which undead am i missing

[Grimmjow]

Me (and I'm sure my group is too) getttijg tired of zombies and skeletons to fight in my undead invasion campaigned. I can't really use the more powerful at this tile I just wanna know what I missed. I got dread archers and guardians in my next dungeon. What else is mindless that I can use?

 

[Grimmjow]

And ghouls

 

[GreyICE]

The answer to your needs is a wonderful 4E DM trick called 'reskinning.' Because there's no real 'template' for what an undead monster is, stat wise, you just grab a monster you like, and you reskin it.

For instance, the Hungry Dire Wolf is a level 4 skirmisher. Rename it 'undead wolf,' and describe it as missing most of the flesh from its body and tell the players they can see its rib cage, and bam, an undead monster that is very different from the standard fare.

For a more intricate one, the Grell Strangler, as a skirmisher, has the theme of grabbing things and dragging them away. With reflavoring, this can easily be a type of undead that grabs the PCs and drags them away to be eaten (BRAAAINNNSSS). Just change the name of the abilities, change the tentacle lash damage from poison to physical, and flavor the ongoing damage from the grab as 'being chewed on' and you have a creature that will scare the snot out of your PCs.


Basically, don't consider yourself constrained to only using undead stat blocks that are actually undead. Use any appropriate on-level monster that would make an interesting encounter, and call it undead.

/secret DM trick

 

[Grimmjow]

So an example I though up is:before the undead showed up there was a cave bear that would kill the sheep of local farmers. The farmers where never able to find his cave so he kept killing their livestock. After the undead showed up he was killed by them. Of course the farmers only know he stopped showing up, until about a week ago. When the players meet him he is nothing more than a undead. Give him 10 Nero resist and 5 radiant vulnerability? Maybe his bite does ongoing Nero damage aswell?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

So an example I though up is:before the undead showed up there was a cave bear that would kill the sheep of local farmers. The farmers where never able to find his cave so he kept killing their livestock. After the undead showed up he was killed by them. Of course the farmers only know he stopped showing up, until about a week ago. When the players meet him he is nothing more than a undead. Give him 10 Nero resist and 5 radiant vulnerability? Maybe his bite does ongoing Nero damage aswell?

What is creating these undead? You could have some evil clerics/invokers working with them. (The Shroud of the Grave ability, found in the Undead Master template in the DMG1, takes away their vulnerability to radiant. Naturally this means kill the evil cleric first, then turn undead the riffraff.)

 

[Grimmjow]

What is creating these undead? You could have some evil clerics/invokers working with them. (The Shroud of the Grave ability, found in the Undead Master template in the DMG1, takes away their vulnerability to radiant. Naturally this means kill the evil cleric first, then turn undead the riffraff.)

The revenue queen is what is creating the undead, along with orcus. The revenue queen made a mistake and orcus took advantage of it and now the dead are rising, while the revenue queen is too week to stop it

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I assume you mean "Raven Queen"? IMO, gods should not directly touch the prime material plane/natural world.

So the Raven Queen or Orcus need intermediaries to perform the rituals to raise these undead. That would mean (if you have the Monster Manual III) ghoul adepts of orcus, or NPC cleric/invoker types.

 

[Grimmjow]

I assume you mean "Raven Queen"? IMO, gods should not directly touch the prime material plane/natural world.

So the Raven Queen or Orcus need intermediaries to perform the rituals to raise these undead. That would mean (if you have the Monster Manual III) ghoul adepts of orcus, or NPC cleric/invoker types.

Ya I'm on a phone so some of the stuff comes out funny. Anyway what I'm thinking is that the raven queen created an avatar. Being that takes a lot of power away from her and orcus was able to take advantage of that, whip out a ritual, and set things in motion for the dead rising on there own. So rq didn't want this at all but orcus was able to take advantage of her creating an avatar.

The only way I'm going to use this reason is if the cleric decides to be an avatar of death, if not ill come up with q different reason

 

[MatthewJHanson]

What about different kinds of zombies and skeletons? Drowned zombie pirates. Skeletons that can throw their bones at you.

Do they have to be mindless. What if a lot of them "wake up" with some or all of their memories? Some might try to return to their loved ones, and completely terrify them. Others might do anything to hold on to their sliver of life.

 

[Grimmjow]

What about different kinds of zombies and skeletons? Drowned zombie pirates. Skeletons that can throw their bones at you.

Do they have to be mindless. What if a lot of them "wake up" with some or all of their memories? Some might try to return to their loved ones, and completely terrify them. Others might do anything to hold on to their sliver of life.

That would be cool I'm going to kill a npc soon he could return to his daughter. When I say smart undead I mean vamps, dks, mummy, litches, not til paragon, right now those kinds of undead arnt around as far as the players know