Animate a Giant?

[durza120]

My party and I recently killed a mt gaint, and i tried to animate it and add it to my undead army, but my DM said I was not able to. Any particular reason why?

 

[IcyCool]

My party and I recently killed a mt gaint, and i tried to animate it and add it to my undead army, but my DM said I was not able to. Any particular reason why?

Does it have too many HD for you to animate at your level?

 

[durza120]

Probably... now that I think about it. But what could a lvl 15 clerick animate up to then?

 

[RobotRobotI]

Probably... now that I think about it. But what could a lvl 15 clerick animate up to then?

Skeletons cap at 20 HD and Zombies cap at 20 HD (animated from a 10 HD corpse.)

So if it had more than 10 HD, it couldn't be a zombie, and if it had more than 20 HD (which is quite possible), you couldn't animate it as a skeleton.

 

[IcyCool]

Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can't create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead.

Also, from the zombie template:

If the base creature has more than 10 hit dice, it can't be made into a zombie with the animate dead spell.

Edit - Note that it doesn't say a higher HD critter can't be made into a zombie, it just says you can't use animate dead to do it.

 

[durza120]

Are there any spells like animate dead yet more powerful?

 

[RobotRobotI]

No, not really.

At least, not with the core books. I dunno about other supplements.

I think Libris Mortis has Summon Undead spells, but that's not really the same sort of thing.

 

[IcyCool]

There are Create Undead and Create Greater Undead, but those are very specific as to what kinds of undead you can create with them. Libris Mortis might have a more potent animate spell.

 

[RobotRobotI]

There are Create Undead and Create Greater Undead, but those are very specific as to what kinds of undead you can create with them. Libris Mortis might have a more potent animate spell.

The Create Undead and Create Greater Undead spells also don't grant you any control over the created Undead, so be careful. Unless it's got 1/2 of your Cleric level (that is, 7) in HD, you'd better have a wizard on hand to Control it (for all of 15 minutes...)

 

[durza120]

so if you create an undead, you just have to hope it attacks your enemie?