The Problem with Undead

[Taqwus]

Undead have their own problems; the hordes being mindless is a curse in addition to a blessing. Watch as two dozen Illithids simultaneously mindblast your leaders because those are the only legitimate targets, for instance... and then the hordes dissolving rather than retreating. Dissolving's also a problem after an Earth Attack/Mind Hunt/assassin binge, and the unbreakable morale is a problem in situations where you *should* run to, er, remain undead another day. Mindless troops also never gain experience, and are poor at defending castles.

As for hp, well, for Longdead -- have you looked at Longdead Horse? IIRC, they've got a whopping 5 hp, possibly already combined with a never-heals flag.

Most everything above Longdead needs to be explicitly summoned, and tends to be tricky to do in quantity (Archers being an exception, as you get 10, but that's at Ench 7, IIRC; mass-Wights takes Conj 9). Ghosts can be, with a high-Death leader. But if they run into a Blade Wind, they and their relatives (e.g. dispossessed spirits) face Blade Wind with 0 prot and no protection from etherealness, since it's a spell.

And death magic *is* essentially a summoning path, with relatively focused constructions (primarily deathly effects like drain life and fear, and boosting death), few non-summoning rituals, and generally less-than-spectacular battle magic (shining against undead, 'tho, and decent in combination with astral). Blood is the other obvious mega-summoning path. If the summons for these paths weren't good, they'd be a pretty heavy disadvantage to something like Astral (recon, luck, ethereal, movement, multi-path boosters, enslavement, mind hunting, direct damage, dome, magic resistance...) or Nature (supply, regeneration, Vine Ogres, dome, Firbolgs, supply, light armor, supply, wolves, Gift of Health, supply, Lamia queen sorcerors, Charm, supply...), or Air (solo movement, lightning, storms, yet more lightning, can't forget Wrathful Skies, lightning weapons, lightning armor, seeking arrows, anti-missile spells, anti-missile items, mistform, Fog Warriors, others...).

[Huzurdaddi]

Taqwus said:
If the summons for these paths weren't good, they'd be a pretty heavy disadvantage to something like ... Air (solo movement, lightning, storms, yet more lightning, can't forget Wrathful Skies, lightning weapons, lightning armor, seeking arrows, anti-missile spells, anti-missile items, mistform, Fog Warriors, others...).

Hey isn't everything at a disadvantage to Air? As someone posted when I 1st started the game ( and really did not know it too well ) "Air has all of the toys" and it's true.

As for undead being overpowered. I don't really think so. Banishment works wonders on the massed undead and there are a couple of spells ( and items ) specifically tailored to killing the high cost undead units that work spectacularly well. That being said the undead can really rock your world if you are not read for them.

[TheSelfishGene]

Maggots!?

I had forgetten about that spell, never having used it. How well does that spell work against the more powerful undead, and does it auto-target powerful Undead or just the random junk? Supposedly its fatal if it sticks.

[sushiboat]

Undead are cool, but I don't see them as unbalanced. The lesser undead get destroyed by the hundreds. The powerful undead should be compared to other powerful summons (e.g., Wraith Lord vs. Air Queen). Undead Pretenders should be compared to other Pretenders that have similar roles (e.g., undead SC vs. living SC).

By the way, why should Banish be effective against powerful undead? It is a low level spell that requires no research (i.e., is available from Turn 1), gives no fatigue, and has multiple effects per casting. That is a pretty good deal as it is. And of course, Banish can hurt powerful undead; you just need to cast it more often before it will deal a killing blow.

[Taqwus]

Maggots is deadly. IIRC it's capped at how much damage it can do, 'tho; ISTR having a PoD barely survive it once, and I don't think he had regen items on him.

Spell targeting is probably similar to other spells, other than that it'll only target undead (and perhaps only corporeals; ethereal IIRC means that the spell will only rarely work) -- which can be interesting if you're using a Prince of Death with a living army attacking an army with druids. Been there, done that, smacked forehead.