Animate Dead - What does adding HD does to the skeleton?

[Wheels]

I am a Bone Knight 5 / Cleric 8 and want to create skeleton or two to act as meat shields for my party. Reading through the animate dead spell, seems I can create with a single cast a 24HD skeleton or multiple skeleton whom's HD dont exceed 24HD. I can also control a total of 48HD (4HD per caster level).

The skeleton I will be creating is of a human. There are several questions I wanted to ask:


What is the dice for his HP? in the Monster Manual it says d12 dice. So if he has 10HD this means in average he will have 65hp (10d12)?
How does giving him more HD affect his stats? like natural armor, STR/DEX/INT/WIS/CHA. Do they get bonus as HD goes up?
Is there anyway, besides giving him magical equipment, that I can augment him?


thank you all ^^

[Jeraa]

Remember, the corpse looses all levels when you animate it. You can't have a 24 hit die human skeleton unless he somehow had 24 racial hit dice.

You can't just choose to give the skeleton extra hit dice. You must find a creature with that number of racial (not class) hit dice.

[Anxe]

I also don't think you can create a skeleton with more than 20HD.

20HD is huge though. Even Storm Giant skeletons are only 19HD. You can animate pretty much anything in the Huge size category. Maybe a few Gargantuan things as well.

But as was said, a human skeleton will always be a piddly 1HD undead. You can equip it with armor, weapons, and even passive magic items to make it stronger, but it's still a dumb 1HD creature.

You could create a zombie and apply the Spellstitched template to it. That lets you add a little more power without plopping magic items on it. Spellstitched is in the MM2. For a low HD mindless creature it only gives SR and Turn Resistance. The template is much more useful on higher HD intelligent undead. If you've got the MM2 you should definitely check it out.

Note that Spellstitched does cost a lot of EXP to apply. It's supposed to be something you do to yourself or to your favorite creation.

[danzibr]

Wait... I think there's some confusion here (either I misunderstand you, or otherwise).

When you cast Animate Dead, presumably you do it on a corpse. The corpse has its radical hit dice. Like, just perusing the SRD, Ankheg has 3, Basilisk has 6, Troll has 6, Cloud Giant has 17, et cetera.

When you cast Animate Dead, you turn an intact corpse into a Skeleton or Zombie. Long story short, it loses all its old racial hit dice, and gains that many racial hit dice for Undead (I mean, its type changes to Undead, so if it were a Dragon or whatever it wouldn't keep immunities and stuff based on its Dragon RHD). Skellies and Zombies get to keep other stuff, etc.

So... you can't just find a corpse and raise it as a Zombie with 24 HD (you can't go above 20 anyway).

But to answer your question:
1) Yup, all d12.
2) Calculate stuff via the Skeleton and Zombie templates (and whatever the base creature was). They don't get more HD than what they started with (which is equal to the RHD of what the base creature was, or 1 if it had only class levels, I guess).
3) Yeah, there are feats, the Corpsecrafter line. And you want to cast the spell where Desecrate is going on, and there's something about an altar. Once I find the info I'll post it.

[Wheels]

oh...I was misreading the final part of the spell


[...]Material Component: You must place a black onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead into the mouth or eye socket of each corpse you intend to animate.

I was reading it as I could spend more gp to enhance the skeleton's HD. Like if I wanted to animate a human skeleton with 10HD I would need to spend 250gp.

[danzibr]

oh...I was misreading the final part of the spell


[...]Material Component: You must place a black onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead into the mouth or eye socket of each corpse you intend to animate.

I was reading it as I could spend more gp to enhance the skeleton's HD. Like if I wanted to animate a human skeleton with 10HD I would need to spend 250gp.
Ahh I see. Easy mistake to make.

As for buffing them, peruse these threads: thread 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?362889-ways-to-increase-the-HP-of-an-undead-PC), thread 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?292441-3-5-Boosting-Hit-Points-for-Undead), thread 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?265274-Desecrate-and-Necropolitans).

I can't find all the information in one spot (there was a thread I saw recently with this done) at the moment. If I find it, I'll post it here.

[ShurikVch]

Well, technically speaking, if you animate, say, Human/WereSmilodon, you will get 10 HD Skeleton, or 20 HD Zombie

Besides of what was already mentioned, there are some more tricks:

Graveborn Expert and Graveborn Warrior feats (Dragon #312): first one give +4 to Str- or Dex- based skill check; another one grant your Skeleton/Zombie a bonus feat. Both cost as if undead have 1 more HD (for Control limits); Graveborn Warrior also cost +25 gp of gems

Awaken Undead spell - grants your undead average Int (no more than 10, unless you metamagic it), and also restore all (Ex) abilities unless they were depend on missing fleshy parts. Note: it's area spell, so awake numerous undeads at once is cheaper

Vile Death spell - gives Fiendish template to undead

EDIT: Feats from the same #312:
Bolster Power - +1 turn resistance; cost 1 "virtual HD" (see Graveborn Expert)
Death Curse - Skeleton/Zombie detonate upon it's destruction, inflict 1d3/HD damage to everyone withing 10'; cost 2 "virtual HD" and 25 gp of material components
Heightened Agility - +4 Dex; cost 1 "virtual HD", 25 gp of gems and DC 13 Heal check
Heightened Strength - +4 Str; cost 1 "virtual HD", 25 gp of gems and DC 13 Heal check
Uncanny Speed - +2 to Initiative checks and +10 to base speed; cost 2 "virtual HD", 50 gp of gems and DC 16 Heal check
Vicious Claw - +1 on damage rolls, zombie's slam now do bludgeoning/slashing damage; cost 1 "virtual HD" and 5 gp of blades

[danzibr]

Well, technically speaking, if you animate, say, Human/WereSmilodon, you will get 10 HD Skeleton, or 20 HD Zombie

Besides of what was already mentioned, there are some more tricks:

Graveborn Expert and Graveborn Warrior feats (Dragon #312): first one give +4 to Str- or Dex- based skill check; another one grant your Skeleton/Zombie a bonus feat. Both cost as if undead have 1 more HD (for Control limits); Graveborn Warrior also cost +25 gp of gems

Awaken Undead spell - grants your dndead average Int (no more than 10, unless you metamagic it), and also restore all (Ex) abilities unless they were depend on missing fleshy parts. Note: it's area spell, so awake numerous undeads at once is cheaper

Vile Death spell - gives Fiendish template to undead

EDIT: Feats from the same #312:
Bolster Power - +1 turn resistance; cost 1 "virtual HD" (see Graveborn Expert)
Death Curse - Skeleton/Zombie detonate upon it's destruction, inflict 1d3/HD damage to everyone withing 10'; cost 2 "virtual HD" and 25 gp of material components
Heightened Agility - +4 Dex; cost 1 "virtual HD", 25 gp of gems and DC 13 Heal check
Heightened Strength - +4 Str; cost 1 "virtual HD", 25 gp of gems and DC 13 Heal check
Uncanny Speed - +2 to Initiative checks and +10 to base speed; cost 2 "virtual HD", 50 gp of gems and DC 16 Heal check
Vicious Claw - +1 on damage rolls, zombie's slam now do bludgeoning/slashing damage; cost 1 "virtual HD" and 5 gp of blades
This is golden. I wonder how many stack, and what the optimal boni would look like, and what it would take to get them.

[Rubik]

This is golden. I wonder how many stack, and what the optimal boni would look like, and what it would take to get them.All the bones stack.

'Cuz it's a skeleton.

[Flickerdart]

Bolster Power - +1 turn resistance; cost 1 "virtual HD"
Doesn't having an undead with an extra HD effectively provide this same turn resistance?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Doesn't having an undead with an extra HD effectively provide this same turn resistance?

Sure, but afaik you can't just add HD to an undead. Unless you have an unlimited supply of just the corpses you want it could probably be useful sometimes, but i wouldn't spend a feat on it.

In general it looks as though all those options would maybe be worth a feat for all of them together, some kind of undead-creation mastery, but on their own i don't think so.

[ShurikVch]

In general it looks as though all those options would maybe be worth a feat for all of them together, some kind of undead-creation mastery, but on their own i don't think so. Maybe, Chameleon's floating feat?
Also, are those feats count as "item creation"? Astaroth (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070307a)'s Master Craftsman...

EDIT: You don't use those feats during casting the spell
You use them on dead body of would-be undead.
So, one switchable feat is all what you need.