In my campaign I basically want to have all the walking undead be specialty undead, but I don't know how to calculate them for purposes of the animate dead spell.
For instance, how many hitdice do Apocalypse Zombies (relentless brain-eating plague human zombies) count as for the purposes of casting animate dead? Do you double the hitdice for each added template, or do you add the hitdice again. Basically is it exponential or multiplicative? Note also that Relentless zombies gain +2 HD from Relentless property, so I'm guessing that would be calculated with base HD.
How many hitdice do acid blood human skeletons count as for casting animate dead? They're only acid skeleton + bloody skeleton so simpler than apocalypse zombies. My initial guess is they would count as 3 HD (1 HD human skeleton + 1 HD for acidic +1 HD for bloody) but I'm not sure. It could be that it's doubled every time a temple is applied (1 hd for human skeleton + 1 HD for acidic = 2HD + another 2 HD for bloody = 4 HD).
I'm pretty sure that the spell Animate Dead does not allow you to add templates to zombies and skeletons. Generally, when a spell allows you to do something complicated like that, it specifies what can and can not be done. In the case of animate dead, I think you are limited to standard skeletons and zombies of whatever types of corpses you have lying around.
I'm pretty sure that the spell Animate Dead does not allow you to add templates to zombies and skeletons.
It specifies in the individual template or variant whether Animate Dead works or not. For instance, from the Bestiary:
Variant Skeletons
Numerous variant skeletons exist, such as those whose bones burn with an unending fire and those who drip with gore and reassemble themselves over time. Both of these variant skeletons can be created using animate dead, but they count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting. Once controlled, they count normally against the controller's limit.
A doubled double is always a triple under Pathfinder math.
Thanks guys, that's exactly what I wanted to know.
And yes, animate dead description doesn't mention it, but the books that mention the zombie and skeleton variants do mention it's possible with animate dead.
So 3 HD for each HD for creating with animate dead an acid blood skeleton (acid skeleton variant + bloody skeleton variant).
What about the zombie with Relentless property? Relentless has all the benefits of Fast zombies built-in (speed increase and fast strikes), then also grants the Scent ability, a climb speed, and 2 additional HD. Should I treat those 2 HD hitdice as base hitdice (and therefore multiply them) when calculating HD for purposes of undead creation, or should I keep them in the cost increase for Relentless only?
So a human Apocalypse Zombie (relentless brain-eating plague human zombie) would be 4 HD after variants are added.
4 HD (base with relentless HD) + 4 HD (relentless zombie) + 4 HD (brain-eating zombie) + 4 HD (plague zombie) = 16 HD for purposes of animate dead?
But that seems like paying for Relentless twice.
I'm thinking it might be:
2 HD (base) + 2 HD (relentless zombie) + 2 HD (brain-eating zombie) + 2 HD (plague zombie) = 8 HD for purposes of animate dead?
Or it could be:
2 HD (base) + 2 HD (relentless zombie) = 4 HD relentless zombie
4 HD (relentless zombie) + 4 HD (brain-eating zombie) + 4 HD (plague zombie) = 12 HD for purposes of animate dead?
The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking option 2 makes the most sense though, because relentless property could be added last, and cost shouldn't change by order of variant applied.
2 HD (base) + 2 HD (brain-eating zombie) + 2 HD (plague zombie) + 2 HD (relentless zombie) = 8 HD for purposes of creating with animate dead.
A doubled double is always a triple under Pathfinder math.
Incorrect. That is for multipliers to a roll. Normal multiplication rules apply to the hit die multiplier.
Multiplying: When you are asked to apply more than one multiplier to a roll, the multipliers are not multiplied by one another. Instead, you combine them into a single multiplier, with each extra multiple adding 1 less than its value to the first multiple. For example, if you are asked to apply a ×2 multiplier twice, the result would be ×3, not ×4.