Are Undead Scary?

[X-Marks!]

It's Not the Same

Back in those olden days, I had a character loose at least 4 very hard-earned levels to vampires and wights and such with energy drain. It felt both painful and unfair (considering the numbers I was up against that adventure). These days, the system isn't nearly so permanent [applause], but sometimes I still have that memory cringe from my youth.

 

[Razz0putin]

They give me nightmares
not becuase they're scary but becuase under the 2ng edition rules they were a sign that the GM had messed up and was out to get you.
they were really just crap in that the GM messed up and gave the player to much power so he had to hit you with something to take that power away
I like them much better under 3rd
they don't reak of cheese

 

[MonsterMash]

In 3e undead need a good GM to make scary otherwise it can turn into a case of 'what DR do we have to get round on this one'.

Level drain is still nasty for low level parties, particularly if clerics are rare so getting Restoration is not trivial.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I think that standard undead are scary to low level characters but as they get higher the fear factor loses something (let's face it, as RPGs go D&D is hardly scary to most people).

 

[Henry]

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. And the fact that energy drain reduces your ability to stand up to further attempts means its still scary.

A couple of clarifications:

There was a way to undo it - but whereas in 3E it can be undone by a 4th level cleric spell, it took a SEVENTH level cleric spell (the highest level of cleric magic in earlier editions) to undo it.

Also, most level draining really doesn't stand to become permanent now. All the fort saves I've seen to shrug off level draining are in the low teens, and the only time my players ever became worried were when one player stirred up a pack of wights more than he meant to, and was in danger of being level drained into undeath. (It was fun watching his change of action - he went from being bored and opening up a bunch of doors at once, to suggesting the party be more cautious and rest. )

That said, I believe that D&D level draining was a little too harsh, and I was always hard pressed to come up with a middle ground that feels right; finally I decided, they didn't NEED a middle ground; draining undead need to be approached cautiously and carefully by players (not characters), and treated with careful planning and extreme prejudice.

I don't know about other players, but mine just don't have the same "keep 'em away from me" attitude about wights and wraiths that they used to.

 

[Kanegrundar]

The only nightmares I have are about zombies. Yep, I said it, zombies. It's not really that they are walking corpses that want to feed on my squishy bits, it's the whole loss of hope and options that scares the Hell out of me. I can outrun them, I can shoot them, but in the end I'm tired and out of ammo as they catch up...

Kane

 

[stevelabny]

am I scared of undead? It depends on two things.

1> Am I a rogue?
2> Is there a cleric in the party?

If the answer to 1 is yes, and 2 is no.... then i'm petrified.
If the answer to 1 is no, and 2 is yes... then I could care less.
If the answers are both the same... then it depends on the situation, but probably not.

 

[JoeBlank]

I agree that making level draining less permanent makes undead a little less scary, but we rarely used them in earlier editions because leveling took so long and taking that away seemed unfair.

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. (Note, the game was new, and I'm not sure we did everything right. For one thing, we had the paralysis effect also make one fall prone). So a 2d level party of 4 up against one ghoul and low-level cleric. But because our PCs were falling prone once the ghoul hit, they were drowning. First guy down was our cleric, in full plate. My poor gnome couldn't lift the guy out of the water. Another PC goes down, and my gnome convinces the elf wizard to finally wade into the water to help. By the time he gets there, my PC is down and drowning. Elf tries to flee, and the ghoul gets him with his last attack. TPK.

We learned to take a harder look at a monster's abilities, and not just to trust CR. We learned to take environment into account when figuring Encounter Level.

But mostly we learned that undead can be very scary.

 

[lukelightning]

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

 

[lukelightning]

What ruined undead was all those necromancer fanboys (and girls!) who want to be vampires (in real life probably) and think that undead aren't evil.