Animate Dead

[Kamyr]

These questions are regarding the spell animate dead.

Can the caster only create undead minions, or can they make other undead?

If the caster can only make minions, does it have to be a fleshless skeleton to make a skeletal minion, or does the magic rip off the flesh?

If the caster can make whatever, does the minion get abilities from the source creature or do you get to form them into something new? Does the minion lose abilities if it would lower the CR? Does the caster get to decide the lost abilities if so?

Can the caster give them weapons?

[Milo v3]

Kamyr wrote:

These questions are regarding the spell animate dead.

Can the caster only create undead minions, or can they make other undead?

Any type of undead.

Quote:

If the caster can make whatever, does the minion get abilities from the source creature or do you get to form them into something new? Does the minion lose abilities if it would lower the CR? Does the caster get to decide the lost abilities if so?

What abilities & CR they'd have is based on which undead template you are applying. You aren't creating a whole new creature from the ground up, you're just applying the template.

Quote:

Can the caster give them weapons?

Sure? Whether or not they'll be proficient will probably depend on the individual starting creature + what template you apply though.

[Garretmander]

There is a lot of GM leeway in this spell. Whether you can animate a higher level CR of the dead creature is up in the air as well as if you can animate a lower CR creature from the remains. Also, do you apply a class graft when animating a dead mystic as a ghost?

As written, it is any type of undead, but you also have to keep in mind CR restrictions when applying templates.

And if they are proficient they can wield weapons given them. Undead minions can be nasty with that ability if you hand them leftover weaponry.

[Kamyr]

The reason I mentioned the grafts (which came up in a Discord discussion) is this bit in the undead minion blocks from AA1:

"The most commonly encountered undead in the galaxy are the mindless minions of greater undead (such as necrovites and vampires) or of powerful spellcasters (including both mystics and technomancers of all races)."

That's not a mechanical limitation on the spell directly, but it strongly suggests a RAI edit to use them. I don't have AA1's pdf for a better look. The spell already strongly suggests they are mindless undead, but it doesn't say it outright. Templates didn't exist in the CRB. Not even other undead to copy. And if you use the AA1 creation, it doesn't say how to handle special abilities.

Going further, there were some clear cases where 'any type of undead' becomes problematic given their specific creation methods (Jiang-Shi, Drift Dead). That also raises the question of undead (incorporeal) if there's a corpse there, since the corpse would be 'as intact as' a formless body.

NPCs also don't have proficiency in the templates or stat blocks. If they can use ones you give them, then it's entirely possible to have a horde of commanded and animated undead with higher damage than their CR using exploding weapons. Worst case, they take the -4 to DC and do half damage to anything without evasion. Mindless can definitely at least use weapons, given the skeletal undead stat block and graft.

[Full disclosure, I have already edited all the undead spells heavily in a homebrew project. Like Garret said, animate dead is immensely open to GM interpretation. Command undead is also wild if the GM doesn't take steps to restrict it.]

[Wesrolter]

Well from my read, if you are level 14 (Level after 4th level spells for easier rounding) a caster could create a CR 7 Undead. It would require 7K credits of materials and a appropriate corpse. No limit is placed on the CR of the creatures corpse I am using, so I could kill a random CR 2 thug for a corpse, or I can grave dig a big level 12 heroes corpse, either way the skeleton I create would be mostly the same (small anatomy changes).
So for my example, my mystic could create a Ghost (CR 7) out of a random space goblin as long as I pay the Material cost and have a some what serviceable corpse to use. I couldn't create a Mohrg since its CR is 8, but if I have a bunch of goblin corpses I could make a bunch of CR 1 Occult Zombies.

As long as the corpse has what you need, so for a skeleton in the question, it would need a bone structure, it could be a fleshy corpse or a dug up skeleton, a boneless creature wouldn't work.

As for the Ghosts, I would assume the corpse is consumed in the ritual casting of the spell, be it a poof of smoke or a ritual burning or something. The corpse is a material component for the spell, so its used up with casting.

[Garretmander]

There is definitely an implication that it's supposed to be a generic minion, but I prefer avoiding that and leaving the abilities open. I don't know if the designers agree with that or not.

Keep in mind that incorporeal is no where near as strong as it once was. Then beyond that it's practically required for you to work with your GM if you want to make anything beyond 'generic combatant' makes the spell fairly well balanced.

It's certainly no where near as bad as it used to be in 3.5 or pathfinder. A half level combatant given your spare guns is useful in combat, and animating a spellcaster gives you a nice pool of extra low levels spells, but you don't have an army, and they are surprisingly squishy in combat.

[Milo v3]

If it was many to be a Undead Minion they probably shouldn't have had the section saying all the undead you make as part of individual castings need to be the same type of undead.

That section of text is nonsensical if it meant to be limited to just one type of Undead.

[Wesrolter]

Undead Minion is a group of creatures, like the Swarm. The Occult Zombie, Cyber Skeleton is the type. So in one casting I couldn't make 3 Zombies and 2 Skeletons.

[Milo v3]

I suppose that is way to use that section under that interpretation. I do still find it unfounded as an interpretation to assume undead = a specific subtype of undead.

[Garretmander]

Milo v3 wrote:

I suppose that is way to use that section under that interpretation. I do still find it unfounded as an interpretation to assume undead = a specific subtype of undead.

I definitely don't think it's in any sort of rules that it has to be a minion. I just think that at one point it was going to be, but the wording was relaxed on that requirement later on and you just see the vestiges of it remaining.

[Kamyr]

PF1 let you turn them into skeletons or zombies with similar language to animate dead in SF, except it has a note about using the creature's base statistics. You can see the template building at the end of their blocks. https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Human%20Zombie

That's part of why I had assumed it was supposed to be a minion, until I noticed the minion graft didn't even come out for a while afterwards.

PF2 has it split differently with a more 'summon creature'-esque multilevel version of animate dead and a ritual for actual creation with create undead that'd lock it in as a 'minion' if it's -4 your level. All versions have specific undead that they can make. It has a pretty wide variety, including vampires and ghosts, with higher available levels and a number cap instead of a level cap on minions. I am less familiar with PF2 though.

I don't think incorporeal is too strong, just unclear if it would be allowed. As a GM, I can deal with it, and players have plenty of options, too.

You can still make an army. It's a total CR, not a required one, so you can make 60 CR 1/3s at CL20 by my reading. They'd be easy pickings for high-level AoE or an enemy control undead, but it's doable. How easy that is to accomplish depends on if you can set the CR or have to find a CR 1/3 to apply it to, plus the potential for people to be Unhappy about you doing it.