ixnay
2014-08-09, 08:40 AM
After pondering about the many uses of undead minions in D&D, I have decided to make a new topic dedicated solely to ingenious, creative, and unexpected uses of undead creatures that serves a purpose, either in combat, or in Roleplay.
Below are the different methods I have been able to conjure up on how to use the undead creatures. I would enjoy it if other players share their own creative or unique uses of undead minions. I am basing my methods on unintelligent undead and a low class level (lvl 8 dread necromancer)
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Mecha Minion: This is the classical use for undeads that is considered “out of the box”. Get hold of an undead minion two size categories larger than your character, hollow it out, and sit inside it while the undead shambles around the battlefield. This is not an idea I came up with, and unfortunately I am not able to give credits where credits is due.
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Undead Vehicle: Using undeads as vehicles can provide lots of functions that normal vehicles can’t. Specifically in this context I do not refer to undead mounts, but using undeads as a vehicle. For this example, I will be using a Huge red dragon (young adult, CR 13) which has 19HD. Can be made into zombie dragon that keeps its flight speed (rules in Draconomicon)
HP: 19d12 + 38 + 38 (Use desecrate, ofcourse) + 3 toughness - Average HP will be 202HP
Init: -1
Speed: 40ft landspeed, 150ft flight clumsy — Undeads never get tired, so they can fly all day and night.
AC: 16 (10 - 2 size + 9 natural armor - 1 dex) - Sucky AC, but its mainly vehicle, not fighting monster. Can give it an armor.
BAB/Grapple: +19/+37
Attack: +29 2d8+10 Melee Bite // +29 Crush attack 2d8+15
Space/Reach: 15/10ft (15ft with bite)
Special Attacks: Breath weapon 5d10 reflex DC 18
Special qualities: Darkvision, immunity to fire, DR 5/slashing, slow, undead traits
Saves: +16 +10 +11
Abilities: str 31 dex 08 con — int — wis 10 cha 08
Feats: Toughness
Now for the fun part: Carrying capacity. According to the SRD, for strength scores above 29, find the equivalent “one”-digit on strength score (21 for this dragon) and multiply the capacity by 4. Then, since Dragons are quadrupeds (walk on 4 legs, not 2) they get even better carrying capacity, and according to SRD a huge quadruped has 6 times more carrying capacity than medium creature.
This means that for a dragon with 31 strength and huge size, its carrying capacity is 153 LB based on 21 str score, multiplied by 4 to get 31 str score, then multiply that by six for huge quadruped
153 x 4 x 6 = 3672 LB light load. Medium load is 7344 LB, and heavy is 11040 LB. This means that the dragon can easily carry an entire group of adventurers and STILL have plenty of capacity left
This is where you attach some sort of harness to it, not unlike the things they put on elephants in real life (modify a wagon or something). This allows players to safely sleep on the dragon while it flies through the air. Maybe you can even attach a warmachine to it
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Warmachine: For this use, it would be good to have Destructive Retribution feat, loads of available HD for undeads, and at least one pretty big undead with a huge strength score. Make the huge creature throw the low HD undead at X spot, and the undeads will most likely die upon impact due to the falldamage, creating a 1d6 negative energy burst. Effectively a catapult that moves, reloads, and aims itself without more than commandwords.
--
Matryoshka Undead: For everyone unfamiliar with the Matryoshka dolls, they are the russian dolls that can open up to reveal a smaller, similar doll inside it. This can be used in several manners in conjunction with the undead.
You can for example take a big creature and stuff it with a smaller creature, and stuff the smaller creature with even smaller creatures. This requires the body to be hollowed out enough on the inside to fit the smaller undeads.
Or for the more scary version, you can stuff any undead with swarms of undead maggots, flies, and the likes. It does not matter if they are good, as long as they have destruction retribution, the effect will be somewhat the same. Once the big one has died, the many small ones emerge and work as both a diversion, and as a way to reliably deal damage.
--
Rain of Undead: This method requires smart use of extradimmensional space, like portable hole or bag of holding. Fill the space with the biggest creatures you can put inside, and as many as possible. Make sure they have significant weight, so Zombies are preferrable.
You also need height. Flying would be optimal. Once flying above enemies, empty the undeads over the enemies, and watch the enemies be squashed by a rain of undeath. There are rules in the core ruleset for damage from falling objects.
Rules from the SRD state: Objects that fall upon characters deal damage based on their weight and the distance they have fallen. For each 200pounds of an objects weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet. Increases by 1d6 damage for each 10ft increment beyond first.
But here is the kicker: smaller than 200lb objects can also cause damage, but must fall farther. For this example lets use zombie cats and zombie medium humanoids, and a bag of holding V
The bag can hold 1500LB, or 250 cubic feet. A cat has a space of 2,1/2 feet. According to real life, a cat would occupy some 0.083 cubic feet. This means 3000 cats can physically fit into the bag, but the weight limits this number to 185 cats (185 x 8lb 1480lb)
Dropping every single cat from a height of 70 feet makes each cat do 1d6 damage to whatever it hits. Now make the drop from 260 feet and every single cat will do 20d6 damage, but will be very hard to hit, and excrutiatingly difficult for DM to keep track of them all. It will also take a VERY long time to gather 185 cats.
Now let us do the same with a medium creature weighing 101lb each. You can undoubtedly fit less in a sack, but you only need 210 feet of distance to do 20d6 damage per creature, and it might be easier to hit enemies with them. I will not go through calculating cubic feet per creature in this instance, and just based it on weight. You can fit 14 creatures.
Cats will do 185 x 20d6, which is a total of 3700d6. Each cat starts with 1/2 HD, and becomes 1HD as zombies. Getting 200HD of controlled undead is quite possible.
Medium sized 101lb humanoids will do 14 x 20d6 which is 280d6. More HD per creature (lets say between 2 and 4) but you only have 14 undeads, so HD cap isnt a problem.
You can also find smaller creatures that weigh less than 8, but more than 1, and do the same. Potentially you could drop 1500 creatures from 260ft and do 30 000 d6 worth of damage.
I hope my impression of the falling objects damage is correct based on the SRD ( link here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#fallingObjects ) but please, correct me if I am wrong.
Ofcourse, using undead creatures for this purpose is possibly not necessary, since a lot of 1-lb rocks could do the same thing, but if you use your bluff skill well enough you could also use this for roleplaying purposes, and not to mention that a rain of undead cats is simply hilarious in and of itself.
And ofcourse, once you got them in the bag, you no longer need to maintain control over them, so you can virtually go around saving up cats in any town you go through, or merely offer your services as a vermin exterminator.
--
These are the different out-of-the-box methods I have found so far. If anyone has any other ideas, I would love to hear them.
Below are the different methods I have been able to conjure up on how to use the undead creatures. I would enjoy it if other players share their own creative or unique uses of undead minions. I am basing my methods on unintelligent undead and a low class level (lvl 8 dread necromancer)
--
Mecha Minion: This is the classical use for undeads that is considered “out of the box”. Get hold of an undead minion two size categories larger than your character, hollow it out, and sit inside it while the undead shambles around the battlefield. This is not an idea I came up with, and unfortunately I am not able to give credits where credits is due.
--
Undead Vehicle: Using undeads as vehicles can provide lots of functions that normal vehicles can’t. Specifically in this context I do not refer to undead mounts, but using undeads as a vehicle. For this example, I will be using a Huge red dragon (young adult, CR 13) which has 19HD. Can be made into zombie dragon that keeps its flight speed (rules in Draconomicon)
HP: 19d12 + 38 + 38 (Use desecrate, ofcourse) + 3 toughness - Average HP will be 202HP
Init: -1
Speed: 40ft landspeed, 150ft flight clumsy — Undeads never get tired, so they can fly all day and night.
AC: 16 (10 - 2 size + 9 natural armor - 1 dex) - Sucky AC, but its mainly vehicle, not fighting monster. Can give it an armor.
BAB/Grapple: +19/+37
Attack: +29 2d8+10 Melee Bite // +29 Crush attack 2d8+15
Space/Reach: 15/10ft (15ft with bite)
Special Attacks: Breath weapon 5d10 reflex DC 18
Special qualities: Darkvision, immunity to fire, DR 5/slashing, slow, undead traits
Saves: +16 +10 +11
Abilities: str 31 dex 08 con — int — wis 10 cha 08
Feats: Toughness
Now for the fun part: Carrying capacity. According to the SRD, for strength scores above 29, find the equivalent “one”-digit on strength score (21 for this dragon) and multiply the capacity by 4. Then, since Dragons are quadrupeds (walk on 4 legs, not 2) they get even better carrying capacity, and according to SRD a huge quadruped has 6 times more carrying capacity than medium creature.
This means that for a dragon with 31 strength and huge size, its carrying capacity is 153 LB based on 21 str score, multiplied by 4 to get 31 str score, then multiply that by six for huge quadruped
153 x 4 x 6 = 3672 LB light load. Medium load is 7344 LB, and heavy is 11040 LB. This means that the dragon can easily carry an entire group of adventurers and STILL have plenty of capacity left
This is where you attach some sort of harness to it, not unlike the things they put on elephants in real life (modify a wagon or something). This allows players to safely sleep on the dragon while it flies through the air. Maybe you can even attach a warmachine to it
--
Warmachine: For this use, it would be good to have Destructive Retribution feat, loads of available HD for undeads, and at least one pretty big undead with a huge strength score. Make the huge creature throw the low HD undead at X spot, and the undeads will most likely die upon impact due to the falldamage, creating a 1d6 negative energy burst. Effectively a catapult that moves, reloads, and aims itself without more than commandwords.
--
Matryoshka Undead: For everyone unfamiliar with the Matryoshka dolls, they are the russian dolls that can open up to reveal a smaller, similar doll inside it. This can be used in several manners in conjunction with the undead.
You can for example take a big creature and stuff it with a smaller creature, and stuff the smaller creature with even smaller creatures. This requires the body to be hollowed out enough on the inside to fit the smaller undeads.
Or for the more scary version, you can stuff any undead with swarms of undead maggots, flies, and the likes. It does not matter if they are good, as long as they have destruction retribution, the effect will be somewhat the same. Once the big one has died, the many small ones emerge and work as both a diversion, and as a way to reliably deal damage.
--
Rain of Undead: This method requires smart use of extradimmensional space, like portable hole or bag of holding. Fill the space with the biggest creatures you can put inside, and as many as possible. Make sure they have significant weight, so Zombies are preferrable.
You also need height. Flying would be optimal. Once flying above enemies, empty the undeads over the enemies, and watch the enemies be squashed by a rain of undeath. There are rules in the core ruleset for damage from falling objects.
Rules from the SRD state: Objects that fall upon characters deal damage based on their weight and the distance they have fallen. For each 200pounds of an objects weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet. Increases by 1d6 damage for each 10ft increment beyond first.
But here is the kicker: smaller than 200lb objects can also cause damage, but must fall farther. For this example lets use zombie cats and zombie medium humanoids, and a bag of holding V
The bag can hold 1500LB, or 250 cubic feet. A cat has a space of 2,1/2 feet. According to real life, a cat would occupy some 0.083 cubic feet. This means 3000 cats can physically fit into the bag, but the weight limits this number to 185 cats (185 x 8lb 1480lb)
Dropping every single cat from a height of 70 feet makes each cat do 1d6 damage to whatever it hits. Now make the drop from 260 feet and every single cat will do 20d6 damage, but will be very hard to hit, and excrutiatingly difficult for DM to keep track of them all. It will also take a VERY long time to gather 185 cats.
Now let us do the same with a medium creature weighing 101lb each. You can undoubtedly fit less in a sack, but you only need 210 feet of distance to do 20d6 damage per creature, and it might be easier to hit enemies with them. I will not go through calculating cubic feet per creature in this instance, and just based it on weight. You can fit 14 creatures.
Cats will do 185 x 20d6, which is a total of 3700d6. Each cat starts with 1/2 HD, and becomes 1HD as zombies. Getting 200HD of controlled undead is quite possible.
Medium sized 101lb humanoids will do 14 x 20d6 which is 280d6. More HD per creature (lets say between 2 and 4) but you only have 14 undeads, so HD cap isnt a problem.
You can also find smaller creatures that weigh less than 8, but more than 1, and do the same. Potentially you could drop 1500 creatures from 260ft and do 30 000 d6 worth of damage.
I hope my impression of the falling objects damage is correct based on the SRD ( link here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#fallingObjects ) but please, correct me if I am wrong.
Ofcourse, using undead creatures for this purpose is possibly not necessary, since a lot of 1-lb rocks could do the same thing, but if you use your bluff skill well enough you could also use this for roleplaying purposes, and not to mention that a rain of undead cats is simply hilarious in and of itself.
And ofcourse, once you got them in the bag, you no longer need to maintain control over them, so you can virtually go around saving up cats in any town you go through, or merely offer your services as a vermin exterminator.
--
These are the different out-of-the-box methods I have found so far. If anyone has any other ideas, I would love to hear them.