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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FoxWander" data-source="post: 1758457" data-attributes="member: 1356">First off, thanks- glad to add something useful to the discussion. ANd feel free to adjust grammar, spelling, whatever.Well the smarmy answer to both your questions is "yes". I was going for both a Sensitive AND Necromantic power. The reason is because I'm basing this on the character in Necroscope, mixed with D&D magic. In Necroscope the main power (and actually, the only power) of the character was his ability to speak with the dead. To hold a conversation with them exactly as if they were still alive. But he was one of the ONLY people on earth who COULD actually speak with the dead, and so most of the dead he talked to were very grateful for the conversation- because they had no one else to talk to. Being dead, they now existed in a purely mental state and had nothing better to do than contemplate the ideas and hobbies they had in life. But they had noone else to discuss these with until the necroscope came along. So the main character learned all kinds of interesting things. When he had a math problem at his university he found the grave of a dead professer and mathmatical genius to tutor him. In the years since he'd died the professor had contemplated math so much he had found solutions to supposedly unsolvable problems, and secrets that would allow someone to bend space/time. All of which he eagerly passed on to the necroscope character. And so went the rest of the book as villains tried to capture the necoscope to abuse his powers. But, as the necroscope was a good guy, very respectful of the dead and would often help them complete their unfinished tasks (like the kid in Sixth Sense)- the dead were very protective of the necroscope. Eventually this connection was such that they rose up from the grave a few times to help and defend him.Of course, that cosmology doesn't exist in D&D, and it puts magic in the equation also. The main gist, and I suppose 'source of power', for the Death-Touched that I was going for was in this ability to freely communicate with the dead and the sorcerous powers that might evolve from that connection. Hopefully I'm making since here- I'm a little tired.To reflect more what I'm trying to portray, maybe the skills should be Knowledge (arcana and planes). Just drop Move Silently. That mostly stemmed from the idea of someone routinely sneaking into graveyards and such, and maybe a little of the "quiet as the dead" (and not "the grave") connection. Regardless, Move Silently isn't a core of the class as much as esoteric knowledge should be, so the two knowledge skills fit better.Your first suggestion is more what I'm going for. And it works better since you clarify it in more of a rules-sense than I did. The main thing is that, for the Death-Touched, it's as if the spirit of the deceased is right there with him, and he can converse with them freely. But he has no way to COMPEL them to answer, unless he resorts to the actual spell- in which case the rules of the spell apply. Although I would add that use of the spell would probably be considered insulting to the dead person and would have a negative effect on future conversations using the Death-Touch ability.This is a good idea. I'd go with the 5+level SR. This could potentially be a very bad limitation, but since it also avoids the chance to be injured by healing spells, it should work.I specifically wanted to avoid limiting the Death-Touched to non-good alignments. His connection to necromancy is involuntary and, depending on how he views it (a curse, a gift, a chance to champion the lost casues of the departed, etc.) shouldn't necessarily dictate whether he is good or evil. For the same reason, I don't like the idea of barring him from any spells. I would still keep the -2 versus Good spells. Whether he uses his gifts for good or not, he is still tainted by them. So good aligned Death-touched will have to live with being tragic heroes, cursed by the very powers they use to fight evil. Perhaps to play up this side more, as well as giving somewhat of an appropriate alignment limitation- we could add a rule the whatever his alignment, the death-touched detects as evil to any alignment sensing effects. Hmm, I'm torn... both spell lists seem somewhat appropriate for the idea I was going for. The control/create undead spells in my list were a reflection of the 'willing to serve even to the point of reanimation' devotion the dead might have towards the sorcerer (from the Necroscope idea). But the creation of the outright evil greater undead doesn't really fit the concept. (if an individual player wants to go that route they can choose the create undead spells for their spells known). And now I don't lik either of our choices for 8th and 9th level. How about this list...0–disrupt undead; 1st-unseen servant; 2nd-command undead; 3rd-gaseous form; 4th-animate dead; 5th-contact other plane; 6th-undeath to death (I'm not sure about this one either, but can't think of something more appropriate); 7th-ethereal jaunt; 8th-polymorph any object; 9th–time stop The last two are to reflect the 'learning i]impossible[/i] secrets' idea from Necroscope (in that the character basically learned a psionic teleportation power from the math professors quantum mathmatics theories) I don't know... can you think of better spells for 6, 8 and 9th level? Again, you've hit the idea I was going for, but with a more rules-fruiendly approach. And your right, gaining Death Ward as well would be too much. How about an idea from the Dustmen faction of Planescape? They gained an ability called (I think) Death Truce. Basically, as long as they didn't attack the undead, the undead wouldn't attack them. This worked even against intelligent undead- they could not attack unless the Dustman character broke the truce first. However, "breaking the truce" could logically, and rightfully, include such actions as obviously aiding those who were attacking the undead creature, obvious preparations for an attack and such. The only immunity they had was being nuetral. Do you think the sight ability AND the truce would be too much at once? I'll have to find my T&B but this looks like a good idea. And again, it has the convenience of simple rules-friendliness.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />As for the 20th level ability, I'm not sure where to go now. I was going for some kind of 'Aspect of Undeath' transformation without actually becomming ubdead. One, the traits and abilities of the Undead type are pretty powerful (specifically immunity to crits and fortitude saves), and two, I wanted them to still be living but so connected with death that they took on some of the strengths of undeath. That's why I went Outsider rather than Undead. Unfortunately, it's quite late now and I'm can't think straight enough to come up with more ideas for what I'm going for. If you, or anyone else, have something- I'm open to suggestions. One thing I had thought yesterday when I posted was a few less powers than I actually listed, but with the added effect that when the sorcerer died they would become an undead creature, probably a lich. Anyway, I'm going to sleep. Thanks for all the good ideas and suggestions. I'm sure we can work this into something that can be added to the awesome product you've already developed. ps- normally I would go back and correct the many typing errors I'm sure I made, but I'm way too tired for that... so please ignore any spelling problems.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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