Building Better Undead Minions - Quality vs Quantity

[g3taso]

Undead minions can be wonderful, but too often they are instead mediocre. Lacking any real usefulness other than dumb bodies, they rely on numbers to get the job done. Such a waste for the classy necromancer! Incorporeal undead have a lot of advantages, and I prefer them for most tasks.

1. Spectres drain energy levels, and they also can have Haunt Shift cast on them without holy weapon shenanigans. I used a Simulacrum of a spectre for this, and bound it into a coin via Haunt Shift. I also like shadow demons for this, as they have some minor SLAs and will probably be confused with shadows.

It should be noted that Ghostbane Dirge allows these incorporeal undead to become corporeal, which means they can be spellstitched. If you go this route, give them Undead Lieutenant so you can own anything they spawn.

2. Sometimes we need physical minions, and at that point we turn to skeletons and zombies. Now we are talking about elite minions here, not some 1HD cannon fodder or 14+HD damage soakers. I personally like the Memitim psychopomp from Pathfinder (http://dxcontent.com/MDB_MonsterBlock.asp?MDBID=2198), but you can use any solid critter you can summon with Planar Binding into a nice kill room including Ak-Chazar Rakshasas, Planetars and so forth. Just Animate Dead on them and then cast Awaken Undead for passably smart minions that you control without it being limited by a HD cap. You heard that right. A better route is Animate Dead followed by a polymorph effect (a dog, for example) followed by Awaken (maximized, empowered) for 27-INT minions that are also without a HD cap.

So, what other tricks can you suggest for suitably pimped undead?

[Segev]

Sadly, you don't actually control those undead you've awakened. The rules simply say they're "favorably disposed" towards you. You will have to retain their loyalty in some fashion, and they are by no means required to engage in anything unpleasant or dangerous on your behalf.

To get HD-cap-less control, you actually want unintelligent undead on which you can use command undead in order to gain total control over them for CL days. Extended Chain Command Undead can get CL+1 undead for 2xCL days with a single casting. Just keep a bunch of slaymates around for metamagic reduction.

[g3taso]

Sadly, you don't actually control those undead you've awakened. The rules simply say they're "favorably disposed" towards you. You will have to retain their loyalty in some fashion, and they are by no means required to engage in anything unpleasant or dangerous on your behalf.

To get HD-cap-less control, you actually want unintelligent undead on which you can use command undead in order to gain total control over them for CL days. Extended Chain Command Undead can get CL+1 undead for 2xCL days with a single casting. Just keep a bunch of slaymates around for metamagic reduction.

http://alcyius.com/dndtools/spells/spell-compendium--86/awaken-undead--3868/index.html
Undead regain the armor and weapon proficiencies they had in life (assume the undead were formerly warriors unless the DM specifies otherwise) and will don armor and take up weapons while obeying your commands. A zombie fighter can wear any armor and wield any simple or martial weapon, and a warhorse zombie can wear any armor.

Undead also regain any extraordinary racial abilities they had in life, such as poison or scent.


http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/awaken
The awakened animal or tree is friendly toward you. You have no special empathy or connection with a creature you awaken, although it serves you in specific tasks or endeavors if you communicate your desires to it. If you cast awaken again, any previously awakened creatures remain friendly to you, but they no longer undertake tasks for you unless it is in their best interests.

[Segev]

Huh. They do remain under your control.

They still don't let you violate HD cap, though.

[g3taso]

What I'm looking for to suitably pimp out corporeal undead are some medium-sized, high-HD critters like the before-mentioned Memitim from Pathfinder. I do like the whole "deathknight" look, or perhaps the shrouded cloak with scythe image of the grim reaper. Does anyone have other cool medium critters of humanoid shape that would be good base material as well? A Nereid comes to mind, but I'm looking for more HD or abilities if better sources are available.

Like a gloom! http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/gloom.htm

[jiriku]

High-HD fey would be a good choice. You realize a substantial improvement in hit die size, base attack doesn't suffer, and when you awaken them you get back their considerable complement of skills. The banshrae, elder redcap, ruin chanter, and verdant prince are all decent. Outsiders that advance by hit dice through feeding, such as the barghest, maurezhi, and nabassu are great if you can catch them at the right time. You could also just try to nab Medium corporeal undead that are already powerful, such as the abyssal ghoul, blaspheme, entropic reaper, mummy, plague blight, or slaughter wight.

As long as you have command undead available, when you encounter a potent undead enemy my philosophy is burn it down with Wisdom drain until it's unconscious, then spam command undead until it fails a Will save (the -5 penalty for having 0 Wisdom helps). Keeping a small pack of allips on hand is a convenient way to perform this task.

[Alistaroc]

Planar Binding a Whisper Demon(MMIV46) in a room of commoners you hired or kidnapped can net you an army of Allips:smallamused:

[g3taso]

That's two votes for the usefulness of Allips. I found a Dread Allip template on pathfinder, but is there any way to create allips reliably so I can command them via the Dread Allip?

[ZamielVanWeber]

3.5 also has a dread allip template in the 3rd party book Advanced Beastiary which can command any number of allips and can generate them on its own. 3rd party though so no clue if that is an issue. Otherwise there is no explicit mechanical way to do it, but Death Urge can force people to commit suicide (with a little luck) so combine that with a spell that creates great sorrow, such as Crushing Despair, could theoretically do it.

[g3taso]

Keeping to the Pathfinder front, I realized that in the vein of making more allips (or any other spawning undead for that matter) that the best allies one might want when making undead of any type are Pugwampis (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/gremlins/gremlin-pugwampi) . No well-stocked kill room should be without one! Nothing like helping critters fail their saves :smallwink:

[Alistaroc]

create allips reliably
Planar Binding a Whisper Demon in a room with 9+X commoners, where X is how many Allips you want. Make a deal with the Whisper Demon for it to kill all the commoners(which it wants), and since it can only keep 9 at a time, the remainder wander around in the room until you take control of them. If you're using the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, you can make yourself a Bone room with Ethereal Solid to trap the Allips inside, provide a constant desecrate, and while you're at it, throw in a permanent Magic Circle against Chaos.

[sleepyphoenixx]

FR has some pretty good options for intelligent, strong undead minions.

Animate Dread Warrior (UE) is good for everything that doesn't rely on Int or Cha. Other classes can generally cope with losing 6 Int and 3 Cha without becoming useless, especially considering that they can't go below 3. Worst case you can buff them up again when needed.
That makes it a really good option for warriors and divine casters. The spell does cost XP, but even if you don't get it as a SLA it's pretty affordable if you only want one or two. It's pretty much the perfect spell to use on any corpses that depend on class levels for their strength and aren't reliant on Int/Cha. They're automatically under your control.

For arcane spellcasting minions the best options i've found are the Crypt Spawn and Spectral Mage templates (MoF). They're made with Create Greater Undead, so you'll need 8th level spells and a few CL boosts, and you also need to rebuke them or otherwise gain control. On the positive side they lose pretty much nothing and gain some nifty abilities.
Spectral Mage Sorcerers especially make for really powerful undead minions, so investing in gear that boosts your rebukes is a worthwhile investment imo.

[Segev]

Wisdom drain doesn't work on undead; they're immune to stat drain.

But command undead is still an excellent spell to have around.

[Fouredged Sword]

The best way to make some high quality undead minions for cheap is to do the following.

Cast Polymorph any object to turn a pile of meat and bone into a dead great wyrm silver dragon. (colossal pile of bodies, lets say 100gp) and 1 8th level spell (from a scroll if needed)

Cast animate dead on the body (again a scroll if fine), turning it into a zombie dragon. This is instantaneous, overwriting the permanent duration of PAO.

Now you have a 40HD undead dragon with a breath weapon that paralyzes.

Cast command undead to control it for CL days without infringing on your control pool.

AEG has a collar that will turn it into a small creature without changing it's stats in any way. Wear it as a super strong dragon flight capable backpack/icethrower.

[g3taso]

I'm liking how this is coming along. Based on feedback, here are some classy ways to get pimp undead minions that don't rely on clerics.

Dread Spectres: Use a Simulacrum (Pathfinder) of an Efreeti (or Planar Binding) and use a Wish to acquire a Candle of Invocation. Call a Gloom(http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/gloom.htm) into a prepared (flooded) kill room so that he eventually goes unconscious. Have a Dread Spectre simulacrum convert him. Repeat until you have 9 of them. Use Ghostbane Dirge to apply the Spellstitched template to progenitor creatures, including Undead Lieutenant so I have the capability of direct control over all spawning chains. To preserve those spawning chains, those progenitor creatures are kept safe via Haunt Shift in innocuous objects like coins of the sections of a puzzle ring for ready availability. A real or simulacrum Pugwampi minion might be useful in any well-equipped kill room.

Dread Allips: Make a Simulacrum of a Dread Allip and repeat. Have you noticed that even though I have command of these undead absolutely, I don't have any counting against any Command Undead spells or feats yet?

Beheaded: More of a specialty item, Beheaded are commanded normally and used with a chained Unliving Weapon to detonate these mobile bombs for 98d6 untyped damage per squadron of 14 (Maximized, if possible). With such low HD, I can keep a lot of swarms with chained Command Undead, particularly with a lieutenant that can command and direct them. It's a missle storm of death!

The fourth suggestion about monster zombie dragons is an awesome suggestion as well, and I gratefully welcome it.

So, what other tricks help the classy necromancer get some elite minions?

[jiriku]

Wisdom drain doesn't work on undead; they're immune to stat drain.

But command undead is still an excellent spell to have around.

So they are. Wisdom damage would be the way to go then. Undead are not immune to ability damage directed against their mental stats.