 | |
| Spell Information | |
| Spell level : | Innate level: 7, Cleric: 6, Sorcerer/Wizard: 7 |
|---|---|
| School : | Necromancy |
| Components : | Verbal and Somatic |
| Range : | Short |
| Target/Area : | Single |
| Duration : | 1 Hour * cLevel 20 Rounds (cLevel) |
| Save : | Will Negates |
| Spell resistance : | Yes |
Description[]
A single undead creature with up to 2 Hit Dice per caster level falls under the caster's control unless it makes a successful Will save.
Notes[]
If the last member of a group is dominated, this particular enemy will be instant-killed right away, allowing the player to exploit this spell for instant kills. This is also true for the spells Dominate Person, Dominate Monster, and Dominate Animal. The behavior is intentional and is defined in the creature objects' Heartbeat script (gb_assoc_heart). More information is available on the Dominate Person page.
The advantages of this approach are obvious:
- Control Undead has a higher DC than Undeath to Death (at least for Wizards/Sorcerers)
- Because Control Undead rarely encounters HD limitations, it will work on almost any enemy, as long as it is "the last man (or rather the last undead) standing."
One particularly interesting example for this is the first Shadow Reaver encounter in the original campaign. As a wizard, he has high will, so Control Undead is preferable to Undeath to Death. If you kill all enemies in the area and then cast this spell on the Shadow Reaver, he will be killed immediately.
Note that different states are often conflicting with each other due to hard-coded bugs present in the NWN2 engine, so if an enemy is petrified, you may need to de-petrify him first for the Domination effect to be applied properly. Undead Turning, however, seems to stack with Domination just fine.
Bug Notes[]
- This spell will dispel invisibility/etherealness. This is inconsistent with Dominate/Charm Person-Monster spells, which are performed covertly, as they should be and do not dispel invisibility.
- The effect of this spell is actually domination, although this isn't noted in the description. The problem here is that undead are normally immune to domination, which causes problems if you create a savegame while a dominated undead is in the party. When you load the savegame, the dominated associate will become so permanently. While this can be advantageous in that some undead make for powerful (and likely unwitting) companions, there will be no way to rid yourself of them other than through the debug console or causing the dominated associate to die - usually in battle. Therefore, unless you want one (or more, as there's no limit to the number you may acquire in this manner) around for a while, it's advisable not to save your game with a dominated undead opponent.
- You also get the message "Immune to Dominate" in the message window. To fix, replace EffectDominated by EffectCutsceneDominated in NW_S0_ConUnd.nss and recompile the spell script. However, EffectCutsceneDominated doesn't work the same way - it ignores harmful spells cast on target, so the dominated associate will not be undominated if you use Turn Undead and turn it (will be undominated with standard EffectDominated, because the domination effect is always removed when the target is signalled a harmful event originating from their master's faction).
- Line 52: This spell doesn't use the NWN2 ApplyMetamagicDurationMods() and ApplyMetamagicDurationTypeMods() functions.
- Line 62: Although the effects all have a 1.0 delay (the save and the application of effects) the resist spell line doesn't.
3.5E Comparison[]
The 3.5E could affect any undead of choice in a 30ft area, rather then a single target.