You could always make him check vs. the dragon's spell resistance. Who says he has to be alive to still be resistant to spells. Poof! A whole lot of gems gone for nothing.
I don't have a problem with Animate Dead having consequences, but as a DM I prefer to let my players have fair warning beforehand (e.g. "Animating the dead is about as socially acceptable as necrophilia and cannibalism"). As a player, I'd be a little irked if casting a given spell caused grief to my fellow party members (e.g. waves of dragon attacks) without some kind of warning from the DM beforehand.
I don't see what the problem is, honestly. Longtooth can't be animated into a zombie because his HD are too high (can't animate a base creature of more than 10 HD into a zombie), and skeletal dragons are quite wimpy compared to other things he could be animating. Longtooth goes from 28 to 12 AC (+1 dex, -13 natural, -4 armor since he can't case mage armor any more), loses his immunities, loses his breath weapon, loses all his feats, can no longer fly, loses almost 40% of his hit points, etc.
Actually HD aren't an issue as long as they're no more than twice the Cleric's caster level.
Is that a house rule? The SRD disagrees:
"If the base creature has more than 10 Hit Dice (not counting those gained with experience), it can’t be made into a zombie with the animate dead spell."
|
I don't have a problem with Animate Dead having consequences, but as a DM I prefer to let my players have fair warning beforehand (e.g. "Animating the dead is about as socially acceptable as necrophilia and cannibalism"). As a player, I'd be a little irked if casting a given spell caused grief to my fellow party members (e.g. waves of dragon attacks) without some kind of warning from the DM beforehand.
Have an important NPC point out that Animate Dead is an evil act (though so is Death Knell...) and that a large skeleton will be hard to hide from the town. Get the PC's discussing this in character. Think "12 Angry Men." If they all decide to animate the dragon, then no one can feel bad when the inevitable dragon flight comes for their baby.
Ryn, who likes consequences