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Undead Player Characters?

Li Shenron said:
All these are IMO already worth more some LA, but perhaps one could get away with just +1.
+1 for the equivalent of a continuous death ward effect plus heavy fortification armor? :confused:
Starspawn said:
- I don't want to spend too many levels for just being undead. Because i just want to play an undead because of its style and not the power

- The undead should not be too obvious (Morgs, Skeletons etc) NPC's should NOT recognize him from 100 feet
How is there any style to being an undead if nobody can recognize you as one?
 

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Lord Pendragon said:
+1 for the equivalent of a continuous death ward effect plus heavy fortification armor? :confused: How is there any style to being an undead if nobody can recognize you as one?

Well... i don't have a problem with wrinkled pale skin, a little stench and a permanent bad hair day but i think even ordinary townsfolk could be a little diturbed by a freaky skeleton or "worm-thing"-morg type....

I could live with a +1 or +2 LA But you should not forget, that you also accept a lot of vulnerabilities when playing an Undead (Turning, hostile NPCs, Freaked out Paladins/Clerics, nasty anti Undead spells and items etc...)
 

Lord Pendragon said:
+1 for the equivalent of a continuous death ward effect plus heavy fortification armor? :confused: How is there any style to being an undead if nobody can recognize you as one?

If we were considering it as something available by default, +1 would definitely be very very cheap, but in case of a single specific character I wouldn't be hostile to the idea. Perhaps it could be traded for some penalty to a couple of ability scores.

Anyway, any racial benefit would be lost at least (I was considering this as a race, so no bonus feat/skill for a human for example). One more thing that makes a penalty is the inability to be healed by positive energy (unless the party is mostly undead, negative energy is still going to be less available).
 

"How is there any style to being an undead if nobody can recognize you as one?"

Er, the most popular and most fun game to play undead in, with the most style, is a (booo! hiss! d20 forum, duder! stop it) White Wolf game where the entire FOCAL POINT OF THE GAME is doing things in ways that no one will ever recognize you as undead. That game contains the most stylish undead in any game....

Personally, I don't see how being an obvious undead has any "style' to it at all in D&D - giving the Dm no real reason why your butt should be hounded by Radiant Servants of Pelor, clerics of Pelor, and for that matter any cleric or druid, anywhere, ever, endlessly.

Where's the style in loking like the Thriller video and saying, "Grr, argh!" all the time?

Anyway, the topic :

I play evil campaings constantly, and frequently play undead characters. My current one requires no level adjustments - I took a few levels of Vampire Spawn (everyone telling you to get Libris Mortis if you want to play undead is on the money IMO) in addition to being a Paladin of Tyranny- since the eventual stat boosts vampire spawn get increase Strength and Charisma, with a tiny boost to Dexterity to help out the all important AC, it seemed like a playable combo, and the d12 hit Points for being undead do not hurt a front line fighter at all - er, if you reached a level where you get more hit dice, anyway.

While only having one level shift is a good option, you can also only take one or two levels of this, never be a level lower than the rest of the party, still be undead, and still be able to walk into a town and do stuff without immediately being attacked because you are skeletal or look and smell like rotting tissue.

That option does have it's drawbacks, though, which this article goes into a bit :

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20051028a
 
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Daywalker said:
" I took a few levels of Vampire Spawn (everyone telling you to get Libris Mortis if you want to play undead is on the money IMO) in addition to being a Paladin of Tyranny-"

Don't know if this is a house rule, but according to the regular rules, don't you have to take ALL the levels of a monster class before taking any other classes? With Vampire Spawn, you could make the arguement of taking some levels before becoming a Spawn, but once you start taking the levels, you must continue until you have them all.
 


Daywalker said:
Where's the style in loking like the Thriller video and saying, "Grr, argh!" all the time?
I wasn't suggesting grotesque undead, I was suggesting recognizable undead. Vampires certainly fall into that category, IMO. ;)
 


@Lord Pendragon
we are talking just the same thing... i was talking about grotesque undead too. I want this undead to be recognizable as one ...but not from miles away and not by ordinary townsfolk.

My Present concept will be a Whigt (from Libris Mortis) Assasin/Shadowdancer. Quite a nasty thing with the Hide/Move silently bonus of +8
 
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Apparently my DM's willing to let me switch between the monster class and being an evil paladin if i take no other class other than PoT until after the vampire spawn progression is complete.


Makes me wonder what we are going to be going up against :uhoh:
 

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