Undead PC's

[meltinbradley]

So I've been doing a campaign for about a year now and its been going real well until The dread Necromancer became a lich. I allowed the party to play any character the books had a build for. One chose vampire spawn, one a human druid, one a human spell thief wizard, and a human dread necromancer now lich. Its still real fun but with the combination of vampire and lich and the fact that the lich can use negative energy bursts to heal the vampire, plus all the IMMUNITIES undead get it makes things very hard for me. The levels range from 12 to 15.
I know of positoxins, clerics (which unfortunately are not very high level in my world, where magic is there but rare, especially powerful magic), mace of disruption, spells(there are probably some spells out there in some books that I dont have that can be nasty)
I sometimes just throw real powerful creatures at them which are WAY to challenging for the druid and spell thief.
Enemies special abilities and attacks are all but useless to undead, immune to mind affecting spells, fatigue, fear, critical hits, etc...and there are tons of feats that undead can use to help with there weaknesses, raising saves and hp.
I realize now, that I will probably never want to let my players play undead anymore, but in the meantime anyone have any ideas? I just want to balance it out more and not throw out monsters that have high HP,AC, and do lots of damage to take out undead. I also don't want to change my world in drastics ways like making clerics super powerful because it would not make sense with my world.(What I mean by clerics being to powerful is there are only a handful of clerics out there who are over 10th level, chances are a 10th level cleric would not turn a lich or even a vampire spawn of 15th level) Thanks.

 

[R1C0F3TT]

Dread Necromancers become Lich's at 20th level due tot heir class, so I wouldn't have turned into one so early, just save to money...
Did the necromancer spend the 120k nessesary to make a philactery? If so, at 13th level area, it will take about all his money, if not, you're handing out to much money to your PC's.
You answered your question about how to slay them. A 16th level cleric with a holy mace of disruption will pretty devastating (your PCs are high level magic users, so why wouldn't there be others. It doesn't make sense that there are 15th level wizard, but only 10th level cleric.) will be devastating to the vampire and lich. The vampire will die indefinitaly, and the lich won't come back for 1d10 days. Where did the lich hide his philactery? Does anyone know about it? Whereever he hid it, there is always a chance that some random will find it, go to a wizard to sell it, the wizard will realise it is a philactery and destroy it.
Is your vampire using his LA? If so his class would be a lot less compared to others.
You could also send a wizard who just uses control undead on them indefinatly.

 

[Dragonwriter]

Considering the Level Adjustment in both Lich and Vampire Spawn, they should be further behind the Druid and the Spellthief. And Dread Necromancer turning Lich early like that seems a waste, for sure.

And if your characters are high level, then there should be NPCs, though uncommon, of that power level. Liches and Vampires draw attention from the holy crusaders. Throw groups of paladins, clerics and Hunters of the Dead at them. And make sure the Clerics at least have scrolls of Undeath to Death. That should make them hurt .

 

[Runestar]

The most common solution to that is to first have your dread necro enter necropolitan ASAP. This allows you to dump con right from the start and not suffer its drawbacks (because if you pumped con to aid in survivability at low levels, it becomes counter-productive at lv20 when you become a lich).

Then at lv19, right before you would level to 20, get yourself killed and raised via true resurrection (which reverts you back to a human, ensuring that you become a legal target for true necro20).

But not too much with challenging undead PCs, I am afraid.

 

[akbearfoot]

how can you say magic is rare in you world? You have a druid, a wizard/spellthief who managed to survive to 15th level, and a dread necromancer....creation of undead and becoming a lich is apparently easy to learn and cheap to do. And you said the PCs could be practically anything. I do not know the LA of being vampire spawn or lich, but I am sure it is several levels for the lich. That means the ECL of the group has gone up and warrants tougher challenges. This will probably suck for the spell-thief since its a pretty weak class, but the druid will be fine they are already still one of the strongest classes.

Whats good for the PCs is good for the NPCs....and just as your PCs grow your world should grow too. If they are making themselves targets then a group of holy do-gooders SHOULD go after them.

A group of 12th or 13th level Do-Gooders should give these guys a run for their money....A Paladin, a Radiant Servant of Pelor, a monk, and a support caster. Paladin with Divine Might + smite and the weapon crystal that lets him crit undead, radiant servant may not be able to turn them, but he can CURE the hell out of them and cast Death ward and other various buffs. Spell caster to fly around and targeted dispel the multitude of buffs that party probably has, summon more allies, and buff/debuff. Monk can grapple the lich and has excellent saves and mobility, or he can tie up the druid to keep him from using all the druidy stuff. The spell-thief may actually shine in an encounter like this as there are lots of spells flying around.

 

[R1C0F3TT]

What is the druid's alignment?
I would think an avarage druid would be stongly against teaming up with a lich or vampire. He would probably find them much to unnatural.
Also, spell theaves don't tend to be the most loyal people, so your group of holy crusaders could offer the druid and spell theif their life if they don't interfere with the exicutation of the undeads.

 

[meltinbradley]

thanks

Thanks everyone for your replies.

R1CO-The dread necromancer did spend the 120K to perform all the needed steps into lichdom. It did take all his money. I am very skimpy when it comes to giving out magical items and money. The only reason he was able to make that change was because they were looking for a artifact which they ended up finding because its crucial to the campaign and he sold it to a 3rd party for money. (This was very unexpected, but it is a evil campaign.) The value of the artifact was priceless so a price for a mere 120k was acceptable by the 3rd party interested in the artifact.
The philactery is a childs doll. It was given to some random child in a random city to hold(without her knowledge). Later the child was murdered by the brother of the lich and now holds it and has some insurance against the lich now. (This is not known to the lich in game) I dont know the LA of the vampire spawn off hand at the moment I will have to get back to you.
The druids alignment is neutral evil. And yes, under most circumstances he would find them revolting. The campaign is based on a greater evil threantening the world so all good and evil alike have somewhat joined forces to stop this evil. The PC's all have their own agenda. The lich doesnt want this "evil" to win because the lich wants to eventually rule for herself and not have to serve this new evil. The vampire wishes to redeem himself, the druid wishes to keep the environment as it is and doesnt want this unnatural and foriegn force in this world, and the spell thief could give a rats a$$ and is only out for money and power.
Sorry for being unclear. Let me clarify, in my world going to any town or city, village, any populated place you will find no mage or cleric of higher then 10th level, with some exceptions. There are, however some who do not want to be found of higher level or those living in remote places.
Because the PC's are working with the good guys there aren't to many paladins, and good clerics who are out for them. But on several occasions the PC's have killed key NPC's VERY carefully which consisted of clerics and paladins (mainly by the lich because she is chaotic evil) One thing that worked well was a vampire lord serving this evil had dominated some powerful good aligned clerics who destroyed the lich but as you know returned soon after.
Dragon writer- There are NPC'S of equal and greater level then them, for sure, they actually just got they a$$es kicked by a Death Knight and his legion. Which was nice to see, since they were doing so well up until now.
Runestar- Can you explain more about Necropolitan, I am not sure what that is. Is it a place where undead reside? I do like the true ressurection though. That would piss him off...
Akbear-I explained a little about levels above. Yes, there are powerful forces out there but you will not find a magic shop in any of my towns, you will not be able to get ressurected in them as well if you die. That is just not common place. I consider the PC's the main focus of any game, so I like to let the PC's be what they want and give them chances in achieving what it is they want. You are right though, lately the Druid has been crucial in just about every situation. They have made MANY enemies, and everyone is growing, but because the PC's are not a big factor at the moment nothing serious has happened, but once this campaign ends, im sure all the murder and mayhem they have done will come back to bite them, I like the weapon crystal with crits to undead idea.
Again, thanks everyone for your help. One more question: Isn't there a spell that temporarily removes the undead traits? MB

 

[Runestar]

Necropolitan is a template from libris mortis. Basically gives you the undead traits, for LA+0 (though you do lose a level). Essentially a poor man's lich.

Resurrection works only if you are willing. So it is not something an enemy cleric can perform on your dread necro.

It is odd. All the undead races your party is using normally have very steep and debilitating LAs. IIRC, vampire spawn is LA+4 (for ECL8 when combined with its 4 undead HD). Vampire is +8LA, lich is +4, and these mean that you are missing that many class lvs. Your undead powers should be more than offset by the fact that you are all lacking in class features, and HD (meaning poorer bab/saves/hp/spellcasting).

 

[Shin Okada]

Well, while undead PCs have many immunities, they still have relatively low HPs for their ECL. Because they have LA and no Con mod. For example, average total HPs of a 11th-level lich PC (ECL 15) is only 12 + 6.5 x 10 = 77. But average total HPs of a 15th-level living Dread Necromancer with Con 14 is 8 + 5.5 x14 = 85. And living arcane casters of this level usually have at least +4 to +6 Con item. So, his total HP is likely to be 115-130 in average. And of course, lich suffer much from being 4 levels behind characters of LA +0 race.

And living PCs can have nearly as many immunities by choosing some LA +0 race (warforged), classes (Paladin, Dragon Disciple, Elemental Savant, etc.) and casting breakfast spells (Heroes Feast). So, game-balance wise, I don't think them to be too strong.

 

[meltinbradley]

hmm...

Yeah, it was cool when they had low hp. With the fact that the vampire gets increase in strength and raises BAB he has a decent BAB. There is also a feat called unholy toughness which the vampire has now and his HP went WAY up because instead of using con for HP increase you use your CHA modifier and him being a vampire he has a high CHA. He also has a feat I forget the name but it allows you to make a saving throw when you go to zero or less HP. The save is based on how much damage you suffer below zero. If you make the save you awaken with half your HP, if you fail you go gaseous. If it happens again, then you may do it a second time, but if you fail the save that time you are permanently destroyed.
The lich is about to advance next game, and guess what feat he is going to take? Thats right Unholy toughness and I will be dealing with a 200+ HP lich.
The good news is I think Im going to kill him off permanently real soon. Have him make a new character.