Awaken Undead Blues

[kinem]

Awaken Undead raises many questions. The ones I am currently interested in are:

1. Per the Spell Compendium, the undead gains Feats. What Feats does it gain? Can the caster choose them? If so can he choose feats that he himself does not have and that allow actions he does not know how to do? If not, what are they? If the Undead has more than 20 HD can it gain Epic feats this way?

I don’t expect an official answer but maybe some people have come up with reasonable house rules on this.

2. The spell implies that the creature obeys the caster (though the RAW lawyers could argue that this only applies while the undead are in the process of donning armor :smallbiggrin:). If you cast the spell on mindless undead that you don’t already control, and perhaps are controlled by someone else, do they start to obey you instead after they are Awakened? Or perhaps they obey both you and their old master?

[redking]

Awaken Undead raises many questions. The ones I am currently interested in are:

1. Per the Spell Compendium, the undead gains Feats. What Feats does it gain? Can the caster choose them? If so can he choose feats that he himself does not have and that allow actions he does not know how to do? If not, what are they? If the Undead has more than 20 HD can it gain Epic feats this way?

I don’t expect an official answer but maybe some people have come up with reasonable house rules on this.

2. The spell implies that the creature obeys the caster (though the RAW lawyers could argue that this only applies while the undead are in the process of donning armor :smallbiggrin:). If you cast the spell on mindless undead that you don’t already control, and perhaps are controlled by someone else, do they start to obey you instead after they are Awakened? Or perhaps they obey both you and their old master?

1. Since the spell does not specify that the caster selects the feats, and in all circumstances, any creature can choose its own feats, it should be the undead creature itself that selects the feats, according to its own preferences.

2.


Undead regain the armor and weapon proficiencies they had in life (assume the undead were formerly warriors unless the DM specifies otherwise) and will don armor and take up weapons while obeying your commands.


There is no implication of control granted by awaken undead here. The only implication is that these awakened undead were previously under control via animate dead and have been subsequently awakened. This being, there are no questions about your character vs the old master.

[Zanos]

Awaken Undead raises many questions. The ones I am currently interested in are:

1. Per the Spell Compendium, the undead gains Feats. What Feats does it gain? Can the caster choose them? If so can he choose feats that he himself does not have and that allow actions he does not know how to do? If not, what are they? If the Undead has more than 20 HD can it gain Epic feats this way?
One feat at first level, plus feats every three hit dice. As to what feats it selects, it would be at the undead creatures preference, but since it's under the direct control of the caster I'd allow the caster to select. After all, it's the caster who creates the intellect; he should have some say in how it is shaped.

Per the DMG, a monster uses it's total ECL to determine if it counts as epic, but only if it has class levels. Unless the awakened undead gains a class level somewhere, and you find a printed LA to give an awakened undead some kind of total ECL, it cannot select epic feats.



2. The spell implies that the creature obeys the caster (though the RAW lawyers could argue that this only applies while the undead are in the process of donning armor :smallbiggrin:). If you cast the spell on mindless undead that you don’t already control, and perhaps are controlled by someone else, do they start to obey you instead after they are Awakened? Or perhaps they obey both you and their old master?
Awaken Undead provides it's own control mechanism, which I will argue pretty staunchly for. Awaken Undead says nothing about only working on creatures you control, works on creatures that can't be created by animate dead, and in fact doesn't mention animate dead at all. Unlike other awaken type spells, it mentions nothing about the creatures new attitude towards you other than the line about it taking up weapons while following your orders. With that in mind, if nobody controls a mindless undead creature, you would gain control of it by awakening it. If it already has a master, you would roll opposed charisma checks when giving it conflicting orders, as per the rules for multiple control effects on a creature.

[kinem]

Thanks for the replies.

I have never seen before the idea that a creature normally chooses its own feats, and in general, it doesn't make any sense. There are plenty of feats that represent effects of a creature's ancestry, and obviously the creature has no control over that. Other feats ought to require special training or practice that is assumed to occur, just as Roy learned to fight casters in OOTS. He couldn't choose that feat without that training or spending the time and practice to develop it on his own. In the case of a PC, of course the player chooses the feats, but that is no different from choosing the character's race, which is an OOC choice.

What feats to assign looks like just a DM call, and in all cases a house rule is needed for it.

As for giving the caster control, redking and Zanos, you came to opposite conclusions from reading the same text. I think that redking's interpretation that the caster is assumed to already control the undead is somewhat plausible, which is why I asked the question, but it's not in the RAW and in the absence of errata I tend to agree with Zanos on it.

[redking]

Thanks for the replies.
As for giving the caster control, redking and Zanos, you came to opposite conclusions from reading the same text. I think that redking's interpretation that the caster is assumed to already control the undead is somewhat plausible, which is why I asked the question, but it's not in the RAW and in the absence of errata I tend to agree with Zanos on it.

Note that the context is not about control, but about the undead creatures being warriors by default.


Undead regain the armor and weapon proficiencies they had in life (assume the undead were formerly warriors unless the DM specifies otherwise) and will don armor and take up weapons while obeying your commands.


You aren't granted the ability to give commands, only that they will take up weapons and don armor (and use proficiencies) while obeying your commands. This isn't a flawed way of saying that these undead creatures are now under your control, has no control cap, or anything like that. It's saying that if they obey your commands (because they are already under your control), they use warrior proficiencies.

[kinem]

RK: That’s one way to read it, but there’s no “If” in the quoted text, and there should have been if it meant what you think.

[RandomPeasant]

I have never seen before the idea that a creature normally chooses its own feats, and in general, it doesn't make any sense.

You're poking at the relationship between the mechanics and the world there, and the answers aren't entirely clear. When Roy does that training, does it represent him doing something that gives him the feat, something that allows him to choose the feat, or just the process of choosing the feat? Does a feat that allows you to manifest a bloodline ability represent random circumstances, or honing an ability you had to the point it was useful?

[Akal Saris]

Thanks for the replies.

I have never seen before the idea that a creature normally chooses its own feats, and in general, it doesn't make any sense. There are plenty of feats that represent effects of a creature's ancestry, and obviously the creature has no control over that. Other feats ought to require special training or practice that is assumed to occur, just as Roy learned to fight casters in OOTS. He couldn't choose that feat without that training or spending the time and practice to develop it on his own. In the case of a PC, of course the player chooses the feats, but that is no different from choosing the character's race, which is an OOC choice.

What feats to assign looks like just a DM call, and in all cases a house rule is needed for it.

As for giving the caster control, redking and Zanos, you came to opposite conclusions from reading the same text. I think that redking's interpretation that the caster is assumed to already control the undead is somewhat plausible, which is why I asked the question, but it's not in the RAW and in the absence of errata I tend to agree with Zanos on it.

I think that you're right that the feat selection is a DM's call. Personally as a DM I would look at the stat block for either a living version of the creature (wolf, etc.) or for a humanoid, I would select some of the feats from the stat block for a NPC Fighter from DMG Pg. 117.

As for caster control, it seems to me that the writer assumed that the caster had established control beforehand, and hence the spell is poorly written. Since other awaken spells don't give control, I would use those as precedence to say that you don't gain control of the undead if you didn't control them beforehand.

[redking]

This reminds me that the skills list, and not just the feats, are a problem for the awakened undead as well. I started a thread about it a while ago. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?500152-Fixing-awaken-undead-3-5)

[Mnemius]

I remember that being a warning in the old necromancer's handbook (I have no clue if it's still floating around the web.)
Since it's not specified, the feats could be you or DM choice. And if you've been annoying DM (or overworking them) it could easily turn into multiple junk feats like toughness.