I would really appreciated some help in creating non variant undead companion for a lv6 Undead lord.
I just want a simple humanoid skeleton, nothing fancy.
But it seems that by rules, a normal humanoid zombie would always be a HD1 creature because class levels HD reset to one when turned into a skeleton and changed to d8.
"Creatures without racial HD are treated as if they have 1 racial HD"
So does that mean If There was a LV10 Fighter with 20 strength, he would be reanimiated into a skeleton with
1d8HD but also 20 strength?
So would having a high strength Undead companion rely solely on animating a corpse that to begin with had a High strength score?
Would my undead lord have to hold a Martial arts tournament to call all the best fighters in the land just to find a skeleton with a Strength score higher than 15 as described in the example humanoid skeleton?
Class levels are dropped and creatures without racial HD (like humans) are treated as if they have 1 Racial HD.
The only way to have a skeleton with more than one HD is to raise a humanoid skeleton that has more than 1 Racial HD...
there are plenty of humanoid (to include monsterous humanoid) races that have that, and some of them have high strength.
so if that LV 10 fighter with 20 Str was human, yes he would be a 20str 1d8HD skeleton.
but if he was a LV10 Fighter that was a troll, he would be a 6d8HD skeleton with 21STR
Class levels are dropped and creatures without racial HD (like humans) are treated as if they have 1 Racial HD.
The only way to have a skeleton with more than one HD is to raise a humanoid skeleton that has more than 1 Racial HD...
there are plenty of humanoid (to include monsterous humanoid) races that have that, and some of them have high strength.
so if that LV 10 fighter with 20 Str was human, yes he would be a 20str 1d8HD skeleton.
but if he was a LV10 Fighter that was a troll, he would be a 6d8HD skeleton with 21STR
I guess thematically I wanted a Human skeleton companion with 6 hit die, as to not be followed by a lumbering Troll skeleton.
But since humans don't utilize their native racial hit die, then It seems that is out of the question.
The Dark Stalker is a medium humanoid with 6 racial HD. I don't think anyone will make a huff if you flavor it as belonging to a Human.
The Dark Stalker is a medium humanoid with 6 racial HD. I don't think anyone will make a huff if you flavor it as belonging to a Human.
That is a nice RAW alternative. At least that way I could have something fitting.
Your DM would probably allow you to advance the human skeleton by undead HD, if hes reasonable. Youre not gaining any real power by doing so, since a troll skeleton or something would be stronger.
See, that is the way I see it. One can get stronger and bigger skeletons, but necromancy by itself is pretty frowned upon. So as I said, having a giant troll skeleton is just very unflavorful in any(most) AP's.
As far as base stats, the best way to do so might be to start with the example skeleton in the beastiary, and then after killing various enemies, ask if they are stronger in stats?