Lesser Animate Dead & Animate Dead on Humanoids

[Thannazzar]

Animate Dead and its lesser counterpart allow you to animate corpses as either skeletons or zombies. However there is no indication in the spell text as to, if you chose to animate for example human skeletons, whether you are stuck with basic 1HD versions or whether you can advance them with additional hit dice.

In the Animate Dead version of the spell you can animate skeleton chimeras, dragons etc.

But in the Lesser version of the spell you can only animate 1 humanoid creature.

So, lets say your limited to 20HD of Undead, are you stuck with 20 x 1HD Human Skeletons of can you summon 4 x 5HD Human Skeletons.

Less of an issue with Animate Dead, but if your stuck to 1HD versions then the Lesser Animate Dead Spell is very sucky for a 3rd lvl Arcane Spell.

[Brambleman]

You can't make varient undead. And yes, the arcane classes are at a disadvantage with undead. The greater version is also one level higher for sorc/wis.

Really a cleric benifits from lesser animate the most. Minions at 3rd level.

[leo1925]

Brambleman wrote:

You can't make varient undead. And yes, the arcane classes are at a disadvantage with undead. The greater version is also one level higher for sorc/wis.

Really a cleric benifits from lesser animate the most. Minions at 3rd level.

+1

Also where do you see that you can only animate humanoid creatures with lesser animate dead?

[Starglim]

Thannazzar wrote:

Animate Dead and its lesser counterpart allow you to animate corpses as either skeletons or zombies. However there is no indication in the spell text as to, if you chose to animate for example human skeletons, whether you are stuck with basic 1HD versions or whether you can advance them with additional hit dice.

The skeleton and zombie templates don't advance by adding extra hit dice. They always take the racial hit dice of the dead creature (plus specified extra HD based on size, for a zombie). You make stronger skeletons or zombies by animating bigger corpses.

[Thannazzar]

Starglim wrote:

Thannazzar wrote:

Animate Dead and its lesser counterpart allow you to animate corpses as either skeletons or zombies. However there is no indication in the spell text as to, if you chose to animate for example human skeletons, whether you are stuck with basic 1HD versions or whether you can advance them with additional hit dice.

The skeleton and zombie templates don't advance by adding extra hit dice. They always take the racial hit dice of the dead creature (plus specified extra HD based on size, for a zombie). You make stronger skeletons or zombies by animating bigger corpses.

My error,

it acutally says:

This spell functions as animate dead, except you can only create a single Small or Medium skeleton or zombie. You cannot create variant skeletons or zombies with this spell.

So I guess its find a small or medium uber creature (for a wizard CL5 around 10hd) to turn into a minion.

Any suggestions?

[Starglim]

Thannazzar wrote:

Starglim wrote:

Thannazzar wrote:

Animate Dead and its lesser counterpart allow you to animate corpses as either skeletons or zombies. However there is no indication in the spell text as to, if you chose to animate for example human skeletons, whether you are stuck with basic 1HD versions or whether you can advance them with additional hit dice.

The skeleton and zombie templates don't advance by adding extra hit dice. They always take the racial hit dice of the dead creature (plus specified extra HD based on size, for a zombie). You make stronger skeletons or zombies by animating bigger corpses.

My error,

it acutally says:

This spell functions as animate dead, except you can only create a single Small or Medium skeleton or zombie. You cannot create variant skeletons or zombies with this spell.

So I guess its find a small or medium uber creature (for a wizard CL5 around 10hd) to turn into a minion.

Any suggestions?

Most likely some sort of outsider. An erinyes, for example, is a Medium creature with 9 HD.

[HaraldKlak]

Thannazzar wrote:

Any suggestions?

A young, copper dragon, perhaps? If you are able to catch it, that is.