Animate Dead

[x_Gabriel_x]

Just looking for a quick clearification.

If I understand this right, and that is why I'm asking to ensure I do.

Animating a level 10 class, regardless, cleric, thief etc, as a zombie, makes it effectively a 2HD zombie, starts at 1 and gains +1 for being small/medium? But, raising lets say a Hill Giant, which is a 10HD, large creature, would turn it into a 12HD zombie? Starts at 10 gains +2 for being Large?

I think thats correct. Now, what about a 10HD Giant, with 3 class lvls. Would that be 10 + 1 + 2 for 13HD? Just as an example, dunno if youd ever come across something like that, but doesn't hurt to know how it's determined..

[Kryzbyn]

If they have hit dice from classes, then those get added.
Race HD + Class HD = Total HD.
If it's a player race, you only count the class HD.
If it's a monster with class levels, you count both, if they have racial HD.

At least, I believe this is how that works.
I assume you're asking so you can calculate onyx cost?

[Tacticslion]

That's basically how it works, yes.

Let's look, first, at the spell.

Animate Dead

That really doesn't help us too much, but it directs us to zombie and skeletons, so let's look at those.

You're specifically asking about zombies, so loet's look at that, first.

Zombie <- link here for information

Quote:

Hit Dice: Drop HD gained from class levels (minimum of 1) and change racial HD to d8s. Zombies gain a number of additional HD as noted on the following table.

That's pretty clear: you retain your racial HD (though changed to d8), reduce your class-level HD to 1, then add based on your size (that's 2 for large giants).

So, for a 3rd level hill giant, indeed, that is 10 racial + 1 reduce the 3 to 1 + 2 large size yields 2 additional HD = 13 HD total. (Incidentally, the CR would be 6). This means you would need to be CL 7th to do this (which you probably would be by the time you would do this; clerics could cast as early as 5th, though, so bear that in mind).

Remember, if you make variant undead, it costs "more" of your total available HD to animate (at least, that seems implied).

Hope that helps!

[NoTongue]

Yes, class levels have no effect when it comes to re-animating a corpse.

What the below poster say's is wrong, here is text from an animated skeleton.

"A skeleton drops any HD gained from class levels and changes racial HD to d8s. Creatures without racial HD are treated as if they have 1 racial HD."

Kryzbyn wrote:

If they have hit dice from classes, then those get added.

[Kryzbyn]

Yeah, I missed the specific rule for the templates, my bad.

[Dasrak]

Tacticslion wrote:

Remember, if you make variant undead, it costs "more" of your total available HD to animate (at least, that seems implied).

This is the case for variant skeletons, but not for variant zombies. Also, this only affects the limits when animating, not the limit of how many you control. Once animated these variant skeletons count normally against the total you can control. It's not very much of a limitation in practice.

In general you're looking for monsters with a high number of racial hit dice and a high number of natural attacks to turn into skeletons and zombies. Regular humanoid skeletons and zombies are pretty useless, and by the time you're powerful enough to cast animate dead they're already obsolete.

[x_Gabriel_x]

Ya I read it and figured that was the case, just wanted to be sure. Playing a campaign and a party member just raised someone we killed as a zombie. Think he was better off raising one of the dogs that was apart of the combat.

Looks like raising anything that only has class levels is a bit of a waste if you're looking to get good use out of it aince it'd only ever be a 2HD creature regardless what lvl you are

[Tacticslion]

True!

EDIT: ninja'd by Gabe! But what I said applies to both Gabe's and Dasrak's statements!

[Bloodrealm]

With how much benefit there is for Fast Zombies, I'm pretty sure it was intended to increase the HD cost for variant zombies, but they forgot to put that in (or the editor's removed it because they thought we'd get bored reading clear and consistent rules text again). I think it would be a good idea for a GM to have them cost double just like Bloody and Burning Skeletons.

Dasrak wrote:

In general you're looking for monsters with a high number of racial hit dice and a high number of natural attacks to turn into skeletons and zombies. Regular humanoid skeletons and zombies are pretty useless, and by the time you're powerful enough to cast animate dead they're already obsolete.

Lesser Animate Dead is a spell level lower than Animate Dead, and both spells are one spell level lower on the Cleric/Oracle and Shaman lists than they are on the Sorcerer/Wizard list, so I can see getting at least some use from 0 HD race skeletons.

[Dasrak]

Bloodrealm wrote:

I think it would be a good idea for a GM to have them cost double just like Bloody and Burning Skeletons.

I'd agree that this is a sensible ruling, but you'll get a lot of table variation on that since that's not what the rules actually say.

Bloodrealm wrote:

Lesser Animate Dead is a spell level lower than Animate Dead, and both spells are one spell level lower on the Cleric/Oracle and Shaman lists than they are on the Sorcerer/Wizard list, so I can see getting at least some use from 0 HD race skeletons.

For an NPC, sure, a 3rd level Cleric can make decent use of regular humanoids. The lesser animate dead spell doesn't give access to variant undead so it's not particularly great, but it works. For a PC, however, the cost of onyx is prohibitive for how weak a minion you are getting. Because weak standard skeletons or zombies will need to be replaced at regular intervals, the cost actually racks up fairly quickly. Paying for a scroll of animate dead to create a single powerful bloody skeleton that can self-revive whenever it is destroyed is more cost-effective in the long-run than using lesser animate dead, plus you get a significantly stronger minion out of it.

As a result, lesser animate dead is only really good for NPC's that don't have to worry about attrition over numerous adventuring days. PC's are better off biting the bullet for the up-front cost to get a good minion.

[thelivingmonkey]

Well for variant zombies you have to cast another spell (remove paralysis for fast zombies) so I doubt it's an oversight from the devs: it seems clear to me they didn't mean for variant zombies to cost double. Also you do lose something (the DR) for variant zombies but not skeletons implying devs thought they were more in balance with normal zombies than variety skeletons were with regular skeletons, hence the double HD for skeletons but not for zombies.

[Dasrak]

thelivingmonkey wrote:

Well for variant zombies you have to cast another spell (remove paralysis for fast zombies) so I doubt it's an oversight from the devs: it seems clear to me they didn't mean for variant zombies to cost double.-

At the same time, the double HD cost when animating isn't that big of a downside in practice. Animate Dead when boosted by Desecrate already has a HD limit that's way higher than you need, and due to the fact that it is usually used outside of combat splitting it into multiple castings is also an option.