Optimizing a Haunted Altar for Speed

[Segev]

Step 1: Build an altar to an evil god, designed with jointed legs and/or wheels that are meant to move, even if not necessarily under its own power.
Step 2: Enchant it to have desecrate continually radiating from it.
Step 3: Cast haunt shift on a skeleton under your control to force it into being poltergeist-inhabited.

You now have a self-motivating altar to an evil god that radiates an aura of desecration, for all your undead-animating and even localized tactical combat needs.

We've designed our altar with "intended-to-move" jointed legs so that we can have as small a HD of skeleton as possible inhabiting it; this enables us to potentially never have to resort to command undead to control it, as long as nothing is animated to force it out of control cap. (Remember, you pick what you lose control of, so as long as it's a pretty small number of HD - 1/4 to 4, or so, perhaps - you can just be careful not to animate anything that would be, by itself, consuming enough cap to force that last one out of your grasp.) If we don't mind using larger-HD undead, perhaps because we'll just cast command undead on it every few days or couple of weeks (depending on our CL), we don't need that specialized design.

However, a Haunting Presence can only motivate its inhabited item to move up to the base undead's normal speed. Since having your altar radiating your aura of undead-buffing highly mobile is desirable, what would be the best choices of creatures to animate as skeletons to force to haunt it? Speed and low HD are both desirable qualities, with leaning more towards speed as low HD is more "nice to have." I won't assume it can fly; it's not built for it and no amount of "animating parts to move" would really make it so.

Any other thoughts on optimizing such are also welcome, but I am primarily focused on the speed element, since choosing the base skeleton is a necessary choice to determine one of the statistics.

[daremetoidareyo]

Horse, augmented by the Champions of valor breeds at the end of the book might get you up to a 60 foot move

[Zerathize]

Well, in 3.5 a Quickling is 4HD with an 80 ft move spd. PF Quicklings are still 4 HD with a 120ft move speed. PF also has zombie Variant of fast for a +10 base spd at no extra cost, but thats a 8 hd zombie with 130 ft spd. but that is just a quick glance.

With that in mind, corpsecrafter allows a +10 base speed bonus as well.

[Thurbane]

Spectral Steed from Ghostwalk is an undead with 60 ft move.

Other than that, a Shadow Dragon Wyrmling (Draconomicon) has a base move of 80.

[Segev]

Yeah, basic horse with 50 ft. speed (and 2 HD) seemed the best I was finding.

Well, in 3.5 a Quickling is 4HD with an 80 ft move spd. PF Quicklings are still 4 HD with a 120ft move speed. PF also has zombie Variant of fast for a +10 base spd at no extra cost, but thats a 8 hd zombie with 130 ft spd. but that is just a quick glance.

With that in mind, corpsecrafter allows a +10 base speed bonus as well.

I'd forgotten that quicklings, as fey, are physical and mortal enough to make skeletons out of. 4 HD, but may be worth it. And "fast zombie" quickling at 8 HD is getting into "just use command undead" territory, rather than worrying about HD control caps, but also might be worth it. Corpsecrafter, while nice, is a two-feat investment for that, rather than something nearly any wizard could pull off.

As a side-note, it eternally bugs me that Corpsecrafter and the Enhanced Undead variant overlap so strongly. And that the feat is the WEAKER option! It means you're choosing to ditch +4 dex to your undead minions if you want more of the Corpsecrafter line, or you're taking Corpsecrafter for no benefit other than opening up the other feats in its chain.

Spectral Steed from Ghostwalk is an undead with 60 ft move.

Other than that, a Shadow Dragon Wyrmling (Draconomicon) has a base move of 80.

Not heard of the Spectral Steed; I'll have to give it a look. Shadow Dragon Wyrmlings have a base land speed of 80? That's...surprising.

[YellowJohn]

As a side-note, it eternally bugs me that Corpsecrafter and the Enhanced Undead variant overlap so strongly. And that the feat is the WEAKER option! It means you're choosing to ditch +4 dex to your undead minions if you want more of the Corpsecrafter line, or you're taking Corpsecrafter for no benefit other than opening up the other feats in its chain.

You're not getting No Benefit - the +2 HP/HD stack, so with either Dread Necromancer or Enhanced Undead, Corpsecrafter, and a Desecrated Altar or Deadwalker's Ring (CM 126) your undead have Hit Points like their Con was 22

Anyway, with some digging...
A Light Horse has 3HD according to my monster manual, but with the alternate breeds in Champions of Valor you can get the Raurin sub-breed which has 70' base speed, and which could in theory have the Magebred template (ECS 295) for 80'. You run into cross-setting issues, but it comes in at 1HD less than Shadow Dragon or Quickling. You could also add Warbeast (MM2 219), getting you to 90', but that also takes it to 4HD.

For 2HD, Hyena and Wolf have base 50' and can be magebred to 60'.

There are also apparently the 'Shadow' template (MotP 190) which increases base speed by 50%, and appears to come from Manual of the Planes. While a Magebred Shadow Warbeast Raurin is highly improbable, it would have a base land speed of 135' at 4HD, or remove Warbeast for 120' at 3. You can also apply the Shadow template to a Quickling for 120', which is 4 Hd, but something you're much more likely to find 'lying around'.
It is unclear whether a Shadow creature would leave a skeleton. I'd be inclined to rule no, but your DM may be kinder. If they are, then have fun hunting your shadow monster

In theory you could also add the 'Dark' template for an extra 10' move, but 1) it probably shouldn't stack with Shadow, which is better, and 2) you once again run into the possibility of no skeleton.

[Segev]

Yeah, I suppose 1d12+6 hp per HD is quite nice. Not sure it's worth a feat for JUST +2 hp/HD, though, on your minions. Admittedly, the feat is a gateway to other enhancements (I like the cold damage extra, and destruction retribution, myself).


Nice find on Shadow template! The tailor-made creature to kill and animate is an interesting possibility, though you're not wrong when you suggest "find it lying around" is more desirable. Finding a quickling, let alone a shadow quickling, is already going to be a bit tough. But probably worth it, because who doesn't want 120 ft. or more of movement on their item that buffs their undead minions?