How to deal with Undead as a DM

[Jaquettie]

Hi all, I am running a game at the moment using the Frank and K adjustments to the rules (mostly) with a group of four fifth level PC's: an Archivist, a Dread Necromancer, a Wizard and an Assassin (Frank and k assassin base class).The Archivist and the Dread necromancer and the wizard are ALL raising dead with the “Animate Undead” spell. (I ruled that the Dread Necromancer learns Animate Undead like the cleric does as a third level spell)

Their army is as follows: A zombie Hydra (10 HD), A skeleton troglodyte (6 HD) and 4 Skeleton Worgs (4 HD each) and 4 troglodyte skeletons (2 HD each) and two wolf skeletons (2 DH), which is quite a bit.

What I am asking is for a some monsters or spells or items that are good against undead, so I can design challenging encounters that aren’t WAY too powerful for them to handle, because as it stands, the kind of monsters that I would have to put them up against could easily one shot any of the PC’s (they are all kind of squishy)

Thanks :smallsmile:

[Jeff the Green]

Well, personally I'd send them a pair of undead hunters:


A VoP Saint Unarmed Swordsage, with Vow of Peace and Touch of Golden Ice.
A Dragonborn Risen Martyr Bard 4/Crusader X with Words of Creation, Song of the Heart, and a badge of valor and a wand of inspirational boost.


What level are they?

[Alienist]

Large numbers of mooks. (If the numbers get too large, move them and roll their attacks as a squad - but make sure their mooks and your mooks can battle it out)

Animate Dead is an alternative to a fireball, so present them with something that a fireball would have easily dealt with.

The other thing is.... what do you think your job as DM is? Are you there to oppose the PCs, or are you there to shine a spotlight upon them when they do something cool?

Because for certain definitions of cool, raising a massive army of undead fits the bill.

Make them feel special by giving them stuff to do that requires a big army.

Now, on the other hand... what are they doing with their minions while they are in town? Do they leave them outside? What exact orders do they give them? Can they buy permits? Can they disguise them? (good luck disguising the hydra) Shopkeepers might start bumping up their prices for the creepy dudes with all the undead. The health inspector might object, and if they murderise the health inspector, that in itself creates another kind of problem...

Zombies are slow, what if they need to get somewhere fast? (Maybe they will come up with a creative solution for the speed problem, this is good and should be encouraged.

[Jaquettie]

Fifth level, and at the moment that are being accompanied by a Wizard 3/spell thief 1 NPC, but he is only there for their current quest

[MrLemon]

So... I'm no expert, but either I am overlooking something here, or just send a Cleric or two.

A lvl 12 Evil Cleric could take control of 3 Worgs, and easily make most of the lesser ones cower, letting his loyal sacrifices followers take care of them.

[Jaquettie]

Also, Alienist, I guess I could give mook army a go, I just thought that that would be boring, but I guess you have a good point that mowing down scores of baddies is kind of cool.

btw, this is my first time GMing, and my PC are major munchkins (nothing wrong with that tho)

and about the Cleric, lvl 12 is a bit much don't you think

[nedz]

An ambush by a pack of wolves who run off with the bones and bury them.:smallcool:
Obviously you need to use Dire wolves or something.
Lots of hit an run attacks in the middle of the night.

[Jeff the Green]

Alright. Here's what I would go with:

Tallfellow Halfling Saint Unarmed Swordsage 6
Abilities: Str 8, Dex 20, Con 18, Int 9, Wis 16, Cha 14
Feats: Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty, Vow of Nonviolence, Vow of Peace, Touch of Golden Ice, Nymph's Kiss, Weapon Finesse, Shadow Blade
Class Abilities: Discipline Focus (Shadow Hand), Quick to act, AC bonus

Human Bard 4/Crusader 3/Risen Martyr 1
Abilities: Str 16, Dex 10, Con -, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 20
Feats: Dragonfire Inspiration, Words of Creation, Melodic Casting, Song of the Heart, Lingering Song.

Basically, the bardsader sings (giving +6 (+10 with badge of valor and a wand of inspirational boost) to attack the first time and +6d6 fire damage (+10d6) the second) and tanks (he can wear plate armor and gets charisma to AC), while the swordsage attacks with unarmed strikes. His UAS inflicts Golden Ice, which is a bitch, and he's hard to hit (back of the envelope, AC 26 and 20% miss chance)

It's an EL 10 battle. Your party should be able to handle it (especially since the swordsage can't attack living creatures), but they'll almost certainly take out some of their minions and make them consider whether animating the dead is worth it if they get this kind of attention.

[Jaquettie]

Great!! I dont't want to discourage them from useing undead, but this is exactly what I need to prevent it from being a "I win" to all situations, forcing them to think of other things to do on top of the undead, figurativly that is (one of them is already literly on top of the hydra:smallbiggrin:).

[Vegan Zombie]

Make a Cleric/Radient Servent of Pelor and his platoon of undead hunters face your party. Give him extra turning and a Phylactory of Undead Turning, and watch as his Greater Turn Undeads demolish the party's mooks, forcing them to acquire more.

Killing mooks is a lot more tolerable to killing PCs so I don't think wiping they're mooks is very mean. (they can always make more)

Also, don't forget about spells like Consecrate and Hallow.

[Ranting Fool]

A lot of classes are good at undead bashing (since they are often the monster of choice for many a DM if want to avoid random questions like "how do these monster find enough food" and "where are the children" or "are they REALLY evil maybe we should stun them and take them prisioner") I am sure there are many others here who could help you out with good anti undead build so the players have to mix it up a bit.

Question: Is making Undead evil? Or rather seen as Evil by the NPC's of the local town/king/church (Quite a few priests tend to not like undead) if so Good NPC's maybe would not want to work with the players / go out of their way to cause them harm / trouble.

[Vegan Zombie]

Question: Is making Undead evil?.

IMHO, creating undead is always an evil act. The undead are a twisted mockery of life; when a PC casts Raise Dead, the subject knows who is calling him by alignment, and doesn't have to return if they do not desire so. Animating the dead is the opposite; your taking the subjects body, often against their will, and using it to serve your own twisted ends (usually fodder). Undead are also inherently evil themselves.

For people that want good aligned undead, there is always the Deathless type in BoED. Switch Animate Dead with Animate Deathless and now your good aligned clerics can have mooks too.

Come to think of it, that would be awesome for your campaign. Have that party face a cleric with an army of Deathless! Perfect ying to there yang.

[Alienist]

Flying enemies are funny.

Did you say the fifth level wizard was also raising dead? If so... bwuh? The Dread necro I can understand tossing him a bone (sic) but the wizard doesn't need freebies.

Also, turning the undead to stone is a good party trick. Even if they undo it, technically all they get back is a chunk of dead meat. So toss a medusa, basilisk or cockatrice at them (on the odd occasion).

I'm under the impression that a hydra zombie is sub-optimal, and that hydras make much better skeletons, but I can't recall the specifics.

[Jaquettie]

My responce to that is: Versatile Spell-casting

[willpell]

The obvious possibility would be to send some evil clerics to Command half their undead into fighting the other half....

[Acanous]

Did you say the fifth level wizard was also raising dead? If so... bwuh? The Dread necro I can understand tossing him a bone (sic) but the wizard doesn't need freebies.


my mind said the wizard is casting control undead to free up HD limit for the other two.

[Alienist]

Pathfinder also has the Lesser Animate Dead, which kicks in a spell level earlier.

As for versatile spell caster on a wizard, my response is: double bwuh? :smalltongue:

[Marlowe]

Walking around with a small undead army is always nice...

I hope they've given all the various minions names, otherwise they won't know which orders they are to follow. If they have not, then have the Undead respond to random comments as though they were orders.

Make them role-play giving orders to the undead and follow them literally. Very literally. Check to see what standing instructions they've given their own personal brood, and see what complications you can make ensue.

Don't screw them over, just don't let them treat the Undead as extensions of their own characters. Show that what they really have on their hands now is a pack of extremely stupid Killbots who have to be told absolutely everything.

And yes, since they are a small army now, give them small-army appropriate tasks.

[tiercel]

Hide from Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hideFromUndead.htm)

It won't obviate the minions altogether -- after all, the spell breaks as soon as a recipient attacks at all -- but it will let foes waltz right through all the undead and into the faces of your NecroGenerals. And it's a level 1 spell.

As others have mentioned, Turn Undead is just the most blindingly obvious of common anti-undead measures; it doesn't have to wipe out the NecroArmy to be effective (though the ZombHydra is formidable, it can be avoided/kited, and all the other undeads are reasonably Turnable by an opposing cleric of the PCs' level).

[ericgrau]

I'll third the idea to send clerics. Not 12th level, but 3rd-7th level depending on how many you send. All but the hydra should be turnable/rebukable and they should nail about 2 per attempt.

What they're really weak against is area spells like fireball, but that would hurt the squishy mages more than the undead. But if they see it coming they're more likely to cats protective spells on themselves while not having enough spells to spare for their minions. And even after subtracting 10 the fireballs will be dangerous. The other standard area or multi-target crowd control spells also work, and minions are often more likely to get stuck or fail their save than PCs.

For martial foes send heavily armored ones with a small variety of weapons to get around DR. Don't be afraid to use shields at this level. Even the hydra only has a +8 to hit, and the others have as little as +1. Full plate and a shield is already 21 AC. Or, to save money, breatsplate and a good dex can hit 20 AC. These foes also have a lower speed so they're more likely to go against the zombies in front than chase after the casters in the back. Likewise heavy melee monsters tend to have a decent AC and attack bonus to hit without getting hit, at least in melee.

[Thrawn183]

I say an encounter with a party of wizards with golems/constructs would be hilarious. A battle of minion users. Or maybe summoned monsters? Oooooh, how about astral constructs.

Alternatively, anything with significant DR is useful against horde style attacks.

Going to have to third or fourth any kind of area of effects, they're useful the more minions your PC's have.

Lastly, (someone mentioned this before, but it bears repeating), really try and find something unique that challenges/rewards them for all their undeadiness. Just trying to almost crush them in fights isn't actually all that fun (I mean, someone has to lose). Try and figure out something that really makes them feel special for using undead. Traps where you have to sacrifice a creature (oh hey, you have disposable zombies!), holding off multiple entrances to a room from huge numbers of enemies by just parking some guys in front of them, that sort of thing.

Edit: Maybe something where they have to make a ladder out of their minions? Seriously, really challenge your creativity, go crazy with it. The players probably don't want their mini-horde completely wrecked, so you probably don't want to approach things from that angle.

Oh, I almost forgot. Rangers with favored enemy undead! Your small army should be easy as heck to track.

[SSGoW]

I'm not much help but I want to thank you for this thread... I now have a fantastic tactic to use against my players (I'm evil sometimes... first session I played a modified tuckers kobolds) but ...

What you can do is put a few casters up with invisible spell cloudkill or something simular maybe have a fireball go off around the same time.

The undead will be fine (except for fire dmg :p) however as the undead walk through the area the the cloudkill won't cause a save (if it did the players themselves will be wary and metagame ) but they will follow along withought thinking anything is wrong.

Fort save, death, and taking out their con scores will follow then have the casters send some wiights or something simular to sneak into the army to take out the party.

[Doxkid]

Divine warrior[feat] (Free holy enchantment on your diety's weapons for 1 turn)

Undead bane[enchantment] (get it with Bane of Decay

Necropotent[feat]

Discipline of the Sun[feat] (destroy undead if you turn them successfully)

Sanctify Weapon [feat]

Energize spell [meta magic feat] (+50% damage to undead)

Improved favored Enemy [feat] (+3 damage to a favored enemy)

Nemesis [feat] (+1d6 damage to evil members of a favored enemy race)

There ya go. Also, remember paladins do not typically like Necromancers or undead. It wont even be questioned if a party of Paladins roll up on the group, lead by a cleric. This is a normal consequence of Animating undead; many churches dislike you and send people to capture/kill you.

Depending on what your party does with the hydra when they need to go in houses, town, or small caves you could get rid of it pretty easily. Mention in passing that a group of crusading paladins are hunting undead and necromancers in an area, before getting the party to leave the hydra alone.

When they come back to it, they'll see a group of paladins celebrating a victory over the vile abomination; one Detect Evil and the party has a new fight on its hands, preferably while they are low on spells.

[moritheil]

They've raised a small army; now let them fight a small army.

Then after the really cool mowing down of CR 1/2 monsters is done, send in a 16th level Radiant Servant cleric or something. Don't make her pressed to hunt them down, just have her show up, casually annihilate their army in 2-3 rounds, and move on.

It may sound vindictive, but if you have any verisimilitude in your game, the movement of armies will attract that kind of attention. The wrong kind of attention.

[Ranting Fool]

I don't think you should so much crush their black souls because they've been having too many minions for the game to be running smoothly.. just make them want to get a few much harder undead then a horde. I mean there are so many classes / churches who would want to attack your Players just because they use undead so starting a fight wouldn't be hard.

Maybe just sort out a Undead Horde Vs Brave army of low level warriors with priestly back up :smallbiggrin: