Animate Dead, Create undead and resulting monster

[Keral]

Hi, I'm yet again in need of help.

How do these two spells work?

Let's start with create undead: from my reading you use the corpse and material component as fuel and get the undead on the table (ghoul, mummy etc).

Is that it? Can you really just create a cr 1 monster until caster level 11? Or does it work more like the animate dead spell?


As for animate dead. I suppose I am to use this process? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm

If so, just for clarification, how does the HD thing work?
It says
Drop any Hit Dice gained from class levels (to a minimum of 1) and raise remaining Hit Dice to d12s. If the creature has more than 20 Hit Dice, it can’t be made into a skeleton by the animate dead spell.

So let's say a 9th level cleric. The resulting creature would have 1d12 health? Or 9d12? The drop and raise HD part is confusing me...

Thanks :D

[Necroticplague]

Hi, I'm yet again in need of help.

How do these two spells work?

Let's start with create undead: from my reading you use the corpse and material component as fuel and get the undead on the table (ghoul, mummy etc).

Is that it? Can you really just create a cr 1 monster until caster level 11? Or does it work more like the animate dead spell?
Those are specific creature, not templates. So yes.



As for animate dead. I suppose I am to use this process? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm

If so, just for clarification, how does the HD thing work?
It says

So let's say a 9th level cleric. The resulting creature would have 1d12 health? Or 9d12? The drop and raise HD part is confusing me...

Thanks :D depends on the race of the cleric. Assuming no RHD, 1d12. Which part is unclear?

[Keral]

X°D I feel a bit dumb you make it seem so simple.

I was confused by the drop HD and then raise, I didn't understand whether I had to raise it back to the starting creature HD or what. Now it's clear, ty.

Also, I just noticed something while I was trying to reread the spell in the hope of understanding it better.


worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead

It means the resulting creature? Or the starting one?

[Mordaedil]

"The undead". So the resulting creature.

[Keral]

Thanks! Now I hopefully know everything I have to know about it :D

[John Longarrow]

Just to be clear the HD of the undead you get is based off of the racial HD of the starting creature.

Orc gets you a 1HD skeleton or 2HD zombie.
Ogre gets you a 4HD skeleton or 8HD zombie.

12th level human fighter animated as a skeleton is a 1hd skeleton (1 racial HD for human)

[Venger]

Hi, I'm yet again in need of help.

How do these two spells work?

Let's start with create undead: from my reading you use the corpse and material component as fuel and get the undead on the table (ghoul, mummy etc).

Is that it? Can you really just create a cr 1 monster until caster level 11? Or does it work more like the animate dead spell?


As for animate dead. I suppose I am to use this process? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm

If so, just for clarification, how does the HD thing work?
It says

So let's say a 9th level cleric. The resulting creature would have 1d12 health? Or 9d12? The drop and raise HD part is confusing me...

Thanks :D

Yes, for create undead, consult the chart, and you can pick anything at your level (or lower if you want) yes, it's kind of disappointing.

skeletons (and zombies) do not retain class levels, so you only go with RHD. for most pc races (elf, orc, human, etc), that's going to be 1, so they will be a 1hd skeleton or 2hd zombie.

if you want to reanimate someone but keep their class abilities, many other kinds of undead can do this