How do I make my undead adventure interesting for the rogue?

[Gort]

So, I picked up Libris Mortis the other day, and naturally I want to run an undead-heavy adventure. It was gonna be my halloween adventure, but that got missed for out of game reasons.

Anyway, my question is, given that the rogue in our party can't actually hurt undead, how do I make fights interesting for him? Should I make some equipment available, like undead bane arrows or something? Should I have something else for him to do during the fights, like solve a puzzle, disarm a fiendish trap, etc? Give me your suggestions.

A little background on the adventure. The players have found a young girl who's possessed by a demon, a Nalfeshnee, in fact. He's using her to open portals to send his demons through to reality to steal things and murder people in his grand scheme. Now it's up to the players to go through one of his portals to defeat him in his deadly lair. (under construction)

The character is actually a Rogue 8/Slayer of Domiel 4 - in my campaign, he's an Inquisition assassin. So, any thoughts?

 

[scholz]

You could make some really powerful undead that are busy doing stuff. I had an entier city of undead (they were building enormous Egyptian style monuments). They would attack any living creature on sight, and there were too many of them for must parties to fight directly. Of course, a sneaky rogue might be able to avoid such a fight. It would add a real element of suspense, if the rogue knew he would likely be toast if the undead spotted him.

Also, in my old campaign setting, the undead kept numeous allies alive. There was a game rule that undead could not advance in levels (easily) so the undead leaders had a sort of Hitler youth, of living minions that that sent off in attempts to get them to go up levels rapidly. Those that survived would be guranteed to be vampires or lichs, or other powerful undead. Those that didn't would end up zombies or something. I think my actual rule was that you would be reanimated at a HD roughly equal to your level (this was before templates). But something like that (maybe for different reasons) would give your rogues something to sneak attack.

Alternatives:
1. If undead are ubiquitous allow your rogues to get a feat that would allow them to sneak attack undead (maybe at a penalty?)
2. Add lots of traps, sneaking, and other skill related tasks. Games do not need to be solely about combat.
3. Your adventure idea seems potentially outsider heavy, and they are vulnerable to sneak attacks (I think).

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

There are still things that Rogues can do against undead. For a start if you're talking about slow moving undead he can distract them by keeping moving just beyond their range, giving the others a chance to pick them off. Trip attacks may be helpful that allow your cleric/fighter-type in to finish them off. And off course he can just aid another to give the cleric the extra edge he needs to work his way through the creatures. Basically reward him for creative fighting - and get him to watch some Jackie Chan for some possible inspiration on how to fight using the scenery. OK he won't be killing the undead but he can still be a contributor.

Bigger and badder undead may be more of a problem, but provided you build in enough things that the rogue has at least helped them get to your BBEG it shouldn't be a problem. Against vampires/liches/mummies etc. the rogue has to take more of a back seat in many things - let him contribute by getting passed all the traps that your demon has put in place that the rest of the party would have been unable to spot. Not everyone has to shine everywhere as long as they all get to shine in the right places.

 

[Henry]

Quick question - what's the one or two sentence decription of what the Slayer of Domiel does? I'm totally unfamiliar with this PrC.

As for Roguish ideas, take note of what skills he excels in (if you don't have a copy of his character sheet, request one of all the players, or get a glance on his to see if "you guys can handle what's coming up" - heck, that little piece of metagaming may help more than the adventure!

Then cater one or two tasks per session to his strengths. Is he an info-gather type? maybe there's a settlement of slaves in the Abyss on the way that he can infiltrate. Is he a diplomat-type? Said settlement of slaves needs to be won over for allies. Is he a skulker? Info needs to be gathered first-hand in the lair, because the Demon has some UNBEATABLE defenses at the front gate. (Let the NPC's watch a rebellious slave or a heroic NPC get fried by impossible defenses at the gate. Better them than the PCs).

Demons are not immune to Critical hits. Don't forget them.

There's plenty of things for a rogue to do besides participate in combat. In the old days, a rogue went out of his way to STAY out of melee - there's a reason why.

 

[NPC]

I made up a ring that allows a rogue to use his sneak attack ability on undead/constructs 3 times a day. That way, he can do some good damage at least in some encounters, but he can't do it all the time.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Anyway, my question is, given that the rogue in our party can't actually hurt undead, how do I make fights interesting for him?

Can't actually hurt undead? Why not? Does he attack without a weapon? Sure, he doesn't get the rogue's overblown sneak attack damage vs. undead, but he can still cut their flesh like anyone else.

Of course, my hat of sneak attack know no limit...

But I digress. As for a less snarky answer: traps. Traps are always good. Also, rogues make decent scouts. With a good Move Silently and Hide check, he could definitely run recon for the party. Maybe there's a portion of the adventure that the rogue could be the one to turn to. Say, a switch located across a chasm spanned by a rope that needs to be pressed to lower the bridge. Few other characters really bother with the Balance skill.

Embrace the fact that rogues are more than xd6 sneak-attack machines. They're skill-monkeys too.

 

[Shallown]

Letting the party no they will probably fight undead gives them the chance to prep the rouge, if they wish, to fight undead. So put it back on the players to make the rogue useful.

Also a few more traps wouldn't hurt. You can go for things that don't affect undead much so that if they accidently went off the undead don't care. So placement and frequency of traps could increase reasonable. Poison, ability drains etc would be ignored by undead. you could also have magical traps triggered by only the living.

Later

You could also rule spells/weapons specific to undead can sneak attack. So a rogue could sneak attack with a disrupt undead wand if flanking or use an undead bane sword to sneak attack. Sounds fairly reasonable. So they can get a scroll/wand searing light and when the undead are flatfooted the rogue could tear them up.

Just an idea

later

 

[diaglo]

UMD - use magical device

skills be the rogue's way.


otherwise perhaps the rogue needs to lay traps to snare the undead or hurl grenade like weapons: thunderstones, tanglefoot bags, alchemist fire, and holy water.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I love playing rogues, and I'll be the first to whine at the table about facing undead or constructs, because my sneak attacks don't work, but there's a whole lot more to a rogue than sneak attacks, as others have already suggested.

What I would suggest, though, is that you leave the rogue's player some room to figure out how to be useful. It's your job to challenge the party -- and part of that is trying to make sure there's something for everyone -- but don't try to take the entire burden of making the PCs productive for yourself. The player will need to figure some of that out on his or her own.

To do that, though, the PC will need information, and time. It might even warrant a little OOC warning from you -- let the player know that this is coming, and that he or she might want to be thinking about how best to serve the party against foes he or she can't sneak attack.

-rg

 

[Nifft]

Tumble/flank still works, and skills are utterly VITAL.

-- N