Undead Hellfire Warlock

[Presto2112]

In the near future, I'll be re-introducing a character from the PC's past, who will be revealed to be a Hellfire Warlock. I expect there to be a battle, and I expect this warlock to be killed. However, the warlock will also be transformed into a lich (reading the rules for creating a lich, it seems to allow for a warlock to become one).

However, there's one possible snag in my plan; this line in the description of the Hellfire Warlock:

"Each time you use this ability (Hellfire Blast), you take 1 point of Constitution damage."

Based purely on the way that sentence is structured, would you interpret this to mean that an undead Hellfire Warlock would not be able to use the Hellfire Blast because he has no Con score to damage, or that BECAUSE his doesn't have a Con score to damage, a Hellfire Warlock Lich can fire off Hellfire Blasts until the cows come home?

 

[Zurai]

Somewhere in there it points out that if you're immune to Con damage, you cannot use any Hellfire. Sorry, an Undead Hellfire Warlock won't work, RAW.

Now, what you CAN do, is go with the flavor text of the ability and have the lich-lock siphon off someone else's soul to power the ability. I suggest giving him a soul-storing magic item of some sort and assigning it some semi-random amount of Con stored within. Once he Hellfires all the Con away from the souls in the item, he needs to recharge it.

 

[Presto2112]

DOH! Once again, I'm a victim of Readalittlebitfurtheryoudumbass-itis.

 

[Set]

Traditionally, undead who have abilities that require Con use their Cha scores instead. So the Undead Hellfire Warlock could retain his powers, but blow Charisma points instead of Con points. He'd still want some way to get those back, and, unlike a living Hellfire Warlock, he's not gonna get points back overnight by resting...

 

[Corsair]

Traditionally, undead who have abilities that require Con use their Cha scores instead. So the Undead Hellfire Warlock could retain his powers, but blow Charisma points instead of Con points. He'd still want some way to get those back, and, unlike a living Hellfire Warlock, he's not gonna get points back overnight by resting...

Yes he will. Only unintelligent undead fail to heal normally. Read the undead type in the SRD or MM.

 

[Drowbane]

RAW(?): Undead Hellfire doesn't work. (This is niether fun nor cool)
Burn Cha: Fun for the DM (not that the DM needs to obey all the rules anyways).
Burn someone else's Con: Soul-storage item as mentioned above. Fun for the DM, and very damn cool. Let the spirit of the RAW be first for sacrifice!

 

[TarionzCousin]

Burn Cha: Fun for the DM (not that the DM needs to obey all the rules anyways).

Hey, I just thought of something concerning your Undead Hellfire Warlock in my campaign....

 

[pawsplay]

I'd create a Hellfire Lich PrC that requires you to be a warlock and a lich, and allows you to drain life force from the living to create a Hellfire Reserve.

 

[Presto2112]

Heh, I love it! Configure a trap the soul spell into his phylactery so that he's using the Con score of the trapped entity instead of his own! And make the trapped figure a relatively powerful good entity, like a Celestial Charger or something, who is tricked into holding the magical strips of parchment when the TtS spell is triggered..

Getting the gem for the spell / phylactery shouldn't be too much of a trouble either, since while he's alive, he's a wealthy lapidary.

 

[Stalker0]

If you do decide to make the warlock use cha instead of con, consider 1 level of binder. The Neburius vestige allows the binder to heal 1 point of ability damage per ROUND!! allowing you to mostly negate the problems with the hellfire ability.