Zombie and Skeleton tricks

[der_kluge]

One thing I did was to create a room filled with bones, and whenever a living creature entered, an "animate dead" effect (which was tied to the room itself) would activate - every round, so long as someone was in there.

My party had fun with that one.

Another great trick is brown mold. Brown mold delivers nasty cold damage in a radius. Undead are immune to cold. You figure it out.

 

[Umbra]

- You can use them in an airless environment

...which includes under water, mud or quicksand.

Imagine the party wading through chest high muddy water when unseen skeleton eels start attacking their feet.

You can also use them in environments filled with toxic gas.

 

[Sejs]

Necromancer Burns: "I suggest you leave immediately."
Paladin Homer: "Or what? You'll release the zombies, or the bees, or the zombies with bees in their mouths, and when they groan, they shoot bees at you? Well, go ahead. Do your worst."

Necromancer Burns: "Smithers, release the Zombie Richard Simmons."

 

[Sejs]

Anyway, yeah - serious reply.

Zombies stuffed with plague rats. With loose stiching.


Undead in an area with a trap that casts Negative Energy Burst when triggered.


Undead in a watery environment.


Spellstiched.


Awakened Undead.


Things with the Skeletal Creature or Corpse Creature template - looks like a lowly skeleton or zombie, tastes like hurting.

 

[Darklone]

A really evil cleric could spend his days filling a room/hall/whatever with skeletons who all had a glyph or something explosive. The trigger would be destroying the skeleton (0 hp) and BANG off it goes. This in turn triggers the next skeleton obviously and so forth.

Pretty cheesy.

I do remember such an adventure.... AD&D 2nd edition? You killed skeleton, fireball goes off, kills all other skeletons around, everyone triggers another fireball...

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I had a zombie that one of the parties encountered that had bloated and filled with gasses as a by-product of its' deterioration. When they hit it with a slashing or piercing weapon they had to make a Fort save to avoid getting nauseated.

Funny thing was, most of 'em failed that save, so the encounter turned out to be pretty difficult. That single zombie gave the while 3rd-level party a bit of a schoolin' before they took 'im down.

Libris Mortis has some cool zombie variants.

My site (sig below) has some rules for "infectious zombies" that I made up.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Mix them up with other undead. Morghs (sic?) are a good candidate! Possibly a wider variety of stuff if employing a 'hat of disguise'?

'Soder' from Piratecats game. Think I've got this right: A spellcaster who can posess a type of undead. They can talk and can cast a single spell - destroying the undead they're posessing in the process. Great for taunting PCs?

Skeletal soldiers that fight like a military unit. Formations. Shield + Spear Walls. Massed archery. Cavalry charges. Siege weapons.

 

[hong]

Another great trick is brown mold. Brown mold delivers nasty cold damage in a radius. Undead are immune to cold. You figure it out.

A lot of people get this wrong for some bizarre reason. Undead are not, in general, immune to cold. _Skeletons_ are immune to cold. A few other undead have cold resistance or immunity, but plenty of others don't.

 

[Voadam]

Grapple next to pool, lake, pond, etc. other animated dead then bull rush the grappled ones into the water where drowning comes into effect.

Stick a canister of poison gas in a skeleton's rib cage then ask the PCs if they really intend to smash the skeletons with their blunt weapons.

 

[Darklone]

Most important: Get them a good necromancer for buffing and give them weapons and other goodies.