Newbie DM Questions

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I have a few questions I need clarified. I can't ask my husband as he is one of the people in my campaign. I'm working with 3.5e rules and in Faerun, though I am open to others. PCs start at 18th level and I plan on getting them up to epic levels.

Question 1)
Commanding Undead: I have a Cleric(17)/Sorceress(16) of Lovitar who is NE. She has the following epic feat for rebuking undead:

Undead Mastery [Divine] [Epic]
You can command a greater number of undead than normal.
Prerequisites: Cha 21, ability to rebuke or command undead
Benefit: You may command up to 10 times your level in HD of undead.

Her stats are:
STR 13
DEX 17
CON 15
INT 18
WIS 20
CHA 21

Her minimum on a turning check would be 6 and maximum 25. Now, according to the table on p.159 of PHB, with her lowest check of 6, she could rebuke/command a 15HD undead; with her highest 25, she could rebuke/command a 21HD undead. For her 'turning damage', her rolls would be min. 24 and max. 34. It also says (in reguard to destroying undead):

"If you have twice as many levels (or more) as the undead have Hit Die, you destroy any that you would normally turn."

My question is: How does the previous feat affect her rebuking/commanding undead ability? For rebuking rolls, would they then become min. a 25HD undead and max. a 31HD undead? Or does she become a 27th level cleric for rebuking/commanding attempts? I'm trying to be as clear as I can, but story problems *still* confuse the hell out of me. One of the PCs will be a vampire and this character would just *love* to get a hold of him!

Question 2)
Is "Go map out the strange, new land" a viable storyline? It seems a bit blah, but I have many encounters planned (hah!) for XP.

Question 3)
Is it bad of me to want my friends' PCs to die? I'm not talking indescriminantly. Luck of the die rolls, really. There have been a couple of times my PCs should have died, but the DM modified his rolls and rules so I could live. Once, my fighter got hit by a 20-20-20 critical hit spree and should have been nothing but a stain. This is 'death by massive damage', right? She was my first PnP character and well, I didn't want to die, but I knew the rules. The second time, the same PC got hit and went below -10 HP. This time, the DM piped up with the house rule of adding your CON modifier to the bleeding to death points - for my fighter, -1 to -13 before dying. The third time was with our evil campaign. I play a NE diviner and said, "I've got a spell ready in case he does something suspicious." Well, he backstabbed our thief and I cast my spell (scorching ray). He was low on HP to begin with and my spell damage of 19 should've destroyed him. DM did some quick spinning and he didn't go poof.

I have some pretty tough encounters planned and am working on smart casting by my NPC baddies. See my cleric/sorceress above. The magic-users will cast Shield, Prot. from Elements, Globe of Invulnerability, etc. I have a medusa ranger with favored enemies of humans and elves and will use Called Shots (thanks, Felinoid). My evil characters and bad guys will be just that - evil and bad.

On a minor note, in the last five campaigns, we've only had three clerics. Another reason why I'd like to bump someone off. They can always go back to town to the temple and pay for a ressurrection. Clan Band-Aid: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Clerics!

 

1) For an evil cleric, any undead a good cleric would destroy, an evil cleric will command. This feat doesn't seem to change your rebuking ability at all, just improve the number of HD you can command. This character can command 160 HD of Undead, but no more than 8 HD a piece (because you can only command those who are half your level in HD).

2) It's a viable storyline, though the rest of the group is going to have to want to go along with it.

3) I don't see a problem with it; your DM is wanting people's characters to not die, which a lot of people get upset by. You'd rather go by the rules, rather than have characters unreasonably saved.

 

1) I don't know, and I think it's already been answered.

2) Gotta love those open-ended quests. You could make it last your entire campaign if you felt like it. "Where no man has gone before" is the greatest challenge of them all!

3) Yeah, that pisses me off too. Define your rules for death and then stick by them! I use the -10 rule until about 4th level and then stop (don't really need it anymore). As a DM, I have an adventure for 1st level characters that is designed to weed out the weakest player. Sometimes I'll have two die, and just once the entire party managed to survive. (They had a really well-balanced party and worked together well, and I congratulated them on being the only ones to ever make it through in one piece. You can't imagine how much they beamed with pride. )

I don't kick them out of the game, of course (that would be cruel). They get to come back in again as a new (1st level, 0 XP) royal character before the next adventure. It creates a good dynamic and identifies the weakest link in a very efficient manner. It's not for everybody (in fact, I imagine most would find it a little distasteful) but it works for my people.

 

Interesting!