Mmmm...Libris Mortis.

[Voadam]

According to Complete Divine, undead have the soul of the original person bound whithin them. That's why it's evil.


Guess I can live with it, and why its far easier to animate a zombie than create a golem.

Well that's a poor rationale for the standard D&D cosmology where the soul turns into an outsider after enough time on the outer planes.

So the easiest way to defeat a Balor is to find the corpse of his former body and animate it. No save.

 

[jmucchiello]

(I still say that stain of blood is a horse.)

Your argument is that it's OK to have cold that's so cold it hurts even cold-subtype monsters with cold immunity. With that, let me give you some examples of how your argument breaks down.

I think the important reason to be against piercing cold is it leads to someone creating monsters with Piercing Cold Immunity. This in turn leads to the Greater Piercing Cold weapon ability, monsters with Greater Piercing Cold Immunity, the Even Greater Piercing Cold weapon ability and so on and so on. Better to disallow the Piercing Cold ability and nip this trail of useless weapon and monster abilities in the bud.

 

[green slime]

Well that's a poor rationale for the standard D&D cosmology where the soul turns into an outsider after enough time on the outer planes.

So the easiest way to defeat a Balor is to find the corpse of his former body and animate it. No save.

Maybe the soul doesn't turn into a petitioner until the corpse has rotted? maybe this is why certain cultures burn their dead, to speed their soul's arrival into the afterlife?

You can't animate what isn't.

 

[Psion]

Well Amazon finally got it in... sans discount.

My BAMM card ran out and I wasn't going to renew it... but it's an agressive 37% off with club membership. Not going with Amazon would pay for the membership.

But again, I am stuck with the problem of not having anything to order with it to get me over the "free shipping fence."

 

[JustKim]

It takes a long, long time for a corpse on the prime material to become a balor on the planes. I don't remember the figures offhand for every transformation period but it's at least several thousand years.

But I agree the explanation that animating dead is evil because you somehow trap the soul of the creature is pretty poor. If you look at past material this is obviously not true, and it also means WotC is deciding to go back on their "negative energy is evil" policy. The anathema of all life is just misunderstood!

 

[demiurge1138]

And the "Necropolitan" is the dumbest ass monster I've seen in a long time.

Have you read the book The Scar? In it, it mentions High Cromlech, the Silent City. The upper class, in order to avoid death, animate themselves as "thantir". The only way to hold property is to be dead. Normal humans are the downtrodden lower class, living in slums and hoping to scrouge enough money to transcend their status and become undead.

And that's why necropolitians rock. The monster itself isn't so exciting; it's the application.

Alright, skirrs and bleakborn... Bleakborn are the flash-frozen corpses of the lost city of Moil. They drain heat from their foes, and even absorb fire attacks. Skirrs are undead desert predators who swoop down on lone travelers, carry them into the air, then drop them. Their origin is unexplained, although I personally would call them the animated remains of ritually constructed composite mummies. Except that they're Huge...

Demiurge out.

 

[Arnwyn]

And that's why necropolitians rock. The monster itself isn't so exciting; it's the application.

:\ Ummm... I guess the novelty is just lost on me.

 

[Klaus]

And what's a Slaughter Wight and how is it different from a Wight?

 

[Nightchilde-2]

And what's a Slaughter Wight and how is it different from a Wight?

Basically, they're meaner, stronger (CR 8) wights,specially touched by dark gods. They're also encountered more in cities than in barrows.

 

[Samurai]

So what can you tell me about the Skyrr (the weird bull-skull-headed mummy thing) and the Bleakborn?

The Skirr looks very cool, but just what it is is not really explained. It just says it is a predatory undead that enjoys aerial tactics. Since it doesn't seem to resemble any living creature, and the picture seems to suggest to me that it is constructed from the corpses of several bound together, here is what I'd say:

Skirrs are somewhat of a cross between a construct and an undead. A necromancer must gather the head of a Dire Bull, the wings of a dragon, and the body of a sphinx. Then, the pieces are assembled, bound in mummified wrappings, and finally animated as a Skirr.


Bleakborn are humanoids that died by freezing to death. They hunger for, and drain, warmth from living things. They radiate intense cold, and are actually healed by fire and other heat sources (a nasty surprise for a wizard who thinks "cold creature = hit it with fire".) Any killed by their heat-drain becomes another Bleakborn, and anyone killed by a Bleakborn in another way (its slam attack, for instance) becomes a normal zombie. Pretty cool creature, if you'll pardon the pun .

And what's a Slaughter Wight and how is it different from a Wight?

They are simply a tougher form of Wight, "touched by the power of dark gods", the book says. They spawn normal wights from the bodies of those they kill, and are sort of a "Wight King". At 18 hd, with Energy Draining and specially augmented critical hits, they are tough customers...