What makes a good Undead minion?

[MesiDoomstalker]

Mechanically, from a Undead focused character (class agnostic). I know one (or a few) big bruisers are better than loads of 1 HD skellies but what attributes in the base form (or which undead for higher levels) are best to go for.

[Inevitability]

You want template-stacking. If somewhere, anywhere, there exists a half-dragon mineral warrior lolth-touched ogre; you must find it, kill it, and reanimate it. Maybe try to breed some desirable minions yourself, if you have the lifespan for it.

[Coidzor]

High Strength, Dexterity, and preferably Natural Armor are good things to look for.

Natural weapons that deal more damage or have an expanded crit range without them having taken any feats like Improved Natural Attack or Improved Critical are nice.

More reach than a typical creature of their size category is always nice.

Between Medium and Huge in size for fitting into dungeons, unless you can manage to find just the right kind of Small-sized creature to be a very deadly dexterity-based combatant. Or something Small or Tiny-sized that can replicate The Killer Gnome with something like Confound The Big Folk, possibly due to retaining feats or being Awakened.

Abilities, like that of the Hydra, that allow them to make more than 1 attack per turn, even when turned into Zombies.

[Alcore]

If you had to pick between orc X and human X pick the orc. Look for natural 'ranged' attacks and stack them behind meat shields. Look for ways of turning hordes into armies.

Raise mounts and get something small, but deadly, on them.

[weckar]

Depending on what undead template you go for, the base form loses different things. I don't know if any of them preserves Ex abilities, but that'd be the first place I'd look.

[Coidzor]

Depending on what undead template you go for, the base form loses different things. I don't know if any of them preserves Ex abilities, but that'd be the first place I'd look.

That's true. A lot of different options open up if you go further afield than just using Skeletons and Zombies. 3.5's Dread Warrior keeps class levels and everything, for instance, though complex tasks and Int-based casting would take a hefty hit.

PF's Frostfallen template lets a creature keep its special qualities and even SLAs. One could make a Frostfallen creature that had Animate Dead as an SLA and be able to get a source of free minions for Command Undead, even.

[Zanos]

1 HD skeleton archers are actually decent if you can get them to use the heroes of battle volley rules, or awaken them to give them teamwork benefits.

But in general, yeah. Skeletons lose their NA and zombies kind of suck, so you're really just looking at strength, dexterity, size, natural weapons, and " extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks", which are pretty uncommon. Awakened undead notably get back all their extraordinary special qualities so you might want to look out for those. An awakened arrow demon or choker skeleton has some value.

[MesiDoomstalker]

At higher levels, would making things like Mummies with the higher tier Undead spells be worth it? Or is it really dependent on the corpse wether it's easier to go Skeleton, Zombie or a 'pre-packaged' Undead?

[Fouredged Sword]

I would point out a specific case of Zombie Dragons being really useful minions. Specifically silver zombie dragons. Undead dragons get different templates than the standard zombie and skeleton templates. The most important change is that zombie dragons do not double their HD and KEEP THEIR BREATH WEAPONS (at half damage and they lose con to the DC's). Normally this isn't that great, a few d6 in damage. What is imporant is to remember that metalic dragons have a SECOND BREATH WEAPON THAT DEALS ZERO DAMAGE. Specifically silver dragons keep their paralysis breath that (if you are undead) you and all your minions are immune to. They also keep reach on their bite attack and zombies can make AOO's just fine.

A large or larger silver dragon makes for a NICE mobile throne to ride around like a boss. A young adult has a DC 19 fort for 1d6+5 rounds of paralysis in a 40ft cone and can do it again every 1d4 rounds.

It seems slow, with only being able to take a single action each round. This is not so. It keeps it's fly speed. It can preform a partial charge and cover 150ft and still attack. The dragon can't maneuver very well (clumsy flight), but it can make 'hops', IE so long as you stay on the ground you can land and take other actions. The only problem is that while you are flying your dragon cannot take attack actions without falling (unless you slap a fly spell on it granting it a fly speed good enough to hover).

At level 10 it is perfectly reasonable to seek out and kill a young adult silver dragon (CR 13) and well within your ability to animate (19HD). With desecrate and luck (or a scroll of PAO to make a body from another corpse, it's easy to get a permanent duration, just use a large body) you can animate one as low as level 5. You want desecrate and an alter anyway for the free HP on your pet monster.

[Coidzor]

At higher levels, would making things like Mummies with the higher tier Undead spells be worth it? Or is it really dependent on the corpse wether it's easier to go Skeleton, Zombie or a 'pre-packaged' Undead?

There's some amount of utility that wights and mummies could provide if you have it houseruled that you can control them or are able to diplomance them into being allies.

The template versions of Wight, Mummy, and Ghoul are fairly good for either applying instead of making creatures into the specific creature versions of the undead type or for making non-humanoid minions have a bit more oomph than a skeleton or zombie version.

[Eldariel]

Dragons are incredible Zombies, maintaining breath weapon and offering a huge flying platform. The kicker is that they have no HD limit (Draconomicon Zombie Dragon Template overrides the standard Zombie-template). You can get some superb things if you can find a Dragon Graveyard or something (though beware, those places are dangerous as hell), or produce one. And yes, there are lots of Dragons (see e.g. Draconomicon) with status effect breath weapons making the Zombie Dragon's breath just as potent as their live counterpart's. But even the draining/damaging ones are incredible: Shadow Dragon drains levels for instance, while Rust Dragon annihilates items (even magic items). I did a quick listing of various Dragons here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?499642-Best-Dragon-to-Zombie-Dragon) though it's by no means complete (missing Dragon Magazine-dragons, Dragons of Faerun Dragons, some Dragon Compendium Dragons, Oriental Adventures Dragons, etc.).

Other than that, either Skeleton or Zombie, Hydras are great since they have the natural ability to attack with all their heads. This means that Zombie or Skeleton, it's gonna be able to do full attacks each turn and you can double the number of heads it has by cutting 'em off making for an insane melee beast even without feats or anything.


Other than that, big and strong things in general are good mindless undead. Now, more advanced undead are a different story: incorporeals in particular are awesome for just hitting enemies in ways they can't fight back against. Shadows, Allips, even Dread Wraiths. Of course, these are harder to make but finding and controlling them, be it with Command Undead, Rebuke Undead or whatever, is fine.

[danielxcutter]

Speaking of undead, wasn't there a handbook for this kind of thing somewhere?

[Eldariel]

Speaking of undead, wasn't there a handbook for this kind of thing somewhere?

Aye, actually. Now that I think about it, Unlimited Bone Works (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=17451.0) on MinMaxBoards, and the earlier work of K's Revised Necromancer Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2733.0) both cover these topics rather well.

[Soranar]

a few notes to add on to the rest, here's a few undead that don't need specific corpses to be made

a necrosis carnex can heal your undead and can be made of regular corpes

this is especially useful if you are undead yourself

bloodhulks are ok meatshields if you can't find anything decent to animate, I usually only use those with a warlock's the dead walk ability since they can make free undead that only last long enough for 1 fight.

[Fouredged Sword]

If you are strapped for good corpses the best thing you can do is cheat your way to the right body. A scroll of PAO will set you back 3000gp, a pretty reasonable price for any level past 5th. Simply grab any body of the right size as your desired undead and PAO it into the right type. FOr example, buy an ox for a few GP, kill it and PAO the body into a silver dragon corpse. Same kingdom, class, size, int, boom 9+ score for a permanent duration. Now animate the dragon corpse into a undead creature.

The only weakness is that your new uber-minion can be dispelled back into an ox. That's not too bad though, as the dispel DC is 26 so a caster must hit a 16 to dispel it without greater dispel. Considering you are getting a 19HD minion for around 3500gp, it's a bargain price for an aspiring necromancer when you first get access to animate dead at level 5.

[Coidzor]

Aye, actually. Now that I think about it, Unlimited Bone Works (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=17451.0) on MinMaxBoards, and the earlier work of K's Revised Necromancer Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2733.0) both cover these topics rather well.

Very neat indeed. Shame that they abandoned the project of cataloguing viable skeletons and zombies.

[SwordChucks]

The best undead minions are the ones that really listen to your problems. The kind you can tell care about your day, not because you're their unholy parent/creator, but because they're your friend.

More to the point, starting with a good base body is important. Multiple natural attacks or arms is really handy and a centaur has hands, can be ridden, and can haul quite a bit. Also, incorporeal undead are very useful as scouts or assassins, and can usually recruit for you via create spawn.