Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Cadaver Collector

Well, how did you think necromancers gather bodies for their unholy experiments? Send undead that they created? Go on battlefields or plunder graveyards themselves!? No, absolutely not, they obviously ask artificers to build a 17 HD Construct with spikes on its back to bring the bodies back 4 by 4. Because convenience has never been more important than style.
5e also gives us more insight on this. The reason necromancers love having a cadaver collector is because when it impales a body on its spikes, it also traps a part of that creature's mind, allowing its master to create both corporeal and incorporeal undead. This, along with the fact that most collectors are created by fiends on Acheron, explains why it has developped intelligence, an alignment and a sense of purpose, while it's still pretty clearly a golem. The paralyzing gas it breathes also seems to come from these trapped souls, which may explain why it's a (Su) ability in 3.5 (or not, considering even the iron golem's regular poisonous breath is (Su)).


The cadaver collector is a golem in every way except in name, with the same bonus to strength and natural armor (+20, between stone and iron), unusually strong slams (this one's deal 4d8! That's as if the collector was constanly wielding two Gargantuan bastard swords!), DR 10/Adamantine and magic immunity.
On top of that, the collector has a breath weapon that paralyzes people with a Reflex save (reflex SoL are pretty rare, so that's good), is slowed by sonic attacks and healed by lightning (any lightning attack removes the slow effect), among other specific weaknesses. It's good for a construct to have a way to heal itself, and lightning attacks are way more common than sonic ones, so that's not too bad. Still, slowed is a harsh debuff, and the cadaver collector may have a hard time fighting spellcasters if they know what they're doing, even if it has 40ft movement speed. It can also trample its opponents and bounce low-level spells (nice, but ultimately probably useless at these ECL).
And finally, it can collect cadavers. Improved Grab on its slams, and it can also Impale its opponents. In essence, when it pins an opponent, it impales them on the spikes on its back, which makes it not be considered grappled anymore and deals hefty damage to the impaled guy (Slam+1-1/2 Str when first impaled, 2d8 on each subsequent round, and 4d8 when they try to escape, which is almost impossible, since it's a Strength check DC 28). It will be useful against a few Medium opponents, but will most probably be of little use against bosses.

The cadaver collector is much better than even an iron golem, especially with its semi-useable mental stats (-6 Int, +6 Wis, +4 Cha). The sonic weakness is a big problem, but the paralyzing breath, grappling capabilities and stronger slams much more than make up for it. I think it would be useable and even pretty strong with 13 RHD. The first thing you should do if you want to play this is grab some at-will lightning capabilities. This allows you to infinitely heal outside combat and all but remove your sonic weakness. Unfortunately, Dragonfire adepts are immune to their own breath weapon, so I advise Cadaver Collector 13/ Sorcerer 1/ Dragon Disciple X. You gain a lightning breath weapon at level 3 of Dragon Disciple, and two claws and a bite at level 2, which gives you more attacks to try to Impale your opponents, or to use a mouthpick weapon. This requires you to put all your skill points in Knowledge (Arcana) and Speak Language (Draconic), but really, were you expecting to be able to use skills with -6 to Int? With 17 RHD, I guess DLA-2 should make for a playable character.

Greater Cadaver Collector, 35 RHD:
Yup, still hate advanced golems. This is just a bigger Cadaver Collector, with only size adjustments to the stat block. They didn't even update the Impale ability to allow it to impale Large creatures (which I assume it can, since it really doesn't make sense otherwise). On the plus side, its slams are now equivalent to Colossal bastard swords. Meh, 15 RHD I guess? And what are a 35 BAB and 5 epic feats worth in epic levels? I guess you should be able to go toe-to-toe with very low-epic characters, even though your main schtick has been obsolete for a while by now. Let's go with DLA-14 for an ECL 21.


This must be a really creepy monster to fight. Covered in corpses, and breathing the enslaved soul of your deceased friends, before bringing them back to its master to turn them into undead and send them back to fight you? I understand why cadaver collectors are primary targets on most battlefield. Next time, we'll see one of the possible fates of all those collected corpses, with the Charnel Hound!