Partially Used: create undead type spells

Not to toot my horn again...but the undead summoned by these spells....well....they suck. Iggy is a level 27(i think) wizard...yet the spectres he gets can hit nothing he fights. They j ust drop dead in almost one hit. It would be nice if the summoned pets got something boosted on them so they could at least hit what a wizard summons them for.

As a point...take the movies....you dont see a mighty archmage summon up a horde of undead...and watch them do literally nothing save die from a single hit. Im not askin they be made capable of pwning stuff...just...at least hit some of the time. I went to the calithian dungeon with the mummies...and not one spectre summoned hit a single thing....and they died in 2 hits. Is there maybe a way to make them at least draw off the casters thaco instead or something? at least then the COULD hit on occasion.

As they stand now i dont plan to use any undead summoning spells again...as cool as an army of them is....a worthless army is well....a worthless army If the elementals are the same way(unable to hit like the undead) i plan not to use them either...which saddens me as that is my favorite aspect about nwn/dnd

This isnt a rant.....just an observation. As is they would be good for leveling magi/clerics...but once the level of the creatures fighting goes beyond what you can summon the spells just take up space in your spellbooks Of course maybe the higher level versionof pets maybe do a bit more...but if the pattern ive observed up to the second highest create undead spell iggy has(which i think means only create greater undead is left) i doubt they get much better...unless of course you burn all 40 levels in priest just to do it and very few people play total pure clerics..multiclass is the way most if not all go.

IMHO of course, if anyone else an coin in on this and tell me how its done if they are doin it....id appreciate it.

I think the problem is that summons were never made to scale for Epic Characters. The stronger you and your enemies get, the weaker your summons and companions become.

If summons could get a small boost to hit dice and stats that scale with the caster it would be nice. Especially for the Palemaster prestige since most of their abilities are summon undead ones.

Adding scaling can potentially make Summon Creature I more useful for a level 40 Wizard. But still wouldn't be as potentially strong as the level 9 variant. The Palemaster should get double the scaling to undead summoning.

But anyway, you are right Kefrem. 10 useless summons is no better then 1 useless summon.

The PM summons aren't too bad actually (at least for mine, but he's a 30 PM.... I didn't play through the lower levels with the new undead summonings).

The lower level summons do suck though. They start to get good when you have the big sword wielding wraiths and the zombie reavers (en mass).... I've had my mob take out a spawn of orc destroyers without me doing anything but eating a cookie and watching. The lower ones just won't do though so you need to concentrate on building up a mob of big boys.

Perhaps give the wraiths some concealment to help their survivability (I forget if they had any at all, but should I think). The skeletons perhaps could use a bit of boosting DR wise.

Or maybe, even a feat or something to bolster the undead summons. Or, make that wizard/sorc spell that boosts undead natural AC be a mob spell rather than a single target (even at low level, a super spell slot focused wizard won't have enough slots to cover a full 20 mob.... and for just a +2 nat AC bonus anyway....

Alundaio wrote:The Palemaster should get double the scaling to undead summoning.

Just wanted to ask for clarification on this bit.... do you mean Palemaster levels should count for full one-to-one scaling of any caster level based benefits of undead summons?

If yes, I agree. PM's should not suffer any loss of 'effective caster level' as it relates to summoning undead minions. They do lose caster levels in relation to other magic as a cost for their class features (though as has been discussed before, it should definitely be like in PnP with 1/2 caster level progression as opposed to no caster levels).

If not, I think giving PMs 2 'effective caster levels' for undead summoning in addition to their other class benefits is a little much. Just my 2 cents.

Yes, PM levels stack completely for the undead summonings as far as I can tell.

I'm talking about if you were to scale summons to make them stronger according to caster level beyond the default scaling. For instance Animate Dead only takes into account 10 caster levels and scales the summon accordingly. It pretty much becomes useless as the character and his enemies get stronger. If you were to expand upon that spell and make it scale for 25 or 30 levels a Palemaster's level should count as double the caster level so that a Level 30 Wizard has much weaker undead summons compared to a level 30 Wizard/Palemaster.

Alundaio wrote:I'm talking about if you were to scale summons to make them stronger according to caster level beyond the default scaling. For instance Animate Dead only takes into account 10 caster levels and scales the summon accordingly. It pretty much becomes useless as the character and his enemies get stronger. If you were to expand upon that spell and make it scale for 25 or 30 levels a Palemaster's level should count as double the caster level so that a Level 30 Wizard has much weaker undead summons compared to a level 30 Wizard/Palemaster.

In this case we will have to strongly disagree. Pms already get summoning abilities as class features that could/should be made to surpass normal spell capabilities. I see no reason to further improve their regular summoning spells beyond what a dedicated base class caster could achieve.

The only ability that does that is the 1/day create greater undead, assuming that the progression of undead summoned is the same as the bioware default (which I believe it is since Auger still gets a demilich).

I could see a bit of a boost though, because the greater undead summon progression doesn't surpass normal spell capabilities until PM level 22+ (min characater level 32)... And even then I find the lichs/lichlords/alhoons/elder alhoons are a bit meh, although not quite as meh as wraiths or skeletons. The demilich is really the crown jewel, but that takes a 30pm full build, and it has the drawback of once it's out of spells... that's it. it doesn't/cant rest to renew spells.

I dunno about +2 caster level bonus though. Rather, I'd like to see PM's be able to summon tougher undead that have something like +4 con/str, or +X AC bonus.

I have 15 Palemaster Levels and the summon is a joke. That's pretty sad if you compare what you can have with 15 levels of Wizard instead.

Since the PM has 1/day powers, they should be different from the actual spell.

A thought i just had...mind you just a thought...maybe a wiz/pm/priest could purchase a *buff wand* which when cast on your pet..hits them with a certain slew of buff spells preloaded on the wand that will ONLY work on the pet/pets.

One could make it only purchasable by certain level players...and only thru the league. Since you gotta be a certain level to get into the league anyway.

Just a thought

Kefrem wrote:A thought i just had...mind you just a thought...maybe a wiz/pm/priest could purchase a *buff wand* which when cast on your pet..hits them with a certain slew of buff spells preloaded on the wand that will ONLY work on the pet/pets.

One could make it only purchasable by certain level players...and only thru the league. Since you gotta be a certain level to get into the league anyway.

Just a thought

.. Good idea.. something like a targetable SoRD, that also adds HP/AC dependent on caster level ?? ... With 's ILR to cap it at certain levels and bioware's standard class-restrictions.... could be a viable solution to having weak buddies... ...

Kinda like the familiar spellbooks? Sounds doable to me ...

It would just at least make the pets usable....and it would need to hit ALL pets not just one weeny pet. Bumping up one pet out of 10 you summon would still be a waste.

If your gonna burn 10 slots on your spell list and only have one of them usable....you might as well just summon one pet and put the buffs in the slots you was gonna use for the extra summons....if you follow me.

Bump for the magic overhaul