Dueling Undead-jos

[Sir.Hawk]

First off, I'm horrible at posting here. So forgive all the formatting I didn't do.

Today I am seeking the assistance of the great Board for a personal project. Our group of players is conducting a war games of sorts and my question is a simple one. "What Undead, or creatures that could become undead-like with minimal CR adjustment, would be interesting and powerful for one-on-one duels?"

Explanation and Rules

All duels are 1v1s, there will be roughly 3 in a 'set'.
A set consists of 3 battles in a 'last one standing' series with the possibility of a 'Hero' battle at the end.
Limitations are that CR is roughly capped at 1, 3 and 7 for each battle respectively.
Character levels or Class levels are similarly at 2, 5 and 10.
Anything below the CR or CL is allowed for each one. (So a CR 4 can replace a CR 7 monster slot)
All Material has wiggle room to be used excepting Dragon and PF.
Personal buffs have been said to carry over. Spell slots, HP, Use per day abilities and consumables are not refreshed. Any Summoned creature, lingering battlefield effects and minions are dispelled at the end of each round.
There is no downtime between each fight, winner moves on to fight the next up. (So Lvl 2 beats the CR 1, moves on to fight the CR 3 and so on)
Monsters with Class levels are an option, as are normal races as long as the restrictions to Character Level or CR is met.


This is an extremely rough break down and I apologize again. There can be a disclaimer added at some point for all the rants about "CR being inaccurate" and "1v1s aren't how the game was meant to be played" or "The magic/summons not carrying over is dumb" if they become overwhelming. I am aware and agree with most sentiments, but this is how it's being ran. I appreciate all help I can get for this as I've fried my brain this week and would love some fresh eyes. If at all possible I'd also love to hear how you hype up your choices.

[Segev]

There's always the dread warrior (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/dreadwarrior.shtml). Best used on fighter-types, it works for any class, really. I believe they look like zombies with a malevolent gleam of intellect in their undead eyes. CR is whatever the base creature's was, so could be all levels.

Spellstitching (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/spellstitched.shtml) an undead only adds +1 to the CR. Toss an interesting spell or two in there to spice things up.

A Spellstitched Raiment (Raiments are from Libris Mortis) could be hillarious for a CR 1 fight. Raiments are basically possessed outfits. Could put a corpse in one and make them think they're fighting a zombie. Especially if the Raiment is hidden under some armor, so they're hacking at corpse and not monster until they deliberately try to get at the clothing underneath.

[Asmotherion]

There's always the dread warrior (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/dreadwarrior.shtml). Best used on fighter-types, it works for any class, really. I believe they look like zombies with a malevolent gleam of intellect in their undead eyes. CR is whatever the base creature's was, so could be all levels.

Spellstitching (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/spellstitched.shtml) an undead only adds +1 to the CR. Toss an interesting spell or two in there to spice things up.

A Spellstitched Raiment (Raiments are from Libris Mortis) could be hillarious for a CR 1 fight. Raiments are basically possessed outfits. Could put a corpse in one and make them think they're fighting a zombie. Especially if the Raiment is hidden under some armor, so they're hacking at corpse and not monster until they deliberately try to get at the clothing underneath.

Eh, I believe dread warriors are relativelly overated, considering a necromancer can used Create (Greater) undead to animate a corpse (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/corpse.shtml) or bone (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/bone.shtml) creature of any class. Optionally even Haunt Shift (http://dndtools.org/spells/libris-mortis-the-book-of-the-dead--71/haunt-shift--1481/) them into Haunting Pressances (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/haunting.shtml).

[Sir.Hawk]

I completely spaced out on some of the templates that could be added. A Spell-stitched Raiment could be quite entertaining. This could be a pretty good idea for a fight involving phases also.

Would it be worth taking a low cr monster and templating it to the max? Another interesting addition I found could be the undead swarm one.

I'll edit once I'm home with the actual name.
Edit:
Alright, so I blanked hard but the template is Swarm Shifter. An interesting tidbit is that when going from the swarm to it's original I believe it'll heal the number of HD it possesses with no real limit. It's only a +1 CR to a Corporeal Undead and altogether seems like a real mean thing to do, but it's a solid option I'd almost say for the higher HD undead to take advantage of.

[Segev]

Eh, I believe dread warriors are relativelly overated, considering a necromancer can used Create (Greater) undead to animate a corpse (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/corpse.shtml) or bone (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/bone.shtml) creature of any class. Optionally even Haunt Shift (http://dndtools.org/spells/libris-mortis-the-book-of-the-dead--71/haunt-shift--1481/) them into Haunting Pressances (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/haunting.shtml).
I had never noticed that corpse creatures and bone creatures retain their class features and levels. o_o

Though the dread warrior has a huge advantage of being magically loyal to the caster and no limit on number you can have. Corpse and Bone Creatures are, like other intelligent undead, only bindable by rebuke/command for any length of time. Command Undead makes them friendly, but not 100% controllable.

[ExLibrisMortis]

That Damn Crab, but as skeleton? It's a pure brute, but it's low-level, where brutishness is still effective.

[Sir.Hawk]

That Damn Crab, but as skeleton? It's a pure brute, but it's low-level, where brutishness is still effective.

I won't lie, that crab was an option at one point but I realized it would be just plain mean to throw that at an even leveled group. Much less a 1v1 fight where it would absolutely wreck house.


Optionally even Haunt Shift them into Haunting Pressances.

Aside from being a bit more transportable, I haven't found a huge niche for how effective this could be. It would be an interesting way to spice up a battle with a 'second phase' of sorts as you now deal with the spirit that was haunting that hat a zombie had.

[Segev]

Get a high-enough hit die unintelligent undead to possess a thing as a haunt in poltergeist mode. Now you have a discount animated object.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I won't lie, that crab was an option at one point but I realized it would be just plain mean to throw that at an even leveled group. Much less a 1v1 fight where it would absolutely wreck house.
There was a discussion (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?568164-Revisiting-a-classic-discussion-That-Damn-Crab) on the crab that resulted in quite a few viable builds, but yes, 1v1, the crab's really rather strong. Making it a skeleton only makes it stronger, too, as it gets more Initiative and AC. Still, it's a good boss monster. Maybe the Stormwrack version is more suitable?

[Sir.Hawk]

There was a discussion on the crab that resulted in quite a few viable builds, but yes, 1v1, the crab's really rather strong. Making it a skeleton only makes it stronger, too, as it gets more Initiative and AC. Still, it's a good boss monster. Maybe the Stormwrack version is more suitable?

I do like that one a bit more. I have located a Ghoulish Harpy that, with Spellstitched, opened up some odd options such as CR stacking lower things with absurd stats. Spellstitched Bloodhulk Giant with Chill Touch, mayhaps? :P
Though, I'm not sure how frowned upon that might be amongst the Playgrounders

[Segev]

I do like that one a bit more. I have located a Ghoulish Harpy that, with Spellstitched, opened up some odd options such as CR stacking lower things with absurd stats. Spellstitched Bloodhulk Giant with Chill Touch, mayhaps? :P
Though, I'm not sure how frowned upon that might be amongst the Playgrounders
Could just do a spellstitched zombie/skeleton hydra with chill touch. That'd get nasty pretty fast.