best animal companions to turn into zombies?

[newguydude1]

i found out that sorcerers can get animal companions as an acf from unearthed arcana. so i want to grab illumian race and multiclass into cleric and spam naenhoon fell animate magic missiles on my own animal companion that i summon until i max out my zombie control hd. also grab natural bond so

so 24 hours to summon an animal companion
push it into a cage
kill it with fell animate magic missile
repeat again
then finish with a 3rd animal companion, this one is for keeps.

so from core the best i could find is
levels 2-3: riding dog
level 4: dire bat
level 5-6: bison
level 7: dire boare
level 8: rhinocerous

no idea outside core though. could someone help?

oh and this is a sorcerer not a druid. so murdering animals for corpses is totally inline with the class.

[liquidformat]

Here is an spreadsheet I create with what I think might be all animal companions possible.

[Elves]

Remember that zombies are allowed to charge, so pounce is good. Phynxkin/fleshraker/etc.

[Thurbane]

Once creatures cease to be animal companions, do they retain their bonus HD etc., or do they revert to a basic animal of their type?

[newguydude1]

would you guys say dire bat zombie is better or bison zombie is better?

one has clumsy flying the other has higher stats but cant fly.

[Soranar]

Once creatures cease to be animal companions, do they retain their bonus HD etc., or do they revert to a basic animal of their type?

No since, as soon as it dies, it ceases to be the druid (or ranger's) animal companion. It will retain it's base HD and such but not the bonuses. Same if you release it from service before it dies, it loses it's special abilities as soon as you release it.

[Soranar]

would you guys say dire bat zombie is better or bison zombie is better?

one has clumsy flying the other has higher stats but cant fly.

Flight is always a must, especially early on. And a zombie bat never gets tired and can carry a lot of party members and loot while avoiding common encounters on the ground.

[Zanos]

Remember that zombies are allowed to charge, so pounce is good. Phynxkin/fleshraker/etc.

Zombies lose all special attacks. For that reason I recommend focusing on things with high movement speed and high strength.

[newguydude1]

so dire bat takes the cake at level 4 and 5?

[unseenmage]

Related but not necessarily helpful.

In my extended sig is a thread with a randomized list of animals and templates that dont change the animal type.

I'd intended it for a necromancer to be able to buy randomly generated animals and templated animals just to undead-ify them.

Hope it's useful.

[Elves]

Zombies lose all special attacks. For that reason I recommend focusing on things with high movement speed and high strength.

"A zombie loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks."
That should include pounce.

[Zanos]

Special Attacks and Special Qualities are different sections of a statblock. Pounce is usually listed under Special Attacks.

[Elves]

You're right. Thought it was an SQ.

[Thurbane]

That's weird wording. What Ex SQs improved attacks? Nearly everything I can think of would be listed in the SA section, rather than SQ.

[Zanos]

That's weird wording. What Ex SQs improved attacks? Nearly everything I can think of would be listed in the SA section, rather than SQ.

Not much, off the top of my head. I think the Oversized Weapon that some giants/titans get and some of the arrow demons multibow stuff?