Are Undead Scary?

[Henry]

But my first encounter with undead in 3.0 kept them scary for me. Second adventure, our characters were 2d level, and we had to fight a ghoul, in 3 feet of water.

Ironically, our VERY FIRST 3E game was a 99% Total Party Kill in a crypt with ghouls and zombies. Then again, the only monsters to work with were out of the back of the PHB, so it's not that unusual...

 

[Wombat]

From a conceptual point of view, the undead are the single most terrifying and loathsome group of monsters available. Here are the dead, the dead!, walking around after they have supposedly died. Some of them are only able to continue their existence by ripping lives or even souls from other living human beings. We are taling about leeches with legs here, people! Yuck! Some of them aren't even fully material, thus they can enter your home even through a barricaded door, etc. This is purely the stuff of nightmares.

From a gaming point of view, they are so-so under 3e, or realistically D&D in general. Why? Clerical turn power. With almost no effort, a cleric can turn upwards of a dozen of the buggers without even breaking a sweat and is able to do so multiple times each day. Some of the undead simply disintegrate under this power! Makes 'em pretty much laughable.

When I switched over to AU rather than standard D&D the undead became evil, vile, loathsome, and scary all over again, simply because there were no clerics. Now the undead are creatures that refuse to acknowledge the end of their own mortal existence and prey upon the living in some horrible parody of life.

Just like they should be

 

[davidschwartznz]

My character is a rogue. Nonsneakattackable+fort/will save attacks= nightmares.

There's nothing more pathetic than a rogue with a rapier trying to fight a skeleton - "I deftly stab him between the ribs... bugger."

And to paraphrase Plan 9 from Outerspace: "Isn't it strange how these humans - who can think - are afraid of those who cannot think - the dead."

 

[Orius]

Depends on what class I'm playing. But then most of the time I laugh anyway regardless of what class I'm playing as I break out the holy water and call the cleric over.

Of course if I'm playing the cleric, I start turning like crazy.

 

[Orius]

The Silent Majority of the vitally challenged can't tolerate these slurs any more.

Silent is right as in the fact that they can't even speak any more. I mean, who knows what that moaning means? Who cares? If they got a problem with it, I'll just break out a big ass water gun filled with holy water and solve that problem for them.

 

[Henry]

HEY! Just because they don't have a tongue anymore... or a jaw, in some cases... doesn't mean they don't have a right to be heard! And they have just as much right to eat... the brains... of the living... as the next....


Eh, screw it. I'll get the stakes, you get the silver and holy water.

 

[BriarCub]

Drowned are quite nasty. They've shown up in some of the more nautically-inclined Living Greyhawk regions and quite appropriately frighten the bejeezus out of folks. Their hit-dice-to-CR ratio makes them virtually impossible to turn and their 'drown radius' ability is particularly scary. They can also add quite a bit of flavor to the game and have the potential to be part of a rather dramatic climax encounter.

to/\/\

One fearsome undead is the drowned. Everyone dropping to 0 HP just by having it approach you. I think that they are in the MMII, but I strongly remember fighting one in the Green Regeant campaign. If it wasn't for everyone having a mass lessor vigor that kept healing everyone back up to 0 HP from -1 every round that single undead encounter would have been a TPK.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

OK, now that's just hateful, and makes no sense whatsoever. When there's a threat like that out there, someone's gonna develop a way to undo it. As it stands, there's still no save, but at least you've got that buffer period before it becomes permanent.

You might want to check your rulebooks again. You get a Fort save before the drain becomes permanent.

 

[lukelightning]

Why? Clerical turn power. With almost no effort, a cleric can turn upwards of a dozen of the buggers without even breaking a sweat and is able to do so multiple times each day. Some of the undead simply disintegrate under this power! Makes 'em pretty much laughable.

Turn undead needs revision. Our party's Radiant Munchkin of Pelor can turn wraiths no problem...but a zombie hill giant? Sorry Hans, even using STUP1D (Super Turn Undead Power 1/ Day) won't get results.

I think it should be something like DC 10+1/2 cleric level +wisdom modifier Will save, if you have twice as many HD as the undead it is dust, otherwise it is turned.

 

[Orius]

From an artist who posts on wizards.com called "Honesty Algebra"

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=341694

I highly reccomend this thread. To my knowledge, she has no idea of the d20 community and in my estimation, underrates her skill as an artist.

That's an understatment. With her posting that stuff all over WotC's board, I'm surprised they haven't offered a job yet. Her stuff is as good as WotC's artists (I liked the one with the bulette leaping out of the ground at the thri-kreen).