What are good uses for Plague Walker undead?

[Coidzor]

These 6 HD, intelligent undead are carriers of disease from Monster Manual 4, as I recall, or MMIV for those fond of abbreviation and using roman numerals.

Basically any 6th level character can make them, as their construction requires access to Necromancy spells, and there's no apparent control cap, so the number that can be made is limited only by one's access to money and corpses and inclination to spend time making them.

So far all I can really think of is using the fact that they're intelligent and diseased to have them manufacture a lot of goods as part of a long term plan to distribute them somewhere and cause an epidemic somewhere.

I'm sure there's a few feats that allow them to have some utility after they cease to be relevant combat minions, but nothing's coming to mind right now.

[Coidzor]

So far the only thing that I've been able to come up with is chucking them into a Fast Time Demiplane or the like so they get the Evolved Undead template, but to have a demiplane like that requires one to be at a high enough level that they're pretty much irrelevant and one is just doing it for the lulz.

They are a way to have a permanently loyal, intelligent undead minion for Spellstitching, but their low HD makes them pretty vulnerable.

It seems like they're an oddity, all-told, only useful in non-standard contexts or to atypical builds, like a Bard who wants some undead minions, for a relatively short while. That or using Spell-stitching to get some Utility casters.

[The Viscount]

They seem to me to be a target for Destruction Retribution and then tossing them as bombs at targets. If you can find a way to add an elemental subtype once they're intelligent, you can tack on Final Strike.

[Coidzor]

Looks like the Beast of Xvim/Beast of Bane template is about the only way to increase their HD, and that gives +1 HD to start with and then the hax of being able to get more HD by virtue of eating people.


They seem to me to be a target for Destruction Retribution and then tossing them as bombs at targets. If you can find a way to add an elemental subtype once they're intelligent, you can tack on Final Strike.

Destruction Retribution requires them to be created with a necromancy spell, which enters a bit of hazy territory, because while one presumably uses necromancy spells in the ritual, it's still a ritual. It'd be great if they were made using Animate Dead's pricing and were 25 gp/HD instead of the 133.33 gp/HD that they are. Although I suppose if you can make Unholy Water for free, that eliminates everything but the time and corpse component.

At any rate, I suppose, 4d6 negative energy damage/healing isn't *too* bad if it works.

They come with Int 4 out of the box, which is interesting, since their descriptive fluff makes them sound like Int 1 or Int 2 creatures, but there's no need to