Animate Dead is not a particularly uncommon idea in D&D. Evil necromancers and liches summoning armies of the undead is a pretty standard trope in fantasy fiction and games. However, the spell's use by player characters is a bit more out of the ordinary. Often, it's considered an evil (or chaotic) act, or at least morally dubious.
In BX, Animate Dead is a 5th level MU/Elf spell, which means a 9th level PC caster level minimum. It also means having it in your spellbook, not something you trade out during morning prayers like a cleric. There are other spells the Wizard or Wizard/Lord might typically choose before this one (assuming your players choose their spells as opposed to randomly learning): i.e. Conjure Elemental, Telekenesis, or Teleport come to mind.
So let's take a look under the hood, shall we?
Animate Dead (from Cook)
Range: 60'
Duration: Indefinite
OK, right off the duration jumps out at you. These rotting minions don't fall apart after an hour or so. You've got to kill them, turn them, or use Dispel Magic on them. They obey the caster (natch) so that's where you get skeletons guarding some tomb for centuries and the like.
Next off, the caster created 1HD of skeletons or zombies per caster level. So your 9th level wizard can animate 9 skeletons or 4 zombies + 1 skeleton, etc. That's fairly straightforward.
Wisely, the spell description states that character levels don't apply to determining the undead's hit dice, otherwise you could have things like 14HD skeletons walking around.
Here's what gets me. This isn't some elaborate ritual like Spiritwrack where you need a lot of prep for it. You can keep casting it every round if you've got the spell slots and there are enough cadavers about. A high level mage in the middle of a battlefield could recycle a lot of troops that way. It's even handy in the crawl, where a nasty fight with a lot of orcs can be balanced by getting some of their hacked comrades back on their rotting feet. Heck, I could imagine a fun "spell duel" where two casters in a cemetery are burning through scrolls and spell slots trying to get as many "residents" on their team as quickly as possible. While it's not a standard item, imagine a staff or wand or intelligent sword (!) with this spell's ability!
This is such a great spell. But, it's a level 5 spell which means the caster has to be 9th level to cast it once per day. A 5th level spell should provide a ton of utility. Animating 1 HD minions seems almost too weak. It should be able to grab Ghouls and Wights out of the ground in my opinion. Obeying the overall HD limit of course.
ReplyDeleteSkeletons are half hit die and zombies are 1 hit die. Right?
Skeletons are 1HD and zombies are 2. I agree it's not the most powerful 5th level spell. I just meant that I think it would be interesting to see it in play more by PCs.
DeleteIf my memory serves me correctly, there is however no limit as to the number of skeletons or zombies that a caster can control with the use of this spell. So give a magic-user or elf enough time (and remains) they could have a small army in just a few weeks or even days.
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