Skeletons and Zombies in particular, but also Ghouls and Ghasts.

What do you do to make these encounters more interesting and memorable?

It's tough to make mindless undead who die in 1-2 hits to be interesting, and I'm not seeing the motivation. That said, I did have an encounter where players could pit a batch of skeletons against a batch of zombies, to "see which is better." Maybe you could play "dress up" with them?

Ghouls are a bit easier, as I make them pretty hunger-driven. They'll cheerfully focus on a downed/paralyzed character rather than deal with someone swinging at them, and will take direct paths (like, over a pit or flaming oil) to get to food quicker, even if doing so isn't such a good idea. Ghasts, of course, are a bit smarter, more prone to running away and staging ambushes to give them a better chance against packs of "meat that fights back."

I like my ghouls to look like perfectly normal people (they may be dirty, but many of the commoners in my games are too), at least as long as they are well-fed; their undead natures become more apparent the longer they go without feeding. Ghasts, unfortunately, are too far gone and, while they are the heads of ghoul "families," they keep out of sight (and scent) and let their lesser "cousins" bring the food home to them.

I believe 3.5e had something like this as a "gravetouched ghoul" in the horror supplement.

Remember that if you're playing D&D 3.5 that zombies can use weapons, it's just that they take a non-proficiency penalty. A -4 penalty can be crippling... except for weapons that use touch attacks. If your weapon ignores penalty anyway, than the non-proficiency penalty is no big deal. Zombies then should be equipped with nets and with anything that provides trip attempts, such as: bolas, spiked chains, scythes, or whips.
Better yet, splash weapons are touch attacks that don't require proficiency at all! Your necromancers might equip their zombie minions with flasks of alchemist's ice and the zombies can throw these at no penalty.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1110932Skeletons and Zombies in particular, but also Ghouls and Ghasts.

What do you do to make these encounters more interesting and memorable?

Uniquely Undead by Dyson Logos for the Labyrinth Lord system.

Tom Moldvay had an interesting thing in Dragon about gem eyed skeletons, basically have the ability to cast a 1st or 2nd level spell

Quote from: JeremyR;1111010Tom Moldvay had an interesting thing in Dragon about gem eyed skeletons, basically have the ability to cast a 1st or 2nd level spell

Are the gems recoverable as loot?

Most of my skeletons and zombies are their usual mindless, uninteresting selves. It's the situation and other creatures around them that needs to supply the interest.  Occasionally, I have skeletons and zombies that aren't mindless.  They are NPCs just like anyone else.   For example, make a former low-powered wizard into a skeleton that can still cast spells and act as any other NPC, you've got a very weak lich, perhaps without the drive for immortality.

My favorite so far was such a spell casting skeleton that was guarding a tomb, because to leave was to have its remaining skeletal body crumble into dust.  Alleviating boredom was its main motivation.  It ended up negotiating with the players.  They agreed to keep it supplied with a few cats for company in return for the particular item that they needed.  They also promised to visit from time to time and bring news of the outside world.  In the process of one of their later adventures, they found a cat that had gone through a similar process, but without being tied to a location.  They went out of their way to move the cat to the tomb, and made a permanent friend.

For ghouls and the like, I'm less interested in varied personalities.  Instead, I'll usually go with particularly driven pursuit, speech, and the like to show how twisted they are.

Quote from: JeremyR;1111010Tom Moldvay had an interesting thing in Dragon about gem eyed skeletons, basically have the ability to cast a 1st or 2nd level spell

  Dragon #138, "The Ungrateful Dead," part of a series Moldvay did on the various AD&D undead full of folklore and variants. That article covered skeletons, zombies, ghouls and ghasts. #126 had "Hearts of Darkness," the vampires article (with AD&D stats for Dracula), #162 dealt with shadows in "Out of the Shadows, #198 covered wights, wraiths and mummies in "Beyond the Grave", and #210 closed out the series with "Too Evil to Die" on spectres, ghosts and liches.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1111052#126 had "Hearts of Darkness," the vampires article (with AD&D stats for Dracula)

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Really good information, though. Saw your post and read the article, gives a good synopsis of Dracula.

My undead are all literally necromancers. Necromancers don't 'raise the dead', they study ways of getting out of the lands of the dead (prison escapees). The lesser undead are just those that did a shit job of it and came out 'feral'.

Skeletons, and possibly zombies, on the other hand, are constructs, not Undead in the classic sense, and thus are immune to typical 'anti-undead' measures.  You might say a Skeleton is a sort of 'bone golem', and a zombie is a form of 'flesh golem', though without the D&D specific baggage of those terms/monster entries.

Classic 'bind the souls of hte dead as your servants' Necromancers aren't really a thing because of how the metaphysics work, and having a very active Death god and all that.  Binding and enslaving the Undead is no simpler than binding the souls of the living, and has all sorts of associated risks (Personal visits from Death to talk about your hobbies, briefly. Rampaging flesh eating feral undead, etc...) that enslaving the living just doesn't have.

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   Lugosi and Lee? Actor and stunt double?

QuoteReally good information, though. Saw your post and read the article, gives a good synopsis of Dracula.

   It comes from the height of the 'Dracula = Vlad Tepes' era, which has since ebbed (closer research suggests that Stoker only had the vaguest knowledge of the historical Vlad, and the novel's details of the character don't mesh well), but it's still a good writeup. And that whole Moldvay series is one of my favorites in Dragon's history.

Have your game group play The Skeletons. That should make them stop and think for a moment the next time they run into a group of lowly undead.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177596/The-Skeletons

(warning, artsy RPG incoming, grognards beware)

Quote from: Spike;1111377My undead are all literally necromancers. Necromancers don't 'raise the dead', they study ways of getting out of the lands of the dead (prison escapees). The lesser undead are just those that did a shit job of it and came out 'feral'.

Oh interesting, sounds a tad like Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series.

I thought about this a lot when writing "The Sunken Temple of Chloren-Var".  The module is geared towards levels 1-4 with Skeletons being the primary enemy in the temple.  With that in mind, I wanted to make sure that every encounter was different in some way.  Toxic vines growing though their bones, the ability to use low level magic in an interactive chamber, different armour/weapons forcing ranged or melee combat, combining into a massive bone golem, etc.  Let your imagination run wild!

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