Give zombies cloth or rever mage armor as it was

[Drakill Tannan]

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?

[Paha]

I vote for stone bones. It works. It's even boosted at efu.

[Drakill Tannan]

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.

[Paha]

You can always corrupt zombie. That's also there for a reason.

[Drakill Tannan]

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.

[Nightshadow]

It used to be you could cast mage armor on skeletons, and I believe zombies as well. Seems to be a recent change.

[putrid_plum]

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.

[Garem]

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.

[JMuzz]

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...

[Egon the Monkey]

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...

[Nightshadow]

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.

[Drakill Tannan]

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?

[Paha]

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.

[Nightshadow]

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.

[Drakill Tannan]

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.