Not Another Zombie Apocalypse - Spicing Up Your Undead Choices

[Apupunchau]

I love me some Halloween. Ghost, ghouls, and skeletons abound but in Pathfinder we have a plethora of other undead that go unused. I’m not sure why we stick to these mainstays – especially at lower levels – but we do. So this week I want to look at some fun undead that you might want to use in your games.

What are some of your undead that aren’t the skeletons, zombies, liches, or vampires? How your players dealt with these out of the ordinary monsters? What interesting combinations of other creatures have you found play off undead?

[Cattleman]

Combusted are pretty neat (and a nifty modelling opportunity for a Warhammer nerd like myself.) Has an OK ranged attack, it can give you a curse, has potential to PK someone who is too liberal with taking damage.. which is alright!

Keep in mind that Non-Undead Undead-Supporters are also neat. An Evil Cleric for example can Negative-Energy heal a bunch of guys, or an Undead Lord can give significant buffs to nearby underlings.

One I'm keen on using soon is a GasBurst Zombie; having characters in tight spaces wanting to run from it instead of fighting it!

Something I've done in my Homebrew is change zombies to:
* 10ft
* Added Grab
* Added 3 HP (an additional "Toughness" feat)
* Added a "Bite with Poison" attack that they use only in a grapple

Players have found that these zombies are somewhat more dangerous up close, and easier to escape. Something a bit more "horror"ish IMO.

The Ghost template is pretty interesting. I used a "boss" like encounter where it kept going inside of nearby skeletons and dead bodies and running away when exposed, dragging the party through a long tomb until it got stuck at the end.

[lemeres]

Worms that walk.

Well, they aren't undead- they AGGRESSIVELY reject being dead at all. That is the point.

When a magically powerful evil person gets shanked and left to rot in a gutter (because they were that kind of jerk), they can reject death so hard that they turn the very insects that eat their corpse into their new body.

I like the daily bestiary's take on them- a thematic opposite to liches. They are the kind of guy that ran wild to the point that they get enemies that leave them for dead in an open field. They live fast, die young... and that doesn't stop them.

They are a miracle of their own will. So of course they get self righteous about it and decide to go EVEN HARDER on their path to being a wild jerk. What's the worst that could happen? They die? Been there, done that, had their moths eat the t-shirt.

In comparison, liches are highly conservative- they are wizards that realize they aren't good enough to get eternal life during their natural life span, so they settle for second best- eternal unlife. They are all about having safety devices (Their core mechanic- not dying as long as their fail safe is working).

This can be played with fairly well. A lich is about self preservation, so they are less likely to do the 'destroy the world' thing- they would rather rule it. But worms that walk are very, very likely to be the crazy idiots that want to release world eating beasts.

[Cattleman]

[Can't edit anymore..]

Also, Vasuthant's (Monster Manual 3) are pretty neat. Basically a black cloud of undead-ness that darkens the area and attempts to sap your strength via grabs. I converted it to pathfinder as a medium creature and user them here and there.

Wraith's are pretty neat. I'll have to make an encounter for them with a bunch of the weakened ones representing it's victims fo' sho' (as the players lead up to it that is.)

Minor Reapers are CR10 and multiply if your friends attack it without disabling it, making the encounter either very strategic or

Hoar Spirits, Necro-craft, and a few others are on my list as well.

____________
I'm in the midst of using other halloweeny like creatures as well:
* Twigjack
* Scythe Tree
* Mandragora
* Gallows Tree and it's "Zombies"

I'll do size, CR, and "reskin" adjustments a bit; but having plant/tree-like creatures come out of the WOODwork seems seasonally appropriate and also gives unexpected monster types.

The fact that they're (usually) weaker to Slashing/Fire as opposed to Bludgeoning/Non-Fire (undead/demons/etc) makes it also diversify the monster pool.

Others in that vein are:
* Bat Swarms
* Giant Spiders
* Saltwater Crocodile - Hear me out

On the croc; remember that scene in Resident Evil 2? :D...

[Mykull]

Are you my mummy?
Paralyzation (DC: 16) ain't no joke, and that mummy rot is a curse AND a disease!

You dead? Then I'll take ya to the mohrg!
"Every dead body that is not exterminated gets up and kills. The people they kill, get up and kill." Mohrg kills and makes fast zombies under its control . . . and gets healed.

Ghouls. Paralysis again. Save or suck, especially at low levels (ghouls are only CR 1) really gets players sweating.

[Azten]

How about cultists that create undead and summon Death Elementals?

[SmiloDan]

Our GM put us against a shadow in a swimming skill challenge. The water didn't slow the shadow down at all, and its Strength damage attack made Swim checks harder.

It might be creepy to be in a boat and have incorporeal undead do hit and run attacks through the hull of the boat!

Lacedons are fun too. Being paralyzed while swimming can be deadly!

Devourers are fun if you don't want to do a water-based encounter. ;-) They have some interesting defenses, lots of at will spell-like abilities, and their exposed ribcages are filled with the souls of the damned. Also fun feats to terrorize your players with, like Improved Sunder! Or they can up their AC with Combat Expertise and use touch spell attacks to attack with their reduced attack bonus. Or spectral hand to deliver bestow curse, death knell, ghoul touch, inflict serious wounds or vampiric touch! They can self-heal with their energy drain ability or inflict serious wounds and vampiric touch. They can do melee or ranged attacks, and also have confusion and suggestion to mess with the minds of the PCs. To say nothing of lesser planar ally and some undead influencing spells. So minions! Undead minions they can heal!

Wow. Devourers look like fun monsters to run!

[Reduxist]

Kabriri allows you to make ghuls and great ghuls with the fiendish template if you provide a living sacrifice or double the material cost.

[Sir Jerden]

I like undead that really confront you with how unnatural and wrong they are. Zombies and skeleton do that, but they're a little too familiar. One could reanimate more unusual creatures though. A zombie angel, or other traditionally good creature, would be unexpected.

The blog mentioned beheaded, crawling hands and isitoqs (flying eyeballs!), and the shredskin is similar - a hollow shell that can take over new bodies. You could even combine them all into a single encounter, implying that a hapless victim was disassembled and then reanimated by a creative necromancer, which is always the worst kind to fight.

Necrocrafts are an interesting alternative to a horde of zombies, since they're easy to customise and pretty disturbing if you get descriptive. Perhaps they're what necromancers do with the rest of the corpse after they've reanimated the head and hands?

For bosses, a zombie lord would be interesting, especially because hiding that they're undead is possible with enough makeup and perfume, adding an element of intrigue. It allows us to have a necromancer boss that isn't another lich, which is nice, since everyone knows that liches have phylacteries.
And if we want to get silly, there's always a humungous necrocraft mecha, aka finally a reason to climb up a monster to reach a vulnerable weakspot (the necromancer at the top). I'm not sure how such an encounter would work, but I'd love to find out.

[Azten]

A friend of mine once made what appeared to be Zombie Lord inquisitors with the Death domain. They were, in fact, Skeletal Champions with disguise self.

They used the first level Death domain ability on any living creature they knocked unconscious...

[Weirdo]

I like wights. They're familiar but not over-used. The energy drain does make it a bit risky for lower-level parties, but with the right group that just becomes a tactical challenge. You can also softball it a bit for a level 1 party by giving the wight ability damage instead of energy drain (did this once - I think it was an unlucky random encounter roll).

I remember really enjoying a Dullahan encounter a few years back, though unfortunately I don't remember the details. I think they may have chased us to the main adventure location?

Also rather proud of reskinning an undead raven swarm as a collection of various bones (hands, jawbones, etc) animated when an archaologist accidentally picked up a sinister necromantic amulet.