I have heard people saying that you can use Animate Dead to make Bloody/flaming skeletons and Fast Zombies, but I can't seem to find any rules that confirm this. Can anyone help me out?
Yes, here's the relevant text.
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.
Perhaps the most dangerous variant skeleton, though, is the skeletal champion. This skeleton retains its intellect, and often any class levels it possessed in life. A skeletal champion cannot be created with animate dead—these potent undead only arise under rare conditions similar to those that cause the manifestation of ghosts or via rare and highly evil rituals.
Each of the following skeleton types modifies the base skeleton in a few key ways. Except as noted, these variations can be stacked with one another—it's possible to have a bloody burning skeletal champion.
Although capable of following orders, zombies are more often unleashed into an area with no command other than to kill living creatures. As a result, zombies are often encountered in packs, wandering around places the living frequent, looking for victims. Most zombies are created using animate dead. Such zombies are always of the standard type, unless the creator also casts haste or remove paralysis to create fast zombies, or contagion to create plague zombies.
Unless otherwise noted, you dont multiply on top of another multiplier, you should reduce every multiplier after the first by one and add that value on the first.
2x + 2x = 3x.
4x + 2x = 5x.
The only rule is about multipliers on rolls (the rule was made firstly to address critical hits):
MultiplyingWhen 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.
But you could apply it to just about everything.
Since the text about variants say you add twice their "normal hit dice", you could rule that normal hit dice is the unmodified hit dice, or "base hit dice".Personally i dont like templates that "double" a Hit Dice, i would prefer if it was a fixed number, that way the GM would have more control of the creature's CR.
Are there any published rules or dev posts that clarify how adding multiple templates affects hd limits for animating purposes?
Not that I am aware of, but [b]shadowkras[/]'s suggestion seems a good one.
Variant skeletons count as "double hit dice." So a 4 HD bloody skeleton counts as 8 HD.
Another way to express double is x+x. So you are adding additional HD equal to the base.
So if you add two templates, both add additional HD equal to the base, or X+X+X. or 3X. Remember, this doesn't actually increase the skeleton's HD, only effective HD for controlling it.
However, this is only with Skeletons. The rules don't say variant zombies count as more HD, only that you need additional spells to create them.
I don't see anything in the rules for skeletons that says you can apply more than one template. You would need inclusive permission to be able to do such a thing, since the rules aren't set up to tell your everything you can't do.
The wording in the variant skeleton entry (Bestiary 251) says:
Each of the following skeleton types modifies the base skeleton in a few key ways. Except as noted, these variations can be stacked with one another--it's possible to have a bloody burning skeletal champion.
Of course a skeletal champion can't be created with animate dead, but the text does say that the skeleton templates can be stacked.
There are additional skeleton and zombie variants in one of the Carrion Crown AP bestiaries, and in that book it has them listed with multiple templates applied.
I don't see anything in the rules for skeletons that says you can apply more than one template. You would need inclusive permission to be able to do such a thing, since the rules aren't set up to tell your everything you can't do.
Failed Perception check