Ok, so here is a question thatbis probably simple to answer but it has confused me.
One of my players has a 10th level Dread Necromancer and has been creating undead friends to follow him around. Up until now it hasn't been an issue, but last game the party fought some hill giants. After the battle, the Dread Necromancer created hill giant zombies.
Seeing a glimpse of future games, I started looking at Animate Dead rules. In 3.5 you couldn't create a zombie from a corpse with more than 10 HD. Did this rule go away in Pathfinder?
What's to prevent my player from making 20HD zombies whenever they run across the right bodies?
Thanks for the help.
There's not really anything preventing him from having 2 20HD zombies at 10th level. Aside from you as the DM creating problems for him. Such as those creatures never existing in a form he can animate and how hard it is to walk around with huge creatures.
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What's to prevent my player from making 20HD zombies whenever they run across the right bodies?
Nothing. He can create Zombies or Skeletons that are 2X his caster level per casting.And can have 4X his caster level HD in Zombies or Skeletons.
Animate Dead
School necromancy [evil]; Level antipaladin 3, cleric/oracle 3, sorcerer/wizard 4; Domain death 3
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead)
EFFECT
Range touch
Targets one or more corpses touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
This spell turns corpses into undead skeletons or zombies that obey your spoken commands.
The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are destroyed. A destroyed skeleton or zombie can't be animated again.
Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can't create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. The desecrate spell doubles this limit.
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released. Undead you control through the Command Undead feat do not count toward this limit.
Skeletons: A skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones. If a skeleton is made from a corpse, the flesh falls off the bones.
Zombies: A zombie can be created only from a mostly intact corpse. The corpse must be that of a creature with a physical anatomy.
In 3.5 you couldn't create a zombie from a corpse with more than 10 HD. Did this rule go away in Pathfinder?
Yes, because the Pathfinder zombie template does NOT double HD, unlike 3.5. The 3.5 10HD cap was there to prevent 22+HD zombies from the Animate Dead Spell.
Hit Dice: Drop HD gained from class levels (minimum of 1) and change racial HD to d8s. Zombies gain a number of additional HD as noted on the following table.
Zombie Size
Large +2 HD
What's to prevent my player from making 20HD zombies whenever they run across the right bodies?
Those normally require 500gp onyx gems. Each, consumed as a component, no advanced knowledge of how big a gen an individual creature needs, no change given if too large a gem is used and the spell still is used up if the gem was too small.
TBH I sometimes wonder how high of level such a character was expected to progress since Horror campaigns are usually low level affairs and the class seem more of a BBEG, than a PC.
Nothing. He can create Zombies or Skeletons that are 2X his caster level per casting.And can have 4X his caster level HD in Zombies or Skeletons.
I think that skeletons have a max HD limit of 20, zombies on the other hand do not have that.