Yes they'll probably throw you melee monsters, but the problem it's finding the optimal one. I find it hard to believe you reach lv10 and DING you find a 10-headed hydra to replace the 9-headed hydra from the last level.
I don't think anyone's saying that (this is why we're saying strawman). A 10 Headed Hydra Zombie was an example of how nasty undead can get... a 9 Headed Hydra Zombie, however, is perfectly good too. So's a Zombie Behir (CR 8 Magical beast with 9HD, hits for 2d4 +12 or, if you had Corpse Crafter, 2d4+14, has 11 natural armor to start) or a Zombie Bulette (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD, hits for 2d8+8 normally and has a burrow speed) or a Zombie Chimera (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD) or a Zombie Elasmosaurus (CR 7 10 HD Animal) or a Skeletal Tyrannosaurus (CR 8 18 HD Animal) or a Skeleton Dire Shark (CR 9 18 HD animal) or a Zombie Young to Mature Adult Black Dragon (16-22 HD, CR 9-14) and so on and so forth.
You're harping on the idea that the best undead is all a character would have. No one's saying that, so it's a strawman. However, there will be SOMETHING that'll make a solid zombie or skeleton... that's what's being said. And if you haven't figured it out, I was just going through the Monster Manual there and picking magical beasts, animals, giants, and dragons of appropriate CR and HD... and it works. Notice that it's pretty easy to find CR 7ish critters with just about the right HD.
Well that indeeds seems to have been made purposedly for that.
Yup, it was. Black Sand works better, but the Carnex definitely gets the job done (without being cheesy).
Then you need to spend actions bringing them out for combat, and if you're fighting anything with flying (pretty common at lv 11) they may as well not be there.
You do know that zombies can still fly and that skeletal creatures with magical flight still fly as well, right? For example, Skeletal Also, you don't need to necessarily spend actions to bring them out. It's just that you hide them when you want to be stealthy, but when you're playing kick in the door kill 'em all style, you leave them out under standing orders to attack anyone who you attack or who attacks you.
Ok, then you've proven me right. Just like you don't let the mind-controler start with a selection of brainwashed monsters, we can't let the necromancer start with a selection of animated corpses.
Right, you get them after the first couple encounters. Then you have them. As such, when considering how well these classes do in game, we expect that the Adept will probably have some solid undead if that's campaign appropriate. What's the problem?
Then kill them in-game. What the DM makes available for you to kill/enslave/animate is for the DM to decide. Hydras aren't even that much of a challenge for an optimized party at that level (low speed and ground bound so laughable easy to kite) so I would certainly not use a 10-headed one at 10th level unless I wanted the party to get free stuff.
...killing them in game is exactly what I've always done. And it works, and then you have a bunch of them.
Dread warriors have locked stats and anyway only can be produced from fighter corpses. It doesn't say anywhere they retain their old capacities. Notice how they have a single feat despite having 4 HD and suposedly being created from fighter.
Are you reading the same books I am? Dread Warriors are from UE. Their feats are "Same as the base creature, except the dread warrior loses any feats for which it no longer qualifies" and it can be applied not just to Fighters, but to "any humanoid of at least 3 hit dice or levels." They definitely keep all their old abilities, as the template never says anything about losing them and the fluff part of the template even says "dread warriors are undead beings usually created from the corpses of skilled warriors. They retain many of the martial skills and talents they possessed in life." So, usually you use them with Fighter types, but you don't have to, and they keep their abilities.
It could be construct campaign. It could be plant campaign. Heck it could be undead campaign in which case you can't animate them again.
Or my favorite, demon campaign since Fiendish Codex states that their bodies disapear in fantastic ways when killed.
Seriously? A Construct only campaign? A Plant only campaign? REALLY? You know, I've never been in a campaign where every enemy was always the exact same type. God, the poor Rogues in your game worlds! A campaign world of nothing but constructs, plants, and undead! Seriously though, let's assume a reasonable normal campaign here.
There's also that nifty spell that makes creatures self-destruct when dead.
So, you're saying a DM can go out of their way to screw a player if they want. We know. Hey, it could also be a completely dead magic world, except all Monk abilities work anyway! Monks clearly rule!
Point is, there's thousands of creatures out there, and not all of them are that optimal for animating, so you can't just cherry pick whatever you want before the campaign even started. Because that's as campaign-specific as it gets. It's like saying "well there's artifacts in the DMG and it's not uncommon to find artifacts in my campaigns so the adept gets whatever artifacts I want".
See? There's your strawman. No one's saying you can just cherry pick whatever you want before the campaign even started. That's your strawman, right there. Notice how what we're actually saying is that there's lots of good creatures to reanimate (whole classes of creatures in fact... virtually every dragon, giant, magical beast, or animal of appropriate HD is a good choice), and in most campaigns you're liable to see enough of them to have some solid zombies or skeletons on your side.
Now that is reasonable. If there's standard market prices for them, you can expect to be able to purchase them and kill them for animating. You still can't cherry-pick whatever you want.
STOP THE STRAWMAN. NOBODY'S SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT CHERRY PICKING WHATEVER YOU WANT.
To be clear, here's the actual argument:
There's lots of good creatures to reanimate (whole classes of creatures in fact... virtually every dragon, giant, magical beast, or animal of appropriate HD is a good choice), and in most campaigns you're liable to see enough of them to have some solid zombies or skeletons on your side. Therefor, it's reasonable to expect than an Adept could, if he wanted, have a decent number of reasonably strong Skeletons or Zombies via Animate Dead, simply by raising creatures that are seen, fought, or bought during the campaign. Examples of good undead creatures to raise include zombie 10 headed hydras, as well as zombie dragons, zombie bulletes, skeletal warbeast tyrannosauruses, and zombie warbeast Elasmosauruses. Undead creatures can then, when needed, be placed in extradimensional space, or pulled out when combat might be approaching.The following is your strawman, which nobody is arguing, but which you're attacking:
An Adept gets to cherry pick whatever he wants before the campaign even starts, and when an Adept reachs lv10 and DING he'll find a 10-headed hydra to replace the 9-headed hydra from the last level. These creatures are then always stored in Extradimensional space until the fight starts.See the difference? Notice how I'm showing your strawman out of your quotes, so don't go claiming you didn't make it. Now can you stop with that?
JaronK