I have a paladin (lvl 7) in my game with the Oathbreaker subclass. They have their special channel divinity called Control Undead:
"Control Undead. As an action, you target one undead creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target must obey your commands for the next 24 hours, or until you use this Channel Divinity option again. An undead whose challenge rating is equal to or greater than your paladin level is immune to this effect."
A wraith (cr 5) can control 7 spectors at any time. If i made an encounter where the party encounters 1 or more wraiths with their respective spectors, and the paladin uses his channel divinity on one of the wraiths, and they happen to fail their saving throw, will the paladin have control over 1 wraith and 7 spectors?
In short, is it possible for an undead, thats under control of someone, to have control over their own undead minions?
Undead pyramid scheme. I like it. It could get tricky. Since the pally can only control undead up to his level, do the specters and the wraith add together, effectively boosting the wraith CR beyond what the oathbreaker can control? If, that is, he wants to control the specters through the wraith. I guess I’d want to keep it simple and probably let him take the wraith, but say that being compelled breaks the wraith control over the specters. If, say, the wraith was destroyed, the specters would act on their own. So this would be almost like that. Since the wraith is now dominated, it can no longer exert its will over others. And specters have a 10 for int and wis and understand languages, they would see what was happening and probably try to free themselves. And if the player thinks it should be able to use the wraith as middle management, go back to my first point and say that makes the CR too high for him to be able to control them all.
Out of curiosity, when you run into a situation like with a player who has a character as well as three or more creatures under their control, how does this play out at the table during combat? Do rounds just take that much longer? Do you put optimizations in place to improve efficiency?
How would a character have that many creatures under his control? Either way, I can say I’ve not seen it in this edition, but in past editions it has really slowed things down. I think I’d go the ranger route, where the character needs to spend their actions to command other creatures, so they aren’t doing four creatures worth of stuff. Either they can do something or one of their flunkies can do something, but not both, and certainly not all 4.
can an Oathbreaker using Control Undead wrest control from another controlled undead?
I don't see anything that would prevent it from what was quoted above. Perhaps the other spell or ability has something to say about it?
If not, perhaps instead of the stated DC, you set the DC as the other characters spell casting save DC to reflect the will of the other character. It's in that grey area where a DM ruling would be key, barring specific language with the ability being used to control the others.
Dear people that are smarter than me,
I have a paladin (lvl 7) in my game with the Oathbreaker subclass. They have their special channel divinity called Control Undead:
"Control Undead. As an action, you target one undead creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target must obey your commands for the next 24 hours, or until you use this Channel Divinity option again. An undead whose challenge rating is equal to or greater than your paladin level is immune to this effect."
A wraith (cr 5) can control 7 spectors at any time. If i made an encounter where the party encounters 1 or more wraiths with their respective spectors, and the paladin uses his channel divinity on one of the wraiths, and they happen to fail their saving throw, will the paladin have control over 1 wraith and 7 spectors?
In short, is it possible for an undead, thats under control of someone, to have control over their own undead minions?
Thanks!
Undead pyramid scheme. I like it.
It could get tricky. Since the pally can only control undead up to his level, do the specters and the wraith add together, effectively boosting the wraith CR beyond what the oathbreaker can control? If, that is, he wants to control the specters through the wraith.
I guess I’d want to keep it simple and probably let him take the wraith, but say that being compelled breaks the wraith control over the specters. If, say, the wraith was destroyed, the specters would act on their own. So this would be almost like that. Since the wraith is now dominated, it can no longer exert its will over others. And specters have a 10 for int and wis and understand languages, they would see what was happening and probably try to free themselves.
And if the player thinks it should be able to use the wraith as middle management, go back to my first point and say that makes the CR too high for him to be able to control them all.
I really like that Idea, thanks im gonna use that!
Out of curiosity, when you run into a situation like with a player who has a character as well as three or more creatures under their control, how does this play out at the table during combat? Do rounds just take that much longer? Do you put optimizations in place to improve efficiency?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
How would a character have that many creatures under his control? Either way, I can say I’ve not seen it in this edition, but in past editions it has really slowed things down.
I think I’d go the ranger route, where the character needs to spend their actions to command other creatures, so they aren’t doing four creatures worth of stuff. Either they can do something or one of their flunkies can do something, but not both, and certainly not all 4.
can an Oathbreaker using Control Undead wrest control from another controlled undead?
I don't see anything that would prevent it from what was quoted above. Perhaps the other spell or ability has something to say about it?
If not, perhaps instead of the stated DC, you set the DC as the other characters spell casting save DC to reflect the will of the other character. It's in that grey area where a DM ruling would be key, barring specific language with the ability being used to control the others.