Animate Dead Guide

Just a little summary of creating undead using the Animate Dead spell.

• Guides
  • Brewer's Guide to Undeath (Building an Undead Army) Discussion
• Cost
  • An onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead
  • Always keep several onyx of variable sizes nearby.
• Templates
  • Skeleton
    • HD: keeps only racial
    • Stats: Str +0, Dex +2, Con-, Int -, Wis 10, Cha 10
    • BAB and Saves as Cleric of same HD
    • Max 20 HD creature
    • Lose flight but keeps all other movement speeds
    • Natural armor bonus depends on size: Small +1, Medium or Large +2, Huge +3
    • A skeleton retains all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature.
    • A creature with hands gains one claw attack per hand; the skeleton can strike with each of its claw attacks at its full attack bonus. A claw attack deals damage depending on the skeleton's size.
    • Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Undead not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Undead are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
  • Zombie

Always animate them as Bloody skeletons unless you have a reason.

• Creating and Controlling
  • You can use this without hassle on any carcasses with HD not exceeding yours.
  • Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can't create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead.
  • The bloody and burning skeleton variants are created using the animate dead spell, but count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting. Once controlled, they count normally against the controller's limit.
• Gains
  • Fast healing 1 per 2 HD (minimum 1)
  • Channel resistance +4
  • Charisma 14 → +2 hp / HD
  • Deathless (Su) → saving gold
    • A bloody skeleton is destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points, but it returns to unlife 1 hour later at 1 hit point, allowing its fast healing thereafter to resume healing it. A bloody skeleton can be permanently destroyed if it is destroyed by positive energy, if it is reduced to 0 hit points in the area of a bless or hallow spell, or if its remains are sprinkled with a vial of holy water.

There are a lot of gains using the Desecrate spell before animating you dead.

• An undead creature created within gains +1 hit points per HD
• Create as many as double the normal amount of undead (that is, 4 HD per caster level rather than 2 HD per caster level)
• Components: a vial of unholy water and 25 gp worth (5 pounds) of silver dust → 50gp
• Scroll: 200gp → Keep one for emergency then defeating a nice specimen.