Danse Macabre

Danse Macabre is a level 5 necromancy spell. It summons 4 uncontrollable Ghouls to fight for the caster.

Description

Create 4 ghouls that fight alongside you.^{[See Notes]}

Properties

Cost

 Action

Details

 Range: 9 m (30 ft)

 Recharge: Long rest

At higher levels

Casting this spell at a higher level grants no additional benefit.

Technical details

UID

Target_CursedTome_WakeTheDead

Spell flags

HasSomaticComponent, HasVerbalComponent, IgnorePreviouslyPickedEntities, IsSpell

Creature: Ghoul (Danse Macabre)

STR 16 (+3)	DEX 17 (+3)	CON 10	INT 11	WIS 10	CHA 8 (-1)
Duration			Until long rest
Hit Points			20
Armour Class			17

 Claws ()

Lash out with deadly claws and possibly  Paralyse the target.

 Death Burst

Explode and deal 6d6⁠⁠Necrotic to all creatures within 3 m (10 ft).

 Devour ()

Bite a knocked down, prone, or sleeping target, and deal 3d10 + Strength Modifier⁠⁠Slashing damage. Heal that many hit points.

How to learn

Granted by items:

• Necromancy of Thay

Notes

• This spell can only be acquired by completing the quest ⁠Unlock the Ancient Tome, in Act Three, which fully unlocks the secrets of the  Necromancy of Thay.
• The Necromancy School features  Undead Thralls: Additional Undead and  Undead Thralls: Better Summons apply to Danse Macabre. With these features, it can summon up to 5 ghouls each with more hit points and damage.
• Unlike  Animate Dead: Ghoul Pack (or other Animate Dead spells), this spell does not require corpses to cast.
•  Ghouls summoned by this spell:
  • Explode with a Death Burst when killed, dealing ⁠Necrotic area-of-effect damage. This can destroy other ghouls as a chain reaction and hurt nearby party members as well.
  • Are immune to  Demonspirit Madness. This prevents them from being driven mad due to a failed Wisdom saving throw when the summoner wears  Abyss Beckoners.
  • Cannot be controlled by the player. Each ghoul rolls initiative individually, meaning they can be split across different positions in the initiative order if their rolls differ or if other characters (both party members and enemies) land between them.
  • Act simultaneously only if their individual initiative rolls group them together contiguously without other turns intervening.
  • Can insert themselves between party members in the initiative order. This prevents turn-swapping between party members positioned before and after the ghouls (e.g., Player character / Gale / Ghoul / Shadowheart prevents Shadowheart from casting  Create Water before Gale). This is a potentially large downside to using Danse Macabre if the active party members do not typically go first (e.g., by means of high dexterity and / or the  Alert feat).
  • Extend total combat round duration by introducing up to 5 additional game-controlled entities to the battlefield, though speed is increased somewhat if all the summoned ghouls happen to be grouped side by side.
  • Continue to attack a  Knocked Out target for 0 damage and do not switch targets so long as the target remains knocked out.
• The incantation for Danse Macabre is Surgē, the Latin command "Rise!"

Bugs

• The tooltip incorrectly states it costs a  Level 5 Spell Slot.

Visuals

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