Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin

[Sinfire Titan]

Wait... the Pope is on Twitter? how many followers does he have?

So many jokes, and all of them are blasphemy.

[Solo]

I was, personally, never enamored with the idea of nonintelligent undead as cheap labor.  They can't make craft or profession checks because those are trained only skills, and skeletons and zombies just don't have skill points.  As such, they work at the much less useful rate of 1 sp a day, which won't even pay off the cost of raising them from the dead for almost a year (and that's even assuming that they're 1 HD creatures, good for nothing else).  What's more, this is simple manual labor.  There is nothing produced by their efforts.

As such, Undead can, at best, play a role in an economy, but they can't spark anything like the industrial revolution.

The words "Perpetual motion" come to mind.

[veekie]

The payoff is a long time though, and theres wear and tear on unliving bodies.

I figure mindless undead labor is best at totally unskilled labor, heavy hauling , towing wagons or propelling ships and boats etc. For skilled labor maybe a ghost would be better.

[Solo]

The payoff is a long time though, and theres wear and tear on unliving bodies

Are there any actual mechanics for the long term degradation of undead bodies?

[JaronK]

Considering a single casting of Black Sand can keep a number of them healed indefinitely, I'd say decay isn't an issue.

JaronK

[awaken DM golem]

The payoff is a long time though, and theres wear and tear on unliving bodies

Are there any actual mechanics for the long term degradation of undead bodies?

Yes.
You have to press Start on the video of Twilight over and over.

[Solo]

So it's settled. Adepts have both combat capabilities and mundane utility.

[Lycanthromancer]

The payoff is a long time though, and theres wear and tear on unliving bodies.

I figure mindless undead labor is best at totally unskilled labor, heavy hauling , towing wagons or propelling ships and boats etc. For skilled labor maybe a ghost would be better.

Ox skeletons would be great if you tossed a couple in some electricity- lightning-generating wheels. They can also grind corn and such, and you don't even need a river for the water wheel grindstone anymore!

[veekie]

Yeah, if it comes to inputting low level but constant amounts of work, undead are great. Replacing a living workforce requires more sentient corpses.
A large array of skeleton powered hamster wheels powering an entire city's worth of cogworks...

[Solo]

I may be misunderstanding the term, but was not the point of the industrial revolution that we could start to build machines powered by fuel and not rely on manual labor for our every need?

[X-Codes]

First:

Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.

Stop ignoring un-helpful rules.

Also, Craft can't create raw materials.  You need the Profession skill to do that, and the Profession skill is trained only.

Finally, Intelligence-based skill checks are a subset of Intelligence checks.  Therefore, Skeletons automatically fail Craft checks, including checks to Aid Another using the craft skill.

[veekie]

I don't think anyone is using skeletons here for manufacturing?
I mean, sheer manual labor that doesn't create anything is Profession no?

[Solo]

I am not suggesting that we use skeletons to make baskets, I'm saying we use skeletons to power a machine that makes baskets.

[ninjarabbit]

To be fair monks are better at basketweaving than skeletons. We need to do something with all the unemployed monks since the zombies hydras and skeleton giants took their jobs in combat.

[Solo]

I'll make a John Henry out of any monk that tries to compete with the forces of mechanization.

[snakeman830]

Finally, Intelligence-based skill checks are a subset of Intelligence checks.  Therefore, Skeletons automatically fail Craft checks, including checks to Aid Another using the craft skill.

Not true, unfortunately.  Otherwise, things like the Motivate Intelligence aura wouldn't say "Intelligence checks and Intelligence-based skill checks".  Ability checks are seperate from skill checks.

[X-Codes]

Finally, Intelligence-based skill checks are a subset of Intelligence checks.  Therefore, Skeletons automatically fail Craft checks, including checks to Aid Another using the craft skill.

Not true, unfortunately.  Otherwise, things like the Motivate Intelligence aura wouldn't say "Intelligence checks and Intelligence-based skill checks".  Ability checks are seperate from skill checks.

Interpreting it the other way gives you just as much nonsense, though.  Mindless creatures can make DC 10 Knowledge checks and basically have perfect common sense.  Even if you're cool with that, there's still the "Untrained workers make 1 sp a day" bit.

I am not suggesting that we use skeletons to make baskets, I'm saying we use skeletons to power a machine that makes baskets.

In that case, the machine is a tool being used by the skeletons.  Aside from doing stuff like trapping a Thoqqua inside an Iron Golem, there's no rules in the game for powering machinery using creatures.

[Bauglir]

Can a skeleton be instructed to pull a lever under some set of circumstances? "Programmed instructions" points to "Yes".

[snakeman830]

Finally, Intelligence-based skill checks are a subset of Intelligence checks.  Therefore, Skeletons automatically fail Craft checks, including checks to Aid Another using the craft skill.

Not true, unfortunately.  Otherwise, things like the Motivate Intelligence aura wouldn't say "Intelligence checks and Intelligence-based skill checks".  Ability checks are seperate from skill checks.

Interpreting it the other way gives you just as much nonsense, though.  Mindless creatures can make DC 10 Knowledge checks and basically have perfect common sense.  Even if you're cool with that, there's still the "Untrained workers make 1 sp a day" bit.

Untrained
An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower).

So no, mindless creatures can't succeed at Knowledge checks ever because they have no skill points or feats (thus can't use them as they're Trained only skills) and it defaults to an Int check, which mindless creatures auto-fail.

And what is this constant deal with the salary of workers?  I can't figure out why you keep bringing it up.

[veekie]

Hell if I know, the uses of undead labor is mainly to eliminate the need for unskilled labor. So any task that requires no judgement or decision ability is saved. Transportation costs are greatly reduced, overland shipping times go down, etc. You could program one to clean the streets, quarry stone, etc etc, but  when used to power manufactories, they're just the mechanism to reset a non-magical crafting trap.