What's your favorite undead?

[frogglesmash]

As the title says, I'm curious to see what everyone's favorite undead creature(s) are.

[Spore]

Shadows. I always liked the incorporeal creatures. You can burn down a walking corpse. You can smash a skeleton to pieces. Also an undead spellcaster like a lich is quite far from the usual suspension of disbelief. But a shadow being animated and trying to kill you via sapping all your strength? Now that's creepy.

[Krazzman]

Does Jesus count?

Jokes aside: Shadows. Mainly because my players seem to always be surprised by them >:D

[Komatik]

Vampires. Warhammer World ones especially so. Warhammer World undead are just generally amazing.

Necropolitans and Baelnorn are sweet as well.

[Spore]

Jokes aside: Shadows. Mainly because my players seem to always be surprised by them >:D

I might go easy on my PCs with presenting them Shade-Touched Shadows (dealing physical damage) before getting the "real deal". People then might try to metagame into thinking the Shadows deal Strength damage. Nope, Charisma is a much much better stat. After all, Charisma is just a dump stat. You don't need your sense of self where you're going...

https://media.giphy.com/media/APcFiiTrG0x2/giphy.gif

[Beelzebub1111]

The Karnathian Zombies and Skeletons from Eberron.

Nothing throws players like normally mindless undead using military tactics and combat feats.

[Tiri]

I like wraiths. I just like the way they look.

[Pale Sun]

Liches (and phylactery shenanigans) and vampires. Mindless beatsticks are also fine. Also I dont really like incorporeal undead.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Incorporeal psionic liches. Unfortunately, the Spectral Savant, in CPsi, is pretty bad, being unable to recover PP naturally.

[KillingAScarab]

Necropolitans and Baelnorn are sweet as well.I will second Baelnorn. I wish I could find a campaign which used them/to use them in.

[Gildedragon]

Mummies (I've wanted to play a mummy caster pc for so long but the LA and HD...)
Nightwalkers they are just bowler. Huge and scary and vast

[redzimmer]

Sons [Spawn] of Kyuss. I've thought they were cool since I saw them in the first Fiend Folio.

[neriractor]

ghouls, you just got to love the fear they can cause on low-level PCs.

[Blackhawk748]

Im a big fan of undead in general, but id have to go with a properly played Vampire. They can be so many things, from Strahd Von Zarovich to a mindless beast who slaughters entire towns ala Konrad Von Carstein. So versatile.

[Seginus]

Nightshades, giant monstrosities made of pure entropy and destruction. I especially like the Nightwave, because colossal undead sharks that can swim through the air tend to be a big "NOPE" to most players.

They made for good inspiration for a lot of abilities and items within Path of Shadows. I just wish more campaigns got to a high enough level for nightshades to see more use.

[Thurbane]

Always had a soft spot for Wights.

But generally I prefer template-based undead, like Vampire or Gravetouched Ghoul...

[Aegis013]

I'll go with Necrocarnum Zombie. Mostly due to relation to Necrocarnum Circlet.

Plus, essentia zombies are cool, it'd just be nice if they had more ways to utilize their essentia.

[Florian]

1 - Nightshades (The whole family)
2 - Devourer
3 - Bodak

[Kelb_Panthera]

I like a good old-fashioned ghost. Good combat encounter, good for plot-hooking, totally customizable. It's just a useful creature. Shout-out to its little brother the ghost-brute; take your animal companion with you.

[Deophaun]

Flameskull. Tiny flying laser-eyed undead that come back and hour after you think you put them down for good? Always fun to put at the only entrance and egress of a dungeon, so players are guaranteed to fight them twice if they didn't bring holy water. Also, why my necromancer PCs tend to have the macabre habit of collecting the severed heads of enemy spellcasters.

[Malimar]

Crypt Things. They have only one ability: Everybody gets teleported hundreds of feet in random directions! It's fun!

...provided you're running a game by PbP and can focus your attention equally on everybody when the party gets split up by a Crypt Thing.

It's awful if you're running around a table, because it's hard to deal with a split party around a table and keep everybody having fun.

[ATHATH]

I like ghosts, vampires, and brains in jars.

[Quertus]

Skeletons. Minions that don't stink, and don't talk back. Added bonus: you can make them out of almost anything, with decent rules on how to create them, even in 3.5.

Special mention to the zombie dragon. Nothing says awesome discount mount like a mount with a breath weapon that makes you fall out of the sky.

[Malimar]

I like ghosts, vampires, and brains in jars.

Oh hey, brains in jars fill me with joy, too. I just haven't had a chance to use them in years, so I forgot about them.

[PraxisVetli]

Boneclaws.
I've used two of them in tandem, one a Warder (PoW), the other a swordsage/telflammar on my players.
They were one of my favorite battles in any campaign.

[Nettlekid]

I'm a fan of the Skull Lord. I've yet to use it, but it seems like it can be a versatile style of monster. Three heads on a skeleton body means you could play it like a corny, bickering Skeletor, or a threefold intelligence. It wields a bone staff like a club so you can surprise players with its martial skill, but it has some unusual supernatural abilities including the ability to rip bones from its opponent (so metal) and either eat them for health or spit them at a foe (unerringly if at the foe the bones were ripped from) and create its own minions out of piles of bone. They look like they could be at the head of a necromantic plot, but they're described as having been created to serve some Lich, so they also make great right-hand men.

[Tanuki Tales]

Revenants (Menace Manual).

I just find their Regeneration mechanic so unique and I still really want to get the chance to play one or use one in a game.

[AtlasSniperman]

Undead nerds liches for me thanks. Just love the flavour you can get out of ignoring the Always Evil(and I dont mean baelnorns)

[ATHATH]

Cursts are fun if you want a monster with an Achilles heel.

[Aegis013]

I'm a fan of the Skull Lord.

Used one in the second encounter of my PbP Tristalt game. Combat lasted 20 rounds. It was fought in a not so big tunnel with 6 bone spurs that it repeatedly raised and a death knight waiting to guard its master. Had it cast all of its spells from a scroll collection so the faster the players won the more loot they received.

Skull Lord is a great monster.

[ATHATH]

Used one in the second encounter of my PbP Tristalt game. Combat lasted 20 rounds. It was fought in a not so big tunnel with 6 bone spurs that it repeatedly raised and a death knight waiting to guard its master. Had it cast all of its spells from a scroll collection so the faster the players won the more loot they received.

Skull Lord is a great monster.
I just looked at the Death Knight. If I'm reading its entry correctly, it doesn't technically have LA (it just has +5 ECL), which means that you can't use E6's special LA buyoff rules on it to make it playable as a PC.

[Aegis013]

I just looked at the Death Knight. If I'm reading its entry correctly, it doesn't technically have LA (it just has +5 ECL), which means that you can't use E6's special LA buyoff rules on it to make it playable as a PC.

But it was a monster in an encounter? And my game isn't E6? I'm not sure how this is relevant.

[ATHATH]

But it was a monster in an encounter? And my game isn't E6? I'm not sure how this is relevant.
It was just a relevant tidbit that I found. I couldn't find the Skull Lord, and I noticed something interesting about the Death Knight. You did nothing wrong, I was just bummed that Death Knights don't make very good PC's, and your post mentioned one.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I just looked at the Death Knight. If I'm reading its entry correctly, it doesn't technically have LA (it just has +5 ECL), which means that you can't use E6's special LA buyoff rules on it to make it playable as a PC.

Isn't death knight only in 3.0 sources? If that's the case then +5 ECL means LA +5. WotC made a few different passes at that mechanic before they settled on the one we have now.

[iceman10058]

Boneyards from Librus Mortus, nothing like an undead that has an ability that even harms most other undead

[ATHATH]

Isn't death knight only in 3.0 sources? If that's the case then +5 ECL means LA +5. WotC made a few different passes at that mechanic before they settled on the one we have now.
Is that an explicitly stated conversion rule?

*mouth waters*

[erok0809]

Atropal Scions are fun. I'm also partial to Boneclaws, Bleakborns, and Voidwraiths. Boneyards look fun, but I've never used one.

[iceman10058]

Atropal Scions are fun. I'm also partial to Boneclaws, Bleakborns, and Voidwraiths. Boneyards look fun, but I've never used one.

as a DM, most parties end up coming out missing members or the encounter turns into tpk, with veteran players even having issues with it.

[hamishspence]

Isn't death knight only in 3.0 sources? If that's the case then +5 ECL means LA +5. WotC made a few different passes at that mechanic before they settled on the one we have now.

It got updated online - everything in MM, Epic Handbook, Manual of the Planes, and Deities & Demigods got updated together in a free booklet on the WOTC site.

Also - Dragonlance Campaign Setting book is 3.5 (and unlike later Dragonlance sourcebooks, it's not 3rd party). It gives LA +5 for their Death Knight - and a few extra powers for high level ones.

[ATHATH]

It got updated online - everything in MM, Epic Handbook, Manual of the Planes, and Deities & Demigods got updated together in a free booklet on the WOTC site.

Also - Dragonlance Campaign Setting book is 3.5 (and unlike later Dragonlance sourcebooks, it's not 3rd party). It gives LA +5 for their Death Knight - and a few extra powers for high level ones.
Do you have a link to it?

[hamishspence]

Do you have a link to it?

The online update is here:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a

[ganondorf50]

Mohrg

Paralyzing touch at most they are paralyzed for 4 mins at worst a minute, thats 40 rounds at best or 10 rounds at worst thats sucks to be the players and if your like me you use a lot of them :sabine::sabine::sabine::sabine::sabine::sabine::s abine::sabine:

[Khedrac]

Just a mention for Blasphemes:

Attack with no-save one round Daze - time to pray that your allies can kill it as you may not get another action. What do you mean there's more blasphemes than party members?

[atemu1234]

Me, I have a thing for the classics. Liches, for example, and all their variants, have a special place in my heart.

But my absolute favorite is either the Dracolich (Draconomicon) or Drowlich (Complete Book of Liches, third party).

Dracoliches (and Vampiric Dragons) have almost been campaign enders for me a couple times (but I DM, so why would I worry so long as it's awesome?).

Drowliches are something rather... different. The creators of the template definitely weren't all that familiar with 3.5 (actually, it may have been 3e) and messed up a couple things, but they were still awesome. Case in point, it has a d20 hit die instead of a d12.

[martixy]

Bleakborn for me, thanks.

The biggies ofc is Dracoliches. Because those guys (http://sandara.deviantart.com/art/Bone-Dragon-442638780) are terryfying (http://skavenzverov.deviantart.com/art/Knight-vs-Dragon-530345036).

[KillingAScarab]

Drowliches are something rather... different. The creators of the template definitely weren't all that familiar with 3.5 (actually, it may have been 3e) and messed up a couple things, but they were still awesome. Case in point, it has a d20 hit die instead of a d12.Wow. I have seen some bizarre homebrew and even some of the poor published d20 stuff which came out shortly after the initial 3.0 release, but I have never seen a d20 hit die.

[frogglesmash]

Drowliches are something rather... different. The creators of the template definitely weren't all that familiar with 3.5 (actually, it may have been 3e) and messed up a couple things, but they were still awesome. Case in point, it has a d20 hit die instead of a d12.

I've never heard of these, what book/magazine might I find them in?

[atemu1234]

I've never heard of these, what book/magazine might I find them in?


Drowlich (Complete Book of Liches, third party)

Good book, even if large portions are rather poorly written.

[BWR]

Nightshades, even if they got a bit nerfed in 3.x

Druj and death leeches are a good second place.

[gooddragon1]

I don't like to use incorporeal undead, skeletons with lower DR are better imo.

[mabriss lethe]

I love the Curst. Uncontrollable and will keep coming back unless the body is completely destroyed or remove curse is cast on them. Rather easy to make nigh unkillable.

[nyjastul69]

I have always liked wights. For higher level undead I like nightshades.