Re: CF: need help with Animate Dead spell...

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <>]

Doug wilder wrote:
> 
> >     If you make it a pet, like Command Undead does, it will basically
> >follow
> >you around, but you won't have direct control.  Golems must be precisely
> >controlled, but you can only have one, and only as long as you concentrate
> >on it.  I'd go with a pet in this case.
> >
> 
> how about making it like summon elemental. I recent used a scroll of this
> and i could actually control where it went. i could send it into a room and
> have it kill what ever it ran into. I could change its direction and move my
> self too.

    Yes, that would be the other option, golem.  Internally, summoned
elementals, avatars, holy servants, and anything else you can "remote
control" like that, are objects of type: GOLEM.  The alternative to golems
would be friendly monsters, like summoned pets, cult monsters, and charmed
monsters.
    Which fits your story better?  If animating a dead thing creates a
strong-willed creature, such that it's a continual struggle to dominate it,
as with an elemental, or a mobile but lifeless object with no independent
will at all, like a golem, then you should make them golems.  If the result
of the spell is to return some amount of life, or unlife, to a corpse, make
it a pet.
    Since you did mention that using too many potions might create too
strong a monster, which would then attack you, it sounds like golem would be
the answer.  I have a third suggestion, though.  The actual difference
between golems and pets is minimal.  You could create the monster, and then
decide which it is.  If you use only just enough potions, maybe with some
margin of error, like not more than 20% more, you'll get a golem that you
have complete control over, and which can't don anything without your
control.  If you use a few more than that, but not enough for it to break
free, it becomes a pet that won't exactly obey your commands, but will fight
for you independently.  And of course, if you use too many potions, trying
for some kind of super-creature, it'll either break free and become an
aggressive monster, or you'll get your super-creature, but you'll have to
concentrate on carefully controlling it as a golem.

-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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