Applying the Half-Fiend Template to Undead Creatures

[Ghostmoon]

Hello,

My question is specifically regarding what happens to the creature's Constitution score? As with all the Undead, it does not have one. However, when the template is applied, it switches the type of monster from Undead to Outsider.

In the beginning of the Monster Manual (pg 10), it notes that creatures with no body or metabolism has no Constitution score. However, it also notes that any living creature has a Constitution score of at least 1.

So, I guess my question is: Is it mechanically correct to have an Outsider with no Constitution score?

Thanks!
Ghostmoon

 

[BOZ]

i'd say no.... but then, your situation begs an appropriate question. in applying the half-fiend template and therefore making it an Outsider, does the creature cease to be undead? that is, is your half-fiend vampire (or whatever, fill in the blank) still a vampire? if you use it that way, it would now have a Constitution score as it is not an undead. if you want to keep it with the undead attributes, then i don't think it can be an outsider.

however! if you are looking for a vampire (or whatever) with fiendish abilities, why not try it the other way around? take your base creature, make it a half-fiend, and then apply the undead template to it. to me, it makes much more sense that way.

 

[Ghostmoon]

Non-Template Undead

Thanks for the quick response.

I thought of this as well, but the problem comes in with non-template Undead. For instance, if I created a half-fiend ghoul I would run into the problem of an Outsider with no Constitution score.

 

[Hand of Vecna]

In the "Death Knights" article in Dragon a few issues back, they actually had a Half-Fiend Death Knight (Death Knight's themselves being Undead). I believe his type was still 'Undead,' and he had a "-" for his Con score, but he had al the spell-like abilities and resistances a Half-Fiend would normally have.

Of course, this Death Knight was the most powerful one, Demogorgon's champion, and the Demon Prince had arranged for "demonic flesh grafts and unholy infusions" for his favored servant....

 

[Ghostmoon]

Hello,

Thanks for the response. I cross-posted this question on several boards and somebody else was kind enough to point this out in Dragon 291 as well. So, I think I have my answer.

Thanks very much all!

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

I just treat them all like undead but with the bonus attributes of the fiendish or half-fiendish templates. This way you can summon fiendish ghouls or what-have-you. Since these undead are considered to be either "unborn" or to have spent considerable amounts of time in infernal regions, they are more powerful than their regular Prime Material Plane kin.

 

[Pale]

I would just houserule that they stay as type undead with the justification that their plane of origin is a "fiendish" plane and they were turned into undead afterward. (you had to be alive before you could be unalive). I know that the question has pretty much been answered already, but I thought that I would throw in my 2 cents on this one.

 

[Cerubus Dark]

I beg to differ

I would just houserule that they stay as type undead with the justification that their plane of origin is a "fiendish" plane and they were turned into undead afterward. (you had to be alive before you could be unalive). I know that the question has pretty much been answered already, but I thought that I would throw in my 2 cents on this one.

A person can be dead before they are made undead. After all look at Hollywood.

But as far as "Feindish" Undead. I would never do that to my players. They have enough trouble dealing with their own theif than they would against a Undead from the lower planes.

 

[Pale]

And before you are dead, you have to be alive. If you weren't, then you would be nothing but inanimate.