Undead Animation mega-thread

[Gippy]

It's called palemaster.

[SkillFocuspwn]

You can use Animation items to summon up multiple undead. Otherwise, playing a pM I found it very difficult to have useful animations with the rarity of corpses throughout the server. I agree adding more would be very useful.

[Mort]

Animate Dead isn't moving spellslot. Would require a 2da and I'm not sure if everyone on the server would be forced to download it.

[Paha]

In truth, I found it very pleasing to play PM. With Morts system, there are ways and chances to make that one being really, really strong, and it is possible to heal it easily.

I do agree, that maybe adding the corpse gain just a tad bit would be in place, but otherwise it seems to be quite good.

[Garem]

I'm somewhat confused: you can only prepare, at level 10, a maximum of 10 Animate Dead (with Extend Spell and 18 Wis). How could you possibly animate 32 Skeletons, even presupposing you have that many corpses in store? It doesn't seem very decisive that you have the control points if you simply don't have the spells and corpses. And if you did have that many corpses and had somehow made the preparations to summon an army that large, it would make for some epic battle.

Or is it that you actually get to keep your summons if you rest? The OP said something like that, but it wasn't very clear. Even so, you'd need hours to rest and animate. Half of this stuff isn't documented anywhere I could find, which is rather lame.

Yea, sorry that was a bit unclear. This is the situation. Undead animates DO stay during resting, except for the very first one that you summon. So, if you summon a human (requires NO corpse item), an orc, and two skeletons in that precise order then the human zombie will unsummon, poof, gone forever when you rest. The others should stay. That being said, it's a little buggy. One time, I rested after using undead enhancement and one of the minions lost all of the enhancement changes (but the other 2-3 were fine!). And one time, I rested and like normal summons the first one disappeares. Then, immediately when I woke up, the other 4 poofed, gone forever. Very strange!

You can use Animation items to summon up multiple undead. Otherwise, playing a pM I found it very difficult to have useful animations with the rarity of corpses throughout the server. I agree adding more would be very useful.

I'm almost 100% positive this isn't the case, but I'll test it some more to find out. At least, I've seen it happen where animating an undead with a scroll unsummoned the other.

[Garem]

Oh, and a thought-- one solution to help arcane necromancers out may be to offer an animate dead item as a 1/day like a wand or something that costs a grand or so.

Or... start a new Minor DM Faction that hands these out to members. >.>

[derfo]

I think the original post has some good thoughts.

There's also more to being an arcane necro than making zombies. A lot of the spells are absurdly useful for a GSF necro dude. Plenty of drops with animate dead on them also. You can even go pale master if you're aching to make spooky zombies.

[Nihm]

Just lowering the price of animate dead scrolls would solve the problem with wizards.  Make them 150 each or something like that at a special vendor.  Otherwise a Necromancer Robe with animate dead once/day as robes for all spell schools are available except that one, or even a perk that grants the ability.
 
Also a wizard will have better applicable skill ranks to enhance their corpses than clerics of the same level, so they'd get higher quality when they finally do get it.

[AllMYBudgies]

Or... start a new Minor DM Faction that hands these out to members. >.>

I quite like this idea, actually.
It would be quite nice to see a smaller faction, perhaps a Church of the Vaunted or somesuch.
I guess it would take a DM to be interested etc. but as an idea, it's pretty cool! Perhaps something that could be earned IG?

[Nightshadow]

Here's an idea for having it move spellslots, I'm not sure if it's possible as I don't know much about this stuff, but it's just a thought:
Summon Monster III could be Animate Dead or Summon Monster III for wizards/sorcerers, they would have a new option in configuration options, or maybe a new /c command to change it between working as Summon Monster III or Animate Dead.

[Drowel]

I quite like this idea, actually.
It would be quite nice to see a smaller faction, perhaps a Church of the Vaunted or somesuch.
I guess it would take a DM to be interested etc. but as an idea, it's pretty cool! Perhaps something that could be earned IG?

There already is a noble house that supports Necromancy.  *Cough* Harvix  *coughs* The Noble Lord *coughs*

[Garem]

bumpity bump bump!

[Father of the Four Winds]

Would it also be possible to make animated dead not increase the difficulty of scripted quests? It's very disheartening to play an animator with party members complaining OOC and telling you not to do it because it makes the quests to hard for them. What is the point of all cool summoning themes and interesting animations, when we are discouraged from actually using them?

[DollarPhil]

Do they buff up the spawns if you summon them mid-quest or just outside of the QA? I thought that got fixed. My companion doesn't seem to up the spawns if I summon it within the QA. Also, the above portrait rocks.

[AllMYBudgies]

The amount of times I got OOC tells telling me not to summon in QA's eventually put me off my summoner PC.