Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

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Drow4d20
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Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Drow4d20 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 8:54 am

I am unsure of what this means.

"This spell slays 1d4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level (maximum 20d4). Creatures with the fewest HD are affected first; among creatures with equal HD, those closest to the point of origin of the burst are affected first. " - http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Undeath_to_death

I used to play table top. We would roll our monster's HP using the assigned HD in the monster manuals. I think... It's been a while. So are they saying I can kill 80 undead or undead with up to 80 HP? Is there a way a wizard can cast 'undeath to death' to kill the strongest of undead on Arelith? Such as a dread mummy or dracolich... :D
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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Lorkas » Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:05 am

It means exactly what the manuals mean when they say HD. A level five PC has five HD. If the manual says a creature has 10d6 HP, then that creature had 10 HD.

If you cast a spell that slay 10 HD worth of creatures, it would be able to kill 1 level 10 creature, or 10 level 1 creatures, or 3 creatures whose levels are 5, 3, and 2.

Basically it can slay a lot of weak creatures or a small number of strong creatures.

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Terenfel » Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:05 am

HD is their combined level.. they mit also have racial "levels" too HD

so lets say you they to use stil spell on some skeletons with HD 6, (6d12) and 4 fighter levels. (total HD of 10), if you roll 55 on the 20d4 roll you will kill up to 5 of them, starting from those closest to the point of origin of the spell.

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Drow4d20 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:48 am

So it's kind of like a stronger turn undead that kills instead of scares, but can't kill anything too strong..? Useless against epic undead?
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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Drow4d20 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:59 am

I am confused because I did not understand the concept of the HD outside of context of pertaining to a class (wizard 4, fighter 10, barb 12, right?). It does not seem like the spell would affect epic undead though which is what I wanted to understand. Thank you :D
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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by afreshstart » Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:59 am

If you have high caster level and necromancy focus it can be useful against high level undead. And it can kill a epic boss if it rolls a 1:P

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Lorkas » Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:04 pm

If you're a 20th level caster or higher, it will slay 20-80 HD of undead creatures (average 50 HD). Unless there's a 51+ HD undead creature in the module, no undead are immune to it.

They do have a chance to save, and will is a high saving throw for undead, but it's only as useless as any other DC spell would be in epics.

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Drow4d20 » Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:10 pm

So would that fog spell be useful? Mind fog or whatever... -10 will saves i think :D
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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Lorkas » Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:24 pm

Mind fog is mind-affecting, so undead are immune to it.

Also worth noting, on Arelith, Mind fog is 2d6 will save penalty instead of a flat 10, but a will save only reduces the penalty by half instead of negating it completely. Also, on a failed save the creature is stunned for 1 round. I think undead are still immune to these effects though.

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Skeletor » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:02 pm

Undead have generally trashy saves because they rely on imunities. If you use undead save or die like this chances are the undead will fail HARD. At lvl 20 its 20 d4 so you should roll at least 40 hd enough to kill several or at least 1 or 2 high lvl ones. This spell can also be empowered or maximized. Maximized it grants you 80 hit dice which can pretty much kill anything or level an entire battalion of lower level ones. Mind you ultra high lvl undead might have spell imunity, better saves or such but in theory they are vulnerable. The area on this spell is insanely inmense so sometimes it seems like it did nothing but undead are frying in the distance. This is a triple A quality spell in my opinion. I have killed bosses with almost 1000 hp with it because its hit dice (level) based and not hit point based.

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Drow4d20 » Wed Jan 24, 2018 4:59 pm

Nice! I am trying to plan ahead for my mage build. This spell seems very useful to a mage with 28 INT and +8 to Necromancy DC's... I hope... :D
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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by JediZero » Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:58 am

Image

It has its uses.

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Drow4d20 » Sat Jan 27, 2018 9:44 am

:D
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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Skeletor » Sat Jan 27, 2018 5:02 pm

Beware spell mantles. I'm not sure if this is how it works, but it's what i'm seeing so here it goes:

Undead using spellmantles will obviously resist the spell, aborbing the hit dice that would suposedly kill them. Thus, having one or two spell mantled undead in the enemy pack will protect the rest. (at least that's what i see, again)

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by -XXX- » Sat Jan 27, 2018 8:16 pm

Pew pew spell mantled undead with flame arrow.... pew pew any undead with flame arrow

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Re: Dread Mummy HD & Undeath to death

Post by Drow4d20 » Thu Feb 01, 2018 2:14 pm

It's a good spell for a necromancer to have if they're fighting another caster or mobs of undead in general. And based on the spell mantle info you provided I'm happy that I went with abjuration. Both of my characters are different types of necromancers. Both have Abjuration and Necromancy spell focus. Probably my most favored schools for practical use.
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