Necropolitan or no?

[DarkDisciple27]

So I am very torn. I will be playing a neutral evil sorcerer. I do not know what the alignments of the rest of my group will be.

I cannot decide between regular living human sorcerer 20 (undead bloodline), and mage of the arcane order 4 / sorcerer 16 (undead bloodline) with the necropolitan template. EDIT: starting at 4, high lvl eventually.

The extra hp, especially being cha based, is awesome. The various immunities etc are great too.

Being damaged by regular heals, as well as being raped by channel positive really sucks though, and would make it pretty much impossible to keep my undeadness secret, even with a good bluff.

In you all's experiance, is it worth the vulnerabilities to be an undead type?

-Thanks

 

[Crothian]

Are you going to be starting with a 20th level character?

 

[DarkDisciple27]

Starting at lvl 4, so id be 3 if I went necropolitan. I mention the lvl 20 vs 16 sorcerer since the lvl 20 undead bloodline power wouldn't be worth getting if I was already undead.

All plans are for the campaign to go that high eventually.

 

[Crothian]

I doubt it is worth it.

 

[gamerprinter]

The only time is worth being undead is when you are high levels, and only if you can become of the greater undead types: death knight, lich, vampire - any lesser undead can be too easily killed or taken over by a necromancer (though granted the latter doesn't seem to exist in PF, as turning was part of controlling, and now you can only channel damage vs. taking control.)

Still, no its not worth it.

GP

 

[Azmyth]

If you were in my party and I discovered that you were undead, I would try to end you or distance myself from you if you were too powerful to kill.

There are serious problems with a 'monster' PC in a regular group.
In a group that is entirely altered in one way or another, you might be able to swing it, but otherwise I agree with the crowd...

 

[udalrich]

From your post, it sounds like you will lose a class level to be a necropolitan. That hurts a full caster, and as a sorcerer, you already gain new levels of spells one level late.

While it's unlikely that you'll be able hide your undeadness from the party, you probably could hide it from most casual acquaintances. It could be an interesting hook for social interactions. Since your considering an evil character either way, you will have problems regardless if there are hard core good character (i.e., paladin in mind if not in class) characters in your party.

Being damaged by positive energy rather than negative energy depends on the campaign. In many campaigns, the NPC clerics that you fight will channel negative energy, so you can stand and smile while the rest of the party gets hurt. You might even occasionally get free healing from your enemies, especially if you keep up a "not undead" disguise. The main downside is that the party cleric won't heal you when he channels (but he also won't harm you either).

In addition to the healing problem, there is also the death problem. You won't have the buffer region between conscious and dead where living characters are unconscious. The first time you drop in combat, you probably need to make a new character. Raise dead and reincarnate won't work, and (true) resurrection restores you to your living form, not your undead form. At low levels, an unlucky critical can kill you; at high levels, save or die will eventually kill you. (Although there are fewer save of die in pathfinder, I think a fair number of those that remain target undead.)

It could be an interesting character to play: somewhat underpowered on offense but strong on defense with interesting social interactions.