Oracle- bones mystery and Raise the Dead

[GM Aerondor]

Firstly a recap of Raise the Dead:
Raise the Dead (Su): As a standard action, you can summon a single skeleton or zombie to serve you. The undead creature has a number of Hit Dice equal to your oracle level. It remains for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier. At 7th level, you can summon a bloody skeleton or fast zombie. At 15th level, you can summon an advanced skeleton or zombie. You can use this ability once per day plus one additional time per day at 10th level.

At first level, no issue. At second level again, probably no issue, add an extra hit dice and +1 to BAB.

Advancing to higher level (lets pick 8th now) and we have a 8HD skeleton.
Should this just be an 8HD regular skeleton (so BAB of +6, maybe two stat gains points bumping up STR to 17 for claw attacks of d4+3 @+9 to hit).

Or should the skeleton be raised to a larger size along with the larger hit dice. The Raise the Dead doesn't state the size of the skeleton at all.

And yes there is the bloody template as well, but lets forget about that for the moment.

Summary of the question
How do you advance a skeleton raised by a higher level oracle. Just by using the skeleton template rules, or do you do a size adjustment too (and if so, by how much?).

Oh, and if it matters, the exact context for this is PFS, so I'm happy if there is a PFS specific ruling on this.

Thoughts?

[Diego Rossi]

I would say medium sized skeleton only.

[Pathfinder Design Team]

Posting here since it was the most recent of many threads on this topic:

Answered in FAQ.

FAQ wrote:

Oracle Bones Mystery: What exactly does the raise the dead revelation mean when it says you can summon a skeleton or zombie to serve you? Do I need a corpse? If not, can I just summon whatever I want, like a tarrasque fast zombie?

The raise the dead doesn’t require a corpse; you summon the creature (rising up out of the earth is a potential visual for this effect). You summon the base creature from the Bestiary in either case (human skeleton or human zombie) aside from the modifications from the revelation (adding extra HD, fast or bloody, and the advanced template). At the GM’s discretion, an oracle with a noticeably different body or bone structure might summon skeletons and zombies with this ability that look cosmetically more similar to the oracle than to a human, but this doesn’t affect their game mechanics.

[plaidwandering]

another nail in the coffin for this mystery...(sorry, I had to!)

[Doomed Hero]

Very frustrating. Such a flavorful ability, but nearly useless after about 3rd level.

Why couldn't it mimic the Anti-Paladin's Fiendish Boon ability and just be a "Summon Monster with Skeletal or Zombie template"

Its very disappointing when abilities are overly complicated, arbitrarily restrictive and mechanically weak.

[Derek Dalton]

Read the Life Oracle. They get a positive channel without any restrictions. A feat later you have Negative channel. Depending on your deity or philosophy you can always take Animate Dead the spell. Then take Command undead once you have Versatile Channel. The Bones Oracle is not an evil version of a Life Oracle it's a weak messy mystery I found insultingly lame.

[plaidwandering]

Versatile gives you a -2 level to channel level, meaning you could only control up to 2hd less than your level. Command undead is already pretty restrictive.

Which contributes to what you say about bones being a weak messy mystery.

Now it is even weaker.

[The Usual Suspect]

What is the range of the Oracle's Raise the Dead ability. The description in the book does not state that this is like a Summon Monster spell or similarly restricted in range.