Undead as Tools

[quiet1mi]

My friend and I had to make a last minute game and we came up with something similar to the X-Files.

The PCs are part of an organization that investigates magical circumstances...

Anyway, to avoid making a powerful character, I had the Dm pick my race and class... He picked "shadow" from the savage species...

To keep me with the group he gave one of the PCs a medallion that I was bound to and could be summoned from. In addition, I was compelled to follow what ever I was asked to do by the person possessing the medallion. Because the medallion infringed upon my free will and thus might be too powerful, I was allowed to take orders literally, and to keep this character from being too boring I made its INT 10, its Wis 14, and its CHA 15...

This got me thinking... a shadow with ghostly grasp makes for an excellent thief, scout, assassin (especially if the character was a thief to begin with).

What other undead creatures make for excellent tools? What other intelligent creatures "tamed" in this way would make for excellent tools.

[Johel]

Say, can you create spawn ?

Shadows are good for the "stealthy undead killers" because :

• They are incorporal
• They got a Strength damage.
• They can fly
• They are good at hidding

Wights can hide and drain levels. But they aren't incorporal and can't fly.

Wraiths can hide even more easily, are incorporal, got a Constitution drain, can fly and, if caught, can make a middle-level character **** his pants.

[Lysander]

I don't think an incorporeal creature would be a good thief - can shadows even pick things up? Scout/assassin/spy are ideal roles though.

*A ghost would also be an even better scout since they can hide on the ethereal plane.

*Skeletons are an ideal source of cheap eternal dumb labor.

*A mohrg, like a shadow, controls the undead spawned from those they kill. If you control a mohrg you can potentially command an unlimited number of zombies through them.

*A mummy's disease could be used to slowly kill an otherwise difficult to defeat enemy.

*A devourer can trap and destroy the souls of enemies.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I don't think an incorporeal creature would be a good thief - can shadows even pick things up? Scout/assassin/spy are ideal roles though.

*A ghost would also be an even better scout since they can hide on the ethereal plane.

*Skeletons are an ideal source of cheap eternal dumb labor.

*A mohrg, like a shadow, controls the undead spawned from those they kill. If you control a mohrg you can potentially command an unlimited number of zombies through them.

*A mummy's disease could be used to slowly kill an otherwise difficult to defeat enemy.

*A devourer can trap and destroy the souls of enemies.

The ghostly grasp feat lets creatures with incorporeal subtype manipulate corporeal objects.

To the OP, you might want to consider one level of ephemeral exemplar, it gives you your class level as a bonus to both turn resistamce and deflection modifier.

The second level might be good if you can create spawn since it gives your spawn a +4 enchancement bonus to the dexterity of your spawns.

Third level is stupid IMO, it gives you ghostly grasp as a bonus feat.

[Abd al-Azrad]

I had an evil game where we used shadows as a grey goo attack on a kingdom. Slowly made a few dozen through ritual sacrifice of kidnapped rich dudes (I was an evil monk, I ran a massage parlour), then one night let the whole mess of 'em loose on the town. We controlled them, they controlled all of the resulting spawn, meaning after a mere few weeks of work we had an army of hundreds of shadows. Stuffed 'em all in a box, put the box on a cart, and rode off with our shadowy WMD to the next town.

I don't even think we had anything against this kingdom, we were just doing this for the sake of being villains.

I've also seen zombies used as a tireless agricultural tool to improve the productivity of local farms, and one of my old NPC supervillains transformed his lady love into a vampire to cure her of an otherwise lethal, incurable plague. Hilariously, she was a paladin in life and immediately dusted herself after realizing what she had become, but I'd like to think this would be an excellent tactic for innoculating a population against, say, the Black Plague.

[Ashiel]

My friend and I had to make a last minute game and we came up with something similar to the X-Files.

The PCs are part of an organization that investigates magical circumstances...

Anyway, to avoid making a powerful character, I had the Dm pick my race and class... He picked "shadow" from the savage species...

To keep me with the group he gave one of the PCs a medallion that I was bound to and could be summoned from. In addition, I was compelled to follow what ever I was asked to do by the person possessing the medallion. Because the medallion infringed upon my free will and thus might be too powerful, I was allowed to take orders literally, and to keep this character from being too boring I made its INT 10, its Wis 14, and its CHA 15...

This got me thinking... a shadow with ghostly grasp makes for an excellent thief, scout, assassin (especially if the character was a thief to begin with).

What other undead creatures make for excellent tools? What other intelligent creatures "tamed" in this way would make for excellent tools.

Technically, I don't think a shadow can make for an excellent thief, since they can't physically manipulate objects; and thus couldn't slight of hand something off of someone. That being said; you are correct that they make excellent scouts and assassins, in the arch-type sense.

EDIT: Actually, you mentioned a ghostly grasp ability; which I'm assuming means you can manipulate objects; so scratch some of the above where needed.

Other Minion Idea
Succubi via planar binding make excellent interrogators. They can kiss their subjects until they have massive penalties to their saves (you get a -1 penalty per negative level, so if you have 7 levels and she kisses 6 times, you've got a bigger penalty than you have save bonuses); as well as at-will suggestion and charm monster spell-like abilities. They also make excellent spies and assassins because of their shape-changing abilities, charms, negative level kisses, teleportation, Vrock summoning, and so forth. They're just incredibly effective and helping with lots of non-brute-force situations.

Undead Labor
Undead in general are incredibly good helpers/tools. The basic animate dead spell at its lowest level can generate up to 20 undead skeletal workers. Each of them may take 10 on profession/craft checks as you demand to have them do stuff like dig trenches, wells, carry stuff, chop wood, and so on and so forth. If you're just using your undead for labor, that equates to 100gp per month in resources from craft/profession checks (which can also be represented as trade-goods instead of literal gold pieces).

Since undead do not need sleep or rest, it would not be unfair to allow them to work "double-shifts" and allow them two craft/profession checks per week, representing them working day and night continuously. It's not RAW, but it's not a big stretch either. That would allow you to pull 200gp worth of materials (either actual gold pieces for the work, or materials that are valuable, such as lumber, stone, ore, etc). An undead task force overseen by a professional architect, for example, could quickly gather the materials and build structures on the cheap.

When the actual crafting comes in, each undead can aid-another to grant a +2 bonus to the check 55% of the time. That means that your 20 undead workers should statistically grant at least a +20 (likely more) bonus to the associated craft check.

If you have an intelligent undead and a lyre of building (see wondrous items), you can do some incredible things.

Also, Chickens
A shadow controls other shadows it creates. If the first shadow is controlled by you, then you in turn control all the other shadows it creates. Breed chickens, and turn them into shadows. Use these undead to guard your borders or kill off annoying pests such as Terrasques; with each foe they slay returning as one of your new minions.

Other Uses
Undead lifeguards are surprisingly effective. If you animate undead sea creatures, they can easily function as life-guards in your tropical undead resort; where they quickly and efficiently save lives and keep your coastal waters safe from invaders.

Undead janitors are great as well. They never complain about cleaning toilets; nor do they require pay. That 50gp it took to animate them will pay for itself in about 10 weeks.

Undead sewer workers are great too.

Undead salvage crews for ship-wrecks are great. They can carry loads of stuff, and don't even need to swim (being able to walk along the bottom); allowing you to salvage ship-wrecked treasures very effectively.

Undead fire-fighters aren't bad either; at least for the rescue missions.

Undead sentries have darkvision 60ft and never sleep. This makes them pretty useful if you keep your lair free of potential cover (say with empty hall-ways and the like). For bonus points, cover them in noisy bells so if they are attacked they will alert others to their presence.

Undead pack-animals can plow fields tirelessly, don't eat, and don't sleep. They can even tell them to plow the field in a certain way and leave them to do the business. A single necromancer can work multiple fields at once, while sittin' back and supervising (and drinkin' a nice lemonade).

If you've ever played The Sims with the Makin' Magic expansion, you may be familiar with "Bonehilda"; an undead maid who takes out the trash, washes the dishes, makes the beds, cleans the floors, cleans the bathrooms, waters your plants, etc. She comes with her own pine-box for storing her and her tools in.

Undead porters can carry items for people tirelessly. An undead bison/oxen/bull can pull an enormous amount of weight; especially if they're zombies and you have the corpsecrafter feat (a total of +6 to strength on an already enormously strong large quadruped); who can wear armor as you desire, and can be ordered to defend themselves if you're attacked by highwaymen. Also, you can continue to travel 24/7 without stopping to let the animals rest.

An undead Roc or other exceptionally large flying zombie can remain in flight indefinitely; carrying you along for the ride if you want.

Really, the sky is the limit.