[Player's Guide to Faerun] Summon Undead???

[Knight Otu]

I understand our confusion now. I was kind of under the impression the PGF was a 3.5 book, given it's release time. It seems I haven't read it thoroughly enough or I'm off on the relative release times. Bah.

It is a 3.5 book. The primary purpose of the book is to update Realms material to revised rules. Too bad it fails in some aspects.

About the power of the summoned undead - there was a Dragon magazine article that gave a guideline for placing monsters on the Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally list. While it was a 3.0 article, it could still be used as a basis for the various summon spells. Based on the article, I once created a list for a chain of summon undead spells:

I: 1 or fewer HD Skeleton; 2 or fewer HD Zombie.
II: Ghoul; 2-3 HD Skeleton; 4 HD Zombie
III: 4-5 HD Skeleton; 6 HD Zombie
IV: Ghast; 6-7 HD Skeleton; 8-10 HD Zombie
V: Allip; Mummy; Shadow; 8-11 HD Skeleton; Vampire Spawn; 12-16 HD Zombie
VI: 12-17 HD Skeleton; Wraith; 18-20 HD Zombie
VII: Bodak; Morgh; 18-20 HD Skeleton; Spectre
VIII: Devourer; (8th level warrior Ghost)
IX: Dread Wraith; (12th level warrior Vampire)

Please note that the list is wholly untested, and only includes Undead from the SRD. I would certainly move a few undead up a spell level or so.