Animate Dead, but cooler?

[Darth Krzysztof]

So I'd like to spring a graveyard encounter on my players, in which a necromancer summons some undead critters directly from their graves and straight up through the ground--

--but it turns out that animate dead, and the create undead spells, are all touch spells.

Is there a way to pull this maneuver off in the rules--a different spell, perhaps, or a metamagic feat?

Or should I just forget the rules and scare the players?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed by author.

 

[Lawmage]

There are two things to consider here. You correctly identify the problem with the range. The other is how do the newly animated dead claw their way up from their graves? How long will it take? Will they need to make "attacks" against their coffins or the ground and cause "damage" to tunnel through it? You can be sure that your players will see you allow the undead to do this and they will want to try it the next time one is buried alive...Personally, I think the best solution is to create an improved version of the animate dead spell, one that magically draws the dead from out of their graves and animates them. Supply the visual effects you like and maybe even allow it to boost the strength of the undead so created. I suppose all that will depend on the level of your PC's and the opposition and what you want to work out. Maybe even provide the Necromancer with a magic item that accomplishes the same thing and avoid the spell issue entirely....

 

[Lord Pendragon]

You can be sure that your players will see you allow the undead to do this and they will want to try it the next time one is buried alive...

 

[SteelDraco]

Animate Dead with multiple targets at touch range and a one-action casting time has always seemed odd to me. Apparently, all the corpses have to be in reach at the casting time. *shrugs* I don't think a burst-effect version would be out of line, as long as it abides by basically the same requirements as the normal spell, other than having a range.

And I've always figured that necromancers would have an Exhume spell of some kind to get corpses out of their graves easily.

Or you could simply say that the undead were already there, and all the necromancer does is tell them to pop out of their hidey-holes.

 

[Tatsukun]

I would have them walking through the grave yard and have this spooky raven flying around, landing on all the graves (while keeping watch on the PC's).

Of course, the raven is the mage's familiar and is delivering all the touch spells for him. Allow a few rounds for digging and boom, skeleton time. Just say that the gound looks soft (freshly dug) and the graves are not deep (dug by hand by an overworked grave digger).

Have fun!

-Tatsu

 

[Liquidsabre]

No problem, have the undead in the graveyard already been previously touched and animated via the animate dead spell. Then have the Necromancer command the animated undead to crawl back into their graves to await his command. When the PCs arrive, he simply calls the undead under his control to action! Ooo what will be neat is you can describe the smell of freshly turned earth permeating the graveyard, appropraitely made spot checks might even spot a few disturbed graves, while a few look slightly overgrowm from time (if the Necromancer has exerted his "power" over the graveyard sometime ago as a fail-safe protection perhaps?)

There's also no reason why you can't visualize the summon undead spells working in this way.

 

[Incenjucar]

...Spectral Hand...?

 

[Matafuego]

I've always allowed Animate Dead to be a burst...

 

[Sidekick]

Well, if all you want is a simple one encounter spell then just use the Summon Undead spells from Magic of Faerun. They are basically the same as the Summon creature spells but... well... it summons undead.

That seems to fit for me. Just cast it multiple times with quickens/metamagic rods or some such

Hope that helps