The question is in the title.
From an optimization standpoint, how would you spend the 40 HD of animate dead, you can animate as a 20th level caster, without any undead specializations?
What creatures would you raise and as what?
Thanks in advance.
-Nearyn
Sounds cool.
Would you mind posting your reasoning?
With the nature of random dice rolls, you're better off with a swarm of lower HD than a handful of high HD undead.
There was a big thread about this on the 3.5 boards.
I believe the best option came down to using multi-headed hydras, especially if you are using zombies. Since they can attack with all heads as a partial action, being slow didn't hurt them at all, and the regeneration was a big plus.
For the HD, no better damage output.
==Aelryinth
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I wish PF would put out a book similar to "Libris Mortis", as that book made 3.5 necromancy so awesome and rewarding.
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Since we're limited to skeletons and/or zombies, I would say 20 - 1 HD zombies with both the Fast and Plague variants applied to them. Nothing like non-staggered zombies possibly spreading disease with each successful hit (or when then explode when killed, possibly infecting all adjacent targets) and perpetuating the zombie line.
The remaining 20 HD would be spent on a single 20 HD Gargantuan Red Dragon Skeleton with the Bloody template added. Fast Healing 10, Natural armor boost by +6, +4 channel resistance, retains all it's natural attacks and cannot be killed except in specific conditions.
Have the fast plague zombies swarm around the bloody dragon skeleton and then all attack at once.
+1 On the zombie dragon. I wouldn't get a 20 HD one, though... remember that zombies are always "staggered", so the main point of getting one is to have a cool flying mount. If your budget is 40, I would recommend investing 10 HD into a zombie dragon, 15 into a skeletal brute, and another 15 into a skeletal brute.
If you're going to Animate Dead to make things fight for you, skeletons is the way to go. Zombies are always "staggered" so they only get 1 action per round. BUT they make great flying mounts because they don't have to rest after 8 hours - they can fly indefinitely (they're undead).
So when making skeletal fighters who do your bidding, a few elite skeletons is better than a ton of weak ones. This is why I suggest 2 skeletons with 15 HD each. When it comes to animating skeletons, 90% of the time you want something with a ton of STR and a humanoid shape that has hands. This is because whatever you make loses its special attacks - so no rend, grab, etc. Monsters with special QUALITIES that improve attacks is rare - off the top of my head I don't know of any with 15-20 HD.
An example of a good 15 HD creature to make into a skeleton is a Taiga or Fire Giant. 15 HD, 31 STR, and they can wield weapons and manipulate objects for you. Taigas actually have better attributes, so I'd go with them. Animate them, give them some armor and weapons, and treat them as your body guards. You can also be creative on the battlefield by getting one of them to carry you around (think of it as free movement), etc. Lots of fun can be had with big skeletal body guards.
I would also like to address some of the suggestions presented so far...
* Animating a Hydra would be a waste... quite frankly... because 1.) They lose their breath weapons and their pounce, 2.) They lose their head regeneration and fast healing, 3.) They need a full round action to attack with each head and they only move at a speed of 20 feet 4.) Even a 9-headed Hydra, the best you could have, has terrible attributes. A skeletal giant would crush one.
* Swarms... first of all, you can't make a skeletal insect swarm of any kind because insects don't have bones. A zombie swarm would be a poor choice because they wouldn't be able to move and attack in the same round. Also, there is no stat block in existence for an "epic scarab swarm". Your character would first have to find a dead "epic scarab swarm." Then you'd have to create your own stats for it. As a DM, if a player asked me if they could do that, I'd smack them in the head with the core rulebook, but if your DM allows it...
* As cool as an anti-paladin skeletal champion sounds... just... no. -_- For one thing, you can't add the skeleton template to a skeletal champion... and you can't add the skeletal champion template to a skeleton. Secondly, a newly animated creature loses class levels. So... yeah. Animate a giant instead.
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Hydras can attack with all heads on a standard action, full action, or even an attack of opportunity. That's why they rock for the Hit Dice.
==Aelryinth
Purple worm juju zombie. Use it as an undead mount, while you ride around in its mouth/hollowed interior.
It uses its own actions to whack-a-mole out of the ground, while you use your actions to cast horrific spells upon each surfacing.
Makes you incredibly hard to fight, and if things don't go your way, you can always burrow away.
Also, hydras can't do all that in Pathfinder. In Pathfinder all they get is pounce.
Hydras can attack with all heads on a standard action, full action, or even an attack of opportunity. That's why they rock for the Hit Dice.
==Aelryinth
Ravingdork is correct. This was true in 3.5 (though I don't know about the attack of opportunity), but not in Pathfinder.
EDIT: And unfortunately, Animate Dead doesn't allow an animated Hydra to keep Pounce since it's a special attack.
Since we're limited to skeletons and/or zombies, I would say 20 - 1 HD zombies with both the Fast and Plague variants applied to them. Nothing like non-staggered zombies possibly spreading disease with each successful hit (or when then explode when killed, possibly infecting all adjacent targets) and perpetuating the zombie line.
The remaining 20 HD would be spent on a single 20 HD Gargantuan Red Dragon Skeleton with the Bloody template added. Fast Healing 10, Natural armor boost by +6, +4 channel resistance, retains all it's natural attacks and cannot be killed except in specific conditions.
Have the fast plague zombies swarm around the bloody dragon skeleton and then all attack at once.
I just read up on the fast zombie variant... that thing makes Animate Dead SO much better, especially animated zombie dragons! Holy crap. Though, I'm not sure any DM in their right mind would allow for all that variant/template cheese. Speaking of which, where is the bloody template that you're referring to? I'm not seeing it anywhere.
EDIT: Nevermind, just found it... it's a skeleton variant. Pathfinder really opened a can of worms with these zombie and skeleton variants...
There's no 20 HD gargantuan red dragon... an "old" red dragon is the first gargantuan, but it has 21 HD... though you could get a 19 HD Mature Adult huge red dragon (if the DM allows you to find a dead one to animate...)
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I just read up on the fast zombie variant... that thing makes Animate Dead SO much better, especially animated zombie dragons! Holy crap. Though, I'm not sure any DM in their right mind would allow for all that variant/template cheese. Speaking of which, where is the bloody template that you're referring to? I'm not seeing it anywhere.
EDIT: Nevermind, just found it... it's a skeleton variant. Pathfinder really opened a can of worms with these zombie and skeleton variants...
There's no 20 HD gargantuan red dragon... an "old" red dragon is the first gargantuan, but it has 21 HD... though you could get a 19 HD Mature Adult huge red dragon (if the DM allows you to find a dead one to animate...)
Well, there was no limitation on cheese, so I figured, what the hell? ;) Yeah, the templates and variants can get really interesting, especially when the 3PP material comes into play.
And D'OH! on the size. I looked at CR, not HD (that's what I get for doing this on break at work).
So far I'm really liking the suggestions.
The mechanics of making an undead swarm intrigues me, but looking for high str monsters to animate seems very promising too.
An undead dragon for a mount reeks badass and the purple worm opens up very interesting avenues indeed :)
Would someone mind detailing me an example of a legal Pathfinder animated swarm that would actually be worth having? I guess I'm just not seeing their worth. Even a zombie swarm with the fast template just seems fragile and insignificant.
As a DM, I would not allow both the "fast" and "plague" variants on a zombie because both drawbacks are the same (no DR). Essentially you're only taking 1 drawback to gain the benefits of 2 variants. Nothing in the rules specifies variant/template limits (that I know of) but it's DM common sense. Allowing both variants on the same zombie would definitely be cheesing it (though 1 variant each would be okay).
Another thing: why would anyone create a regular zombie/skeleton when you can have a fast/bloody one? There's virtually no drawback to making a bloody skeleton as opposed to a regular one, and the DR a fast/plague zombie loses pales in comparison to the benefits it gains.
I guess my point is that being able to freely add the variants to your Animated Dead is just a little too powerful. It's a lot better than the default with virtually no drawbacks RAW. Good for theorycraft discussion, but if a DM allows it in-game, he's a sucker.
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Would someone mind detailing me an example of a legal Pathfinder animated swarm that would actually be worth having? I guess I'm just not seeing their worth. Even a zombie swarm with the fast template just seems fragile and insignificant.
As a DM, I would not allow both the "fast" and "plague" variants on a zombie because both drawbacks are the same (no DR). Essentially you're only taking 1 drawback to gain the benefits of 2 variants. Nothing in the rules specifies variant/template limits (that I know of) but it's DM common sense. Allowing both variants on the same zombie would definitely be cheesing it (though 1 variant each would be okay).
Another thing: why would anyone create a regular zombie/skeleton when you can have a fast/bloody one? There's virtually no drawback to making a bloody skeleton as opposed to a regular one, and the DR a fast/plague zombie loses pales in comparison to the benefits it gains.
I guess my point is that being able to freely add the variants to your Animated Dead is just a little too powerful. It's a lot better than the default with virtually no drawbacks RAW. Good for theorycraft discussion, but if a DM allows it in-game, he's a sucker.
I agree with you on the stacking, though if I did allow it it would be a net increase in CR. And the players would also have to expect to encounter similar critters on the receiving end.
And this is one of the issues with Animate Dead, the application of templates and variants in regards to the HD limit is not clearly laid out (of course the spell predates any template or variant). I could see the application of a variant or template to the base critter costing 1+CR mod in HD, so it would be possible, but you would be paying for it.
I agree with you on the stacking, though if I did allow it it would be a net increase in CR. And the players would also have to expect to encounter similar critters on the receiving end.
And this is one of the issues with Animate Dead, the application of templates and variants in regards to the HD limit is not clearly laid out (of course the spell predates any template or variant). I could see the application of a variant or template to the base critter costing 1+CR mod in HD, so it would be possible, but you would be paying for it.
You read my mind. I was just thinking, "It would be cool if variants carried an added HD cost when animating them" just before I read your post.
I would personally price them at a cost of 5 HD per variant, plus another 5 for each CR the variant adds to the skeleton/zombie. So for example, if you can control 40 HD of undead (caster level 10), animating a fast zombie old red dragon would cost 26 HD (instead of 21), allowing you room to control 14 more HD of undead. You would not be able to animate a bloody skeletal fire giant at all, because the bloody template costs 10 HD, which would put the fire giant at a cost of 25 HD, which is over the skeleton's animating cap.
Actually, 3.5 also had an animating cap for zombies, which is not present at all in Pathfinder (only for skeletons)... I imagine this is because zombies are already gimped because of stagger. Since "fast" zombies eliminate the stagger, should "fast" animated zombies carry their own cap like skeletons do? Hmm...
Either way, Paizo should probably address this somehow.
I believe I just derped :)
I had misread the animate dead spell, thinking you could control 4 HD for every 2 caster levels.
Well, gotta read that spelldescription carefully, now don't we...
Please disregard my blunder and by all means continue with your wonderful ideas. However this time, lets ramp it up to 11!
Same question, but 80HD worth of undead :) Would you just double the fun of your current suggestions, or would you change your picks of creatures?
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The thing about a swarm of undead is the same principle in zombie movies. One zombie is easy, but a wave of undead will crash over you no matter how fast you swing your sword.
Let's say you have 80 skeletal raccoons attacking a standard adventuring party, they run through everyone's square provoking so many attacks of opportunity, and you lose (with combat reflexes and high dex) 15 raccoons. They enter the square and crawl up the wizard, covering him and grappling him. 64 raccoons hit AC 10 (aid another) 75% of the time = the last raccoon is making a grapple check at ~+98. Now 65 skeletal raccoons are crawling and biting and snarling all over the wizard, an Area-blast will take them out but also harm the wizard, the other party members can only pick off 1 raccoon per attack, and there is nothing actually stopping the skeletons from tying him up.
And you can split them up, and/or use squirrels (much lower to-hit, but twice as many) to hit more than one target at a time.
They are fragile and can be taken out with one well-placed boom spell, but if they make the ambush they become a serious threat and unlike the dragon or the purple worm or even the human they are REALLY easy to find replacements for.
After the horror and blasphemy of a walking corpse, undead are most useful for their expendability. There are always more dead to animate, and there are so many woodland critters.
It's a great thought, except that swarms count as 1 creature, so they're easily dispatched in Pathfinder. A CR 3 swarm of raccoons stands no chance against a CR 6... anything, really. That 1 attack of opportunity would likely squash the whole swarm. Even ten CR 3 swarms wouldn't pose much of a threat. And since a swarm is considered 1 creature, they all contribute with each attack roll, so they can't "aid another" with each other.
On the other hand, you could animate 80 individual raccoons and have them act together as you describe, but there are still problems with this...
1.) The DM will probably slap you for building a raccoon army that has to roll 80 times each turn. Most of the rolls will be for nothing, and you're taking up valuable play time because you wanted an undead raccoon army. In short, you sully the table by being a jerk.
2.) Your 80 raccons will die pretty much every fight, maybe in 1 turn, by a well placed AoE. While yes, you can always go into the woods and find more, that's a lot of down time dedicated to hunting raccoons. Not to mention, it costs onyx to animate dead... essentially you'd be wasting all of your downtime and gold making an army of dead raccoons.
This is why most people just suggest making a small handful of elite brutes instead. Less headache, longer survivability, and uh... they're actually useful. Your party will actually like you for adding some heavy artillery instead of hate you for taking up the whole game session rolling for 80 raccoons that you spent all your gold / downtime on...
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I believe I just derped :)
I had misread the animate dead spell, thinking you could control 4 HD for every 2 caster levels.
Well, gotta read that spelldescription carefully, now don't we...
Please disregard my blunder and by all means continue with your wonderful ideas. However this time, lets ramp it up to 11!
Same question, but 80HD worth of undead :) Would you just double the fun of your current suggestions, or would you change your picks of creatures?
If my caster was wanting to overrun a castle or city, the thought of 80HD of plague zombie rats seems too good to pass up ... no massing attacks, just creep in through all the rat avenues, converting additional rats as they go and then attacking the residents in groups of 1 or more ...
Ooo, ooo ... if it was to assault an actual force, send out 80HD worth of Exploding Skeleton rats (variant from Classic Horrors Revisited) ... when one dies it explodes doing 1d6 points of damage to all creatures within 10', reflex DC 10-12 (depending on the Cha modifier of a skeletal rat) for half. That could tear through a column of regulars pretty freaking quick.
EDIT: assuming a skeletal rat has 1/2 HD, your looking at a potential of 160d6 of damage spread out over the enemy lines ...
I believe I just derped :)
I had misread the animate dead spell, thinking you could control 4 HD for every 2 caster levels.
Well, gotta read that spelldescription carefully, now don't we...
Please disregard my blunder and by all means continue with your wonderful ideas. However this time, lets ramp it up to 11!
Same question, but 80HD worth of undead :) Would you just double the fun of your current suggestions, or would you change your picks of creatures?
So you have a caster level 20 character who wants to maximize his use of Animate dead? While yes, assuming you use Desecrate, you CAN make 80 HD of undead...
The higher level you get, the usefulness of Animate Dead diminishes - EXCEPT for making zombies. This is because animated skeletal undead can only have 20 HD each, whereas in Pathfinder, zombies don't have that cap.
My suggestion: Make a small army of fast zombie dragons. That's about as much use of Animate Dead a caster level 20th character can hope for.
My suggestion: Make a small army of fast zombie dragons. That's about as much use of Animate Dead a caster level 20th character can hope for.
The mental image that statement invokes in me, is absolutely awesome.
What are your thoughts on the Zombie Lord variant?
PUT. DOWN. THE DRUGS....
My suggestion: Make a small army of fast zombie dragons. That's about as much use of Animate Dead a caster level 20th character can hope for.
The mental image that statement invokes in me, is absolutely awesome.
What are your thoughts on the Zombie Lord variant?
I gave my thoughts on animating zombie variants a few posts above this one. Especially for a variant that adds to the zombie's CR (such as the zombie lord), a character shouldn't be able to just apply variants left and right to their zombies and skeletons. The problem is that there are no rules that set any parameters to adding these variants to animated undead, so Rules As Written, players can just... do it. Unless your DM is competent.
Again, my personal suggestion (to DMs) is to enforce a 5 HD cost per each variant applied to an animated undead, plus another 5 per CR added. I would also suggest enforcing a HD cap for variant zombies, just like regular animated skeletons have. None of this is anywhere in the rules (though it should be), so it's just a suggested house rule.
An animated zombie lord, for example, would cost 10 extra HD (5 for using a variant, 5 for the CR), so for instance, a zombie lord ettin would cost 20 HD to animate (though it would still only be treated as having 10 HD).
I would make the zombie variant cap 20 HD per zombie - the same as a skeleton. The purpose of these house rules is to create some balance with Animate Dead... it's a 3rd level spell for pete's sake!
Don't take me on my word for this, but I seem to recall having read in the horrors book that variant types double their HD cost. Can someone confirm if this is correct?
Tome of Horrors is 3pp, so their take is as good as anyone's on the matter. :p And quite frankly, doubling the cost would be a little steep IMO.
At the very least, it's good to know that we're on the right track in thinking that there should be an extra HD cost involved!
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Again, my personal suggestion (to DMs) is to enforce a 5 HD cost per each variant applied to an animated undead, plus another 5 per CR added. I would also suggest enforcing a HD cap for variant zombies, just like regular animated skeletons have. None of this is anywhere in the rules (though it should be), so it's just a suggested house rule.
I don't think you can run with a set 5HD cost (otherwise a variant which does nothing to the CR level would be EXTREMELY expensive, especially for a baseline example ... 1 human plague zombie costing 6HD of Animate Dead when it is still a CR 1 encounter ... but a larger undead would be proportionally less costwise)
The double cost actually would make more sense as a bigger undead would benefit far more from the variant type than smaller undead would.
My juju oracle and her juju zombie purple worm have sunken entire cities Gears of War style.
My juju oracle and her juju zombie purple worm have sunken entire cities Gears of War style.
I think you win Ravingdork. Best. Idea. Ever!
80 zombie school children simultaneously acting out every play of shakespere.
Win or loose, the heroes will NEVER be the same.. muahahaahahahahahahah
I am posting from memory but I belive the variants cost double when animating. So if with one casting you could make 10HD skeleton you can only make 5HD blody skeleton. BUT the important fact is that it still only counts as 5HD in your control limit. Most variants also require additional spells like fast zombies require you to cast haste at animation.
I think THIS is what I was referring to having read somewhere.
For now, I am leaning towards creating some zombie variety dragon mount, then looking into getting a few high str critters to act as melee blockers and bodyguards, and then try to make an undead swarm and see if it fits the bill :)
Have undead lieutenants that can also control their own allotment of undead!
40 zombie prostitutes.
The dream of all necrophiles, or Sankarea watchers :3
80 zombie school children simultaneously acting out every play of shakespere.
Win or loose, the heroes will NEVER be the same.. muahahaahahahahahahah
Awesomeness...I think I may try this.
Though the post is 3 weeks old, I'll give my two cents. I've got a True Necromancer (imported from 3.5 Libris Mortis) and I've had all sorts of fun with the different undead creations in the campaign. I agree with the Zombie Dragon for the win, and quite suprised mine still exists with all the combat I've used her for (26 HD Song dragon). It's definitely worth the trouble if you've bolstered it properly (ie; desecrate, etc.). I agree with Fleshgrinder about PF releasing their own version of "Libris Mortis", though adjusting the old book to PF rules didn't take too much work; still a bunch of the feats need to be updated. If your DM will let you take the "Corpsecrafter" feats from that book, then I would say Zombie Dragon whenever you can. Other 40 HD options would be Ogre or Giant skeletons, making them bloody or burning is always a plus. An old Dragon magazine (#324) trick had mentioned taking the corpse of a squirrel and using polymorph any object to turn it into the bones of a dragon turtle (you could get anything up to 20 HD really), and then animate dead...presto, Huge tank for the win!
40 zombie prostitutes.
This brings back memories, an old 3.5 game I was in we had a player who had a necromancer named "Necropimp", and that's exactly what he had...zombie prostitutes. He only played in two games, and I don't recall his "dead ladies of the night" ever having success.
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An old Dragon magazine (#324) trick had mentioned taking the corpse of a squirrel and using polymorph any object to turn it into the bones of a dragon turtle (you could get anything up to 20 HD really), and then animate dead...presto, Huge tank for the win!
Why not make the squirrel skeleton colossal with polymorph any object then animate it as a 20HD squirrel skeletor?
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* Swarms... first of all, you can't make a skeletal insect swarm of any kind because insects don't have bones.
Exoskeletons. ;)