I found out that mage armor does no longer work on animates because they wear no cloth they can enchant. Also if you want to buff a naked man, you won't be able to. Can all animates be given a cloth item, or mage armor be reverted?
I vote for stone bones. It works. It's even boosted at efu.
Yes, however stone bones alone is not enough to give a zombie a decent AC, considering most have 12, or 13, even with the EFU version. Stone bones + Mage armor gave it a quite decent AC.
Remember that the AI is retarded, and even if you are manually controlling the zombie, it will move arround here and there generating AoOs.
You can always corrupt zombie. That's also there for a reason.
In my experience, it's still not enough. But if this was intended, then i won't complain (aloud), i simply thought the DMs overlooked this concecuence when they changed mage armor.
It used to be you could cast mage armor on skeletons, and I believe zombies as well. Seems to be a recent change.
Stone Bones is enough it is modified on EFU and works VERY well. I have used it many times when I played a necromancer type PC and I animated many undead. So basicly you want them to have +4ac then like +6ac more or so then buff the dex for maybe +1/2ac and on a perminant animation to crush questz? Not to mention you can already enchance them alot with the new system. I very much think not.
Nightshadow is correct.
PahaPoika, zombies are pretty terrible and extremely challenging to use to boot. Moderate HP is their only true blessing. I highly doubt that this was changed because zombies were too powerful, stripping them of their ability to receive Mage's Armor. Paradoxically, Stone bones alone is not sufficient to make zombies worth a level 3/5 spell (Animate Dead) and a level 2 spell (Stone Bones)-- a level 1 spell (Mage's Armor) added in renders it usable, but only with the other two spells as well. At best, you're looking at around 19-21 AC-- not bad, but it also costs three spells.
Personally, I still wouldn't use zombies because I think they're worthless (except for as RP tools). But someone else might, so the mechanics might as well be reverted to help zombie fans out.
Srsly you guys. Necromancers have enough boons. They don't need uber AC for their animations anymore than we need any more necromancers or evil characters in general. Hard enough to play a good character as it is...
The basic zombie is indeed shitty. But buff them,. corrupt them and use an easily acquired Neg Burst Device to give them another 1 STR and you have a goon you can heal at a distance, especially with the new neg energy devices Alchemy has. Furthermore, carry bodies. And since Alchemy skills are strongly linked to undeath upgrades...
A skeleton warrior or two and a few wands of negative energy ray is all you need, fully buffed they are pretty strong, if somewhat difficult to come across at times. Zombies can be fairly good, but if you want something to quest with, I highly recommend the skeletons (or ogres if you happen to be fighting clerics, as ogres have more HD and therefore are harder to turn), thanks to high AC (near 30 when fully buffed), and good AB, damage and HP when buffed.
I'm not sure what to say, from what i've experimented and seen Diz-e do as Morthel i can tell skeletons suck, while regular zombies can be incredibly powerfull. You guys have used the sistem... right?
I myself have and still use the system. I am speaking of my own opinion from experience.
It may be certain rank spell, but you should remember, that the result of that animation does not change with rank of the spell, instead you can get immensively powerful, or weaker animation by using needed reagent, body or what not, to call for different animations. Just like summons, some are weaker, some stronger but unlike summons you can corrupt and buff the weaker one to be quite useful with little effort. And they last virtually as long as you want, unless destroyed.
One buffed skeleton warrior can solo the entire Jergalite Mortuary quest, with no need for healing. Just watch out for more powerful damage dealers, such as orcs, as a hit from them is deadly to the skeleton's rather low HP. Also, again, be careful of clerics, turning can be painful.
Rarer corpses like orcs and ogres are much stronger and good in a great many more situations. Find out each form's strengths and weaknesses and use different ones depending on the situation.
I do advise not summoning anything strong before a quest, though... If you look at Morthel's screenshot thread, you'll notice one screenshot where her, myself (Remus Valentine) and a few others have literally an army of undead out in the sewers... We were about to do part 2 of the sewer goblins quest, and due to all our ogres, orcs and undead out, we caused a super-spawn that got one, maybe more of us killed, and drained all our supplies (though the XP was pretty sweet, got from the start of level 6 all the way to 7). If you're going to summon something strong for a quest, wait until you're partway through and everything has spawned, so you don't mess up the spawns and make it impossible to progress.
Yeah, i once did that with a great lizzard. Usually 1 corspe is a good idea for quests, but two increse the spawns way too much. Holy crap, i want to do orcs 1 with 5 ogres, that's gotta be awsome.
Drakill, skeletons do not suck. Morthel did use more zombies, and diz-e and I argued both IG and OOC about the effectiveness of both types. I admit my bias, but it's also based on extensive testing from playing a necromancer for 6 of the past 8 months.
Paha Poika, your argument is out of the scope of this thread-- the OP and my own argument is about plain zombies, not the corpse items you can acquire.
To address the corpse issue, however, corpses come with the tremendous downside of being exceptionally heavy. And the really good ones are very hard to acquire. Even still, the best ones have another major disadvantage-- they're obnoxiously large.
Simply put, without the +4 of Mage's Armor on top of Stone Bones, I would bother carry around or use ogres, rarely great lizards. I won't go into any greater specifics than the reasons already highlighted to prevent mechanical spoilers.
Throw in that using big groups of animates is entirely impractical because of spawning issues, what you have to "spend" in order to get the benefits of undead upgrading (the effectiveness of which tapers off as you get higher level)... animation is unique, extremely fun, and flashy-- but it is burdensome, has massive RP/IG downsides, and isn't the huge mechanical boon it's often made out to be without considerable expense of lost inventory weight, gold, and health.
This whoooole post aside, the take home point is that zombies still suck and should get the benefit of being able to get Mage's Armor.
Which reminds me...
I haven't been using the animation system recently, but not much has changed as I understand it. Here's a full report of suggestions on how to alter and improve the system. (http://www.escapefromunderdark.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38942) Any current necromancy fans, please re-write it and repost if you're so inclined to do so!
Caveat:
-The "Give Weapon" system does work, but it's so challenging to use that it's not really worthwhile (Diz-e used it more extensively and may have different insights).
-You can (now?) summon more than one undead creature from items.
-The topic of wizards/sorcs getting Animate Dead at a lower level by various methods has been discussed ad nauseum. No more... please, no more.
-Last time I checked, you now lose ALL your animates either when you rest or when you rest and then cast your first animation spell, dispelling pre-rest animates.
Garem, I only answered to the opinion that zombies are too weak for the rank of a spell that animation is. The thing is, it's not summon, but if one likes to think it that way, the zombie is the lowest rank, which can easily conquer summon lvl 1 in many ways, naturally depending what summoning school it is.
There are downsides, definitely, but there are generally much better tools for studying how to conquer those with animation, when in summoning there are reagents for simply better summons.
My point simply was that zombies already can easily be good enough, not the best, but not the most lousy either, and it is definitely easier to heal undeads than to keep normal summons up. They are zombies. They usually are not that tough, unless you create some badass version of them, which also is not impossible. In my opinion mage armor is fine, but it also makes sense that it could be cast on them. I just don't think it needs to be done just because they would need any more options than there are.
I respect that opinion. I agree, there's a distinction that must be understood between summons and animates. Thus, I urge the general public careful when comparing summons and animates-- summons start out pretty useful, by and large. Reagents are not heavy, hence getting awesome summons isn't too hard either. Animates (zombies most of all), barring the top tier ones, also need a great deal of preparation, expense on healing, and weapons (if you can ever get the damned thing to work right). No animates get neat special abilities or spells, which so many summons do get, and use quite effectively. Of course animates last for, almost, forever. I think we can agree that it's really apples and oranges.
As for Mage's Armor's (and more) being necessary for zombies to be feasibly effective at stopping anything with a positive AB score from hitting it, thus useful in the slightest for being anything but a snail-speed pincushion... we'll agree to disagree.
Random thought-- too bad we can't pay gold via dialogue to armor and arm zombies, or they just come with it as you level up.
maybe give something similar to the equip weapon script and make it equip clothing and armor and such. armored zombies whoo!!!
Quite a lot of discussion... but it is added, anyway.