Shattered Kingdoms

Been awhile for me, saw this and am curious. Used to be that some mix of your own level and the level of the corpse you're trying to animate is what determined the type of undead. Now you can pick what you want from whatever corpse you got? I'm sure you can't make wights out of initiate level corpses, but I didn't find any changes to the help file, and I'd like to know how this feature works. Commands for it, is it still level based, etc. Thanks.

Don't know syntax, nor a lot about it. I do know that each animate type has different skills, hp levels, etc. Skeletons are the reported tanks, from what I've read. The strength, hp, level, etc. is also largely derived from the level of what you're animating, I believe. So all undead start with a base of everything derived from what you're animating, and then it goes up or down depending on the type you chose.

Disclaimer, I don't know what I'm talking about. Just spilling out my understanding from what I've read.

Yeah, I get all that. Nothing seems really different from any other necro I've ever played. It's just that news update has me scratching my head, and I can't figure out if you can pick and choose now, somehow, or if I am just misunderstanding what I'm reading.

Oh you can pick and choose. If you animate a GM corpse, you choose if you want it to be a skeleton, wight, zombie, etc.

But you don't know the syntax for that? I can't find it in a help file.

From a log:
c animate raguel skeleton

Created a skeleton from Raguel's corpse.

Types are skeleton, zombie, ghoul, wight, and wraith.

Yes, it's an optional last argument to the spell. You can choose all the different types, so zombie, skeleton, ghoul, wight, wraith. If you don't provide the argument, then the corpse turns into whatever undead is fitting for its level, but if you choose a "lesser" type of undead, they are still the same level as the corpse you raised them from. I haven't checked, but I would wager that in order to animate the "more powerful" types of undead that you have to have a corpse of high enough level IE: I don't think you can animate a low-level corpse into a wraith, although you can animate what would normally turn into a wraith as a zombie instead.

It's also worth mentioning that with this change all animated undead were greatly decreased in terms of usefulness and damage output as all but a very small subset of active skills were removed from all animates. The only worthwhile active combat skill that any animates now possess is the "hit" command.

The animated dead also take on the description of the corpse. Be wary of this if you are animating and training in the same area with similar npcs nearby.

Edoras, is there any way around this aside from having to double check that you aren't targeting your own animates?

No. I asked Dulrik to change it because it's very likely that you can end up accidentally targeting one of the multiple keywords on your eight undead and he said it was a feature. One can always animate 8 corpses of the same corpse to mitigate the risk, if you're willing to sit around for 8 repops in most areas.

Yes, it's certainly a feature, even though Edoras is only talking about the potential disadvantage of making play mistakes. It gives everyone - you, your allies and your enemies - the ability to target your undead individually. Obviously this can be a strength or a weakness depending on how people use it. Features that allow variance give more room for tactical play to evolve.

And yes, if you can't stand it, go to a place that has tons of the same NPC and animate the exact same one. Or you could just not bother to animate so many guys and rely more on control and other necromancer spells. But we went over this all before. Edoras still seems a bit sore from having his (previously?) favorite class nerfed.

Responding from further up the chain, it's zombies that are the tank of animated dead, not skeletons. Skeletons are pretty much the opposite of a tank -- more of a glass cannon.

And finally, I've updated the animate dead file to show the new optional syntax for choosing undead type.