Since we're in the month of Halloween, I thought I'd go over a few rules concerning the undead and why they are the most feared monsters in the game.
At the lower levels of play, there are a few undead that are typically encountered by player characters - most notably skeletons and zombies. Skeletons are the lowest form of undead, little more than animated bones that follow the commands of some evil spell caster or devil. Some skeletons can be created by curses (for example, the bones of the dead interred in a sacred tomb that has been desecrated animating by divine/unholy power to take their vengeance upon the desecrators,) but most are created by the animate dead spell (3rd level cleric spell, 5th level magic-user spell). Skeletons can be animated from any pile of bones, so long as the skeleton is mostly complete. Most are human skeletons, but there can be demi-human skeletons, monster skeletons, even dragon skeletons. Hit Dice of the skeletons are the same as they were in life; however, class levels do not translate. Therefore, a 9th level fighter whose bones are animated is still considered a 1 HD skeleton, since humans normally have a base of 1 HD. You cannot, therefore, have an army of undead skeletons raised from the greatest warlords to ever have walked the earth. You can, however, raise several ogre skeletons and these would be 4 HD creatures!
Zombies are similar, but slightly more powerful. Zombies are animated corpses, with some meat still on the bones. They are just as mindless as skeletons, but are hardier (and easier to hit) than average skeletons, the negative energy animating the dead flesh somehow boosting its strength to allow them to cause 1-8 points of damage with a single blow of their fists! These are also animated by spell or curse, and can be animated from any corpse, taking the base HD of the creature and adding 1 to the total. Thus, a zombie ogre (normally 4+1 HD) becomes a 5 HD undead creature. There is no mention of increasing the damage based on size, but I would permit an increase of 1 die per size category. A human zombie causes 1-8 points of damage, so a large creature might cause 2-16 damage. A small zombie (like a gnome or halfling zombie) might only cause half normal damage, or 1-4. It's really up to the DM to decide how to run this.
The worst part of undead at low levels is that they cannot be bargained with, cannot be fooled by spell effects or high Charisma, and will attack until destroyed. Given that low-level characters usually depend on things like morale or other tactics to fool or outwit their opponents in order to survive, this makes low-level, mindless undead particularly unforgiving. They cannot be scared off by fire, illusions, or other tactics that low-level parties might try to use in order to avoid conflict or scare off their opponents. It is also stated that the undead are silent, so they can often surprise a party that is unaware of their presence. They are also immune to spells that normally affect the mind, and cannot be detected using ESP. The relentless, mindless undead occur in large groups being found in cemeteries, crypts, and dungeons. The only way to escape them, usually, is with the help of a cleric with the Turn Undead ability. Low-level clerics have little chance of turning, and can only send the undead away for a short time; at the end of that time, the undead return to continue the attack. Most AD&D parties were fairly large back in the day, with at least 6-8 PCs and sometimes a like number of henchmen or hirelings. Even so, the relentless nature of the undead meant that there would be fatalities unless the cleric was able to turn some of them away to allow the party to handle them in smaller groups.
Take the zombies in the crypt of T1: The Village of Hommlet for example. There, a dozen zombies enter combat, appearing 2 per round, from their hiding places in the cells. A cleric could accidentally try to turn too early and only affect a few of the undead, thus leaving the rest of the party to have to clean up the others as they emerge. Turning is not automatic until the cleric is higher in level, and even then the numbers affected are limited. I had a group of characters with a druid instead of a cleric, and they faced a cursed fountain full of bones that would animate 2 skeletons each round. Needless to say, the party was soon almost overwhelmed when their attacks were only doing half damage (most had sharp weapons only) and the numbers kept growing faster than they could destroy them! Zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead show what can happen if undead creatures just keep coming with no relief in sight!
Mid-level undead can be just as nasty - ghouls, mummies, and ghasts are corporeal undead that all have special abilities that make combat with them difficult to survive. Ghoul paralysis is definitely a powerful ability that can leave the target helpless and subject to excessive amounts of damage. They attack without fear and usually in packs, increasing the chance that they can paralyze targets. They are subject to normal attacks and most spells, but are immune to sleep and charm spells (some of the best spells a magic-user can have). Mummies have powerful attacks (1-12 points of damage per hit), cause fear in their targets, and each strike causes a deadly disease to the target that eventually causes death and negates all cure wound spells cast on the victim! What's worse, they are hard to kill, being immune to many spells and attacks forms. The truly terrifying power of a mummy though is what happens to the body of its victims - the corpse will rot and cannot be raised from death unless a cure disease and raise dead spell are used within 6 turns (1 hour) of death! Ghasts are simply more powerful versions of the ghoul, with the ability to paralyze elves (which a ghoul cannot do) and cause a nauseating stench that reduces combat chances to hit against them. Ghouls (and presumably ghasts) create new spawn when they kill (and don't devour) a victim. Unless the corpse is blessed, it will become a ghoul or ghast (presumably on the following night). A protection from evil circle will hedge out ghouls, but will not function against ghasts unless powdered iron is used in the casting.
The higher undead creatures are created by the actions of evil supernatural beings, or by the death of the undead's victims. Shadows, ghouls, wights, wraiths and others can create new spawn by killing their victims. Once slain, the victims rise the following night as undead of the same type! In some cases, like that of the shadow or wraith, the transformation seems to be immediate! I once had a group of shadows attack my party late at night, while most of them were asleep and only a watchman was awake in camp. Those shadows ran rampant through the party, able to remain mostly invisible (90% undetectable) in the shadowy light of the campfire. Those they killed by draining their strength were transformed into shadows themselves, thus adding to the problems of the survivors! Needless to say, undead that can replicate themselves in this manner are greatly feared!
However, nothing inspires more fear in a player character than the threat of energy drain. This attack form used by wights, wraiths, vampires, and spectres is the most feared ability of any undead creature (except maybe the ghost). With a single touch, an energy-draining undead creature can undo years of adventuring, and thus reduces their ability to fight back! Imagine a vampire (which drains 2 life energy levels per hit) attacking a party of 9th level characters. The vampire is likely to hit whomever it attacks, and that target is then 7th level. Further attacks reduce the character to 5th level, then 3rd, then 1st, and finally slays the character, draining it completely of life energy. A clever vampire would attack a few times and then flee in mist form, only to return at a later time to finish off the weakened characters. Levels are not easy to recover, either. Sure, there are restoration spells, but the requirements to cast such a spell are taxing not only to the pockets of the victim, but to the caster as well! Each restoration spell causes the caster to age 2 years. One would have to be a very important person, and well connected to a church, in order to get two such spells cast upon them. They would also have to lay out 10,000 gp plus a like amount PER LEVEL of experience of the recipient. Thus, if a 9th-level fighter fought a vampire and ended being 5th level at the end of the battle, he would need 4 restoration spells cast upon him, costing 60,000 gp, 70,000 gp, 80,000 gp, and finally 90,000 gp to finally recover from the ordeal. I don't know many 9th level characters with that much free cash on hand, and it would hardly seem worth it to spend that much anyway. One would have to locate a minimum 16th level cleric who can cast 7th level cleric spells, and would have to have an 18 Wisdom in order to even cast such a spell! Such characters are few and far between. Adding in the fact that the spell must be cast within 1 day per experience level of the caster or the loss is permanent, you can see the dilemmas involved with restoring life energy levels.
Energy draining undead are by far the most feared, even more so than liches and mummies. However, the most feared undead creature is the ghost, who, with a single glance, can send party members, henchmen and hirelings running in fear, and age those who simply view it 10 years (unless they succeed at a saving throw versus magic)! Clerics above 6th level are immune to this effect, and other classes above 8th get +2 to the saving throw, but this is still a game changer. If the party is comprised mostly of humans, unnatural aging may cause them to change to a higher age bracket and thus lose Strength, Constitution, and/or Dexterity (without the bonus Intelligence and/or Wisdom that normally comes with natural aging). Any character affected by unnatural aging must also make a System Shock check or die on the spot (see PHB p.12)! What's worse, every attack the ghost makes ages the target 10-40 years! That means that every attack requires a System Shock roll, and most humans will only be able to survive one or two such attacks before being too feeble to continue the combat. As an added gotcha, any human or demi-human killed by a ghost is forever dead. That means no coming back by raise dead, resurrection, or wish. Your soul is lost and consumed by the ghost. Most humans would not last long against a ghost in combat. A ghost can magic jar into a person's body and attack materially, while his companions try not to kill their ally and still survive the possessed person's attacks (which, at the level one would be to face a ghost, is probably pretty powerful). Spells cannot affect ghosts unless the caster is in the ethereal state, so magic-users and illusionists are pretty much useless. Only semi-materialized ghosts can make touch attacks, but can only themselves be hit by silver or magic weapons in this state, and even then they are AC 0 to those on the Material Plane. Yes, these undead creatures are the absolute worst to encounter by a party of experienced humans who have been adventuring for years, especially if there are some older members of the party (such as magic-users). I can honestly say that I would rather be energy drained than aged unnaturally by a ghost!
There are few ways to get back your youth if you survive an encounter with a ghost. Sure, you could locate or brew potions of longevity, but remember that there is always a chance that such potions backfire and age you instead! Such a chance could be very dangerous to a character who is already aged and feeble. There are few undead scarier than a ghost (thankfully), and only the lich is considered to be more powerful!
What truly terrifies most characters when facing powerful undead is the lack of a saving throw against their most potent attacks. Energy drain, ghost aging, and strength drain have no saving throw to avoid the effects. Therefore, the attack will succeed whenever a hit is scored on a target. I can't think of any other power possessed by any other type of monster that doesn't allow a saving throw of some sort against that attack form. This, above all else, is what makes the undead extremely scary!
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