Undead?

[Kelb_Panthera]

That seems like fairly rare cases and thus are kinda interesting when they happen.

If you comb through everything, you'll find rules for a whole slew of things you didn't even know you needed rules for.

Kinda strange that they have rules for that, but not what spells you can put on a wand.

Uh, you can put any spell 4th level or lower in a wand. That's the rule.

[Segev]

Given that you mention Redead as being particularly spooky, I think you may also benefit from not just considering their raw stats, but various undead behaviors and how they can contribute to an atmosphere.

Take the Shadow. Incorporeal, strength-draining undead which can turn victims into more of themselves. Somewhat generic, insofar as spawn-creating undead go.

But they're shadows. Think, briefly, of the vashta narada from Doctor Who. "Don't go into the dark." "Don't move; you have two shadows."

Imagine the dimly-lit room with scattered light sources casting plenty of natural shadows. Then, something moves. Maybe it was just a curtain. Maybe it was a shadow moving on its own. Describe the bone-numbing chill of stepping through one. Of being near one (within 5 ft. or so). To one player, describe it being almost painful, with a lingering shiver. Later, reveal to another player how that one's character's shadow has shreds missing from it, like a torn piece of cloth. Maybe even a bite taken out of it. (He suffered a strength-draining attack.)

Shadows can reach out of the walls and floor, and retreat to hide within them. While this isn't canon, I like to describe them as actually laying on surfaces like real shadows do, and interacting with the shadows of solid things. So their attacks aren't a black man-shaped blob in the air striking at you, but instead a shadow cast by nothing striking at your shadow. And fighting back against them requires using the shadows of your (magical/ghost-touch) weapons.

Have them be cowardly; they hide from the light. It doesn't hurt them, but they don't want to be plainly exposed. This will build the fear level, as the players have something they can do to drive them off...temporarily...but at the expense if narrowing their visual world to the circle of light they cast. Play up that description; the surrounding darkness grows thicker in contrast.

Perhaps you can even modify shadows so they're invisible to darkvision; it makes a certain amount of sense, since there are no shadows in the dark. The only reason they can even be in "darkness" is because they're incorporeal, and can pass through dark patches rather than treating them as solid, if they like. This is easy enough to mimic without house ruling, even: shadows sink into the walls and ground and ceiling in the dark, so they can't be spotted against the surfaces.

[TheifofZ]

Like I said earlier; it'd be really helpful knowing the general theme being shot for with this.
Beyond just spooky-cool, anyway.

Personally, one of my favorite undead for a boss-type encounter is the Boneyard.

Huge undead made of a literal pile of bones that can form itself into a gigantic serpent (or anything else it chooses, as per the statblock) and can, if it can maintain a pin on a victim for a single round, instantly pull (and absorb) all the bones from the victim's body, killing them.

[TheFamilarRaven]

Not 3.5 but easy enough to plop in to any 3.5 game. Mummies in Pathfinder have a Despair aura, which causes paralysis by fear. Just re-write it as a standard action sonic attack. If you're looking for something "like a redead".

Edit: Scratch that, Mummies in 3.5 do that as well ... so yeah

[TheifofZ]

Mummies (Snop)

Mummies are a CR 5 rating in MM I.
They include an effect that is nearly guaranteed to kill whoever it hits at that level, as most of the things that can be used to remove it occur as 4th or higher spells, or as mid-tier class abilities. (7th level at the earliest).
They also come with a couple other abilities that would each, combined with the mummy's base stats, ensure a CR 4~ on their own.
Mummies are basically the kind of thing you sneak in when you really want to remind your players that 'yes, you guys are heroes, but you're also very mortal', or throw around in mass mobs when your players are higher level and want something a little higher risk than standard bog zombies for their huge mobs of dangerous foes.

[Mordaedil]

Uh, you can put any spell 4th level or lower in a wand. That's the rule.

My point wasn't entirely clear there, huh?

There is a list of various wands in the DMG, but what if you wanted to make, say, a wand of Shield. How does that work? Does it only work on you holding the wand? Can you apply it to another player, making it slightly more powerful? Can you use touch spells at a range using a wand?

The rules don't say any of this. Just that a wand can hold any spell of 4th level or lower, so we had to have the DM call that I could use the shield spell to shield other players.

[TheFamilarRaven]

The rules don't say any of this. Just that a wand can hold any spell of 4th level or lower, so we had to have the DM call that I could use the shield spell to shield other players.

I mean ...

All wands are simply storage devices for spells and thus have no special descriptions. Refer to the spell descriptions for all pertinent details.

Basically, wands let you cast a specific spell X amount of times. Refer to the specific spell for the effects, target, Casting Time, etc...

[SangoProduction]

My best tip is: refluff anything you want as undead? Tarrasque? Sure, it's a giant mother flocking, regenerating god of death come to ...wait, that's just a Tarrasque. But you get the point!

[Kelb_Panthera]

My point wasn't entirely clear there, huh?

There is a list of various wands in the DMG, but what if you wanted to make, say, a wand of Shield. How does that work? Does it only work on you holding the wand? Can you apply it to another player, making it slightly more powerful? Can you use touch spells at a range using a wand?

The rules don't say any of this. Just that a wand can hold any spell of 4th level or lower, so we had to have the DM call that I could use the shield spell to shield other players.

This.

I mean ...



Basically, wands let you cast a specific spell X amount of times. Refer to the specific spell for the effects, target, Casting Time, etc...

Spells cast by wand function identically to spells cast normally. Range is unchanged. The wand wielder is the caster when a spell makes referrence to the caster.

[TheifofZ]

It helps if you think of spell completion items (Scrolls, Wands, and Staves) as basically being extra spell-slots that are automatically locked as the spell (or spells, in the case of staves) in the item.

So if you have a wand of 'Shield' with 40 uses, you essentially have 40 spellslots that are all filled with shield, and don't recharge ever.
If you pass the wand to the party rogue with ranks in Use Magic Device, the rogue then has 40 spell slots that are all filled with Shield.

If the rogue uses the wand, then it functions as the rogue casting the shield spell.
If you use the wand, then it functions as if you were casting the shield spell.
(In either case caster level, spell level, and any spell modifiers attached [including metamagic effects], are decided at the time of wand creation by the one that casts the spell into the wand, and cannot be modified by the wand -user- without appropriate feats.)

This in no way changes the nature of the spell in the wand; wand based spells gain no extra utility, function, range, or power beyond what they would normally possess if they were being cast from a spell-slot instead of a spell completion item; any modifications made to them through feats such as metamagic and meta-wand feats are strictly limited to the effect of the feat.

[Mordaedil]

That's entirely fair, it just wasn't extremely clear and I wish it was written with a tad more clarity, so I didn't have to theory with my DM around it.

Ah well, he allowed Shield wand to be touch anyway.