Undead and dispel magic

[Dogmeat]

Hi, recycled poster, I have not posted in 3 years. I ran into trouble running a game recently and would like advice. I threw a bunch of skeletons and a mummy at the party recently. The skeletons only for extra meat to the encounter. however a player decided to cast dispel magic on them and the rules seemed to back it up. The problem I ran into was that now everytime I throw undead at him that is his first response. I find it to be a cheap way to deal with the threat and my only response is to throw more powerful undead at them when I want to use undead. The problem is that more powerful undead break the game balance and make it more likely that I wipe out the party (an option I would rather not use.)

Do the rules in fact back up the use of dispel magic in this way?

How do I get around that without rule 0 (an option I consider to be cheap and underhanded)?

 

[ThirdWizard]

Animate Dead
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Clr 3, Death 3, Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Targets: One or more corpses touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

Can't be dispelled because the duration is instantaneous. To answer the possible next question, you can't dispel constructs either.

 

[FreeXenon]

What he said - instanteous duration.
Just like you cannot dispel a Wall of Iron or Wall of Stone

If the duration was permanent then it would be dispellable as it would be an active enchantment such as Permanent Image and Arcane Lock.

 

[MichaelH]

Do the rules in fact back up the use of dispel magic in this way?

No. ThirdWizard is correct. Undead could never be dispelled in any previous version of D&D either. What gave your player the idea that they could now?

 

[FreeXenon]

Welcome back Dogmeat!!

 

[Dogmeat]

Thank you. The player has played for two years and is good at coming up with inventive ideas for defeating monsters. I have tried to incourage this, but the continual reuse of the idea seemed to cheapen it. Thanks for your timely responses. I will go back to lurking for now.

 

[FreeXenon]

Don't lurk too much!!!

Can you give us other inventinve ideas they have tried?

<trying to keep his attention>