D&D 5E Wights and wraiths

[Jeff Carlsen]

I'm not content with the soft-handed direction they're thinking about for energy drain. I don't want full level drain because that's a pain and I don't think it best describes the concept of having your lifeforce sapped.

I suggest that when hit by an attack that causes energy drain, two things happen:

1. The attack permanently reduces your total number of hit dice starting with your unspent dice. (though you don't lose maximum hit points). Each is rolled and added to the monster's health. If you run out of hit dice, you die and become whatever the monster description says you become. A restoration spell can return lost hit dice.
2. You gain an appropriate condition until your next long rest. (There doesn't appear to be a fatigued condition yet, but I it might be something like you have disadvantage on checks and attacks)

Thus, energy drain has a dramatic, frightening effect on you. You recover from the immediate effects, but it leaves you permanently weakened by reducing your natural hit point recovery.

 

[mlund]

But wights spawning zombies and wraiths spawning maybe shadows... that could be cool. If you're worried about exponential growth, just put an upper cap on how many they can turn.

This is hands-down the best approach.

Beyond that, I think I'd like them to flesh out and refine the concepts a little more. "Evil and vicious" vs. "More evil and vicious" vs. "Evil, vicious, and older" don't quite do it for me.

Wight - The mortal died while wallowing in one for of depravity or another, if not killed in the act itself. Wights would be drawn from the ranks of gleeful murderers, amoral knowledge-seekers, enthusiastic torturers, human traffickers, rapists, arsonists, etc. In a horror-focused game each one's individual visual style and behavior might give some hints to the sin that sustains them as an un-living horror. They are vicious, self-centered, and short-sited monsters of moderate intelligence (INT 10) dwelling inside the memories of their mortal obsession. Their sphere of concern and influence generally coincides with a physical location like a dungeon, castle, mausoleum, or mansion. Wights are Chaotic Evil.

Wraith - There are some souls that are powerful enough and obsessed enough that even destroying the physical body or consecrating it in holy ground can not severe its terrible animus from the Material Plane. With a terrible will bound to awful animus the Wraith pursues an obsession beyond death with dreadful schemes (INT 14). Wraiths are eager to slay the living in part for the sake of spite and in part to simply exercise some control over the corporeal world. Their sphere of concern and influence generally fall along social lines instead of physical ones - a county, family holdings, a kingdom, a tribe, a religious see, or a long-forgotten front in a war. Wraiths are Neutral Evil.

As to energy drain, I'd like it to be a Limited Expression attack - something that can't be spammed every round. That gives it room to be more fearsome without overwhelming everything else (similar to the model a dragon's breath-weapon). It should jam maximum HP or steal unused Hit Dice and it should -definitely- make it harder to function in general - draining spells form casters, impairing skill checks, perhaps slowing victims and lowering their AC.

Something like reducing the victim's max HP by 10, healing the draining undead by 3d8 HP, and giving the victim a cumulative -1 penalty to all attack rolls, checks, and saving throws that wears off at a rate of 5 Max HP and 1 point of penalty per extended rest. Maybe having an added requirement of needing holy water or some other form of magical purification to make those rests effective could do the trick. I want it to feel more like a curse / affliction and less like random combat damage (though it still needs to carry its own weight in the fight).

- Marty Lund

 

[Magil]

I don't like effects that require magic to remove. That places too much emphasis and importance on spellcasters. I'm fine with energy draining, but it shouldn't cause anything that a long rest (perhaps with some treatment) can't fix.

 

[Stormonu]

I sprta like 3E's take on level drain as negative levels. What I'm sort of hoping for is some sort of tally that as it accrues, the PC get weaker and the undead gets stonger. Inflicting, say, a -1 penalty to all checks to the PC (perhaps non-cumulative because of bounded accuracy) and transfer of healing HD to the undead (who can immediately expend it to heal damage or temp boost of some sort - sort of like a fighter's one-shot use of CS)

As far as spawning goes, I'd like to see it done as a sort of ritual. If the individual dies, but can be dragged to safety, no coming back - or at worst, as a zombie or lesser undead. If the wight/wraith/vampire or whatever retains the corpse however, it can then perform some time-consuming ritual over the body to make another of its kind.

As for why D&D has graveyards - well, intelligent folks have the clerics hallow the ground (via spells) and the rich have gentle repose cast on their remains to prevent this sort of stuff. The criminal hanged by a mob and buried out at the crossroad in an unmarked grave? Yeah, HE'S the one coming back as a wight....

 

[DEFCON 1]

Wights and wraiths shouldn't spawn examples of themselves (or each other), that's inconsistent with the backstory.

But wights spawning zombies and wraiths spawning maybe shadows... that could be cool. If you're worried about exponential growth, just put an upper cap on how many they can turn.

I might even go so far as to throw in the ghoul/ghast pairing there as well. Ghouls don't spawn other ghouls... ghouls eat the human flesh they paralyze and kill. Ghasts (being the elder brother to the ghoul) are the ones that will change a killed being into a ghoul spawn. This makes more sense.

So you have your basic level of three mindless or less-intelligent undead, along with the three more powerful, more intelligent, more likely to create spawn whom they control and influence "older brothers" of undead:

Zombie < Wight
Ghoul < Ghast
Shadow < Wraith

Then above these six you have kind of the "greater" undead, in the death knights, vampires, mummies, spectres and liches.

 

[Stormonu]

Wriaths making Shadows doesn't seem to fit for me. Perhaps an allip or some sort of other incorporeal undead - mayhaps a new type, say haunt or revenant?

 

[Lanefan]

I don't like effects that require magic to remove. That places too much emphasis and importance on spellcasters. I'm fine with energy draining, but it shouldn't cause anything that a long rest (perhaps with some treatment) can't fix.

Energy drain should need a *lot* more to fix than a simple long rest and some treatment; and if you don't want a magical solution the other way to fix it is to get out and adventure up all the XP you just lost.

And yes, energy drain should take away levels. Entire levels. Not just bits of levels, or things gained from levels, but whole levels as measured by XP.

Lan-"coming on Samhain, this is a fine topic"-efan

 

[Stormonu]

Energy drain should need a *lot* more to fix than a simple long rest and some treatment; and if you don't want a magical solution the other way to fix it is to get out and adventure up all the XP you just lost.

And yes, energy drain should take away levels. Entire levels. Not just bits of levels, or things gained from levels, but whole levels as measured by XP.

Lan-"coming on Samhain, this is a fine topic"-efan

As a DM, level drain taking away XP is the part I actually hate the most about level drain. I still want it to be terrifying and something difficult to recover from (maybe a 4E-like disease track you only get a chance to improve by taking a lost rest - no guarantee of it automatically going away or getting better), but I'm happy to lose the lost XP portion of energy drain for good.

 

[GameDoc]

I have always struggled with how D&D narratively included vampires, mummies, wights, ghouls, wraiths, and ghosts in the same setting. It's not so much that I'm opposed to them all being in the same setting, it just seems like overkill on "how many ways can an evil person become an undead villain".

Keep in mind, I know that you can craft your own setting and whittle it down to fewer types of intelligent undead if you want. But I would also like a default option to include them all with good reasons why they would all exist in the same reality.

These articles indicate they are trying for that, but for some reason they are falling a bit short to me. Can't put my finger on why.

As for spawning, what about just allowing certain undead to render anyone they drop below 0 HP a thrall. Not yet dead, but close enough to fall under their command. It gives you a way to save your buddy by defeating the undead master before its too late. Perhaps if you fail all of your death saves before the hold is broken, that's when you become truly undead yourself.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I don't like effects that require magic to remove. That places too much emphasis and importance on spellcasters. I'm fine with energy draining, but it shouldn't cause anything that a long rest (perhaps with some treatment) can't fix.

I have two points of contention with this. The first is that energy drain has to be permanent or it isn't energy drain. Energy drain is an effect that consumes part of your spirit. That part never comes back.

The second is that magic, by definition, breaks the rules of reality. Thus, there have to be things that only magic can do. In this case, it's restoring the part of your spirit that was consumed.

Now, it sounds to me like you're the kind of player who isn't too concerned with verisimilitude. You clearly like the idea of being brought to full health after a long rest. I presume you prefer to be doing big things, getting in to grand fights, and generally doing the high power hero stuff. That's cool. The game needs to support that. But energy drain is not intended for that style of play, and the default rules should reflect that.