any other effect.


Assuming the subject is intelligent, it perceives your words and actions in the most favorable way (treat its attitude as friendly). It will not attack you while the spell lasts. You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An intelligent commanded undead never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing.

A nonintelligent undead creature gets no saving throw against this spell. When you control a mindless being, you can communicate only basic commands, such as “come here,” “go there,” “fight,” “stand still,” and so on. Nonintelligent undead won’t resist suicidal or obviously harmful orders.

Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the commanded undead (regardless of its Intelligence) breaks the spell.

I quite like the way this effect works, although it could be argued that a Wight would never defend an innocent peasant from an orc (say, by attacking the orc), so you may have to make said charisma check if you tell it to protect the peasant. If you tell it to attack the orc? Likely not.

[unseenmage]

Whatever you choose I recommend that it work well with any sufficiently large pool of controlled minions.

SLA of Simulacrum, Dominate chains, Spell Clock of Minor Servitor or Awaken Sand, Planar Binding use, Leadership and Thrallherd, etc etc.
Heck just using Diplomancy at a high enough optimization level could count.

There are TONS of methods for gaining massive numbers of minions in this game.
Whatever rule you decide on will need to work with most or all of them or it will practically work with none.

[Falontani]

Having run an evil campaign where this was an explicit goal, here's how I ran it.

THE AGREEMENT: The players agree to limit total number of in combat minions to 1 per party member, unless i say otherwise for special circumstances. To speed up combat, a minion will default to acting on the master's initiative count. Excess minions will be used as "off stage plot fodder and noncombat npcs" otherwise i'm not approving this character. Please note that if the chain of command is broken for controlled minions, they will be free to act as they wish.

So yeah, they could spread the plague of undeath as far and wide as they wanted, but they had to take steps to ensure they wouldn't lose control, and could only take a small contingent of disposable bodyguards.

This is most definitely the way I run my games, and the way that I think is most fair.

Perhaps even make the intelligent creatures gain xp and level up with the necromancer

[Dalmosh]

This is getting tangential to the topic, but I'm inclined to comment because the rules as written are interestingly counterintuitive.

Generally, wights are born two ways and then there are two ways to make them.

First, negative levels make Wights unless stated otherwise (many undead that level drain their victims to death make copies of themselves). Specifically, they rise as a wight on the next night.

Second, wights make wights explicitly. It seems strange to call this out directly, but wight-made wights rise in 1d4 ROUNDS. This ability explicitly applies to humanoids ONLY.

As for how to build a wight, the simple method is to just make a wight. It doesn't matter what died, just put a standard wight into play and you're done.

Or you can apply the Wight template (Warning: Dragon Magazine content). The template can be applied to "any corporeal creature except constructs, oozes, and undead" which is curious because their spawning ability STILL calls out humanoids alone as valid targets.

Based on this discrepancy, I tend to believe that wights still make wights out of almost anything, but humanoids rise much faster.

Unless, of course, houserules like the one you suggested are applied.


Strictly speaking, this was revised in the Rules Compendium to the effect that creatures that die from Negative Energy only rise as Wights "if able to do so".
Now, since there are no book-published Wight templates that allow non-humanoids to be statted as Wights, its implicit that the default here is... no... this only applies to Humanoids.
I think there is a very good argument that this is the RAI here.

If you did wish to adopt the Dragon Magazine content alternative template that does allow other types of Wight, then that's your personal choice as DM, but its worth noting that even that
article stresses that non-humanoid Wights are very rare, and tend to only occur under very special circumstances

[Segev]

I do like the notion of a cap of 4xHD worth of spawn (in spawn HD) before the oldest spawn breaks control. Or the highest-HD spawn breaks control, perhaps. (In fact, that'd be a good replacement rule for "oldest" in all the HD-caps for controlling undead. The most powerful undead is the one that escapes first.)

As to dealing with the infinitely-descending tree of spawn, the first way is the one that works by the RAW, and also is pretty easy to handle: the spawn only are compelled to obey their master, and while the master could order them to obey HIS master "as if he were me," only as long as the master is unliving does his compulsion apply. Keeping your chains of command safe in a pickle jar of preservation is an option, but makes it hard to build your chains of command. Keeping the numbers small enough to manage personally is safest. The spawn of your minions are what you send elsewhere to do your evil bidding, not waht you use to personally conquer anything.

Also, the same techniques that work for managing any army can work with intelligent undead: pay them. Give them privileges and luxuries for good service. Reward them with promotion when they merit it. Use your absolute control only to remind them that, no, they can't mutiny. And keep command undead on your lieutenants' direct underlings, as well, so they like you.