Creating Templated Undead with Create / Create Greater Undead

[Setanta]

One of the things that I was surprised about with the 3.0 to 3.5 conversion of the spells Create/Create Greater Undead was that Vampire was no longer on the list for the Greater version. I thought maybe this was because it is a template monster while the rest are stand alone.

However, with the powerful undead that can be created with these spells, I think it reasonable to allow Vampires (or any other type of undead) to be created with either of these spells (taking the existing Caster Level tables in the spell descriptions into account) by using the Level Adjustment when figuring out the maximum hit die of undead that can be created.

For example... the Vampire template is a +8, and a Mohrg (14HD) can be created by an 18th level caster using Create Undead... so allowing a creature of 6 HD or less to be made into a Vampire using this spell seems possible.

I guess an argument against this would be if you take into account the specific manner of death being necessary to create the particular type of undead... like Ghosts needing the restless soul element to their demise, or Vampires needing the blood drain... but perhaps these sorts of things can be implied to have taken place as part of the spell during the casting.

Just thought I'd throw it out there.

[Sueki Suezo]

Vampires and Ghosts seem like they would be easy enough to create, but since you would be applying a level adjustment to a base creature that could have any combination of race, class, and levels, you wouldn't be able to easily compare them to other summoned or animated creatures to determine their actual, relative power. Sticking to static creatures is the best way to ensure that these spells are balanced against others of the same types and level range.