Turning a PC undead temporarily

[Lilitu]

I was reading through my copy of Open Grave when I came across a line in there that mentioned PC's being turned temporarily into undead. Now there was no further expansion on the concept beyond that one line however it did get me to start reconsidering an idea that I was previously on the verge of discarding. See, I'm a DM for a weekly group with my friends and the cleric of the group has a personality that doesn't mesh too well with the others.(it's a very naive/optimistic type of character) As such he wants his character to go through an existential crisis of some kind that will alter his personality somewhat and the god he follows into something that will mesh with the group better and he wants me to work this into the campaign we have(which I am happy to do). We have an undead heavy campaign so one of the ideas I had was to have his character captured by the necromantic cult they are dealing with and they turn him into an undead cleric. Then they let him lose on his former allies.

A couple of other points I thought about with this as well: Shortly before this happened I would have an NPC cleric join up with them so that they could still have a healer on hand once he's gone and so that there could be someone around with a raise dead spell who could bring him back.
I would give him a template for a ghost PC he could play after his body is turned undead so he can still fight along side his allies and guide them while I control the new undead.

I had originally thought of discarding it because I thought it might be too far or too much or that it would just upset everyone, but that line had me reconsider the idea. So I wanted to ask what people here thought of it and ask if anyone has any advice on how it could be implemented to the greatest affect. Or if you have any thoughts on the general idea of turning 1 or more PC's undead temporarily I'd love to hear those as well.

Thanks

 

[BobTheNob]

First of all...welcome!

Now, as to your idea. Hmmm. Good DM'ing is alot of things, and one of those things is understanding what makes players happy. What makes the game enjoyable. If the game is not enjoyable, then everything else you may contribute (understanding of all the rules, the best plot lines, back-ground music...whatever) means spit.

Rule Zero = Have fun

Before I embarked upon this choice I would ask myself whether it would be fun for the players. Is the target player one that would revel in the chance to take down his colleagues? Is your group the sort that would find this player vs player concept fun?

Also, to play this scenario out honestly, you must give your solo'd guy a chance in hell. But what happens when he out thinks his former team mates, or the rolls favor him too greatly? Party wipe? Thats not fun.

Also, what if your solo guys elects to throw in the fight when the fight starts to give the party a walk through?

Pitting player against player is a dangerous path to walk. Depending on maturity levels of your group egos will be hurt and people will be upset.

At the end of the day DMing is like a business and players are like your customers. Give them a product they like, and the will keep coming back. Guess or dictate to them what they like and you will be hanging an "out of business" sign pretty promptly.

So...would your players enjoy this?

 

[Lilitu]

Oh, I never intended it to be player vs. player. I said in my post that I would give him a ghost PC that he could control so he could fight alongside his fellow PC's in order to take down the new undead beast that I would control as an NPC. I suppose once he turns undead I could ask him if he wants to control the character and fight against the other PC's himself but I had never intended that to be the case.

Still that aside as to the question of whether or not they'd enjoy it I'm not completely sure. We only started just recently(the group is level 2 now) so I'm still learning the group. However I think they would. The person in question actually just popped up with a comment about what he would want to do if his character wound up dying as a result of whatever I put him through and he seemed fine with the idea, recognizing it as a definite possibility. Also considering the rest of the PCs attitudes toward his character and the personalities of the group in general I'd have to say I'm 80% sure they would enjoy it. Though I would not do it until they are much further along in the campaign arc.

 

[pemerton]

This sounds like a good idea to me.

My suggestions - I wouldn't use an NPC cleric, I'd just let the "ghost cleric" retain his healing powers (this could give rise to some fun if the other PCs don't at first know where the healing is coming from, because they can't see the ghost).

As for statting up the ghost - given it's only a short-term participant, you probably don't need to worry too much about balance. One approach would be to halve hit points and lose Channel Divinity while a ghost, but grant insubstantial and phasing, plus the ability to turn invisibile as a Standard Action until EoNT or attack. Also, I'd be inclined to limit extended rests while a ghost - maybe only 1 or 2 HS per rest - to make it clear that it's a short term option pending the PC's resurrection.

 

[Ryujin]

Well it looks like you've pretty much got the back-story down, on how he becomes undead. I have an idea on how to do it, mechanically, that's a bit of a double-fake.

There's a 6th level ritual called "Deathly Shroud" (Forgotten Realms Players' Guide), that makes the character appear to be undead to all other creatures, except intelligent undead. Undead with INT of 9, or lower, think that you're undead. Wards and spells act as if you're undead. It lasts up to 24 hours, on a skill roll result of 30+. Even at lower levels, that sort of number could be reached with enough "cultists" aiding in the casting.

So if 24 hours is enough time you wouldn't even have to use DM fiat. Any intelligent undead, that they run across, could be in on the "joke."

 

[malraux]

There are a lot of ways to pull something like this off. As a meta comment, within the 4e cosmology, there are 3 things that make up a person, the body, the soul, and the animus. Depending on what you want to do, you could have the evil necromancer steal any of the three. I might do something like the character having his animus stolen by the bad guy to power a super monster. With his animus gone, the character's soul travels to whatever sort of afterlife you think is best.

His body turns into a zombie-like creature, capable of adventuring, but clearly starting to decay. As a DM, what I'd do is let the soul return to the body for combats, but otherwise let the soul continue its solo adventure in the afterlife.

The zombiefied body would have resist necrotic 5, vulnerable radiant 5, a crit reduces the healing surge pool by 1, as does an extended rest. In short, if the party doesn't get the character's mojo back relatively quickly, his body will die and his soul will be stuck in the afterlife.

It's up to you to decide what the afterlife should be. Perhaps his god just doesn't call him from the shaddowfell and leaves him to the raven queen. I would let him get plot relevant info from this adventure. ie, he comes across an army of undead the necromancer is trying to call forth, or warnings about traps or something.

If the character is an actor, you might do the afterlife scenes in front of everybody. If he's not, then run it outside of the regular game.

 

[Lilitu]

This sounds like a good idea to me.

My suggestions - I wouldn't use an NPC cleric, I'd just let the "ghost cleric" retain his healing powers (this could give rise to some fun if the other PCs don't at first know where the healing is coming from, because they can't see the ghost).

As for statting up the ghost - given it's only a short-term participant, you probably don't need to worry too much about balance. One approach would be to halve hit points and lose Channel Divinity while a ghost, but grant insubstantial and phasing, plus the ability to turn invisibile as a Standard Action until EoNT or attack. Also, I'd be inclined to limit extended rests while a ghost - maybe only 1 or 2 HS per rest - to make it clear that it's a short term option pending the PC's resurrection.

I actually hadn't thought of that, I think that would be fun. Of course that brings up the question of if he has the ability to turn invisible at will then why wouldn't he just make himself visible to them. I'm also not sure how it could be kept a secret from the players that he is the one doing it unless I take control of the ghost while it's invisible. Something to think about. Thanks

 

[Ryujin]

I actually hadn't thought of that, I think that would be fun. Of course that brings up the question of if he has the ability to turn invisible at will then why wouldn't he just make himself visible to them. I'm also not sure how it could be kept a secret from the players that he is the one doing it unless I take control of the ghost while it's invisible. Something to think about. Thanks

Treat it like the reverse of recovering from Raise Dead; perhaps he gains the ability to 'manifest' after reaching 3 milestones. Otherwise he's invisible.

 

[Lilitu]

Treat it like the reverse of recovering from Raise Dead; perhaps he gains the ability to 'manifest' after reaching 3 milestones. Otherwise he's invisible.

ok, yeah that would be a good way to implement it. Thanks
There's still the question of how to keep the players from knowing but I suppose that's inevitable. I'll just have to make sure that they know that their characters don't know what's going on without the say the proper insight or perception checks.

 

[mneme]

Just have the player pass notes back and forth, and delay the effects on a player until the beginning of their turn to keep players guessing. The rest of the group might guess -- but they won't -know-.