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Elidis
2008-10-15, 08:19 PM
Hi there,

Im going to be playing a second campaing and I want to play a necromancer cleric, the only issue I have with this is trying to get my head around how raising undead works.

At the moment I only understand how to make Zombies and Skeletons, since it tells you what to do in the MM when you 'animate undead' a corperal corpse.

What happens when you raise someone with Create Undead or Create Greater Undead? There are no instructions on how you do it for the undead listed in these two spells If someone can explain how you work it out (preferably with a simple example such as; killed a 10HD Human with class skills of some sort and raised it as a ghoul, what happens?) that would be great and if you can tell me what book/books the rules and instructions are in (pages would be nice too) that would be a massive help as well.

Thanks in advance

holywhippet
2008-10-15, 08:35 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/createUndead.htm

Read the bit at the bottom. The greater version works the same.

Elidis
2008-10-15, 08:39 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/createUndead.htm

Read the bit at the bottom. The greater version works the same.

That helps a bit, so it retains its hit dice, does it retain its feats? skills? BAB? Stats? or does it just use the preset build of the undead and you use the original corpes HD?

holywhippet
2008-10-15, 09:14 PM
That helps a bit, so it retains its hit dice, does it retain its feats? skills? BAB? Stats? or does it just use the preset build of the undead and you use the original corpes HD?

For most undead it makes no difference who or what the host was when they died. They take no advantage of their former life, so a wraith is the same whether they came from a high level warrior or a low level commoner. Take a look at the monsters section on the same website, each undead generally has a specific set of stats to be used.

Other types of undead - generally at the high end (lich, vampire) or the low end (skeleton, zombie) are templates. You take an existing creature and modify them. For the mindless undead like skeletons, generally you are working off the creatures race - any class features are lost because they have no mind or memory to draw upon.

Elidis
2008-10-15, 09:16 PM
For most undead it makes no difference who or what the host was when they died. They take no advantage of their former life, so a wraith is the same whether they came from a high level warrior or a low level commoner. Take a look at the monsters section on the same website, each undead generally has a specific set of stats to be used.

Other types of undead - generally at the high end (lich, vampire) or the low end (skeleton, zombie) are templates. You take an existing creature and modify them. For the mindless undead like skeletons, generally you are working off the creatures race - any class features are lost because they have no mind or memory to draw upon.

Now that helps alot, thanks for that, it was just a bit confusing hehe

Kaiyanwang
2008-10-16, 02:32 AM
Just to: if you have access to the Book of Vile Darkness, there are two kind of undead, cadaveric and skeletal creature, that are a "pimped" version of skeleton and zombie, and can be animated with normal dead rising spells.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-16, 02:38 AM
Also, what's the fluff for this character. Because the Dread Necromancer is better at raising Undead, at the cost of versatility, and it gets cooler class features.

Elidis
2008-10-16, 03:21 PM
Well, still thinking of the fluff, was thinking of beinging a worshiper of Aflux (since im taking the Death Bound Domain for more undead controling), but I'm not 100% sure on what I want to do, the character is a male human cleric and we are starting at level 18 and we probably will finish the campaign on the same level (thats whats been said). My character is going to be only evil in the sence of summoning and creating undead for his own purposes and power, which will be to assist thoughs whom deem worthy or needy of his skills. Hes going to be quite honorable, but hes going to have a precence of power and dread as well. Kinda like the Cloaked Shady Travler that turns up in town and then sorts out the impending doom on the town by using his undead horde and necromantic powers. I was thinking of going with that cold necromancer that can heal his minions with walls of fire and such, though I thought that going full cleric would give me more durablity. I dont want to just sit back and let my minions do all the work (most of it though, cant go wrong with two skeleton fire gaints with decent gear) I intend to get in and start causing damage with my weapon and touch attacks as well. So my idea is more on keeping a small group of "pimped" up undead and work in unison with them while keeping a horde or lesser undead to just become hp spounges and annoyances.

Doresain
2008-10-17, 12:36 AM
yeah, its better (for the party) to create a couple beefy undead guys rather than a horde...unless youre creating exploding zombie cats...if youre creating exploding zombie cats, by all means create as many as you like

Keld Denar
2008-10-17, 02:06 AM
I'd actually suggest going with Incorporial Undead if you can swing em. The whole weapon immunity thing going on if your foes don't have magic weapons (stuff like animals and most monsters and whatnot don't). A hand full of Greater Shadows mean you get all kinds of strength drainy goodness. Plus, incorps all of have touch attacks, which means that even at high levels, they CAN still have a decent chance to hit, especially against huge-colossal targets since they tend to have a low dex combined with size penalties to AC, made up for by a tremendous Nat Armor.

Another good one, if you can figure it out, is the Dread Wraith. Seriously, one of these bad boys, tack on a couple of class levels (Hexblade!) and you can wreck a foo. That's all the undead you'll need. If you can pick the DW's feats and whatnot, grab Frightful Presence, Ability Focus Draining Touch, and maybe even Ability Focus Hexblade's Curse. Then have it run around with its Dark Companion (ACF from PHBII) and when it spring attacks out of the ground, it Hexes with a good chance to hit, then causes the target to become Shaken with an even better chance to succeed, THEN hits with its CON draining touch which should almost autosucceed given that it starts at a base of 25, +2 for hexblade HD, +2 for Hex, +2 for ability focus, +2 for dark companion, +2 for shaken, that's a DC 35 fort save, which is pretty intense. Also, every 2 points of CON you score, you increase that save by another 1 on each subsequent attack. Oh, and that's before you do anything to really screw over your foe, like stacking Prayer and a couple other debuffs to lower their saves. A quick Eagles Splendor on your pet and that DC goes up by another 2 points for a couple minutes, even better!

Plus, between cha to saves and AC, your little friend will be pretty beefy, especially if you can sacrifice a few children prisoners to double his HP prior to a large battle, since he gets +5 temp hp each time he touches someone.

Ganurath
2008-10-17, 02:51 AM
Skeletal Spider Swarm, combined with Corpsecrafter feats for all sorts of goodness.Why, if you can convince your DM that each spider in the swarm sets off a negative energy explosion... *drools*

Ehem, yes, so... *reads fluff* Is this character named Rilian, by chance?

EvilElitest
2008-10-17, 04:13 PM
There is also the book of undead, through it is really really boring
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