Ruling Suggestion: Rod of Undead Mastery

[lehp]

The Rod of Undead Mastery from Libris Mortis (pg 78) must be held to benefit from its effect. It lets the caster control twice as many max HD of undead with Animate Dead.

A necromancer player in my game has one, but we've always sort of ignored this aspect (I don't know if we just forgot about it or never noticed, it's been a while since the item was introduced).

Now, the rod is extremely useful to his character, since it lets him maintain significantly more powerful minions. However, if I were to strictly apply the rules he would have to either constantly hold the rod or keep track of his fluctuating max HD and lose the excess minions every time he stops holding the rod.

This would significantly reduce the utility of the rod, since he obviously can't constantly hold it (I mean, he has to sleep and use both hands for things every once in a while), which means the rod would effectively only function as a temporary boost, forcing out the oldest HDs of undead every time it gets held and then put away.

Is it reasonable to let the effect persist as long as the rod is in his possession? Maybe tell him he has to at least hold it in combat or while he's directing the undead.

Or should I apply the effect as written? Make him lose the extra HD whenever he has to let go of the rod for any reason at all, even if it's still on him.
The rod effectively doubles the power of Animate Dead, and the RAW were probably meant to keep it balanced.

I don't know, I just wanted some opinions.

[Tzardok]

I would probably rule that you need to hold it while raising the undead to gain the effect, but only have it with you to keep it.

[Silva Stormrage]

You do not need to hold it constantly to gain its effects and only need to have it while animating/rebuking.

If you ruled that necromancers control pools is constantly checking to see if undead are still controllable then you have to include things like negative levels making them lose control of undead, bolstering undead (ans thus boosting their Turn Resistance) makes them lose control of commanded undead and similar things break their control as well.

Undead animation and control only checks at the moment of animation and not elsewhere.

[Darg]

You do not need to hold it constantly to gain its effects and only need to have it while animating/rebuking.

If you ruled that necromancers control pools is constantly checking to see if undead are still controllable then you have to include things like negative levels making them lose control of undead, bolstering undead (ans thus boosting their Turn Resistance) makes them lose control of commanded undead and similar things break their control as well.

Undead animation and control only checks at the moment of animation and not elsewhere.

You can get bonuses to caster level which arbitrarily increase the HD after the fact. It only makes sense in fairness to do the same in reverse. The activation method is holding the rod and the example says they only recieve the benefit while holding the rod.

Once under your control, bolster undead does nothing to take them away from your control. Commanding undead through rebuke uses your class level, not caster level. This requires actual level loss to modify.

[Silva Stormrage]

You can get bonuses to caster level which arbitrarily increase the HD after the fact. It only makes sense in fairness to do the same in reverse. The activation method is holding the rod and the example says they only recieve the benefit while holding the rod.

Once under your control, bolster undead does nothing to take them away from your control. Commanding undead through rebuke uses your class level, not caster level. This requires actual level loss to modify.

Okay I wasn't as clear as I meant to be and that's my fault. So essentially my argument boils down to spells in general only check what your CL is at the time of casting and if you start checking for things dynamically things function a bit weirdly.

For example lets use the example of if you normally have a caster level of 7 and use a prayer beads of karma for +4 CL for 10 minutes. Resist energy gives 20 resistance at Cl 7 and 30 Energy Resistance at CL 11. I have never seen anyone try to argue that after 10 minutes from such a spell the energy resistance bonus gets dropped to 20 resistance once the beads of karma buff fades. Why would animate dead do so as well, it would only check CL and various effects at the time of casting. The rod only grants its bonus to animate spells cast while the rod is held but once the spell is cast any other variants such as a reduction in temporary caster level don't have any impact.

Animate dead isn't even an ongoing spell effect its duration is "instantaneous" once you animate the dead the spell is no longer doing anything.

For rebuke my point point wasn't that reduction in CL causes a reduction in turning I know they were seperate. Our table rules that the line in negative levels "-1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level)." applies to things calculated off class level as well but I understand that might not be strict RAW.

Regardless for my point with bolster, in order to command a creature your Rebuking level must be twice their HD+Turn Resistance. If this calculation is being dynamically calculated and each time you drop a +Rebuking Level item or the undead creature gets buffed/debuffed this calculation is checked again it completely breaks bolster undead. As bolster undead increases their turn resistance by your rebuking level you will automatically break all undead you bolster outsider your ability to be controlled. It's also debatable whether turn resistance applies to the undead's HD for the purpose of how much HD they take of your command pool so a similar issue happens with the command pool.

My general rules argument is that these kind of things almost never are dynamically checked whenever a variable changes after casting. If you have a temp buff or item at the time of casting you don't lose the benefits of the temporary spell or effect. Suffer the Flesh, the spell that gives up to +5 CL for 1 round at the cost of 10 con damage would be a very dumb spell if the benefits of the CL buff fade after 1 round. It mentions that you need to hold the rod to have the effect only matters in that you have the rod at the time of casting as after the spell is cast the rod has no impact.


Secondly there is the fluff to consider. Undead are expensive and no one is going to create an item that requires you to fuse it to your hand effectively to use it. If it had to be continuously worn to use it why not a necklace or a ring or something that could ACTUALLY be worn all the time. What did the designers expect the character to never be able to use both hands for eating again? They have to somehow fix their rod to their hand in order to sleep or be murdered by their undead minions? Usually such items have an explicit clause such as, "If you drop it any excess undead become uncontrolled" just like the animate dead spell has. If you don't like the item just ban it, don't "Balance" it by making it annoying to use.

[Emberlily]

It sounds like both you and the player would find things frustrating if it was something that had to be constantly juggled with HD coming in and out of control constantly. In that case, I don't see any reason to choose to rule in the way that makes things less fun for all involved.

[Darg]

My general rules argument is that these kind of things almost never are dynamically checked whenever a variable changes after casting. If you have a temp buff or item at the time of casting you don't lose the benefits of the temporary spell or effect. Suffer the Flesh, the spell that gives up to +5 CL for 1 round at the cost of 10 con damage would be a very dumb spell if the benefits of the CL buff fade after 1 round. It mentions that you need to hold the rod to have the effect only matters in that you have the rod at the time of casting as after the spell is cast the rod has no impact.

Suffer the Flesh would allow you to animate more HD per cast. How is that losing the benefit after casting?


Secondly there is the fluff to consider. Undead are expensive and no one is going to create an item that requires you to fuse it to your hand effectively to use it. If it had to be continuously worn to use it why not a necklace or a ring or something that could ACTUALLY be worn all the time. What did the designers expect the character to never be able to use both hands for eating again? They have to somehow fix their rod to their hand in order to sleep or be murdered by their undead minions? Usually such items have an explicit clause such as, "If you drop it any excess undead become uncontrolled" just like the animate dead spell has. If you don't like the item just ban it, don't "Balance" it by making it annoying to use.

It's much less expensive than potions. A CL of 20 let's you control a maximum of 80 HD or 2,000 gp maximum. The rod let's you double it. I honestly don't understand the annoyance of use? You can on demand increase the max HD you can control. Are you saying a spell like control undead is useless because it doesn't last forever? If the rod did indeed have the lose control clause, would it make the rod not worth the price to you? I don't think so. It's an extremely powerful effect just for on demand use. The item literally let's you control a second character's worth of extra undead.


It sounds like both you and the player would find things frustrating if it was something that had to be constantly juggled with HD coming in and out of control constantly. In that case, I don't see any reason to choose to rule in the way that makes things less fun for all involved.

It's no different than keeping track of all your modifiers. Once you lose control of the undead they don't fall under your control again. The only time it's an issue is if you keep control of HD at or close to the maximum at all times. I don't see how it makes things less fun? If anything, it increases tactical engagement and expands possibilities for strategic optimization. Animate dead is a standard action to cast. Casting in combat is an option. Starting with your maximum HD of undead, the liklihood of that happening is pretty minimal. This is especially true if you used short duration CL boosts to basically replace your party.

[Silva Stormrage]

It's much less expensive than potions. A CL of 20 let's you control a maximum of 80 HD or 2,000 gp maximum. The rod let's you double it. I honestly don't understand the annoyance of use? You can on demand increase the max HD you can control. Are you saying a spell like control undead is useless because it doesn't last forever? If the rod did indeed have the lose control clause, would it make the rod not worth the price to you? I don't think so. It's an extremely powerful effect just for on demand use.


Potions are one of the most expensive and least used magic items... I feel like that's a somewhat odd example to use. No one uses potions of cure light wounds except when found as loot as wands are so much cheaper to use. They have limited use for boss fights but even then they are often not the best use of your wealth unless you have an all martial party or something.

Control undead functions entirely differently than animate dead to the point where I don't understand your point. Animate dead lets you animate 2 HD/CL and control 4 HD/CL. If you use the rod you have to constantly be letting go of precious undead and self destructing them every time you go to sleep. With Rebuke undead its even worse as a lot of the time creatures you rebuke are exceptionally hard to find or you put a lot of effort into animating them. No one uses animate dead to make temporary undead and the idea that this 10k item is meant to give you a temporary pool of undead that goes away by doubling your undead pool is such a weird argument to me. Why not just make the item animate X undead but they become uncontrolled at the start of the next day, who would design an item meant to be temporary in the way it is currently written? Doesn't it make more sense that since no other spell in existence constantly checks variable effects after casting, and animate dead doesn't mention anything like that either, that the rod doesn't impact anything except at casting? Occam's razor and all.

Am I saying it's impossible to work around? No, like I said you can just glue the item to your hand, etc etc. But at that point why is it a rod and not a ring, something actually capable of being worn around easily.


Suffer the Flesh would allow you to animate more HD per cast. How is that losing the benefit after casting?
I was referring to Suffer the Flesh in the resist energy example. No spell has the loss of temporary bonuses after casting suddenly impact the effects of the spell. A wall of stone (Another instantaneous spell like Animate Dead) cast with suffer the flesh doesn't suddenly lose 5 squares of stone once the suffer the flesh effect ends.

[Zanos]

I generally agree with Silva, a character that casts animate dead only checks to see if he can control the animated undead when he actually casts the spell. Otherwise everything involved with augmenting or decreasing your caster level gets very weird.


Alternatively, the character could sovereign glue the rod to his hand. :smalltongue:

[Thurbane]

Just a side question: if it's ruled that you only need to hold the rod at the time of casting, can the rod be handed around the party for multiple characters to benefit from the effect? is there anything in the wording that prohibits this?

Not a leading question, I'm just not that familiar with the item, and wondering if it would work that way?

[Zanos]

Probably, but you could do the same thing with anything that augments your caster level when your cast buffs for the day. The whole party could pass around an orange ioun stone and a ring of arcane might, for example.

[Darg]

Potions are one of the most expensive and least used magic items... I feel like that's a somewhat odd example to use. No one uses potions of cure light wounds except when found as loot as wands are so much cheaper to use. They have limited use for boss fights but even then they are often not the best use of your wealth unless you have an all martial party or something.

Control undead functions entirely differently than animate dead to the point where I don't understand your point. Animate dead lets you animate 2 HD/CL and control 4 HD/CL. If you use the rod you have to constantly be letting go of precious undead and self destructing them every time you go to sleep. With Rebuke undead its even worse as a lot of the time creatures you rebuke are exceptionally hard to find or you put a lot of effort into animating them. No one uses animate dead to make temporary undead and the idea that this 10k item is meant to give you a temporary pool of undead that goes away by doubling your undead pool is such a weird argument to me. Why not just make the item animate X undead but they become uncontrolled at the start of the next day, who would design an item meant to be temporary in the way it is currently written? Doesn't it make more sense that since no other spell in existence constantly checks variable effects after casting, and animate dead doesn't mention anything like that either, that the rod doesn't impact anything except at casting? Occam's razor and all.

Am I saying it's impossible to work around? No, like I said you can just glue the item to your hand, etc etc. But at that point why is it a rod and not a ring, something actually capable of being worn around easily.


I was referring to Suffer the Flesh in the resist energy example. No spell has the loss of temporary bonuses after casting suddenly impact the effects of the spell. A wall of stone (Another instantaneous spell like Animate Dead) cast with suffer the flesh doesn't suddenly lose 5 squares of stone once the suffer the flesh effect ends.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to dismiss an entire mechanic of the game just because you think no one uses it.

Control undead works exactly like the control conferred by animate/rebuke (command) undead except with a duration limit. You think it's weird that a 10k gp item would have a limitation? I think it's weirder that an item with such a powerful effect would have infinite uses and no limitation. It's written the way it is so that it can't be used by characters without the relevant abilities and spells while also encompassing them all. Control undead isn't a spell anyone other than I have brought up; however, it's a spell that is also affected by this rod. Likely this is intended.

Undead aren't precious, they're consumables. Why you think expendable resources are "precious" is beyond me.

Resist energy and wall of stone do not have an overriding feature that limits the effect after the fact. If wall of stone said that you can only ever have standing 4 squares per caster level and any excess crumbles, when your caster level drops so do the excess walls. This limit isn't just set when you cast the spell, this limit is instantaneously indefinite and indefinitely malleable.


I generally agree with Silva, a character that casts animate dead only checks to see if he can control the animated undead when he actually casts the spell. Otherwise everything involved with augmenting or decreasing your caster level gets very weird.


Alternatively, the character could sovereign glue the rod to his hand. :smalltongue:

I honestly don't understand how it's weird? It works exactly like how any other modifier works and these spells and effects tell you exactly what happens when the HD exceeds the limit. It's pretty straight forward.

[lehp]

I'm seeing that most of the discussion seems to be around whether or not, by RAW, the rod needs to be held the entire time while controlling the animated undead.

Honestly, I had sort of given it for granted, because of the wording in the item's description (can control/while holding), and the fact that I've always considered the HD pool from animate dead to be a separate limiter from the effect of the spell, more akin to an "overall" cap for the character; hence why it is shared with other similar effects (such as Fell Animate, Plague of Undead, Seed of Undeath) and why any effect that does not count towards the cap is explicitly stated (such as a Cleric's command/rebuke or a Pale Master's "Deathless Master's Touch" class ability), implying that they are exceptions and that the HD pool is a "Character/Caster" limit, not a "Spell" limit.

The spell Seed of Undeath from Complete Mage in particular says:

At any given time, you can have a number of HD worth of undead animated through seed of undeath equal to your own HD, and they count against the maximum number of HD worth of undead you can control at any time (as described under animate dead).

Implying that the 4xCL is a shared, character wide limitation and that it is simply described under the Animate Dead entry (as it was, when only Core existed, the only "caster" mechanic that allowed to control undead).

The Rod of Undead Master, in its description, states, as an example, that a "caster" cannot normally control more than 4xCL of undead, with no mention of specific spells, implying again that the limit is not tied to the Animate Dead spell, it is merely described under it and referenced for convenience, while being an overall limit that has nothing to do with the spell's effect.

In fact, the effect of Animate Dead is to create undead creatures. It is an instantaneous spell and it ceases functioning the moment you finish casting it. You cannot Dispel a skeleton, nor can you Dispel a caster's control over it.
In this sense, Animate Dead is more like Fireball than Resist Energy: the latter has a duration, and if cast at an increased caster level it would simply last for the increased duration at the increased strength, because it was cast at that power level with that duration.

This is to say that I do not think it's far-fetched to say that a duration spell does not lose power when you lose a Caster Level, but the undead HD pool might.

That being said, I had actually not considered the possibility of the spell or ability only "checking" the pool when cast, in which case the rod would indeed work perfectly fine even if held only when actually creating the undead.

[icefractal]

Undead aren't precious, they're consumables. Why you think expendable resources are "precious" is beyond me.As consumables, they're pretty bad. Expensive, and unless you're carrying around a big bag of corpses, likely not very good (not all creatures work equally well as undead, obviously).

The only time I've seen "opportunistic, short-term reanimation" as a strategy was Warlocks, because for them it's free. And even then, that was more like "some of my undead got destroyed so I've got extra capacity, might as well", because the minions you can hand-pick, prepare, and equip are going to be better than "random corpses during a fight" in almost all cases.

[Zanos]

Well, it depends on how often you consume them. Extradimensional storage is pretty common for parties by medium levels so it's not like pulling out a zombie ogre to reanimate for 300gp whenever one goes down is a huge investment of resources.