[3.5] Animate dead?

[bigbaddragon]

My DM started using pretty much zombies recently as a part of the new plotline in campaign we're in and some of them were pretty tough. To be more precise all of them were pretty tough but there are 6 (sometimes 7, all level 4 at the time) players in our group so we've managed to fight them without any of us dying. As far as I've noticed all of the zombies had 24-26 strength and 90-110 HP, +16 to hit (I observed his rolls closely and if I'm not mistaken this puts those zombies with something like 14+HD) and 2d6+7-10 damage.

Last night our group got separated and and one of the groups was:
- Human ranger 2/ scout 3 focusing on ranged combat (me)
- Elf druid 5 (very inexperienced player btw) and
- Half-Orc Barbarian 5

So we found two guys who later turn out to be some evil clerics and after we caught them in a lie they attack us. One of them uses summon monster 2 to summon a lemur. Barbarian rages and kills the lemur in one shot (no surprise there :smallwink:) and then I approach and ready my action vs one cleric's spellcasting (and ruin his Hold Person attempt). Right after that the druid entangles them and one of them is caught. The other priest cast Animate Dead on the dead lemur and raises a zombie creature like the ones I described before.

This is what I have a problem with: is it possible to create such strong undead creature with third level spell with all those strength, HP and attack bonus or does the newly created undead retains physical characteristics of the base creature? Or the DM just screwed up?

We did manage to survive the fight thanks to barbarian (and his 28 str with bull's strength) and druids bear but I think that normally this should have been a little to much for us to handle if we hadn't been so lucky. One of the priests was at least level 5 but I can't tell anything about the other since he managed to make his str check after 5 or 6 rounds at which point his friend was already dead and he had already taken 25+ damage and started to run (don't worry he won't get far I'm faster than him).

What are your thoughts on this?

[tyckspoon]

Short answer? No, not if they're using lemurs and other trash-monsters as the base creature. Zombie is applied as a template, which means the zombie's statistics are based on those of whatever the dead being was (also, Summoned creatures disappear when they get killed. Called ones don't; it's one of the finer distinctions in the spell rules. Anything gotten with a Summon Monster spell won't stick around to be reanimation fodder.) A zombified lemur should not be much more dangerous than a live lemur. On the other hand, zombie Ogres, Minotaurs, Trolls, and other Giant-type monsters or Large humanoids can get pretty similar to what you described; what size category were most of the zombies you fought? Do you recall if they were attacking with weapons or with the default zombie Slam?

[bigbaddragon]

Things are mostly like I thought they would be, thank you for your clarifications. I even wanted to ask if summoned creatures disappear when they get killed (but forgot to) and again you confirmed my opinion on that one.

The zombies we fought so far were almost exclusively "manufactured" from the missing townsfolk we knew so they were all medium creatures, all of them had the same characteristics as I described above and all of them used slam attacks. The only exceptions were some zombie dog (that maybe was large in addition to everything else said above) and the zombie he made from lemur (and lemur is medium as far as I can remember).

[Telonius]

Your DM may be using some of the Libris Mortis undead creation feats. Combined with being created inside of a Desecrated area, that could result in those kind of stats, if the base creatures were decently strong or tough.

EDIT: You said 2d6 damage - was any of that Cold damage? If so, then I'm 95% sure that the "Deadly Chill" feat was being used. Corpsecrafter gives bonuses to HP and Strength, too. If you're going up against a focused necromancer, this makes a lot of sense.

[bigbaddragon]

I don't think any of that was cold damage (he would mention that) and I'm 99% sure he didn't use Libris Mortis because he is just beginning to get his grasp on 3.5 edition so its high unlikely that he explored much yet (although it could happen).

Another thing is the zombie he raised from Lemur (lets put aside for now that the Lemur's body shouldn't have stayed there at all) - how the hack did he get to raise his damage from d4 to 2d6+7 (or 2d6+10, I really can't remember because I had a pretty bad headache at the moment and that is the sole reason I didn't argue with him then).

EDIT: My guess is that he found some already stated out zombies and assumed that Animate Dead would give the same zombie as a result. This wouldn't be the first time (and certainly not the last) he overdid something.

[Telonius]

Hmm, upon examining the SRD, the example Grey Render zombie (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/zombie.htm) (CR 6) has stats that match up pretty closely. About 133 HP, AC 16, Bite +16 melee with 2d6+7 damage, Slam +16 melee with 1d8+10 damage, STR 25. So yeah, your DM goofed.

[Deth Muncher]

So yeah, your DM goofed.

Be careful, though, with how you bring this up to him. One false move, and suddenly your character is dead, and is now the one being used against your party-members doing goofed 2d6+7 damage.

[bigbaddragon]

Hmm, upon examining the SRD, the example Grey Render zombie (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/zombie.htm) (CR 6) has stats that match up pretty closely. About 133 HP, AC 16, Bite +16 melee with 2d6+7 damage, Slam +16 melee with 1d8+10 damage, STR 25. So yeah, your DM goofed.

I've seen that already, it was pretty much the first place I checked but thanks anyway :smallsmile:

This actually reminded me of a situation when we were level 2 I think. He attacked us with 9-10 wolfs that had 3 attacks and +6 initiative and some other things screwed up. After a few minutes of examination i concluded that he wrote down Wolverine's attacks and damage, Wolf's HP (the two are on the same page in MM1) and the werewolf's initiative in his animal or hybrid form (how did he manage to do the last thing I really can't explain). And, of course, after a few minutes he admitted :smallbiggrin:

[bigbaddragon]

Be careful, though, with how you bring this up to him. One false move, and suddenly your character is dead, and is now the one being used against your party-members doing goofed 2d6+7 damage.

Don't worry, he is a cool guy, he just doesn't have enough experience with 3.5 edition. Plus, I never argue with him over things like this in front of the others except when its too obvious that he made a mistake and someone's character is about to die. Plus2 If I see that he overdid something I tend not to tell him about all the advantages he had until the end of the session (yeah, I'm mean :smallbiggrin:).