D&D 5E PC wants to become undead

[ElterAgo]

Ok I have a player whose PC can't stand the thought of eventually becoming old and weak then eventually dying. He want to become an undead and live forever. I am willing to work out something with him for this. He's not sure if his character is vicious enough to sacrifice large job lots of people to become a Lich. Could get turned by a vampire then be a free agent when the creator vampire is destroyed. But the whole "burns in sunlight" thing is a serious weakness.

What other options are there and how would you handle it as a GM? We're still at the looking for ideas stage.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I would encourage the player (and character) to find other avenues to immortality, personally. In my games, the PC would become an NPC as soon as they became undead.

But for the sake of trying to be helpful, what class is the PC?

Offhand, my suggestions would be a ghast, wight, or wraith, depending on the player's goals.

 

[Larnievc]

Why not scoop their brain out and put it in a construct?

 

[UnknownDyson]

Vampire is probably the easiest and least disruptive way to accomplish what you want. The creator vampire doesn't necessarily have to die for the PC to be a free agent. They can be let off the leash by the parent vampire.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Ok I have a player whose PC can't stand the thought of eventually becoming old and weak then eventually dying. He want to become an undead and live forever. I am willing to work out something with him for this. He's not sure if his character is vicious enough to sacrifice large job lots of people to become a Lich. Could get turned by a vampire then be a free agent when the creator vampire is destroyed. But the whole "burns in sunlight" thing is a serious weakness.

What other options are there and how would you handle it as a GM? We're still at the looking for ideas stage.

they could try for archlich like all properly powerful adevntures.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ok I have a player whose PC can't stand the thought of eventually becoming old and weak then eventually dying. He want to become an undead and live forever. I am willing to work out something with him for this. He's not sure if his character is vicious enough to sacrifice large job lots of people to become a Lich. Could get turned by a vampire then be a free agent when the creator vampire is destroyed. But the whole "burns in sunlight" thing is a serious weakness.

What other options are there and how would you handle it as a GM? We're still at the looking for ideas stage.

If the goal is to avoid getting old and dying, becoming a druid or a warlock of the Undying patron will at least help slow the process significantly. Personally, I wouldn’t allow any method to permanently escape death that wasn’t inherently evil, but that’s a personal moral stance of mine. You could always provide a non-evil path to lichdom if you wanted to,

 

[Charlaquin]

Wait, is @esteban1997 the player on question?

 

[Iry]

Assuming the player is not looking for a bunch of immunities, you could go for a Juju Zombie. That's not an especially powerful undead, so the player might grumble about not being one of the cool iconic ones, but it would definitely get him thematic immortality. You could also make him a Ghoul and he may have fun roleplaying that, and limiting the ghoul attack to 1 per short rest would be a neat ribbon.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Also, keep in mind death and reincarnate leads to immortality. As long as the PC doesn't mind a new body when the old one is no longer serviceable. Granted, you would have to work out having someone able to cast reincarnate...

 

[Oofta]

If you do the construct thing, you could change his race to warforged. There's always just a McGuffin they have to go on a quest to find that will grant them immortality.

As far as turning into a vampire and so on, in my campaign they'd become an NPC because I don't want to deal with evil blood sucking PCs. A lich might be possible, but obviously people will have negative reactions and I wouldn't give him any of the special lich abilities.