My personal favorite undead is the Revenant, a spirit of the dead repossessing their corpse, fueled and driven by a single purpose: Revenge. They're not specifically evil, but they make up for it murderous rage. They're going to kill the one who wronged them, the people protecting the one who wronged them, and anything that that might slow them down on their beeline to kill the one who wronged them. I have never had a Revenant encounter that wasn't interesting.
They are also my favorite, but there’s a nuance I’ve noticed not addressed in your description. They are most often seeking vengeance, sure, but they can also be formed by absolute devotion or dedication. As opposed to a ball of self-centered wrath, they could be so driven to protect their town, temple, family, etc. that they simply refuse to die. Think essentially like a Paladin, who can summon divine power not strictly from their reverence of the Divine, but rather their unyielding dedication to the ideals of their oath. Clerics need a patron (like Warlocks), Paladins just need the power which comes from complete resolve.The Revenants which also echo this concept (in my opinion) are the most interesting, because their motives, though clear in context, can be comparatively subtle to anyone who does not understand the cause of their dedication. In conclusion, Revenants are dope, regardless of what drives them. The ability to tell the various domains of the afterlife “I reject your reality and substitute my own” from sheer force of will is just conceptually amazing.
Mummy lords are also real interesting, like think a mummy lord devoted to an ancient forgotten god (or one who's portfolio has changed so completely as to be near unrecognizable like Astara to Aphrodite.) Guarding a sacred site or temple to that god for so long that the world around it just doesn't remember the nature of the place and the supernatural guardian's story now eclipses the place it's sworn to.
Ahhh, vampires a.k.a. "How did I and DM keep my party confused for 2 years about why my cleric never used healing spells on herself but got 1-3 healing potions that wouldn't work on anybody else every humanoid encounter...and how my rogue someday snatched one up and vomited".
@@defensivekobra3873 Well, that was a piece of homebrew my DM created around a year before for rogue (go figure) - basically you level like your class/race, get all vampiric powers (albeit nerfed and requiring levels, plus I was a hidden vampire so I only used the skills that could be presented as cleric powers, others were off the table as that would reveal me), while drinking blood allows you to move in sunlight for a time you generally need a cloak/full armor, healing hurts you while blood/poison heals you (DM basically had a problem as poisoned weapons where poison damage was lower than weapon damage was just md-pd, he had to sneak in healing if poison did more than weapons), attempts to banish undead around me gave me a debuff (imagine panic of my allies where allied cleric MPC banishes undead and my character starts to puke, screaming about poison in the air to force allies to pull back and not find out). Ahhh, good times, we were kinda surprised we managed to go with the secret for so long as despite major clerics were in on what my character is (servant of Broken God, a homebrew deity taking in good undead, cursed individuals resisting curses, psychopaths that forced themselves to act only in behalf of their just lord etc., basically god of anybody with extreme traits pushing them towards evil that wish to remain good), paladins and warriors were completely ignorant (and those were two crusade campaigns, 80% of allies were warriors, paladins and hunters, 10% clerics, 10% rogues and barbarian mercs)
i find raising skeleton archers by the dozens and exploiting their notable intelligence score to put contingencies in place to save your bonus action is very effective -"if i go down get me up with this potion" -"if i attack something all of you attack it as well" -various speech based attack pattern and formation commands -sending an actual horde of zombies to all grapple at once and explain to the DM how once like 4 creatures are grappling you you are basically restrained then beginning beatdown next turn -always spread your skele archers out so no rogue fireball gets you -skeletons are unable to speak but they still know the languages they knew in life and are smart enough to write. kill the annoying translator NPC if the party has animate dead also skeletons can still see and hear while they play dead. take off the skele's skull, hide it in the room, and have it listen in and write notes for the party. DMs may love to make random NPCs suddenly start suspecting every spider on the walls of their home and defend against scrying but a skull on the table or behind the sofa is harder to justify
I wrote a paper in college that used the same structure of body mind and soul when explaining different monsters. That's awesome to see someone else pick up the "missing this piece" vibe
Davvy Chappy: As a last resort your final defense against the forces of undead is to just run. Run away. Like as fast as you can. Husk Zombie: Oh really? ☻
Also pick Magic initiate and become conjuration wizard for infinite holy water, dip into warlock and have ceremony as an actiual spell from one of your classes for even more infinite free holy water
And the lord said, "place thine feet upon the ground. Pull pen on thine holy hand grenade! And count to 3. No more, no less. And after thou hast done so, throw thine holy hand grenade at thine foe."
@@defensivekobra3873 Minor Conjuration to conjure up holy water is questionable at _best_. "Holy Water" isn't an object, although a vial certainly is. "Vial Filled with Holy Water" is not something I'd consider as something you can summon with holy water for the same reason I'd not consider Holy Avenger valid for minor conjuration. Ceremony isn't free, it costs 25GP worth of materials every time you use it (not to mention it takes an hour to cast even if you don't do it as a ritual), which coincidentally is the exact same price as a vial of holy water. The only reason you'd use it is if you're in a place where organised clergy isn't a thing but silver is widely available.
Yes but have you seen plant creatures? They are even more gimmic heavy than undead! 1d4 attacks for a CR 1/4th creature, an 1 HP monster with a death burst who holds the memories of beholders, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing but not slashing, healing from lightning damage, making a lot of noise or just straight up necromancy
If Death Battle has taught me anything, its that pitting two individuals that share a similar power against each other is sure to be interesting. We could call it 'druidry vs necromancy' or 'herbs vs undead' or somthin'
@@hblue7176 funky and lovely, Only druids have extremely limited plant creating powers compared to their elemental-summoning powers or the undead creating powers of an wizard, but hey it might work
@@defensivekobra3873 I suppose you're right. And here I thought I'd come up with a well thought out and original idea. It's a pity we forgot 'Plants vs Zombies' was already a thing, right?
@@hblue7176 we just need to homebrew a few more plant spells, and give wizards some more fun undead spells. They already have awaken, we just need the rest, perhaps just throw plant as a summon for conjure fey and woodland beings?
My favorite thing about the undead is how flexible they are for example a favorite trick I do is I make the skeletons of snakes into arrows coated in poison. Shoot someone with the arrow. Animate the coated skeletal snake. Finally watch the show. Another cool thing is to have bags of flammable powder with shrapnel bits in the rib cages of skeletons and watch them kamikaze into the enemy. I would also like to conclude with this little trick. Have alot of small skeletal creatures inside a room under floor boards, inside closets, vents, vases,etc. Lure the target in and animate as many of them as you can as you watch them get devoured by these skeletal critters. Hell you could combine some of these things together and have indoor mobile explosives run around inside a point of interest.
Hell yeah, walking talking skeleton hand grenades! Also another idea I always wanted to see was something akin to a massive skeleton transformer or a mech that you could hop in and control. That would be badass!
Have you ever heard of zombie pinatas? Basically you get a big corpse, hollow it out, fill it full of smaller undead, and then raise dead on it. When the big one dies you have the small ones burst from the corpse.
as an avid necromancer player i really have a nark with how the world treats us, this is a non DND story but when i play Grim dawn as a necromancer an NPC said to me to destroy the source of the undead as i speak to him with 8 SKELETONS BEHIND ME THAT HELPED THE PEOPLE TO LIVE LONGER! also what's wrong with using undead as free labor to tend to your farm!? think about it for a second, we necromancers help keep your graveyard open enough in case of mass death event that doesn't involve us at all (natural diasters, bandits, wars, etc) and with proper prep we can raise the dead without inflicting serious environmental issues, oh and you can think of necromancy as corpse recycling. YEAH WE'RE SPOOPY AF BUT IT DOESN'T MEAN WE'RE OUTRIGHT EVIL!
one of the issues is that in previous editions, animating a corpse bound the soul back from the afterlife into the corpse for as long as the corpse remained animated, so there was a major component of screwing people out of their afterlife. but now, in 5e, that doesn't happen, but in most settings culture just hasn't had enought time to adapt to the new reality that the stigma remains.
@@dragohammer6937 i c i c. now i am even more convinced to fight for the better treatment of necromancers!. what about finger of death? is it soul binding too?
@@hoshi314 nope. the only ways to bind someones soul now are with spells made to do it(soul jar i think?) or by making them into high tier undead, like mummies, liches and deathknights and revenants, which requires their consent.
@@hoshi314 warlocks get wizard spells for 6th level and higher(arcanums), so you can pick create undead, finger of death etc. it's sad the lowest level undead creation spell is animate dead.
I remember once playing a game where we had to deal with vampires, ghosts, ect., and I, I kid you not, played a juggernaut warforged with holy silver as the armor material, and had a crossbow that fired bolts tipped in holy water. I had the limitation though that I only had a few bolts at a time, and the armor didn't do lethal damage, only caused pain... didn't really matter though as a light domain cleric that couldn't be diseased, and had a body that was impervious to most undead and bites from low-level vampires. Yeah... the dm ended up killing me off, but it was epic because he gave me the ultimate send off, as I ended the campaign by defeating the lord of all undead by using my own body as a holy weapon and punching him in the face with a fist blessed by a god, and the clash of 2 gods, the god of the undead and the god of life, caused an explosion of energy that completely destroyed the diety, and destroyed ALMOST all of my character, but left his core in tact, as it held the god of life acting as a power source for my character during that fight. The deity had taken the party and my character's core to a church and the church used the same core to build a different warforged, and my character ended up being the guardian of the soul of the goddess of the undead, and kept the world from ever having necromancy ever again... best character send-off ever
Well you say that but me and my party are about to fight these zombies that are backed up by the tree they were hanging from and the vines that make traversing this place more difficult than untouched jungle terrain.
Dude seriously you taught me so much about this game and i had my first one shot with my closest friends and i did super great with my warlock who used a magic bow has a catalyst. Just a big thank you for all your videos
Spectral undead are a treasure in mid to higher level campaigns, when you get enough abilities to fight them. They can still be a danger, but imagine the shock and incredulity on a ghost's face when a monk focuses his ki, and just slugs the incorporeal jerk in the jaw.
Undead can get crazier than most. Like the shadow, save or drop strength score, cr 1/4. A first level party should be able to take quite a few creatures of that strength, but even higher level parties can be intimidated by a horde of shadows.
@@maromania7 one shadow sneaking into a hospital can kill an entire town, kill 10 patients and suddenly 11 shadows are spreading throughout the town stealthily creating more off of the civilians untill the guard simply can't handle the strength drain. shadows are my favorite use of the control undead necromancer feature because of this
Fun fact, Davvy, holy water cannot be diluted, as long as something is over 50% holy water it all becomes holy water, so you could quite easily afford a holy water swimming pool
Fun fact. A revenant is technically a soul undead. They're a soul possessing corpse after corpse until they get their revenge. In dnd lore they don't keep reanimating their own corpse, they possess a new corpse every time they die
But can they get stuck? Like a necromancer or somebody who uses make a wish curses them to only inhabit the same body so that you could stop them by damaging them enough until they regenerate?
crazy thing about necromancers, if perhaps you wanted to play one or as a DM use one against the PCs... a 20th level Wizard would be able to use their spell slots to maintain control of a combination including 64 Zombies or Skeletons, 14 Ghouls and 5 Wights, each of which could control a total of 60 additional zombies. So that would be 82 undead under the Necromancer's control with an additional 60 zombies under their Wights' control... or you can focus on just the Zombies and/or Skeletons for a total of 143 under the necromancer's control. Again, this is at 20th level though... and since a wizard doesn't get the ability to make skeletons or zombies till 5th level, those numbers are reserved for a BBEG or something of the like.
I actually had an idea involving undead based on the undying and the Blood of Vol from Eberron. It is a nation named Asphodel within the setting i've made. it's known for making active use of Undead for various purposes and those that have gathered enough power will usually transition into an undead state after reaching their final years of life, the type varying depending on their life beforehand. they have a unique form of necromancy that doesn't mandate desecrating the dead by letting the living offer thier body before death and using both unique components for the spells and special teachings. the nation is led primarily by strong mages who lead each major settlement with some being alive, some being undead. The military is primarily undead since that minimizes mortal casualties and most of those mortal casualties are signed up for undeath during training, making them a force you don't wanna mess with. if anyone wants to hear more, I am willing to offer more info.
Personal experience tells me the best way to fight an army of undead is with another army of undead. Course an army of undead works on damn near anything. Thus is why I always play a necromancer.
perfect timing, i'm DMing a homebrew undead campaign and the first session is on thursday. A shame my players (probably) won't see this... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I wonder where the Undying Court from Eberron falls into the ‘mind’ style of Undeath. There’s a mention of their specific undeath being fueled by ‘positive energy’ rather than the negative soul sucking energy that liches and vamps use but I couldn’t find anything else about that little twist. Any thoughts? And once again, you’re such a handsome fella, Dav
I'm planning on making a warlock pact of the tome with a Great Old One patron. Basically he's trying to find the key to immortality, and the tome guides him to whatever ingredients he needs (even though he's gonna be the comic relief as an insane scientist). His wife is a necromancer who helps him in his studies while tending to their laboratory, and a friendly lich was his best man at their wedding. I can't wait to see the look on the party's faces when they find all this out eventually
I love creating my own special and unique kinds of undead for my games. I rarely use what's in the book. Not that I am bashing what the book provides. I also very rarely ever use Undead or Demons as encounters because I don't like to ruin the mystique of them. They aren't forces that the players should casually have to deal with. I use music in conjunction with the Undead Boos Fights and I swear the look on their faces when I turn on the music is priceless.
i once left my party for like a year and came back with a party of my own made of flaming skulls, skeletons, crawling hands, wights, mummies, a single night walker and a single mummy lord (the same character that became a nine hells celebrity, i really wanted to try the full evil experience). that character's goal was to show vecna how an evil empire is really done!
When your a bard and a necromancer at the same time with a barbarian who is too angry to die there is only one fine reason to. *HEAVY METAL IN THE DISTANCE*
I appreciate your advice the next time I see is zombie I will run away but my level 10 Paladin is probably too stubborn also that extra D8 Smite is just too good to walk away from
davvy please do a giude to Aasimar please i never played dnd cuz some filipino people dont even know this R.P.G and i cant even go outside cuz Covid_19 has taken over the Philippines
Soooooo I made a city filled with angels and undead (technically Undying) ruled by the goddess of life. Hopefully I can flavor it right so it makes sense. Fun times
Another idea I like to have about mind, or even body undead, is that it is a painfull state of existence, like Barbosa and his crew on the first Pirates of Caribbean movie.
There's also those elves in ebberron who use positive necromancy magic (from the positive plane) and people remembering them to stay alive, and hate regular undead, because they use magic from the negative plane.
@@theapexsurvivor9538 *Accusations of lying while using your insulting as proof of your biased anger in a hypocritical fashion, unimaginative repeating your insults are actually about you and your family. Rants about something of Facebook or InfoWars as if it was factual*
I've learned just how annoying Undead can be with the Wrath's ability to bring your allies back from the dead as specters when I dmed for my brother. These guys are all about the battle of attrition.
Reminds me of my groups last game. a party of level 5 adventurers vs 36 skeletons. Our DM thought that our cleric, and our paladin(me) would forget about Turn Undead. we didnt.
I'm bummed that Mummy Lords were mentioned in this. They make great religious stand-ins for liches!! Also, see the Brendan Fraiser movie as inspiration for a one-shot!!
Damn, now I'm curious if it's possible for someone to become a spirit and then somehow raise their body so you can command it like a minion version of yourself.
@@Mare_Man I think the image here is a ghost commanding their old body like a common skeleton or zombie. Liches like other "mind" type undead still inhabit their bodies like the living do (even if their souls are elsewhere).
When in doubt an undead problem will spice up most any session. They come with a great ascetic, they can range from easy to hard, and they are something everyone has some understanding of. I start all of my new players with an undead arc, it reallt gets them into it. I wish there were as much range in fey (mainly so i could kill those tricky bastards at all levels) because they have all the same qualities for story telling except varaiety
I have a death knight player character, cursed by his own god to suffer in the mortal realm for his actions, he just wants to die to go to the afterlife. So it fits me well because randomly saying I just want to die is natural behavior.
I tend to rule that only Spirit undead have souls, Liches being the exception, but even then they're barely connected to it, at most mind undead have a small portion of their soul, but never even close to the whole thing
Zealot Barb Scourge Aasimar with a sunsword is hilarious against them. Had a DM who ran Strahd and I played one. They both loved and hated me as i was the blazing radiant mountain of meat.
Hero : I will end that villain for killing my brother!
Elf : You have my bow!
Dwarf : And my axe!
Necromancer : And your brother!
this is great
Seen this joke before, but if it aint broke, why fix it, i'll give it a like
Classic.
Hero: CARL NOO!!
Patrick Dees Carl: auuughh (hello brother, it appears that your buddy revived me in order to aid you in avenging me)
My personal favorite undead is the Revenant, a spirit of the dead repossessing their corpse, fueled and driven by a single purpose: Revenge. They're not specifically evil, but they make up for it murderous rage. They're going to kill the one who wronged them, the people protecting the one who wronged them, and anything that that might slow them down on their beeline to kill the one who wronged them. I have never had a Revenant encounter that wasn't interesting.
ThePhantom9495 they are literally too angry to die.
I like how they sorta fall under body and Mind undead categories as well
They are also my favorite, but there’s a nuance I’ve noticed not addressed in your description. They are most often seeking vengeance, sure, but they can also be formed by absolute devotion or dedication. As opposed to a ball of self-centered wrath, they could be so driven to protect their town, temple, family, etc. that they simply refuse to die. Think essentially like a Paladin, who can summon divine power not strictly from their reverence of the Divine, but rather their unyielding dedication to the ideals of their oath. Clerics need a patron (like Warlocks), Paladins just need the power which comes from complete resolve.The Revenants which also echo this concept (in my opinion) are the most interesting, because their motives, though clear in context, can be comparatively subtle to anyone who does not understand the cause of their dedication. In conclusion, Revenants are dope, regardless of what drives them. The ability to tell the various domains of the afterlife “I reject your reality and substitute my own” from sheer force of will is just conceptually amazing.
Ah yes, Revenants, AKA "Local man too angry to stay dead"
Mummy lords are also real interesting, like think a mummy lord devoted to an ancient forgotten god (or one who's portfolio has changed so completely as to be near unrecognizable like Astara to Aphrodite.) Guarding a sacred site or temple to that god for so long that the world around it just doesn't remember the nature of the place and the supernatural guardian's story now eclipses the place it's sworn to.
Ahhh, vampires a.k.a. "How did I and DM keep my party confused for 2 years about why my cleric never used healing spells on herself but got 1-3 healing potions that wouldn't work on anybody else every humanoid encounter...and how my rogue someday snatched one up and vomited".
Vampirisim for players, neat
@@defensivekobra3873 Well, that was a piece of homebrew my DM created around a year before for rogue (go figure) - basically you level like your class/race, get all vampiric powers (albeit nerfed and requiring levels, plus I was a hidden vampire so I only used the skills that could be presented as cleric powers, others were off the table as that would reveal me), while drinking blood allows you to move in sunlight for a time you generally need a cloak/full armor, healing hurts you while blood/poison heals you (DM basically had a problem as poisoned weapons where poison damage was lower than weapon damage was just md-pd, he had to sneak in healing if poison did more than weapons), attempts to banish undead around me gave me a debuff (imagine panic of my allies where allied cleric MPC banishes undead and my character starts to puke, screaming about poison in the air to force allies to pull back and not find out).
Ahhh, good times, we were kinda surprised we managed to go with the secret for so long as despite major clerics were in on what my character is (servant of Broken God, a homebrew deity taking in good undead, cursed individuals resisting curses, psychopaths that forced themselves to act only in behalf of their just lord etc., basically god of anybody with extreme traits pushing them towards evil that wish to remain good), paladins and warriors were completely ignorant (and those were two crusade campaigns, 80% of allies were warriors, paladins and hunters, 10% clerics, 10% rogues and barbarian mercs)
You would think that other players would notice that you sparkle in the sunlight. 😜
I was told to become a proper necromancer, I need to have all my skeletons equipped with a wand of magic missile.
Oh, that's even meaner than archer skeletons
#Madlad
i find raising skeleton archers by the dozens and exploiting their notable intelligence score to put contingencies in place to save your bonus action is very effective
-"if i go down get me up with this potion"
-"if i attack something all of you attack it as well"
-various speech based attack pattern and formation commands
-sending an actual horde of zombies to all grapple at once and explain to the DM how once like 4 creatures are grappling you you are basically restrained then beginning beatdown next turn
-always spread your skele archers out so no rogue fireball gets you
-skeletons are unable to speak but they still know the languages they knew in life and are smart enough to write. kill the annoying translator NPC if the party has animate dead also skeletons can still see and hear while they play dead. take off the skele's skull, hide it in the room, and have it listen in and write notes for the party. DMs may love to make random NPCs suddenly start suspecting every spider on the walls of their home and defend against scrying but a skull on the table or behind the sofa is harder to justify
I just shove bombs into their ribcage, making them into frag-granades.
@@Mare_Man hello fellow pony enjoyer
Ah Hollywood Undead. It's been a while since I've listened to that band
They just put out a new album this year. It's got some good stuff.
An hour is a really long time tbh
They’ve gotten kinda bad tbh.
Rapper? Metal? Both
You are making good choices
Come on guys give liches a break.
Can't a guy raise a family in peace?
Instructions unclear, became undead.
KAKYOIN! DIO you bastard!
Instructions less clear, died
@@TsunKnight Hey, now you now what to avoid in the future.
Being undead is not so bad. We have (flesh) cookies with chocolate.
Hmmm, guide to undead in the middle of the covid 19 outbreak...
this is a preparation for april
This will be useful * adds it to collection*
Coincidence? I think NOT!!!
I wrote a paper in college that used the same structure of body mind and soul when explaining different monsters. That's awesome to see someone else pick up the "missing this piece" vibe
Davvy Chappy: As a last resort your final defense against the forces of undead is to just run. Run away. Like as fast as you can.
Husk Zombie: Oh really? ☻
“And they have no plants on their lawns”
Me: what does that me-ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh
Pimpe Bombs with Holy Water or how I call them: Holy Handgranades. For instructions how to use them just watch Monty python and the holy grail :)
...against evil rabbits?
Also pick Magic initiate and become conjuration wizard for infinite holy water, dip into warlock and have ceremony as an actiual spell from one of your classes for even more infinite free holy water
cant i just use the rabbit and call it a day?
And the lord said, "place thine feet upon the ground. Pull pen on thine holy hand grenade! And count to 3. No more, no less. And after thou hast done so, throw thine holy hand grenade at thine foe."
@@defensivekobra3873 Minor Conjuration to conjure up holy water is questionable at _best_. "Holy Water" isn't an object, although a vial certainly is. "Vial Filled with Holy Water" is not something I'd consider as something you can summon with holy water for the same reason I'd not consider Holy Avenger valid for minor conjuration.
Ceremony isn't free, it costs 25GP worth of materials every time you use it (not to mention it takes an hour to cast even if you don't do it as a ritual), which coincidentally is the exact same price as a vial of holy water. The only reason you'd use it is if you're in a place where organised clergy isn't a thing but silver is widely available.
I see all that Warhammer Vampire counts pics.
I was not expecting to see the thumbnail for this at 2 in the morning. I'm pleased.
Me neither, but here we are. Least I’m not bored for seven minutes and fifty-four seconds lol.
Same
Yes but have you seen plant creatures? They are even more gimmic heavy than undead! 1d4 attacks for a CR 1/4th creature, an 1 HP monster with a death burst who holds the memories of beholders, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing but not slashing, healing from lightning damage, making a lot of noise or just straight up necromancy
If Death Battle has taught me anything, its that pitting two individuals that share a similar power against each other is sure to be interesting.
We could call it 'druidry vs necromancy' or 'herbs vs undead' or somthin'
@@hblue7176 funky and lovely, Only druids have extremely limited plant creating powers compared to their elemental-summoning powers or the undead creating powers of an wizard, but hey it might work
@@defensivekobra3873 I suppose you're right. And here I thought I'd come up with a well thought out and original idea. It's a pity we forgot 'Plants vs Zombies' was already a thing, right?
@@hblue7176 we just need to homebrew a few more plant spells, and give wizards some more fun undead spells. They already have awaken, we just need the rest, perhaps just throw plant as a summon for conjure fey and woodland beings?
Definitely my favourite monster type. There is so much you can do with them story wise and I’m a huge horror fan.
What about aliens?
My favorite thing about the undead is how flexible they are for example a favorite trick I do is I make the skeletons of snakes into arrows coated in poison. Shoot someone with the arrow. Animate the coated skeletal snake. Finally watch the show.
Another cool thing is to have bags of flammable powder with shrapnel bits in the rib cages of skeletons and watch them kamikaze into the enemy.
I would also like to conclude with this little trick.
Have alot of small skeletal creatures inside a room under floor boards, inside closets, vents, vases,etc. Lure the target in and animate as many of them as you can as you watch them get devoured by these skeletal critters. Hell you could combine some of these things together and have indoor mobile explosives run around inside a point of interest.
Hell yeah, walking talking skeleton hand grenades! Also another idea I always wanted to see was something akin to a massive skeleton transformer or a mech that you could hop in and control. That would be badass!
@@NightmareBlade10 Imma find a way out to do that
Have you ever heard of zombie pinatas? Basically you get a big corpse, hollow it out, fill it full of smaller undead, and then raise dead on it. When the big one dies you have the small ones burst from the corpse.
@@beastwarsFTW I have and I also love them , undead are just amazing.
We killed a ghoul in my campaign and the DM is letting me study the claws to find potential medical uses for the paralytic toxins.
Surgical anesthetic?
@@Technotoadnotafrog I got a cure for poison actually. But the party barbarian got a ghoul claw warhammer.
Spores Druids be like "Nah man. My zombies don't need to be micromanaged. They're Chill. They just want to propogate their spores."
as an avid necromancer player i really have a nark with how the world treats us, this is a non DND story but when i play Grim dawn as a necromancer an NPC said to me to destroy the source of the undead as i speak to him with 8 SKELETONS BEHIND ME THAT HELPED THE PEOPLE TO LIVE LONGER!
also what's wrong with using undead as free labor to tend to your farm!? think about it for a second, we necromancers help keep your graveyard open enough in case of mass death event that doesn't involve us at all (natural diasters, bandits, wars, etc) and with proper prep we can raise the dead without inflicting serious environmental issues, oh and you can think of necromancy as corpse recycling.
YEAH WE'RE SPOOPY AF BUT IT DOESN'T MEAN WE'RE OUTRIGHT EVIL!
one of the issues is that in previous editions, animating a corpse bound the soul back from the afterlife into the corpse for as long as the corpse remained animated, so there was a major component of screwing people out of their afterlife.
but now, in 5e, that doesn't happen, but in most settings culture just hasn't had enought time to adapt to the new reality that the stigma remains.
@@dragohammer6937 i c i c. now i am even more convinced to fight for the better treatment of necromancers!. what about finger of death? is it soul binding too?
@@hoshi314 nope. the only ways to bind someones soul now are with spells made to do it(soul jar i think?) or by making them into high tier undead, like mummies, liches and deathknights and revenants, which requires their consent.
@@dragohammer6937 i wonder if my undying pact warlock can do that. Also Necromancers! we are more eco-friendly than your average fireball wizards!
@@hoshi314 warlocks get wizard spells for 6th level and higher(arcanums), so you can pick create undead, finger of death etc. it's sad the lowest level undead creation spell is animate dead.
Good thing I’m an insomniac
I remember once playing a game where we had to deal with vampires, ghosts, ect., and I, I kid you not, played a juggernaut warforged with holy silver as the armor material, and had a crossbow that fired bolts tipped in holy water. I had the limitation though that I only had a few bolts at a time, and the armor didn't do lethal damage, only caused pain... didn't really matter though as a light domain cleric that couldn't be diseased, and had a body that was impervious to most undead and bites from low-level vampires. Yeah... the dm ended up killing me off, but it was epic because he gave me the ultimate send off, as I ended the campaign by defeating the lord of all undead by using my own body as a holy weapon and punching him in the face with a fist blessed by a god, and the clash of 2 gods, the god of the undead and the god of life, caused an explosion of energy that completely destroyed the diety, and destroyed ALMOST all of my character, but left his core in tact, as it held the god of life acting as a power source for my character during that fight. The deity had taken the party and my character's core to a church and the church used the same core to build a different warforged, and my character ended up being the guardian of the soul of the goddess of the undead, and kept the world from ever having necromancy ever again... best character send-off ever
Sounds pretty badass.
Extremely badass send off.
The best way to deal with the undead is to place a lot of plants on your lawn.
Well you say that but me and my party are about to fight these zombies that are backed up by the tree they were hanging from and the vines that make traversing this place more difficult than untouched jungle terrain.
Dude seriously you taught me so much about this game and i had my first one shot with my closest friends and i did super great with my warlock who used a magic bow has a catalyst. Just a big thank you for all your videos
"You need to know what you're fighting"
Paladin: *Laughs in Smite*
Spectral undead are a treasure in mid to higher level campaigns, when you get enough abilities to fight them. They can still be a danger, but imagine the shock and incredulity on a ghost's face when a monk focuses his ki, and just slugs the incorporeal jerk in the jaw.
"undead have abilities that don't match their CR"
then again what doesn't lol
I like how CR is meant to be a ballpark area of how strong they are but banshee Con save to not be dropped to 0 HP?
Undead can get crazier than most. Like the shadow, save or drop strength score, cr 1/4. A first level party should be able to take quite a few creatures of that strength, but even higher level parties can be intimidated by a horde of shadows.
@@maromania7 one shadow sneaking into a hospital can kill an entire town, kill 10 patients and suddenly 11 shadows are spreading throughout the town stealthily creating more off of the civilians untill the guard simply can't handle the strength drain. shadows are my favorite use of the control undead necromancer feature because of this
Oh wait no can't like 69
Fun fact, Davvy, holy water cannot be diluted, as long as something is over 50% holy water it all becomes holy water, so you could quite easily afford a holy water swimming pool
1:30 Always good to see my boy Mannfred in a video.
Fun fact. A revenant is technically a soul undead. They're a soul possessing corpse after corpse until they get their revenge. In dnd lore they don't keep reanimating their own corpse, they possess a new corpse every time they die
But can they get stuck? Like a necromancer or somebody who uses make a wish curses them to only inhabit the same body so that you could stop them by damaging them enough until they regenerate?
Aye! I love the Hollywood Undead reference that beginning that’s awesome!
*I will fight and die for that tree ent*
As a Cape Townian, 01:56 made me really happy ^_^
I love all of your videos but this one was by far the funniest. Nailed the humor!
I do usually love your videos already, but that Hollywood Undead reference was much appreciated!!!
Entertaining and informative, as usual.
I really liked the division system and description of them.
I have to admit, I see your name, I make sure I haven't seen it recently, and I click. Glad you hit 100k
crazy thing about necromancers, if perhaps you wanted to play one or as a DM use one against the PCs... a 20th level Wizard would be able to use their spell slots to maintain control of a combination including 64 Zombies or Skeletons, 14 Ghouls and 5 Wights, each of which could control a total of 60 additional zombies. So that would be 82 undead under the Necromancer's control with an additional 60 zombies under their Wights' control... or you can focus on just the Zombies and/or Skeletons for a total of 143 under the necromancer's control. Again, this is at 20th level though... and since a wizard doesn't get the ability to make skeletons or zombies till 5th level, those numbers are reserved for a BBEG or something of the like.
Every time Davvy's face is on screen my jaw legitimately drops like my brain can't comprehend the attraction?
Why would anyone become a litch when you can be a monk and punch people until you stop aging?
Bearer of the Curse...
M Silvestre seek seek lest
Perfect for before work on an early shift
Yeah I'm going to officially adopt these classifications of undeath
I wanted to disagree but Davvy got it on the nose.
I actually had an idea involving undead based on the undying and the Blood of Vol from Eberron. It is a nation named Asphodel within the setting i've made. it's known for making active use of Undead for various purposes and those that have gathered enough power will usually transition into an undead state after reaching their final years of life, the type varying depending on their life beforehand. they have a unique form of necromancy that doesn't mandate desecrating the dead by letting the living offer thier body before death and using both unique components for the spells and special teachings. the nation is led primarily by strong mages who lead each major settlement with some being alive, some being undead. The military is primarily undead since that minimizes mortal casualties and most of those mortal casualties are signed up for undeath during training, making them a force you don't wanna mess with.
if anyone wants to hear more, I am willing to offer more info.
*laughs in Necromancer*
Instructions unclear: reanimated family.
What kind of undead did you do? Because some are more frowned upon than others
Don't worry. Raising a family is hard.
Personal experience tells me the best way to fight an army of undead is with another army of undead. Course an army of undead works on damn near anything. Thus is why I always play a necromancer.
Heroes of might and magic/ warhammer.
As always hilarious stuff sir
perfect timing, i'm DMing a homebrew undead campaign and the first session is on thursday.
A shame my players (probably) won't see this...
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
love the Hollywood undead reference
*Sees all the warhammer art.
"Ah, I see you are a man of culture."
my face when i did not expect hollywood undead at 00:20
it's almost 7 am and I have yet to go to bed. Sleep can wait
I was not ready for Chappy to reference Hollywood Undead.
I wonder where the Undying Court from Eberron falls into the ‘mind’ style of Undeath. There’s a mention of their specific undeath being fueled by ‘positive energy’ rather than the negative soul sucking energy that liches and vamps use but I couldn’t find anything else about that little twist. Any thoughts? And once again, you’re such a handsome fella, Dav
love the hollywood undead refrence XD
Thank you giving us this, just in cause
Surprised you made no mention of that new Hollow Born option from EGtW as it probably will be the closest we get to UA Revenant published for 5e.
I'm planning on making a warlock pact of the tome with a Great Old One patron. Basically he's trying to find the key to immortality, and the tome guides him to whatever ingredients he needs (even though he's gonna be the comic relief as an insane scientist). His wife is a necromancer who helps him in his studies while tending to their laboratory, and a friendly lich was his best man at their wedding. I can't wait to see the look on the party's faces when they find all this out eventually
hmm so if my family died on dnd from Covid_19 i can use this guide
The best thing about undead is the necromancer trying to convince the paladin that raising a bunch of zombies is morally ok
Playing a crimson soul monk, best homebrew undead subclass ever played.
The corona zombie; CR .5 smells like cat piss, has poisonous limes growing out of it and breathes a poisonous gas in a 10 ft square.
CR 1/2 You uncultured swine!
@@defensivekobra3873 lmao very true very true👏😂🤣
Limes as in the fruit?
Immunity to scurvy!
I love creating my own special and unique kinds of undead for my games. I rarely use what's in the book. Not that I am bashing what the book provides. I also very rarely ever use Undead or Demons as encounters because I don't like to ruin the mystique of them. They aren't forces that the players should casually have to deal with. I use music in conjunction with the Undead Boos Fights and I swear the look on their faces when I turn on the music is priceless.
If Daavy doesn't like vampires but likes swimming he should just get an infinity pool, endless running water, no preist required
i once left my party for like a year and came back with a party of my own made of flaming skulls, skeletons, crawling hands, wights, mummies, a single night walker and a single mummy lord (the same character that became a nine hells celebrity, i really wanted to try the full evil experience). that character's goal was to show vecna how an evil empire is really done!
Do a review of explorer's guide to wildemount
When your a bard and a necromancer at the same time with a barbarian who is too angry to die there is only one fine reason to.
*HEAVY METAL IN THE DISTANCE*
I appreciate your advice the next time I see is zombie I will run away but my level 10 Paladin is probably too stubborn also that extra D8 Smite is just too good to walk away from
davvy please do a giude to Aasimar please i never played dnd cuz some filipino people dont even know this R.P.G and i cant even go outside cuz Covid_19 has taken over the Philippines
I'm Filipino and I know this rpg
@@THEOBSERVER-1 No true Filipino
@@Lalle524 Ilocano ako kag gin bata ako sa pilipinas at ga istar ko diri.
Soooooo I made a city filled with angels and undead (technically Undying) ruled by the goddess of life. Hopefully I can flavor it right so it makes sense. Fun times
Another idea I like to have about mind, or even body undead, is that it is a painfull state of existence, like Barbosa and his crew on the first Pirates of Caribbean movie.
Majestic
There's also those elves in ebberron who use positive necromancy magic (from the positive plane) and people remembering them to stay alive, and hate regular undead, because they use magic from the negative plane.
*Covid-19 joke*
*No sense of humor angry over-reaction to Covid-19 joke followed by immature name-calling*
*Equally angry response combining scientific facts with speculations and codswallop, while insulting you and your family at random*
@@theapexsurvivor9538 *Accusations of lying while using your insulting as proof of your biased anger in a hypocritical fashion, unimaginative repeating your insults are actually about you and your family. Rants about something of Facebook or InfoWars as if it was factual*
Hollywood undead reference 🙌
I've learned just how annoying Undead can be with the Wrath's ability to bring your allies back from the dead as specters when I dmed for my brother. These guys are all about the battle of attrition.
I was listening to this, and when I heard "free real estate", I went "DID HE??", rewound and, lo, H E D I D 💛
Reminds me of my groups last game. a party of level 5 adventurers vs 36 skeletons. Our DM thought that our cleric, and our paladin(me) would forget about Turn Undead. we didnt.
I'm bummed that Mummy Lords were mentioned in this. They make great religious stand-ins for liches!! Also, see the Brendan Fraiser movie as inspiration for a one-shot!!
Damn, now I'm curious if it's possible for someone to become a spirit and then somehow raise their body so you can command it like a minion version of yourself.
That's basically a lich
@@Mare_Man I think the image here is a ghost commanding their old body like a common skeleton or zombie. Liches like other "mind" type undead still inhabit their bodies like the living do (even if their souls are elsewhere).
When in doubt an undead problem will spice up most any session. They come with a great ascetic, they can range from easy to hard, and they are something everyone has some understanding of. I start all of my new players with an undead arc, it reallt gets them into it. I wish there were as much range in fey (mainly so i could kill those tricky bastards at all levels) because they have all the same qualities for story telling except varaiety
do u know how basic and important this is to humans and how good ur describing it from multiple angles? me like
I'm a Ghostslayer Blood Hunter. Bring it!
And then you have the Deathless...who you normally don't want to try killing.
you know I never thought I would see the Hollywood Undead in a fucking davvy video
I have a death knight player character, cursed by his own god to suffer in the mortal realm for his actions, he just wants to die to go to the afterlife. So it fits me well because randomly saying I just want to die is natural behavior.
I tend to rule that only Spirit undead have souls, Liches being the exception, but even then they're barely connected to it, at most mind undead have a small portion of their soul, but never even close to the whole thing
In my home brew game necromancers work as farmers
Hollywood Undead is fucking awesome
This is whey need a cleric in the party
Zealot Barb Scourge Aasimar with a sunsword is hilarious against them. Had a DM who ran Strahd and I played one. They both loved and hated me as i was the blazing radiant mountain of meat.
0:05 i need context for this picture
The pool won’t help because vampires can still use guns
Ahhh my earballs!
I'm currently playing a Duergar Death Cleric so...raising Skeleton Warriors and Zombamboes are my jam! Papa Laduguer' domain is death ya'll!
Good thing i never sleep
But
BUT EDGY CHAPPY
Something I find funny about clerics is that they can counter undead by raising more undead.
*RATTLE ME BONES!*