good creatures to animate as skeletons

[Victim]

Zombies can take only a single Move action or a single Attack action (do those even still exist in 3.5... or is that something leftover from 3.0?)... so unless thats a misprint (and they are indeed allowed a Standard action), even a Hydra Zombie is incapable of attacking more than once per round.

The entry on the Hydra gives it the same number of attacks on Attack and Full Attack. A Hydra zombie is still somewhat clumsy, since it can't move and attack (although reach does help with that some).

 

[evilbob]

"getting more bang for your bones"

What is this article, and where can it be found?

Also, a marilith is one of those creatures that's great on paper but hard to work into an actual campaign: 16 HD creature with 29 Str and 6 arms (and some natural attacks to boot), which would be perfect - except that it's a CR 17 creature that lives on the outer planes of the abyss. That kind of creature would be so hard to find and kill it might not even be worth what you get.

I guess another factor that's worth considering is: how common a creature might be, and how hard it is to take down in the first place. For instance, taking this into consideration, a dire bear becomes a pretty decent choice: only CR 7, and could exist in almost any forest. But a hydra, for example, is both exceedingly rare and damn hard to kill.

 

[Victim]

Actually, one of the biggest factors is "what happens to a creature's body after dies normally." There's a reason necromancers and graveyards go together. If a given monster has human like burial habits, a tendency to go to certain places to die (elephant graveyards), lives in an environment especially friendly or unfriendly to body preservation, then there's a huge difference in the ease of animation. You don't need to be able to beat up the monster yourself; you just need to access the dead body.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Oooh - elephants.

The most Fun I ever had with a necromancer was a warlock with "the Dead Walk"
Ogres with elite stat array? Woot!! Ill take one zombie now and 2 skeletons for later.

 

[evilbob]

You don't need to be able to beat up the monster yourself; you just need to access the dead body.

Fair enough; although since demons are basically immortal that doesn't solve the marilith problem... Maybe go to a demonic battleground and pick through the bodies?

 

[Drowbane]

Fair enough; although since demons are basically immortal that doesn't solve the marilith problem... Maybe go to a demonic battleground and pick through the bodies?

polymorph any object.

"large pile of bones" to "large marilith skeleton" and.... animate.

What is this article, and where can it be found?

Dragon mag #324 (I'll look up page tomarrow... smacks of effort ATM)

 

[evilbob]

polymorph any object.

"large pile of bones" to "large marilith skeleton" and.... animate.

Now that's a really neat idea. However, two things: first, by the time you can cast polymorph any object, animating skeletons might not be the best choice for your followers - I could certainly be wrong on that, however - and two, I think it would be reasonable for a GM to restrict the casting to ONE bone per cast. And that could take... forever.

But if you have a GM that considers an entire skeleton to be one object, that's pretty cool - and certainly saves you the trouble of finding the thing.

 

[Storme]

Hmm.

I'm one of those people that think that a hydra, dragon or giant skeleton or zombie wouldn't make a good option because they can't fit into my castle or into the dungeon with me.

Mirrors of Life Trapping are great to store undead servants and simulacrums by the way.

Also, don't forget Awaken Undead spell, to give most of your undead brains, skills, and feats (but not those possessed intheir former life...though there's nothing stopping you from taking the same ones).


Storme

 

[phindar]

The only attack-related abilities skeletons keep from their base creature are extraordinary Special Qualities that specifically affect attacks, which are pretty rare. (Most specials that affect attacks are listed as Special Attacks, or are magical.) But there are two examples in the MM1, the Ettin (who retains its Superior Two Weapon Fighting quality) and the Cloud Giant (which retains its oversized weapon quality).

Me, I like skeletal dinosaurs, but that's only because I stumbled upon several packs of dino fossil toys at my local discount store and I can now field an army of approximately 40 appropriately-sized skeletal dinosaurs. (Cost me about $6, so it was quite the necromancer's army on the cheap.)

 

[evilbob]

Storme: Awaken undead is a 7th level spell, though - quite a time to wait between animate dead and that one.

The mirror you mentioned costs 200,000 gold - which means it is already pretty much refined to an epic game - and on top of that, it specifically does not trap undead. I'd have to call that the world's most expensive non-functional storage container. Since undead don't breathe, I would think a simple bag of holding would work much, much better.