Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 father_dale Sep 07, 2004 1:52:42	Hi. I'm playing a wizard in a DL campaign and I was able to copy some spells from another wizards spellbook. One of these spells was Call Undead 3 from the AoM. The Call Undead spells are conjuration spells that work pretty much like the monster summoning spells, except that you get undead, of course. So here I am trying to figure out what all I can call with this, and the list of creatures is pretty good. For the lvl 3 spell it lists: Ghast Ghost (1 HD/level) Skeleton (Huge) Vampire (1 HD/level) Wight Zombie (Huge) The higher level ones have different undead, but they all alos have ghosts and vampires. The lvl 4 spell lets you call a 2HD/level ghost or vampire, the lvl 5 spell 3HD/lvl, up to 7HD/lvl with the lvl 9 spell. So I'm looking through the MM at how to use these creatures, and it looks like these are mostly all templates. You take a base creature and you add the template and you get the undead. But when I do this it seems just like a ridiculous spell. For example, say I'm a lvl 7 wizard casting Call Undead 4. I can call a vampire of up to 14 HD. So lets say I use the NPC human fighter from the DMB and turn it into a vampire. So now I have a 14th lvl fighter with all the vampire abilities. Thats a CR 16 creature. And I can call it everyday with a lvl 4 spell. Once I get to 9th lvl I could use Call Undead 5 to summon a 27th lvl vampire fighter. Or even worse, a 27th lvl vampire wizard. And when I get to lvl 17 and get Call Undead 9, I could call a vampire wtih 117 HD???? Or I could use it to call 1d4+1 85 HD vampires from the lower list. I figure I'm reading this wrong? Or maybe I am creating the creatures wrong? Does anyone have any experience with this spell, or is there any official wording on how it works, or anything about creating undead creatures based on HD and size? It sounds like a really neat spell, especially for my Black Robe necromancer, but I don't want to break the campaign with this either. Any help or explanations would be greatly appreciated.
#2 zombiegleemax Sep 07, 2004 2:15:16	You might just be reading 7 HD or Levels as 7 HD perlevel.
#3 wolffenjugend_dup Sep 07, 2004 8:33:20	It's HD/levels as in HD or levels, not HD per level. So you can summon a 2 HD vampire OR a 2nd-lvl Fighter vampire. At least that's my take on it. Personally, I think even that's overpowered. You should probably be using the vampire's level adjustment, which is +8. So a 2 HD vampire is effectively a 10th-lvl character. Then compare a 10th-lvl character with the other creatures you can summon with Call Undead IV. If it looks balanced, fine, otherwise you may need to do some adjusting of the tables. Of course, DL is a game of heroes so I think this spell is meant more for villains/NPCs than PCs.
#4 father_dale Sep 07, 2004 9:20:26	Thanks for the help guys! That makes much more sense. Its actually written in the chart as "(5 HD/level)", for exmple, which looks just like the spell descriptions "per level" rather than "or levels." Thats where the confusion came from. Yeah, its still tough. But the HD or level version ties into simliar undead each level of the spell. The Call Undead 3 spell can summon a 1HD or 1 level vampire or ghost, which is CR3, as a vampire or ghosts CR is +2 its levels or HD. It can also summon a Wight or a Ghast, which are both also CR 3. As compared to Summon Monster III which can get generally CR 3 to CR 6 monsters. So the 9th lvl spell can summon a 7 HD or level vampire, which is a CR 9. The other undead that can be called with that spell are a Nightshade, Nightwing, or a Nightwalker! Those are CR 14, 16, and 18 undead. For Summon Monster 9 the CRs fall in the 10 to 13 range. The Call Undead spells seem to, generally, get creatures with a CR 1 to 3 more than the Summon Monster (there are exceptions). But, Summon Monster is a bit more versatile, because everything you get with Call Undead will be undead, which might not be very effective in a given situation. (Say, if you are going up agaisnt a dozen clerics of pelor?) But hey, this is Dragonlance! Where else can you have a character toss a 4th lvl spell that can do 39d6+117 damage? (AoM warmage with D's Lightning Lance).
#5 cam_banks Sep 07, 2004 9:36:18	Clearly some of these spells could do with a little revision or tweaking. That's a common experience with writing and publishing things like spells or classes - you don't always see the shortcomings until they're used more extensively than just a playtest or two. WOTC has made many, many changes to first printings of spells, for example, so I imagine taking another look at problematic rules like this would be in order. Cheers, Cam
#6 father_dale Sep 07, 2004 9:43:30	Hey Cam, I'm not knocking the stuff at all. Even the War Mage throwing a Lightning Lance isn't that bad. (particularly with the revised War Mage). Theres still 3 ranged touch attacks plus 3 fort saves, and spell resistance, and potential energy resistance/immunity and damage reduction to factor in on that. And like I said for the Call Undead spells, everything will be undead, which might be useless in a given situation depending upon what you're up against. As opposed to the Summon Monsters that can be more tailored to a situation. So it makes sense for the Call Undead to get creatures that are a little stronger. We all understand that anything with this much information in it will not be "perfect." Nothing is perfect. But I don't think any of us think that anything is "broken" here either. Its all great products and it will always be my favorite campaign to play in.
#7 cam_banks Sep 07, 2004 9:55:52	I'm glad you're a tolerant fan, in any case. I'm actually really happy to hear about stuff like this, because at least for the work that I do for Sovereign Press it's helpful to be aware of some of the actual feedback and experiences that folks have. We have a section of the www.dragonlanceforums.com message boards dedicated to errata (it's a subforum of the Gaming forum) so if you notice anything weird or in need of fixing or clarification, please post it over there! Cheers, Cam