HYPERBOREA / necromancer animate control

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 11/18/2015 3:33 pm

Do the various animates stack or are they concurrent?

Animate Carrion 1 allows small animals to be re-animated and can control 1HD/caster level

Animate Carrion 2 allows medium animals to be re-anminated and can control 2HD/caster level

Animated Carrion 3 allows large animals to be re-animated and can control 3HD/caster level

So, does a 9th level necromancer able to control 18 squirrels, 6-ish boars/black bears, and 3-ish cave bears?

Or Just 3 HD total per level of all creatures? Which could be like 54 squirrels, or 8-ish black bears, or 3-ish cave bears.

just need to think this through a touch.

**Posted by Blackadder23** 11/18/2015 5:43 pm

I don't know how Jeff intended it to be read, but I would treat each spell separately.

**Posted by SavageGM** 11/18/2015 5:47 pm

My interpretation is that a 9 CA necromancer can cast animate carrion 1 and control up to 9 HD of small animals.

He can cast animate carrion 2 and control 18 HD of small and medium animals.

He can cast animate carrion 3 and control 27 HD of small, medium and large creatures.

None of the spells stop you from animating animals of higher HD than what is listed as "3 HD per CA" as long as you have a high enough CA. Animate carrion 3 could Animate 2 mammoths (12 HD each) with 3 HD left over for a CA 9 necromancer.

**Posted by Handy Haversack** 11/19/2015 12:02 am

SavageGM wrote:
My interpretation is that a 9 CA necromancer can cast animate carrion 1 and control up to 9 HD of small animals.

He can cast animate carrion 2 and control 18 HD of small and medium animals.

He can cast animate carrion 3 and control 27 HD of small, medium and large creatures.

None of the spells stop you from animating animals of higher HD than what is listed as "3 HD per CA" as long as you have a high enough CA. Animate carrion 3 could Animate 2 mammoths (12 HD each) with 3 HD left over for a CA 9 necromancer.

Indeedy. Treat each spell as its own thing. There's no reason to assume any given necromancer would have more than one of them.

Is it Firefox or the website that has no spelling issue with "necromancer"?

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 11/19/2015 9:51 am

Yeah, that was my interpretation, too. Each spell is separate.

I was just chatting things though with the player the other night. Interesting little horde even a 5th level necromancer can whip up given the proper access to "resources".

**Posted by DMPrata** 11/19/2015 12:32 pm

My interpretation is that a 12th-level necromancer could have in his service a maximum of 24 small undead animals, 24 medium undead animals, 7 large undead animals, 12 skeletons and/or zombies, 5 ghouls, and (on a 2-in-6 chance) 1 ghast.

**Posted by DMPrata** 11/19/2015 12:35 pm

SavageGM wrote:
None of the spells stop you from animating animals of higher HD than what is listed as "3 HD per CA" as long as you have a high enough CA. Animate carrion 3 could Animate 2 mammoths (12 HD each) with 3 HD left over for a CA 9 necromancer.

Whilst the referee is certainly free to devise unique variants, by default animal skeletons have ½ HD, 1 HD, or 5 HD, based on their size, regardless of how many hit dice they possessed when alive.

**Posted by SavageGM** 11/19/2015 12:45 pm

OK I see. Well that makes it even stronger spells imo. If a mammoth is considered to be a large skeleton with 5 HD instead of 12 HD you could control even more, correct?

**Posted by SavageGM** 11/19/2015 12:54 pm

DMPrata wrote:
SavageGM wrote:
None of the spells stop you from animating animals of higher HD than what is listed as "3 HD per CA" as long as you have a high enough CA. Animate carrion 3 could Animate 2 mammoths (12 HD each) with 3 HD left over for a CA 9 necromancer.
Whilst the referee is certainly free to devise unique variants, by default animal skeletons have ½ HD, 1 HD, or 5 HD, based on their size, regardless of how many hit dice they possessed when alive.

The more I think about this the more I think that you should take the living animals HD into consideration and then once animated it reverts to the skeleton animals HD. Sea Serpent has 16 HD and is Large. Seems unreasonable that the 12th level Necromancer could control 7 of them.

**Posted by SavageGM** 11/19/2015 1:15 pm

On further thought. I think the sentence in animate carrion explains they must be animals of a natural kind. Some monsters like the sea Serpent may not fall into that category. Up to the referee I guess which animal is natural or not.

**Posted by Blackadder23** 11/19/2015 2:27 pm

Personally, I wouldn't allow a sea serpent or "giant" anything to be animated. Just actual animals actually found on Earth at some point (so prehistoric beasts would be included). I would most likely impose a "common sense" limit on size too (no blue whales, for example).

**Posted by Handy Haversack** 11/19/2015 6:24 pm

Blackadder23 wrote:
Personally, I wouldn't allow a sea serpent or "giant" anything to be animated. Just actual animals actually found on Earth at some point (so prehistoric beasts would be included). I would most likely impose a "common sense" limit on size too (no blue whales, for example).

In that case, you are allowed in the American Museum of Natural History.

**Posted by Blackadder23** 11/19/2015 7:19 pm

Handy Haversack wrote:
Blackadder23 wrote:
Personally, I wouldn't allow a sea serpent or "giant" anything to be animated. Just actual animals actually found on Earth at some point (so prehistoric beasts would be included). I would most likely impose a "common sense" limit on size too (no blue whales, for example).
In that case, you are allowed in the American Museum of Natural History.

Not since that incident with the T-Rex skeleton...