Necrocarnate for a villain?

[danielxcutter]

So Necrocarnate isn't actually that great for a PC due to the requirement for corpses - and this is probably both intentional and not really a problem, since it being a villain PrC is kind of the point.

I do wonder how useful it actually is for that purpose, though. Obviously, a Necrocarnate isn't going to be much of a threat if they haven't harvested at least some essentia by killing things; at least enough to be comparable to an equally-leveled Incarnate seems prudent.

Are they any good in melee combat? A Skillful weapon seems mandatory to land any hits, but thanks to stuff like Necrocarnum Weapon I think that the attacks that do hit will hurt a lot.

How much of a threat can they be in general? Even with truly infinite essentia, no meldshaper can hold a candle to what a moderately optimized caster can pull off in terms of utility. So I presume you want to give them allies outside of just their zombie?

Also, what makes a good creature for the necrocarnum zombie? They're certainly much better than a typical zombie, but losing all the special qualities is a bit of a bummer. How does a juvenile bronze dragon necrocarnum zombie sound for a 15 HD one? Necrocarnum zombies aren't Slow so they still get all the full attacks.

Really, it seems that a necrocarnate would be better off as a warrior-type with additional utility, rather than an outright support/caster or skillmonkey role. Could be just me though.

[Troacctid]

Spec them to be good against the party's most common tactics. Then have them start the fight with just enough essentia to max out all their key soulmelds. Finally, have the zombie be either a beefy bruiser, a mount, or both.

I have an Incarnate Handbook that I've been putting out one chapter at a time on my Patreon. I just converted the necrocarnate this month, since I figured it's on-theme for spooky season. The TL;DR is it's essentially just a regular evil incarnate, but with less essentia at the start of the day and more essentia at the end. If the necrocarnate is an NPC, then you as the DM get to just decide how far along in her day she is when the players fight her, which is very convenient. When in doubt, chickens are 2 cp and easy to slaughter.

[danielxcutter]

Perhaps a better question would be: how good are Necrocarnates for fine-tuning against specific parties? Because while meldshapers of every stripe do have a fantastic breadth of options... it's still, y'know, not even remotely on the level of a moderately optimized caster.

Admittedly, a lot of that likely stems from my lack of experience with Incarnum in general, but I'm still skeptical as to how much it holds up at higher levels.

[Bonzai]

Three words... Chicken Infested Flaw. Necrocarnates love them some chickens. Requires 1 lvl of commoner and the Quick draw to free action draw, pull out a chicken, free action drop, repeat, and at the end of your turn your Necrocarnum Vestiments deals a D6 cold to all of them (or any other area of effect damage source), killing them all. You can perform Harvest the soul 60 times per hour (so that's 60 chickens), gaining essentia equal to half your Necrocarnate level for each one (so a max of 420 essentia per hour at lvl 20). Figure out how many hours you have each day to prep while others are studying spell books and such.

Then you have the Essentia trap which you can repeat the above chicken slaughtering actions, and then as an immediate action activate the trap, and gain 1 temporary essentia per chicken killed. A Chicken is tiny (occupies 2 1/2 feet of a 5ft square), so you can fit one on your square, and two on every adjacent square, for a max of 17 chickens per turn that you can kill with your vestments (which requires no action on your part), for 17 extra essentia each round.

So long story short, your going to run out of things to invest essentia in. So I recommend getting the heart of Incarnum feat to turn all your unspent Essentia into extra HP.

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, but Flaws aren’t default, Chicken Infested is both Commoner-only and from an April Fool’s Dragon Magazine article, and in general that’s just cheese.

[Bonzai]

Yeah, but Flaws aren’t default, Chicken Infested is both Commoner-only and from an April Fool’s Dragon Magazine article, and in general that’s just cheese.

Lol, you say cheese, I say one fowl villian. :P

[Psyren]

Lol, you say cheese, I say one fowl villian. :P

*groans*


Perhaps a better question would be: how good are Necrocarnates for fine-tuning against specific parties? Because while meldshapers of every stripe do have a fantastic breadth of options... it's still, y'know, not even remotely on the level of a moderately optimized caster.

Admittedly, a lot of that likely stems from my lack of experience with Incarnum in general, but I'm still skeptical as to how much it holds up at higher levels.

Well they eventually get Gate 1/week, that's not nothing.

Anyway OP, some Necrocarnate tricks. The biggest problem they have relative to a regular Incarnate is not having much essentia at the start of the day (i.e. before you kill anything.) However, there are (non-chicken-infested) ways to mitigate that:



Remind your GM that the essentia you get from Soul Harvest last a full 24 hours, not "until you sleep." Keep track of the last few corpses you drank that day, and your GM should let your retain the essentia overnight. That way you won't start the day starved as long as you got into some fights the previous day.
Get Unguent of Timelessness, or if psionics are in your game, a dorje of quintessence (which you can activate thanks to the Psion's Eyes meld.) These let you preserve corpses at the moment of death for on-demand snacking when you need it. They remain "edible" for hours per necrocarnate level, so you have plenty of time to food-saver them.
Another way to get emergency essentia on the go is a wand, some scrolls, or a stave of Soul Boon. Boost the CL and you can get up to 5 more essentia this way. Mage's Spectacles will let you activate that. The duration is short so this is more of an "oh crap, combat is about to start" situation.
A wand of Halaster's Fetch 1 let's you quickly Call some weak creatures in to eat. This will take a while but eventually you can max out all your melds this way.


As for what you'll be doing in combat - while your zombies cover the front-line, you'll be doing typical Incarnate stuff, e.g. Dissolving Spittle or Sighting Gloves+Bluesteel Bracers+bow from the back line, or using Incarnate Avatar + Weapon + your various tanky melds to wade into the front.

[danielxcutter]

*groans*

Come on, no need to have such a trite pun ruffle your feathers.


Well they eventually get Gate 1/week, that's not nothing.

True, but casters with it can do it multiple times per day if they can spare the XP(though to be fair, that alone means they usually won't).


Anyway OP, some Necrocarnate tricks. The biggest problem they have relative to a regular Incarnate is not having much essentia at the start of the day (i.e. before you kill anything.) However, there are (non-chicken-infested) ways to mitigate that:



Remind your GM that the essentia you get from Soul Harvest last a full 24 hours, not "until you sleep." Keep track of the last few corpses you drank that day, and your GM should let your retain the essentia overnight. That way you won't start the day starved as long as you got into some fights the previous day.
Get Unguent of Timelessness, or if psionics are in your game, a dorje of quintessence (which you can activate thanks to the Psion's Eyes meld.) These let you preserve corpses at the moment of death for on-demand snacking when you need it. They remain "edible" for hours per necrocarnate level, so you have plenty of time to food-saver them.
Another way to get emergency essentia on the go is a wand, some scrolls, or a stave of Soul Boon. Boost the CL and you can get up to 5 more essentia this way. Mage's Spectacles will let you activate that. The duration is short so this is more of an "oh crap, combat is about to start" situation.
A wand of Halaster's Fetch 1 let's you quickly Call some weak creatures in to eat. This will take a while but eventually you can max out all your melds this way.


As for what you'll be doing in combat - while your zombies cover the front-line, you'll be doing typical Incarnate stuff, e.g. Dissolving Spittle or Sighting Gloves+Bluesteel Bracers+bow from the back line, or using Incarnate Avatar + Weapon + your various tanky melds to wade into the front.

I uh, I'm sorry but this is actually for the other side of the DM screen. :smallredface: So a lot of these can be done via fiat.

[Psyren]

I uh, I'm sorry but this is actually for the other side of the DM screen. :smallredface: So a lot of these can be done via fiat.

Right, my bad :smalltongue: Still, using some of these tricks is an internally-consistent way of having your baddie start every fight maxed out. Like the players beat him or force him to flee, and find a bag of holding full of quintessenced corpses or what have you - that will provoke an "a-ha" moment.



True, but casters with it can do it multiple times per day if they can spare the XP(though to be fair, that alone means they usually won't).

Well obviously a full T1 spellcaster is going to outgun an incarnate :smallconfused: I wasn't aware that was the bar. For a T3/T4 class though, Gate is a big deal.

Even at 1/week, that's still enough for this villain to have a Balor or what have you bound at all times, because the service itself can last longer than a week (i.e. up to 1 day/CL). Provided they can get 1000 xp a week and have some dough handy, "be my bodyguard for the coming week" is reasonable.

[danielxcutter]

Right, my bad :smalltongue: Still, using some of these tricks is an internally-consistent way of having your baddie start every fight maxed out. Like the players beat him or force him to flee, and find a bag of holding full of quintessenced corpses or what have you - that will provoke an "a-ha" moment.

Quintessence is useful, yeah. I can actually see it being an export from psionic-heavy places actually, it's that good for various stuff.


Well obviously a full T1 spellcaster is going to outgun an incarnate :smallconfused: I wasn't aware that was the bar. For a T3/T4 class though, Gate is a big deal.

Even at 1/week, that's still enough for this villain to have a Balor or what have you bound at all times, because the service itself can last longer than a week (i.e. up to 1 day/CL). Provided they can get 1000 xp a week and have some dough handy, "be my bodyguard for the coming week" is reasonable.

That was mostly about the fact that it's hard for any incarnate to seriously threaten a party containing a full caster. Bit of a shame how hard it is to challenge a caster without having monsters with serious casting as well, really.

[WhamBamSam]

I've used Incarnate/Necrocarates (scaling them somewhat with PC level progression) as recurring mooks in my current campaign. If they have some degree of reasonable healing (at low levels I think I used a potion of Lesser Vigor consumed before combat when possible and one of CLW, and at mid to high levels Blessing of the Godless which heals the exact amount you need as an immediate) they can hole up somewhere where the PCs have trouble getting to them and keep sending out Necrocarnum Zombies to replace the ones that get destroyed. The 12th level versions that I'm currently working with have Pain Mastery, with the idea that they can build up Str bonuses for when the party gets to them if they can drag out the part where they're fighting the zombies for long enough.

It's also noteworthy that Necrocarnum Zombies don't lose their Int and only lose racial bonus feats or feats from class levels, so non-bonus feats from RHD are fair game. For example, the 12th level version of my Necrocarnate Mooks use Ythraks, which have Flyby Attack and Snatch, making them a threat that the party has to answer, either by ensuring they have an FoM effect at the ready or expending action economy killing recurring enemies.


True, but casters with it can do it multiple times per day if they can spare the XP(though to be fair, that alone means they usually won't).Gate 1/week can achieve most of the things that Gate 3/day can, especially for BBEGs, who will have access to downtime.

[danielxcutter]

I've used Incarnate/Necrocarates (scaling them somewhat with PC level progression) as recurring mooks in my current campaign. If they have some degree of reasonable healing (at low levels I think I used a potion of Lesser Vigor consumed before combat when possible and one of CLW, and at mid to high levels Blessing of the Godless which heals the exact amount you need as an immediate) they can hole up somewhere where the PCs have trouble getting to them and keep sending out Necrocarnum Zombies to replace the ones that get destroyed. The 12th level versions that I'm currently working with have Pain Mastery, with the idea that they can build up Str bonuses for when the party gets to them if they can drag out the part where they're fighting the zombies for long enough.

Isn’t the damage from making the zombies unhealable until the zombie is destroyed? Unless you mean healing after that so you can make another right away.


It's also noteworthy that Necrocarnum Zombies don't lose their Int and only lose racial bonus feats or feats from class levels, so non-bonus feats from RHD are fair game. For example, the 12th level version of my Necrocarnate Mooks use Ythraks, which have Flyby Attack and Snatch, making them a threat that the party has to answer, either by ensuring they have an FoM effect at the ready or expending action economy killing recurring enemies.

That’s interesting!

Say, what about dragon incarnum zombies? There’s a decent number of dragons in the 14~15 HD range, and while they lose a lot of special abilities they can still fly and make a lot of attacks. Currently looking for things in about that range.

Also would the incarnum zombie be counted towards the CR of the encounter or is it included in the CR of the necrocarnate?


Gate 1/week can achieve most of the things that Gate 3/day can, especially for BBEGs, who will have access to downtime.

I suppose, yeah. Shame that it comes so late, but still nice.

[RSGA]

The usual way to get around the necrocarnum zombie damage is having some Temp HP, probably from a wand of False Life. Although to a degree, that's just kicking things (halved) down the road. Another thing to think about is that since the necrocarnate can probably double the zombie's usual store of essentia and it's got Int, they can make use of some of the incarnum magic items.

To use that example of a dragon, it's got 3 essentia, 3 capacity for the defense and move/init buffs and the necrocarnate has (assuming min level to raise them and no extra boosts) 4 capacity in the circlet. So this no boost necro has a zombie that can have +30 insight feet to all movement modes, +6 insight to initiative, +3 insight to AC, +3 insight to saving throws, and one to play around with to get extra AC or saving throw bonuses with one minor magic item.

Let's go to the other end, and say that the necrocarnate did the early entry trick, has an incarnum focus, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity, and enough Con for it to matter. In exchange for losing the chance to give the zombies +4 damage on their attacks for several turns, this Necrocarnate can put 7 Essentia into the circlet, at which point the zombies have both abilities maxed, three lesser magical item receptacles maxed, and a spare point to do something else with. Admittedly, using the example of dragons, there's probably not a lot of dragon sized and shaped incarnum weapons and armors, so this is probably overkill. It does, though, guarantee that they are going to be hard as hell to turn what with 14 turn resistance.

As for counting them in, I'd say it really depends on the relative levels and ability to support. Like, in this example, the dragon definitely should, but a few more levels and even both probably should be almost in the range of rounding errors. Metaphorically speaking.

[WhamBamSam]

Isn’t the damage from making the zombies unhealable until the zombie is destroyed? Unless you mean healing after that so you can make another right away.The latter. When one Necrocarnum Zombie dies, they pull the requisite HP to heal themselves out of the Blessing of the Godless pool as an immediate and make another one.


Say, what about dragon incarnum zombies? There’s a decent number of dragons in the 14~15 HD range, and while they lose a lot of special abilities they can still fly and make a lot of attacks. Currently looking for things in about that range.I stay away from using dragons for fluff reasons. Even in a world with a lot of access to regeneration abilities/true ressurection/etc I think it strains suspension of disbelief a bit to just have a pile of dragon corpses the way you can with other creatures.


Also would the incarnum zombie be counted towards the CR of the encounter or is it included in the CR of the necrocarnate?I only count the CR of the Necrocarnate, but I generally try to have an at least ad-hoc monetary value for the corpses (especially if they have Shrink Item or something placed on them) and that part of the NPC WBL I add as gold to the loot. Same with regular undead. I account for the black onyx value to make them and include that as either black onyx or gp, but otherwise consider them part of their master's CR. The Necrocarnates in my setting are mercenaries, so it works well for them to be carrying around cash.

[danielxcutter]

The latter. When one Necrocarnum Zombie dies, they pull the requisite HP to heal themselves out of the Blessing of the Godless pool as an immediate and make another one.

Oh yeah, that’d be useful then.


I stay away from using dragons for fluff reasons. Even in a world with a lot of access to regeneration abilities/true ressurection/etc I think it strains suspension of disbelief a bit to just have a pile of dragon corpses the way you can with other creatures.

I was thinking about a… more unique encounter, so to speak.

Also that was more a mechanical question; are they worth it in that respect?


I only count the CR of the Necrocarnate, but I generally try to have an at least ad-hoc monetary value for the corpses (especially if they have Shrink Item or something placed on them) and that part of the NPC WBL I add as gold to the loot. Same with regular undead. I account for the black onyx value to make them and include that as either black onyx or gp, but otherwise consider them part of their master's CR. The Necrocarnates in my setting are mercenaries, so it works well for them to be carrying around cash.

That sounds fair, yeah!

[WhamBamSam]

I was thinking about a… more unique encounter, so to speak.

Also that was more a mechanical question; are they worth it in that respect?Dragons are generally going to be the gold standard for fly speeds, and often other movement modes as well, but you'll generally be able to do better in terms of attack routines or size at a comparable HD range.

[danielxcutter]

Dragons are generally going to be the gold standard for fly speeds, and often other movement modes as well, but you'll generally be able to do better in terms of attack routines or size at a comparable HD range.

Well, an encounter at that CR means flight is good, and I can see it being a good method of transport assuming stealth isn't a problem(overseas travel, perhaps?). Not quite sure what'd be better for the 14~15 HD range in terms of attack routine, though. A fire or frost giant might be decent and would certainly be more available, but two slams isn't that great and in the case of those two they also have the problem of having weakness to an energy type without much of a budget to get around that.

[RSGA]

It's a few HD down, but the usual answer to good attack routine is a hydra with twelve heads. Unfortunately, that goes down to a +16 attack for the twelve bites and +15 for the slam, since going down a step from Full BAB isn't totally overcome by the +4 Str. Of course, for reasons that just begin with losing the 20 Con, this is a very glassy attacker. It also moves around like most hydrae would charge only, you know, not charging.

Some other SRD candidates in that range include the sphinxes especially the already kinda brute-ish criosphinx. Also note that a gynosphix will be huge at 15 hd. So it gets a 2d6+10 slam or 2 1d8+10 claws. A gargantuan Wyvern is also not something you want to stand near because there is exactly two parts of its Sting-Bite-Wing-Wing (or Sting-Bite-Claw-Claw if you give it hover with one of the feats it has coming to it) where it's worse. Lacks poison, and the attack modifier is worse due to both type and losing Multiattack.

Jumping back to the giant, its slam does get upgraded to 1d8. Which doesn't matter much, but it's good to note.

[danielxcutter]

It's a few HD down, but the usual answer to good attack routine is a hydra with twelve heads. Unfortunately, that goes down to a +16 attack for the twelve bites and +15 for the slam, since going down a step from Full BAB isn't totally overcome by the +4 Str. Of course, for reasons that just begin with losing the 20 Con, this is a very glassy attacker. It also moves around like most hydrae would charge only, you know, not charging.

Hydrae are marginally less useful for incarnum zombies than they are normal zombies, as incarnum zombies don’t have the Slow quality. Of course it’s good for all the same reasons, it’s just not negating a big weakness like for normal zombies.


Some other SRD candidates in that range include the sphinxes especially the already kinda brute-ish criosphinx. Also note that a gynosphix will be huge at 15 hd. So it gets a 2d6+10 slam or 2 1d8+10 claws. A gargantuan Wyvern is also not something you want to stand near because there is exactly two parts of its Sting-Bite-Wing-Wing (or Sting-Bite-Claw-Claw if you give it hover with one of the feats it has coming to it) where it's worse. Lacks poison, and the attack modifier is worse due to both type and losing Multiattack.

Don’t think zombified wyverns keep their poison sadly, and also wyverns have really bad maneuverability. Shame, really.


Jumping back to the giant, its slam does get upgraded to 1d8. Which doesn't matter much, but it's good to note.

Also they don’t lose any to-hit and the lack of armor proficiencies is made up for by the natural armor and Dex boosts, so you could certainly do worse.

[hamishspence]

Zombie Dragons (Draconomicon) ignore the "doubles hit dice of original creature" rule (and the 20HD cap) - and get some other perks as well. They keep all "exceptional qualities" while losing supernatural and spell-like special qualities.

To have a Gargantuan Wyvern Zombie you would need to be using the Draconomicon rules. A "regular zombie" maxes out at 20 Hit dice, a Gargantuan Wyvern has 11+ hit dice, and casting Animate Dead to award the "regular zombie" template, on the corpse of a Gargantuan Wyvern, would give it 22+ hit dice, so the spell would not work.

The sample "regular zombie wyvern" has 14 Hit Dice compared to the wyvern's 7, and no poison attack:

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/zombie.htm

Special Qualities
A zombie loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks. A zombie gains the following special quality.

so it would appear that it this case, they are ruling that "poison" is not what is meant by "extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee attacks".


Necrocarnum Zombies, like Draconomicon Dragon Zombies, lack the "double hit dice" rule, but also lack the "retain exceptional qualities" trait - so, as written, unlike Draconomicon Dragon Zombies, a Necrocarnum Zombie Wyvern would not have a poison attack.

[danielxcutter]

Zombie Dragons (Draconomicon) ignore the "doubles hit dice of original creature" rule (and the 20HD cap) - and get some other perks as well. They keep all "exceptional qualities" while losing supernatural and spell-like special qualities.

To have a Gargantuan Wyvern Zombie you would need to be using the Draconomicon rules. A "regular zombie" maxes out at 20 Hit dice, a Gargantuan Wyvern has 11+ hit dice, and casting Animate Dead to award the "regular zombie" template, on the corpse of a Gargantuan Wyvern, would give it 22+ hit dice, so the spell would not work.

The sample "regular zombie wyvern" has 14 Hit Dice compared to the wyvern's 7, and no poison attack:

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/zombie.htm

Special Qualities
A zombie loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks. A zombie gains the following special quality.

so it would appear that it this case, they are ruling that "poison" is not what is meant by "extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee attacks".

Uhh, we're talking about necrocarnum zombies though? It's actually pretty different from normal zombies; it doesn't get doubled HD but it's not Slow either and keeps the racial feats as well as a couple other things. In terms of making undead, it's pretty nice?

[hamishspence]

Good point - a Necrocarnum Zombie Wyvern would be better than a Draconomicon Zombie Wyvern in some respects, and worse in others.

[WhamBamSam]

Hydrae are marginally less useful for incarnum zombies than they are normal zombies, as incarnum zombies don’t have the Slow quality. Of course it’s good for all the same reasons, it’s just not negating a big weakness like for normal zombies.I don't see any reason why a Hydra Zombie would be able to attack with all its heads despite Slow. Also, you can't make a zombie out of a 12-Headed Hydra, as it's over the HD limit. Hydra Skeletons are classics, but for pretty much the same reasons that Incarnum Zombie Hydras would be.

As far as dragons, Young Adult Mercury Dragon is 15 HD and is gonna be the fastest thing you'll be able to get, though it's only medium, which means it can't carry a medium Necrocarnate around. If you wanted the full suite of movement modes and Large size in exchange for slower, worse flight, Very Young White is also 15 HD.

[hamishspence]

I don't see any reason why a Hydra Zombie would be able to attack with all its heads despite Slow.

It's built into the basic hydra chassis:

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm


Combat
Hydras can attack with all their heads at no penalty, even if they move or charge during the round.

Ten-Headed Hydra
Size/Type: Huge Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 10d10+53 (108 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), swim 20 ft.
Armor Class: 20 (-2 size, +1 Dex, +11 natural), touch 9, flat-footed 19
Base Attack/Grapple: +10/+23
Attack: 10 bites +14 melee (1d10+5)
Full Attack: 10 bites +14 melee (1d10+5)

A hydra effectively gets to use all its heads as one standard action. It's so "hardwired in" that it isn't even on the Special Qualities list.

[loky1109]

And even more: 10-headed hydra's every AoO should be "10 bites".

[danielxcutter]

Good point - a Necrocarnum Zombie Wyvern would be better than a Draconomicon Zombie Wyvern in some respects, and worse in others.

While many things in MoI are hideously undertuned - though still better than ToM, that's for sure - necrocarnum zombies actually aren't completely horrible, that's for sure.


I don't see any reason why a Hydra Zombie would be able to attack with all its heads despite Slow. Also, you can't make a zombie out of a 12-Headed Hydra, as it's over the HD limit. Hydra Skeletons are classics, but for pretty much the same reasons that Incarnum Zombie Hydras would be.

That's because -


It's built into the basic hydra chassis:

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm



A hydra effectively gets to use all its heads as one standard action. It's so "hardwired in" that it isn't even on the Special Qualities list.

Yeah, that. Also re: hydrae - ten-headed ones are still legal. Bit of a shame about the limits for making undead that way though; even if you do have free access to the corpses they barely keep up for NPC mooks, let alone PC minions.


As far as dragons, Young Adult Mercury Dragon is 15 HD and is gonna be the fastest thing you'll be able to get, though it's only medium, which means it can't carry a medium Necrocarnate around. If you wanted the full suite of movement modes and Large size in exchange for slower, worse flight, Very Young White is also 15 HD.

I think the White is Young Adult. Also I'm really more just thinking about "useful necrocarnum zombie mook"; I'd rather go with the White one in that case.


And even more: 10-headed hydra's every AoO should be "10 bites".

Thaaaaaaaaaat seems like an oversight or typo. I presume RAI is "can make 10 AoOs total, regardless of normal limits".

[hamishspence]

Yeah, that. Also re: hydrae - ten-headed ones are still legal. Bit of a shame about the limits for making undead that way though; even if you do have free access to the corpses they barely keep up for NPC mooks, let alone PC minions.




Yup - the only way round those limits (at least for a cleric) is to talk to DM into allowing Draconomicon Zombie Dragons. A cleric could animate, as a Zombie Dragon, the corpse of a half-dragon 12-headed hydra.


Necrocarnum zombies don't have to deal with either the HD limit or the HD doubling though. If you're a meldshaper, you can animate, with Necrocarnum Circlet, 12-headed hydras. As long as you yourself have 12 HD or more.

[danielxcutter]

Yup - the only way round those limits (at least for a cleric) is to talk to DM into allowing Draconomicon Zombie Dragons. A cleric could animate, as a Zombie Dragon, the corpse of a half-dragon 12-headed hydra.

You just need at least half of the corpse's HD to create a zombie, right? Seems like a high or epic-level caster animating a really big zombie dragon and the PCs coming across the zombie might be a good way to slowly lead up to the final boss.


Necrocarnum zombies don't have to deal with either the HD limit or the HD doubling though. If you're a meldshaper, you can animate, with Necrocarnum Circlet, 12-headed hydras. As long as you yourself have 12 HD or more.

Yeah, though they're pretty fragile. They're much better in terms of offensive capabilities, on the other hand, so there's that. And they also have pretty good AC, so that'll also help.

[hamishspence]

You just need at least half of the corpse's HD to create a zombie, right? Seems like a high or epic-level caster animating a really big zombie dragon and the PCs coming across the zombie might be a good way to slowly lead up to the final boss.


Zombie dragons from Draconomicon are like skeletons - the number of hit dice of the living creature, is the number of hit dice of the zombie.

Whereas with regular zombies, the living creature gets its hit dice doubled (while the creature itself still remains the same size) to a maximum of 20.

A high or epic level caster, animating a Draconomicon Zombie Dragon, would indeed be a good way to have a scarily large (but not especially powerful) zombie as a precursor before meeting the caster themselves.

Necrocarnates can pull similar stunts with Necrocarnum Zombies, but they can't create zombies nearly as impressive as clerics can - because they don't have access to Desecrate (which doesn't explicitly work with Necrocarnum Zombies anyway).

Casters can animate twice their hit dice of creature with one casting, and clerics four times as much.

A 10th level incarnate/10th level Necrocarnate could animate a 20 HD necrocarnum zombie - whereas a cleric using Draconomicon could animate an 80 HD Zombie Dragon (say, a 78 HD Prismatic Great Wyrm).

[danielxcutter]

Zombie dragons from Draconomicon are like skeletons - the number of hit dice of the living creature, is the number of hit dice of the zombie.

Whereas with regular zombies, the living creature gets its hit dice doubled (while the creature itself still remains the same size) to a maximum of 20.

A high or epic level caster, animating a Draconomicon Zombie Dragon, would indeed be a good way to have a scarily large (but not especially powerful) zombie as a precursor before meeting the caster themselves.

Yeah. Considering most undead creation spells don't exactly scale well, it seems like a decent way to use the corpse as a mid-level CR guard or something. A great red wyrm zombie would be like CR 13; much weaker than anyone who could kill a great red wyrm but should still wreak havoc if let loose in most places... though obviously "corpse of great wyrm dragon" might be a pretty obvious trail to leave behind, so maybe not that unless the bad guy's already operating openly.

Actually, you just need the corpse and only like a fourth(half, if you don't have Desecrate) of the corpse's HD as your caster level, right? Huh, a mid-level cleric with access to a lot of onyx and dragon corpses might actually be really scary.


Necrocarnates can pull similar stunts with Necrocarnum Zombies, but they can't create zombies nearly as impressive as clerics can - because they don't have access to Desecrate (which doesn't explicitly work with Necrocarnum Zombies anyway).

Casters can animate twice their hit dice of creature with one casting, and clerics four times as much.

A 10th level incarnate/10th level Necrocarnate could animate a 20 HD necrocarnum zombie - whereas a cleric using Draconomicon could animate an 80 HD Zombie Dragon (say, a 78 HD Prismatic Great Wyrm).

The intended progression is actually Incarnate 7/Necrocarnate 13, and the capstone lets you make two zombies so that's not too bad. I can't think of any really good 20 HD monsters that'd make for passable mooks at that level, even as part of a boss encounter, but that's still way better than most options anyways. Necrocarnum zombies aren't Slow, they keep their Intelligence and feats, they have a number of okay options as well. I think a Necrocarnum Zombie dragon would do more damage than a normal Zombie Dragon, though it'd have way worse hit points.

"Realistically" - and even that is a stretch - you're going to have access to Core dragons at most, and even with the Draconomicon there's a limit to what strong corpses you can use. Still, IF(and that is a very big if) you have the corpses making fairly powerful zombies is actually a lot easier than I expected at first.

[hamishspence]

"Realistically" - and even that is a stretch - you're going to have access to Core dragons at most, and even with the Draconomicon there's a limit to what strong corpses you can use.
Maybe with Polymorph Any Object you can "cheat" your way into having better corpses to work with - polymorphing the corpse of a red great wyrm into a prismatic great wyrm, for example.

[danielxcutter]

Maybe with Polymorph Any Object you can "cheat" your way into having better corpses to work with - polymorphing the corpse of a red great wyrm into a prismatic great wyrm, for example.

I mean no sane DM would allow that and I think it'd be a fantastic way of shrinking your group if you had NPCs pull that off.

[hamishspence]

True. But even when it's a 5HD cleric as the boss and a 20 HD Zombie dragon as the minion (say, a Young Adult Gold) it can still be still a CR 8 monster - overpowered for a party of 5th level characters.

It just goes to show that Animate Dead scales too well when compared to Animate Necrocarnum Zombie.

[danielxcutter]

It's not a CR 15 monster though? It's half the base creature's CR and +1, so in that case it'd be a CR 8 creature. Which is actually about just right for a minion like that I'd say.

[hamishspence]

Fixed the error.

For a 5th level spellcaster a CR 8 minion is rather good. A caster with no access to Zombie Dragons would max out at CR 6 when creating zombies.

A midlevel cleric with Desecrate can be really scary, yes - though they'd only be able to manage one zombie at a time normally.

Casters with Gate can approach casters with Epic Zombie dragons in the degree of power the minion has compared to the caster, but not quite reach it.

Example - a 19HD caster with Gate can control a 38 HD, CR 27 Uvuudaum.

Not far off a 19HD cleric controlling a 75 HD, CR 30 Great Wyrm Force Dragon Zombie Dragon.

[danielxcutter]

CR =/= power though; while the zombie force dragon might do a lot of damage in one attack that's about it. It doesn't even have Power Attack without Awaken Undead.

[RSGA]

Hydrae are marginally less useful for incarnum zombies than they are normal zombies, as incarnum zombies don’t have the Slow quality. Of course it’s good for all the same reasons, it’s just not negating a big weakness like for normal zombies.



Don’t think zombified wyverns keep their poison sadly, and also wyverns have really bad maneuverability. Shame, really.



Also they don’t lose any to-hit and the lack of armor proficiencies is made up for by the natural armor and Dex boosts, so you could certainly do worse.

Two things I wanted to clarify. One is that the lack of poison was one of the ways I said that necrocarnum zombie made the wyvern's attack routine less good. The other one is that I was suggesting that with the increase in HD, the wyvern gets the Hover feat which only needs the creature to have a fly speed. In return it gets to hover in place, and if it starts a turn hovering then it can make the full sting-bite-claw-claw routine.

It also potentially kicks up a cloud of debris, so it's probably better at a choke point or as a defensive measure for the boss to be safer than normal unless it's in an area where this won't happen. Or if it's given some way of non-visual targeting or some extra reach.

[loky1109]

Thaaaaaaaaaat seems like an oversight or typo. I presume RAI is "can make 10 AoOs total, regardless of normal limits".
RAI - I don't know. RAW - definitely yes. AoO makes with "attack" line. Hydra has "5-12 bites" in attack line.
Plus:

A hydra’s Combat Reflexes feat allows it to use all its heads for attacks of opportunity.
It can be read in this way. If author has in mind "hydra can do as many AoO as it has heads" he should wrote this more obviously.

[RSGA]

It actually doesn't matter too much except for living hydrae. Hydras. Whichever you prefer.

Because it's a bonus feat for them (for some reason), and so gets lost with most kinds of undeadening that people talk about. On the gripping hand, if you have some way of shuffling feats around, it has a few that aren't of great value once undead (and Iron Will doubly so for the necrocarnate zombie) and Combat Reflexes has no real prerequisite. And for the necrocarnate zombie hydra that means being able to take four AoOs and once more being able to take them while flat footed. Time for a dorje and psion's eyes, I guess.


EDIT: The MM3.5 entry says that the hydra is supposed to reward having Improved Sunder and possibly teamworking using that, so that could be seen as a reason why it may be intended to hit lots of times with an AoO. Even if the guy up front doesn't have acid or fire damage, a head is gone for 1d4 rounds and AoE fires will cauterize. It even mentions readying an action to sunder when the thing tries to bite at you.