[3.5] Undead Templates

[Thurbane]

Looking for a template that will make a creature undead, and mainly benefit it's combat abilities.

As it's for an NPC/enemy build, CR is more relevant that LA.

Gravetouched Ghoul and Vampire are good, but I have used them a bit already, and I'm looking for alternatives.

Cheers - T

[Necroticplague]

Ghost can come back from destruction, and use there TK and Etherealness to great hit-and-run. Even better if they then go into MotUH.

[singera]

the curst is a personal favorite all but unkillable and makes a fun challange seeing if they can figure out how to deal with it

[Vaz]

Silveraiths can be pretty awesome. Dread warriors hit intelligence and charisma, but leave wisdom untouched, which makes things like Psywars or Ardents (or clerics/druids if they can function while undead) fairly powerful.

[Doc_Maynot]

If you want them to have class levels, Corpse Creature (BoVD), hands down.

[The Viscount]

I'm a fan of death knight for a big lieutenant type undead.

Juju Zombie is a pretty cool template since it looks like a zombie, but is fast and can climb.

Mummified creature is always nice, like Gravetouched ghoul it's all the abilities of the monster as a template.

[WhamBamSam]

I really like Dracolich for undead mundane types, and much to my amusement I recently realized that it was available to just about any evil creature since you really only need to be a dragon long enough to drink a potion, which is easily covered by a friendly caster using something like Essence of the Dragon or Polymorph.

The Dracolich paralyzing touch goes off on any physical attack. Not any natural attack, any physical attack. Swing of a melee weapon? Paralyzing Touch. Tail Sweep/Area Attack? Paralyzing Touch. Thrown weapon/bowshot? Paralyzing touch.

You can also get a new body right away (I assume as a standard action, though it's not altogether clear) if your old one is destroyed, and can do most of your normal melee things in proto-dracolich form (possibly better, since you get the new body's Str, speed, and AC). Most of the things that aren't regained for 2d4 days are somewhat trivial to most melee types (the only things it explicitly forbids are doing extra cold damage with your attacks, using a breath weapon, using frightful presence, talking, or casting spells). It requires being a little reckless with the phylactery, since you can only possess corpses within 90 ft, but it makes for one of the nastier encounters that you can construct without spellcasting.

[AlanBruce]

If you look at undeads, the vast majority could be turned into templates, since many were living creatures before becoming that particular undead.

Savage Species covers most of the MM undead as templates (shadow, wraith, wight). The MM has the zombie, skeleton, ghost, and vampire, but who is to say you cannot apply an undead template that hasn't been written?

I used the Salt Mummy (MM3) as a template on a couple of low level rogue/warrior books. Just took away the Con modifier and added or subtracted the other modifiers as approrpriate for the monster as detaiuled in the book.

With that, their dessicating touch and since they are intelligent undead (so they retain their class features), they made for intersting comebacks when the party put them down again later on.

[danzibr]

I really like Dracolich for undead mundane types, and much to my amusement I recently realized that it was available to just about any evil creature since you really only need to be a dragon long enough to drink a potion, which is easily covered by a friendly caster using something like Essence of the Dragon or Polymorph.

The Dracolich paralyzing touch goes off on any physical attack. Not any natural attack, any physical attack. Swing of a melee weapon? Paralyzing Touch. Tail Sweep/Area Attack? Paralyzing Touch. Thrown weapon/bowshot? Paralyzing touch.

You can also get a new body right away (I assume as a standard action, though it's not altogether clear) if your old one is destroyed, and can do most of your normal melee things in proto-dracolich form (possibly better, since you get the new body's Str, speed, and AC). Most of the things that aren't regained for 2d4 days are somewhat trivial to most melee types (the only things it explicitly forbids are doing extra cold damage with your attacks, using a breath weapon, using frightful presence, talking, or casting spells). It requires being a little reckless with the phylactery, since you can only possess corpses within 90 ft, but it makes for one of the nastier encounters that you can construct without spellcasting.
Never knew that. Friggin' sweet.