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There will be juju zombies as well


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#1 temnix

temnix
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Posted 19 June 2017 - 05:07 AM

Well, I'm happy to report that the basic Animate Dead works quite splendidly. I only need to make sure creature statistics change as I need them, try the self-arming script and put on some bonus visuals. But I think I want to include necromantic extras. Speak with Dead is one, easy to do with an invisible minion hovering over everyone, but also, now that I know how to bring back anyone, I want to implement this side function of the Finger of Death spell from the Player's Handbook. I quote:

 

"The finger of death spell snuffs out the victim's life force. If successful, the victim can be neither raised nor resurrected. In addition, in human subjects the spell initiates changes to the body such that after three days the caster can, by means of a special ceremony costing not less than 1,000 gp plus 500 gp per body, animate the corpse as a juju zombie under the control of the caster."

 

Juju zombies are smart, free-willed and powerful. I have the mechanism for restricting this kind of animation to humans in place. After 24 hours (time is shorter here) the minion will begin to respond to the spell by raising the corpse as an undead companion, if the caster has the right toolkit for 1500 gp. The juju zombies will be GOODBUTBLUE and global. I want them to follow the party around the map but also between areas. MakeGlobal() just enables transfer between areas. How do I script them to actually follow the party when it leaves? That's my question.

 

By the way, here is a nifty trick for restricting the duration of creature scripts. If you want a script to expire after a while, with a sort of timer, or if you want the creature to stop its actions eventually (as I want my zombies to stop looking around for weapons and armor after 1 minute), what do you do? You can put a Set AIScript effect on the creature with Delay/Permanent, pointing to a new script or no script. The creature will stop automatically. This is how I got my invisible minions to cause the bodies to decay. With corpses flagged permanent and remaining after rests etc., I still needed a way to make them rot some days later. Wait() for minions would have precluded them from responding to Animate Dead, the pause would have been thrown off by map travel and other things. I needed minions' hands free for other tasks, so I put this delayed final rite on them, telling "remove the body and then yourself."