Animate Dead

[Soulkeeper]

Crazy as it may seem, first time DMing when a player (Cleric 5) wants to use this spell.

I'm a little fuzzy on what he can actually animate, and how many.

The wording says create no more than 2x his caster level (5*2=10)
and control no more than 4HD per caster level (4*5=20)

It also lists skeletons and zombies. Is this RAW skeletons and zombies, from the book using their respective HD, or can he create a (as he said) "megaskeleton"?

Finally, DMs advice on dealing with a Cleric and his possible 10 minions?

[Cheapy]

The Skeleton is a template, and the ones in the bestiary are example ones for quick use. He can add the template to any body he happens to find that satisfies any requirements of the skeleton.

He can animate up to 10 HD of undead.

He can control up to 20 HD of undead at any given time.

As for advice for 10 minions, have them be used "out of combat" to do things. Like harass villagers or something wholesome. Or, recommend he just make one megaskeleton, so then it's not much different from an animal companion.

Also, note that the HD of undead, especially skeletons, tend to surpass their CR by quite a bit.

[Drejk]

Soulkeeper wrote:

Crazy as it may seem, first time DMing when a player (Cleric 5) wants to use this spell.

I'm a little fuzzy on what he can actually animate, and how many.

The wording says create no more than 2x his caster level (5*2=10)
and control no more than 4HD per caster level (4*5=20)

It also lists skeletons and zombies. Is this RAW skeletons and zombies, from the book using their respective HD, or can he create a (as he said) "megaskeleton"?

Finally, DMs advice on dealing with a Cleric and his possible 10 minions?

He can't create 10 HD skeleton just because he wants to. He has to find corpse of creature that has 10 racial HD to animate it as 10 HD skeleton. The calculation is a bit more complex in case of zombie because zombie uses the corpse racial HD plus bonus HD for the corpse size.

He can create bigger skeletons by casting desacrate first but it's not as such big deal. Getting proper corpses at low levels is quite hard and while very useful they are mindless, skillless, featless, and have unimpressive saving throws and hp so they are primarily cannon fooder that costs 25 gp per HD to create.

[Neo2151]

1 - Cast Desecrate on a dinosaur graveyard.
2 - Animate zombie T-Rex (it has 18HD)
3 - Congratulations, you're as awesome as Harry Dresden, and only at level 5.

[Nemal]

Keep in mind the templates; they make undead minions a lot more fun and versatile.

Fast Zombies aren't slow, and are in fact hasted. Bloody skeletons regenerate and can re-form when they're destroyed.

When animating, count a templated zombie/skeleton as twice their actual hit dice for purposes of cost and whether they can animate it in one casting (Desecrate usually takes care if this, but you can't have a templated undead minion with more than half your control HD allotment at a time). Once it's animated, you control it normally.

Make sure you Desecrate the ground where there's an altar to your (evil) deity present for the +2 HP/HD, otherwise they're squishy as all hell.

There you go, enjoy the powerful ability that makes Evil clerics competitive with their positive energy, useful healing spell-spontaneous-casting brethren!

[Soulkeeper]

OK, this helps explain it a bit more.

I assumed he had to find the skeleton to animate, as the rules implied, but I think he intends to do so to "living" things the party kills.

Are there any general rules for determining if a corpse is still usable? I would think if you rush in and kill of 8 orcs, that most of them are usable bodies minus say any critical hits or perhaps bludgeoning kills.

Maybe is really doesn't matter, I can always say there is a 30% chance that any given kill is a usable body or such.

[Nemal]

Soulkeeper wrote:

Are there any general rules for determining if a corpse is still usable?

None on the books, but as a general rule a creature you just killed should be possible to animate.

Exceptions include stuff like Disintegrate spells, but unless a corpse is absolutely splattered, you should probably let the player animate it.

It's what the spell does, after all.

[Soulkeeper]

OK, thanks!

[ericthecleric]

Soulkeeper, if you are looking for ideas as to what might be animated, please check out 100% Crunch: Skeletons, just released by Raging Swan Press!

[Soulkeeper]

Very sweet, thanks!