A fast zombie gets: +10 speed, + 4 dex (over a standard zombie), not staggered and an extra slam attack. On the "balancing" side, it loses the zombie's DR and a caster has to cast haste along with animate dead.
Also, there is a prevailing theory that creating a fast zombie counts as twice the Hit Dice during animate dead. This requirement is listed for a burning skeleton and is presumed to also apply to fast zombies.
Despite the appearance that fast zombie are superior there is no adjustment in CR over a regular zombie.
Should a PC necromancer be able to animate fast zombies or are they too powerful/unbalanced as currently written?
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I always thought there were additional requirements to animating variant undead, like extra spells or components. Other than a line about some variants counting double HD when animating, I can't seem to find any.
I don't think it's inherently broken, but it does need some clarity to the rules. The haste requirement makes sense, and I'd definitely keep the "Double HD for Animating Purposes" bit for all variant undead.
I'd like to see some sort of comprehensive guide to animating undead put out by the Paizo team. A couple of pages to put everything in one place. Same goes for golems and constructs. You've got to root through a couple of different sources to put together all the rules on constructs, and it's annoying. Same thing goes for undead.
Note that specialized undead only count as double HD for the purposes of their creation, not whether you can control them AFTER they've been created.
Note that specialized undead only count as double HD for the purposes of their creation, not whether you can control them AFTER they've been created.
Good point. Would you like to weigh in on whether you think that fast zombies are too powerful--or at least so from the perspective of a PC necromancer controlling them?
Yes, but only by virtue of him being able to spam an army of them--something that was already true of many necromancers.
This is assuming the necromancer can actually get his or her hands on a pile of black gems. Then they get to watch their investment crumble in seconds thanks to GMs/DMs mandating in-game morality via troop after troop of LG anti-undead clerics.
Per the Ultimate Equipment Guide, there is no such thing as an onyx gem worth more than 40gp.
Per the Ultimate Equipment Guide, there is no such thing as an onyx gem worth more than 40gp.
Maybe not RD, but Soul Gems (from Book of the Damned 3) which can be substituted for costly material components and can be worth thousands.
On a side note, Fast Zombies are pitifull compared to Bloody Burning Skeletons. A Bone Oracle in my group has just started making them in droves, and they're making mincemeat of their opponents. Burning = just being next to them causes fire damage + when they die, they explode causing more damage. Bloody = if they aren't destroyed in the correct manner, they rise up again after an hour.
Fast Zombies? My party would laugh!
Himmm... A Bloody fast zombie sounds like a good idea.