Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The Dead

[Nick_K]

IMO ghosts are an excellent troop summon. The spell summons extra ghosts if you have high magic levels. IIRC a death 7 summoner will get 7 ghosts per casting. Death is quite easy to boost with items so it's quick and cheap to gather a powerful army.

Ghosts have a chill aura so don't use them with regular troops. They are frightening, ethereal, drain life and can enter the sea as well as having good stats across the board except for prot - and their etherealness makes up for that in sp at least. Also, unlike wights they don't suffer from exceptionally low battlefield movement. Against the AI they should be overwhelmingly powerful.

[Managarm]

Thanks to all for the quick replies and guidance.

Now I see that my "scalable" summoning approach is not the most efficient way to proceed... I'll keep my rainbow pretender doing (serious) pretender stuff: boosting research and looking for magical sites early, and bringing powerful summoners later on.

I'll give a try to Ghosts, they have plenty of abilities including stealth, excellent for raiding alongside the Steel and Warrior Maidens!

Another very good Death/Nature trick is the Gift Of Reason + Tartarian Gate combo, although it has a steep death requirements (D7) it's easy to achieve forging some items.

Apart from the Mound Fiends, which other undead commanders have the "Reanimate" ability?

[ologm]

Wraith lords can summon ghosts.

Any undead priest can reanimate, so you could make one your prophet.

[Wish]

mandragora are the quinticential nature/death undead.

[Managarm]

ologm said:
Any undead priest can reanimate, so you could make one your prophet.

I’ve been looking for an unholy priest summoning in the manual, and the only result I’ve found is "Revive Wraith Consul" from Conjuration 7, as described in page 172.
Unfortunately, I think this spell is misplaced in the manual because the Wraith Consul is a LA Ermor specific summoning, and not available to the other Nations.
On top of that, the manual says that the Consul is a Holy 4 priest whilst in Edi’s dB he’s just a level 3 priest.
I suppose these errors have been spotted before, but I haven’t found a post related with this item, sorry.

Due to unholy or non-divine magic is Nation specific (C’Tis Desert Tombs, Ermor Ashen Empire and Pangaea), all the remaining Nations shouldn’t have access to any summonable undead priests. Is that statement correct? Is there a way to get a 'generic' unholy priest (via magical sites maybe)?

[Shovah32]

Mound fiends, summonable by any D3 mage with the research, are undead priests and death mages.

[Managarm]

Thanks Shovah, I've had a look to Edi's dB and you're right, Mound Fiends (Id 439) are Reanimators, D3 Mages and H2 priests, all in one!

Most of my previous comments were based upon Sunray's "units_dom3.xls", where Mound Fiends have the following incorrect description: can reanimate but does not know unholy spells. For that reason I thought that there was no unholy priest summonings available for all Nations.

[Managarm]

I've created a list with the summoners (creature summonings with magic skills) available in Death/Nature schools for reference purposes.
Although I've tried to make it as accurate as possible, expect some flaws because I found some difficulties understanding some bits of the data I used (e.g. the random magic skills).
The data was taken from in-game menus plus Sunray's and Edi's databases.
Here we go:


Id# <> Summoner <> Gems <> School <> Path <> Spell <> Summoner's Magic <> Other comments
641 <> Ancient Presence <> ??? <> ??? <> ??? <> ??? <> D3N3 <> Unique (Infor Vadul)
780 <> Lord of the Hunt <> 50 Nat <> Conj 9 <> N6 <> Wild Hunt <> E1N5 <> Unique (Herne)
621 <> Treelord <> 35 Nat <> Ench 7 <> N5 <> Awaken Treelord <> E1N4 <> Unique, Summons +X extra Vine Men/Ogre
980 <> Treelord <> 35 Nat <> Ench 7 <> N5 <> Awaken Treelord <> B1N4 <> Unique, Summons +X extra Vine Men/Ogre
627 <> Faery Queen <> 40 Nat <> Conj 8 <> N5 <> Faerie Court <> A3N3 <> Summ. Allies = 3 Sprites, Heal others (20% chance)
931 <> Ivy King <> 30 Nat <> Conj 7 <> N4 <> Awaken Ivy King <> N3 <> Summons +X extra Vine Men/Ogre
609 <> Lamia Queen <> 25 Nat <> Conj 6 <> N5D2 <> Contact Lamia Queen <> D2N1?? <> Shapechange Into Sepent Queen (Id# 610)
439 <> Mound Fiend <> 28 Dth <> Conj 7 <> D3 <> Summon Mound Fiend <> D3H2 <> Reanimator, Sacred
396 <> Revenant <> 9 Dth <> Ench 3 <> D2 <> Create Revenant <> D1 <>
329 <> Spectral Mage <> 20 Dth <> Conj 6 <> D3 <> Summon Spectre <> D!! <>
771 <> Tartarian Cyclops (Lightning) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> A2E3 <> Possible Afflictions
772 <> Tartarian Cyclops (Ench. Sword) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> E4 <> Possible Afflictions
777 <> Tartarian Monstra <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> ** + ** + * + * <> Possible Afflictions
776 <> Tartarian Monstrum <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> ** + ** <> Possible Afflictions
773 <> Tartarian Spirit <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> E3D2 <> Possible Afflictions
774 <> Tartarian Titan (Ench. Spear) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> *** + ** <> Possible Afflictions
775 <> Tartarian Titan (Ench. Sickle) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> *** + ** + ** <> Possible Afflictions
181 <> Wraith Lord <> 40 Dth <> Conj 7 <> D5 <> Call Wraith Lord <> D3 <> Summ. Allies = 1 Ghost

? -> Random Magic 100% Chance WDNB
! -> Random Magic 100% Chance WESD
* -> Random Magic 100% Chance FAWESDNB

Does somebody know how to invoke the "Ancient Presence"? Besides it has a unique name, it isn't tagged as a Hero, so it should be available to all the Nations (I presume)

I think the best Nation for supporting a hardcore death/nature summoning strategy is EA C'Tis: they start with +4 Death and +2 Nature gems and have a couple of interesting Pretenders with starting Nature and Death Magic; Father and Mother of Serpents.

[sunray_be]

Managarm said:
Most of my previous comments were based upon Sunray's "units_dom3.xls", where Mound Fiends have the following incorrect description: can reanimate but does not know unholy spells. For that reason I thought that there was no unholy priest summonings available for all Nations.

Hi Managarm,
the summoning table was made for dom2 but most data are still useful for dom3. With 'does not know unholy spells' I mean 'is unable to cast special unholy spells like Unholy Blessing'.
Cheers