Here's the description of the spell Animate Dead, from the Cook/Marsh Expert set:
This spell allows the caster to make animated skeletons or zombies from normal skeletons or dead bodies within the range of the spell. These animated dead will obey the caster until they are destroyed or dispelled by a cleric or dispel magic.The spell animates 1 hit dice of skeletons or zombies for every level the caster has. Thus a 12th level magic-user could animate 12 human skeletons or 6 human zombies. Skeletons have AC 7 and the same hit dice as the original creature. Zombies have AC 8 and one more hit die than the living creature had. Character levels are not counted when a character is animated, thus a first level magic-user animated as a zombie will have 2d8 hit points. Animated creatures do not have any spells or special abilities.
SO much simpler than confusing things with Animate Dead Monsters. Just let the necromancer do their thang, man.
; )
In the hands of a mature and good DM, simple is better. I am starting to crave it myself especially with all the crazy Pathfinder rules bloat (80 pages of legal WOTC Feats in 12 point type!)
ReplyDeleteHowever in the hands of idiot kids like at least some of us (mea culpa) were, less rules is not so hot and its easy to understand why many of us wanted more rigor.
Less is more, man.
ReplyDeleteAll it takes is a general agreement between players and you're golden.
The zombie-MU example is a weird way to make the point that whatever the value of the original creature's hit dice (i.e., d4 for the MU), the zombie version would have regular monster d8 HD. Is that the correct read on that spell?
ReplyDeleteAgreed! I like the older Polymorph Other spell, too.
ReplyDeleteThis might seem an odd place to ask this, but has anyone out there in the Old School community written a post about how Zombies changed through editions?
@ Spawn: Yes. Zombies by nature are much less fragile than normal humans. Another example of how 3rd and 4th level characters really ARE "heroic" in the B/X game.
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@ drcheck: Not that I'm aware of, but it might be an interesting point of research.
; )
More than just that the zombie would have d8 for hit dice, it's a reminder that no matter what level the dead magic user was, it would be treated as a dead human, thus the skeleton would have 1HD and the zombie would have 2HD.
ReplyDeleteI've always been a fan of this version of Animate Dead. Kill a dragon? Turn it into a zombie dragon!
Is this a hint about tomorrow's game? Or about the spellcaster sneak peak?
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