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<blockquote data-quote="Ourph" data-source="post: 4716924" data-attributes="member: 20239">I remembered another actual play experience pertinent to this discussion today. Quite a while back (we may have still been playing 3.0e at this point) I was playing a Fighter in a mid-level party (10th or 11th level) and another player was running a Wizard. We came upon a group of Grey Renders and my Fighter took on one while the rest of the party handled the others. My character managed to kill his creature but needed several dozen points of healing from the Cleric during the fight to stay on his feet. Immediately after the fight, the Wizard cast Raise Dead on the Gray Render my Fighter had just defeated.This means that we have a monster that would have won a straight up fight vs. my character if not for healing from another PC, which has now been reanimated with significantly more HP (zombies get 2x the base creatures HD, plus the HD are increased to d12s), an AC bonus, higher BAB, increased Str, DR, darkvision and (in most cases) better saves.&nbsp; In other words, the Wizard just created (for the low, low price of 500gp) a &quot;tank&quot; that was already slightly tougher than my character while alive and leaves him completely in the dust as an animated undead creature.So the Wizard, using a single spell that wasn't even of the highest level he could cast, essentially rendered my entire contribution to the combat effectiveness of the party redundant. Oh but wait, that's not the whole story. You see, he'd memorized Raise Dead twice that day, and since a 2nd Gray Render would put him at exactly the HD of undead he could control at his level (40HD total) he did it again.I could have gotten up and gone home at that point in the game and the party's combat effectiveness would still have been significantly higher than when we started that fight after I'd left.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ourph, post: 4716924, member: 20239"] I remembered another actual play experience pertinent to this discussion today. Quite a while back (we may have still been playing 3.0e at this point) I was playing a Fighter in a mid-level party (10th or 11th level) and another player was running a Wizard. We came upon a group of Grey Renders and my Fighter took on one while the rest of the party handled the others. My character managed to kill his creature but needed several dozen points of healing from the Cleric during the fight to stay on his feet. Immediately after the fight, the Wizard cast [i]Raise Dead[/i] on the Gray Render my Fighter had just defeated. This means that we have a monster that would have won a straight up fight vs. my character if not for healing from another PC, which has now been reanimated with significantly more HP (zombies get 2x the base creatures HD, plus the HD are increased to d12s), an AC bonus, higher BAB, increased Str, DR, darkvision and (in most cases) better saves. In other words, the Wizard just created (for the low, low price of 500gp) a "tank" that was already slightly tougher than my character while alive and leaves him completely in the dust as an animated undead creature. So the Wizard, using a single spell that wasn't even of the highest level he could cast, essentially rendered my entire contribution to the combat effectiveness of the party redundant. Oh but wait, that's not the whole story. You see, he'd memorized [i]Raise Dead[/i] twice that day, and since a 2nd Gray Render would put him at exactly the HD of undead he could control at his level (40HD total) [u]he did it again[/u]. I could have gotten up and gone home at that point in the game and the party's combat effectiveness would still have been significantly higher than when we started that fight after I'd left. [/QUOTE]

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