Animate Dead, Fell Animate, and the monetary value of zombies

[Segev]

The other thread on Fell Animate reminded me of this, but it's definitely its own topic. Animate dead - and any other spells that create undead - has an expensive material component, to the tune of 25 gp per HD of the undead created. It's noteworthy that the undead thus created are generally canon fodder. Sure, you might get something big and nasty, but it's still just a bruiser, and the likelihood that it stays with you for terribly long is reasonably low.

A hireling handed a spear will work for 250 days for the cost of animating that same hireling's corpse after he dies. How much more effective will the zombie with the spear be, and how much longer will he last than 250 days? In general, I think the answer is mostly "less than the living hireling" in both cases.

Then we come to Fell Animate. This adds no material component to the spell, but gives you free zombies when you kill something with the spell. Sure, it's going to take a reasonably high spell slot, but you're saving gobs of gp in black onyx. The control is no less than you get from animate dead, and in fact uses the same cap.

Assuming we accept, for sake of argument, D&D's assertion that animate dead is an inherently evil act to cast, there's no moral "high ground" to be had for animating the already-dead versus murdering somebody and animating their corpse. I say this only to remove, for the purposes of this discussion, that point.

Why is it more expensive to animate the already-dead than it is to cause something currently-living that you're killing to immediately animate as a zombie? Should there be some feat or other mechanism to animate the already-dead without having to shell out 25 gp per HD every time? (There is, kind-of: custom magic item of animate dead that casts the spell, but only for a wizard(necromancer), would be expensive, but could incorporate 50x the gp cost of the material component for the highest number of HD its CL could animate. So it'd be a one-off cost that paid for itself after you used it a minimum of 50 times.)

Or does it make some sort of thematic sense that the frugal necromancer is throwing fireballs that leave zombies in their wake instead of robbing jewelry stores and taking his ill-gotten gains to a graveyard?

[Demidos]

If you're just looking for a pure fluff reason that could be reasonably extrapolated:

In the first case (dead body, animate dead), you have to call a soul/animating force of some type back to the body, or create it from nothing, depending on how necromancy works in your setting.

In the second case, the Fell Animated spell traps the souls inside the body and bends it to your will, which is easier since the soul is already there and doesnt have to be called. Furthermore, it's still "hooked in" to the body, and doesn't have to be reattached to all the relevant parts to make the body mobile and grant it rudimentary intelligence.



I have no idea what WOTC intended, and honestly I assume they mostly didn't consider it. Obviously the balance is off between the two, although the cost of a feat slot is non-negligible. Hopefully this helps?

[TheCount]

Power creep mostly, as every book needed something to "poor, weak and oh so fragile" casters.... Not to mention that continuity isn't/wasn't a strong point of Wizards.....

Probably a bit of thematic as well, after all, how would the players feel at high levels without a sea of mooks to get through....

[gogogome]

You underestimate the difficulty of landing the killing blow with a fell animate spell especially for stronger monsters with spell resistance and fast healing or regeneration.

From a pure optimization standpoint Animate Dead is superior because of skeletal dragons and Stone to Flesh or Polymorph Any Object replicating Stone to Flesh.

In addition, there is a mechanic. It's called dip into Pale Master, or use spell-stitched monsters, or create a higher CL night caller. And, of course, Ignore Material Component.

If you're that desperate you can also just use Eschew Materials and Fabricate to create the material component out of nothing.

edit: Actually, summon component might do just as good a job as Eschew Materials.

[liquidformat]

So the name of the game when going army Necromancer is 'how to make undead on the cheap' and there are many ways, taking advantage of Pale Master's 1/day Animate Dead, handing people a quiver of unholy arrows, fill the ranks from Bone Knight, and one of the most common is adding fell animate to something like ray of frost and use it to finish off enemies. Just like abusing wish if there is a will people will find a way.

[Tvtyrant]

Fell Animate, like undead leadership, offers a way to make an undead army like fluff necromancers without making necroplayers OP.

Locate City Wights Bomb is similar but made if pure gouda.

[Segev]

Mmh. Some good advice, here, though I find it unsatisfying that there's no good way to make walking into a graveyard and casting a spell to animate the dead as cost effective as Fell Animate fireballing a town square.

I mean, I'm fond of Fell Animate. And of Invisible Cold-Substituted Lord of the Uttercold Fell Animated Walls of Fire. But there is a stylistic difference between having to start with the living, and being able to reap the dead.

Ignore Material Components is Epic, which is a bit beyond where pricepoint matters.

Isn't Pale Master's 1/day ability hidden behind level 5 or so of the PrC? Hardly a "dip." Probaby workable, though: only costs 1 CL.

Getting an undead minion up to sufficient wisdom for a 4th level spell is a trick, but not unviable. (If you're a lich, you can obviously spellstitch yourself, too, which is a plus.)

I did go poking around, and Pathfinder has at least one possible solution: Blood money (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-money/) is a spell which would let you cover the cost of onyx with Str points. For 1 point of Strength damage, you can get 500 gp worth of black onyx to be used immediately. That's enough for 20 HD. A 7th level caster in an area of desecrate would miss out on 8 HD of undead, or spend an extra point of Strength. A 10th level caster in an area of desecrate would cap out 2 points of strength damage for 40 HD worth of component.

[gogogome]

Isn't Pale Master's 1/day ability hidden behind level 5 or so of the PrC? Hardly a "dip." Probaby workable, though: only costs 1 CL.

2 levels. And only 1 is dead so you're sacrificing 1 CL for 1/day free animate dead.

[Segev]

2 levels. And only 1 is dead so you're sacrificing 1 CL for 1/day free animate dead.

Hm, much more doable than I thought. And staying in for the third level is not horrid, as darkvision is cool. Get yourself the spell permanencied first to make the class feature add to the range, if you don't have it from your race.

Still, blood money is probably one of the more affordable ways around it. And dripping blood into the eye sockets of the skeletons or zombies you're animating is nicely in-theme, too.

[liquidformat]

Hm, much more doable than I thought. And staying in for the third level is not horrid, as darkvision is cool. Get yourself the spell permanencied first to make the class feature add to the range, if you don't have it from your race.

Still, blood money is probably one of the more affordable ways around it. And dripping blood into the eye sockets of the skeletons or zombies you're animating is nicely in-theme, too.

I still think walking around with a quiver of unholy arrows and asking people to hold them is hilarious and cost efficient!

[Segev]

I still think walking around with a quiver of unholy arrows and asking people to hold them is hilarious and cost efficient!

Wights are not unintelligent undead, and while you can effectively charm them with command undead, it's a lot less control than one has over zombies or skeletons.

[liquidformat]

still a good option for anyone with rebuke/command undead

[ShurikVch]

Fell Animate feat, Seed of Undeath spell line, Curse of the Revenancer class feature, and other similar effects are sharing the same flaws: they're animating corpses at the very moment of death.
The problems with are:
You wouldn't be able to animate creature which is already dead.
What if you don't need Zombie right now? Say, do you want to go in a Good-aligned settlement with a Zombie in tow? For Animate Dead and other non-automatic methods it isn't a problem...
When Fell Animate acts, it chew away piece of your control pool; depending on a state of the pool, you may lose control of some Undead, which could go really bad...
Necromantic feats in Dragon #312 required to prepare the body before the animation, thus - unusable with Fell Drain
Porcelain Mask (Oriental Adventures): corpse on which you put the Mask would be animated as a Zombie (or Skeleton) and automatically under your control (control pool is 2HD/character level). Removing the Mask would de-animate the Undead, but wouldn't prevent animating it later. (Market Price: 27000 gp)

And speaking about a blood: Maho-Tsukai (Oriental Adventures) and Tainted Sorcerer (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer) are able to substitute blood for costly material components

[Segev]

Fell Animate taking your undead control cap is manageable. For one, you know when you're casting a spell modified by it. For another, you've got command undead; use that on the minions you lose control of. Or, better still, take Undead Leadership and use that as an overflow pool.

Also, I just realized the absolutely brilliantly evil synnergy between blood money (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-money) and magic jar (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/magic-jar)

Sure, it doesn't work on your undead minions (whom you'd normally prefer to possess as disposable telepresence units), but it works wonderfully on captured peasants, goblins, etc. that you can possess, spend 5 or so str worth of blood on animating ~100 HD of undead, and then hop out of.

[Quertus]

And speaking about a blood: Maho-Tsukai (Oriental Adventures) and Tainted Sorcerer (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer) are able to substitute blood for costly material components

And, for completeness, Tainted Scholar.


I did go poking around, and Pathfinder has at least one possible solution: Blood money (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-money/) is a spell which would let you cover the cost of onyx with Str points. For 1 point of Strength damage, you can get 500 gp worth of black onyx to be used immediately. That's enough for 20 HD. A 7th level caster in an area of desecrate would miss out on 8 HD of undead, or spend an extra point of Strength. A 10th level caster in an area of desecrate would cap out 2 points of strength damage for 40 HD worth of component.

… which Pathfinder emulates with a spell. Interesting precedent. Any good ways to heal stat damage in Pathfinder?

[icefractal]

… which Pathfinder emulates with a spell. Interesting precedent. Any good ways to heal stat damage in Pathfinder?
All the usual ones, although IIRC nothing completely spell-slot or other resource free.

However, ability scores can't go negative, and you don't die from Strength damage, so a handy method for really big Blood Money uses like Wish or True Creation.
1) Magic Jar or Marionette Possession into another body. Sit down next to your real body.
2) Cast Blood Money for $TEXAS Strength damage.
3) Have the Magic Jar ended, by a contingent dispel or minion or something.
4) You (in your real body) reach out, take the created component, and cast the expensive spell.
5) One measly Lesser Restoration put the other body at 1d4 Strength, enough to move.
6) Repeat as desired.

Also, if you can cast with no movement, you can skip the Magic Jar part and just cast the spells while laying on the floor at Strength 0.

[Segev]

All the usual ones, although IIRC nothing completely spell-slot or other resource free.

However, ability scores can't go negative, and you don't die from Strength damage, so a handy method for really big Blood Money uses like Wish or True Creation.
1) Magic Jar or Marionette Possession into another body. Sit down next to your real body.
2) Cast Blood Money for $TEXAS Strength damage.
3) Have the Magic Jar ended, by a contingent dispel or minion or something.
4) You (in your real body) reach out, take the created component, and cast the expensive spell.
5) One measly Lesser Restoration put the other body at 1d4 Strength, enough to move.
6) Repeat as desired.

Also, if you can cast with no movement, you can skip the Magic Jar part and just cast the spells while laying on the floor at Strength 0.

Blood money explicitly fails if you're immune to Str damage. It's arguable that, at 0 Str, you become immune to Str damage on the basis that you can't take it anymore, since it can't go negative.

However, if you're willing to knock yourself to 0 "later," you could use bull's strength on your own or your magic jar-borrowed form to get a higher total Strength, and dump it all into blood money.

If you're worried about timing, you could leave 1 Str in your borrowed form and still cast while in it, too, assuming it's a form you can speak and wave your "hands" in. Or you have Still Spell and Silent Spell. Since we're discussing animate dead, and it's a Necromancy spell, Slaymates can make those feats free to add. (I mean, you still have to have the feats, but you do'nt have to prep it in a higher-level spell slot.) This would let you dump the Strength to 0 and still get the spell off.


How does Strength damage interact with polymorph? If you turn into a Hill Giant at 19 Str, then take 18 points of Strength damage, does the Strength damage follow you back to your native form when the spell wears off? Or are you at 1 Strength, or at your normal Strength?

[Talakeal]

Fabricate to create the material component out of nothing.

How does that work?

[Segev]

How does that work?

The spell description for fabricate (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm) names the materials used in the creation of the new item as the material components to the spell. The logic goes: because the source materials are material components, they're consumed, and fabricate creates the final goods. If you can bypass material component requirements, therefore, fabricate can make something out of nothing. Therefore, using blood money, you can create the raw materials fabricate needs in order to make something, without needing the raw materials aside from those proviced by blood money.

[Jack_Simth]

The spell description for fabricate (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm) names the materials used in the creation of the new item as the material components to the spell. The logic goes: because the source materials are material components, they're consumed, and fabricate creates the final goods. If you can bypass material component requirements, therefore, fabricate can make something out of nothing. Therefore, using blood money, you can create the raw materials fabricate needs in order to make something, without needing the raw materials aside from those proviced by blood money.

Or just grab False Focus (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/false-focus/). More limited (max 100 gp in components for free each casting), but no worries about drawbacks. So you can spam Fabricate for cheap to fill up on components for larger spells.

[Segev]

Or just grab False Focus (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/false-focus/). More limited (max 100 gp in components for free each casting), but no worries about drawbacks. So you can spam Fabricate for cheap to fill up on components for larger spells.

Huh. That's interesting. Only 4 HD of undead at a time, there, with animate dead, but if you are casting plague of undead, it will fully cover it! Of course, that's also a feat. It can be a very powerful feat, though, if you cast a lot of moderately-priced spells (in terms of material components).


Another possible avenue to economical animation, at least if you use PF rules, is staves. 50x the material cost, once, plus the standard cost for a spell of that level, and you can recharge your staff with the appropriate-level spell slot on a later day while using it to cast the spell without material components. Now, for an Undead Master at 20th level, the material cost x50 for maxing out an animate dead cast in a desecrate spell's area is 120,000 gp. That said, at the time you can make it initially, you're 8th level, and - if an Undead Master - casting as a 12th level caster. That's a somewhat more moderate 60,000 gp cap. But that's over half your gold before we even add the standard 4th-level-spell-in-a-staff cost (4x7x400 = 11,200 gp). A quarter your WBL at level 12 would be 27,000 gp, which would be enough for 15,800 gp material component cost, or just about 6 and one third hit-dice worth of creatures.

A little small, but hey, you're animating undead, here, at least, without spending gobs of gp each time. And your cap remains high, even if your quality of undead is limited.

[Coidzor]

On the note of economical animation of undead in Pathfinder, it's within a necromancer's power to make a Plague Zombie, since Contagion is the same spell level as Animate Dead, 3rd for Clerics and 4th for Wizards. While those who die while infected with Zombie Rot rise as uncontrolled Plague Zombies, IIRC, those zombies can be destroyed in order to be raw components for the construction of Necrocraft, significantly defraying the cost for larger Necrocraft.

Admittedly, it requires a bit more setup in order to make sure victims are infected with Zombie Rot, and your pet Patient Zero is probably going to be fairly fragile and best used on captured enemies/victims. Still, there are ways to deal nonlethal damage, including arming undead minions with saps or even importing truncheons from the Book of Exalted Deeds.