Talking about Previews,
You know the preview I'd like to see next is the final version of how Undead will work in Pathfinder. I've never been a huge fan of how 3E made it easier to kill the living dead through a lack of Con score. Throw on Turning, the new Negative Level rules and the new Sneak Attack anything, and it gets a bit tough to sell them as a relentless menace.
They've made some improvements in the Beta, which was cool, but I'd like to see the final. The idea that Charisma, their sheer force of personality and self is what allows Undead to keep holding themselves together against all odds is rather good... but some of the Brute Force undead, like Zombies and Mohrgs lack charisma and rely on inflated hit dice to keep from being out-toughed by undead bards.
Talking about Previews,
You know the preview I'd like to see next is the final version of how Undead will work in Pathfinder. I've never been a huge fan of how 3E made it easier to kill the living dead through a lack of Con score. Throw on Turning, the new Negative Level rules and the new Sneak Attack anything, and it gets a bit tough to sell them as a relentless menace.
They've made some improvements in the Beta, which was cool, but I'd like to see the final. The idea that Charisma, their sheer force of personality and self is what allows Undead to keep holding themselves together against all odds is rather good... but some of the Brute Force undead, like Zombies and Mohrgs lack charisma and rely on inflated hit dice to keep from being out-toughed by undead bards.
Well, honestly, zombies really are just mobile obstacles, rather than challenging long term foes. Vampires, liches, and ghosts, things that are likely to have higher charisma scores, really should be the longer lasting bad guys.
On the other hand, at least throwing toughness on the zombie of a larger creature, for example, will actually do some good (15 HD zombie, 18 extra hit points) . . . unless toughness gets altered from the Beta.
I do hope that there are not changes to undead hit dice type, though, because that would nerf zombies and skeletons even in their "speed bump" role. And dragons get d12 hit dice and con, so its not like the hit dice type only gets used for creatures that don't get "add on" hit points from ability scores.
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I've got two 'outs' when it comes to undead.
Some undead, whether or not you can call it a 'life-force,' have a sort of undead metabolism, fueled by life-energy, blood, flesh or just raw negative energy, and, as such, have a Con score.
Other undead are 'overbuilt' by their creators, with bones alchemically hardened to be like iron, etc. and have bonus hit points similar to those granted Constructs (+10 hp for size Small, +20 hp for size Medium, etc.).
I have a whole set of undead creation rules for 3.x.
Basically, with the right feats and right spells, undead can be created vastly improved over their base models.
All kinds of surprises.
Basic enhancements, like more HD, more BAB, more HP, more AC, more movement speed, etc.
But also some specific enhancements:
Zombies with diseased touch.
Barbed skeletons that damage you when you attack them with melee weapons.
Skeletons that can fire their finger bones like crossbow bolts, which make them into deadly ranged attackers given their general resistance to damage from enemy ranged combat.
Ghouls whose hands come off and fight independently, even providing flanking and paralyzing touch, while the ghoul replaces his claw attacks with two forearm slams - effectively turning one ghoul into 3 separate attackers with a total of 5 paralyzing attacks.
Vampires who have surgically (and magically) relocated their heart to their buttocks - try staking one of these guys through the heart...
And many of these things can be stacked. No reason the aforementioned ghoul can't have extra HD, extra AC, and bonus movement speed.
Of course there are level limits. No first level necromancer is going to whip up the superghoul.
And the enhancements cost money, too, which is why sometimes you just encounter the basic undead.
With Pathfinder, I can see I'm going to need to add built-in Fortification to my list of enhancements for undead, so at least some of them will have some protection against criticals and sneak attacks.
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I have a whole set of undead creation rules for 3.x.
Basically, with the right feats and right spells, undead can be created vastly improved over their base models.
Got a link to this sort of stuff, if it's available online?
Here's the kind of stuff I created (long before WotC created those Corpsecrafting feats, which were also neat!), inspired by two simple words from Hollowfaust, in the Scarred Lands, 'Masterwork Skeletons.'
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How about a necromancer that took his skeletal armor and gives the necromancer 2 additional attacks, as the arms can still attack...
I'm going to make characters roll knowledge checks to get precision damage versus previous critically immune creatures. If your character doesn't know to smash the zombie's heads, then they can't sneak attack them.
I may even allow this to overcome certain types of DR, depending on the level of success...