Undead with a ring of sustenance?

[Sigurd]

For game purposes I'd allow it except that the extra demands destroy the ring in a week.


Sigurd

 

[Oni]

Depends on the needs and tone of the game?

 

[On Puget Sound]

If your game will play better with PC undead freed of any requirements, then it works. If being undead is supposed to be horrifying and/ or angst-ridden and/or fraught with moral dilemmas, then it doesn't work. Are your undead players undead because it lets them turn into bats and regenerate, or because it lets them explore the tortured line between their noble aspirations and their revolting status?

 

[Quantum]

I would make it a separate item rather than a Ring Of Sustenance. Of course, I think the guy who made this was probably thinking about ease of play. But that would be the idea for an adventure, an undead seeking to create such an item because it could mean the first step to regaining their humanity.

But I really don't see how it could affect the immaterial undead, only those with some sort of physical bodies, such as vampires and liches.

 

[jaerdaph]

I think it makes perfect sense to consider using a ring of sustenance in this way in a campaign that features vampires prominently - i.e. PC vampires. I'd even consider adding some new magic rings, or possibly an artifact with all these abilities in one, that allow a vampire to walk in daylight, appear to be living, not need to feed etc. But in such a campaign, I'd also want to have a vampire template or class that goes beyond the standard SRD template. I'd want to add some kind of "feeding" mechanic to vampires with consequences if they don't. (The Lords of the Night: Vampires by Bottled Imp Games had a nice system for that. There are other good options out there too, like Green Ronin's Fang & Fury, IIRC.) There needs to be some sort of quantifiable consequence for not having such a ring, or, as should happen in any good story, becoming separated from the ring after you've been relying on it for awhile.

 

[pawsplay]

An external combustion engine (aka steam engine) can be fed with human flesh as easily as it can be fed with coal. That doesn't make it alive.

Don't confuse the consumables with what the consumables are powering.

That's the wrong analogy. I am not saying trains are alive, I'm saying it doesn't matter to the hamburger whether it is being used to feed the train or the conductor. The ring of sustence produces sustenance for anything that requires it; the fact that the sustence is life-giving or nourishing does not mean it ceases to be sustenance if the thing is not alive or does not need to be nourished.

Imagine, if you will, a decanter of endless brains. This could provide food for a pack of hyenas as easily as for a pack of ghouls. The ring is different only in that the nourishment is intangile.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

A pack of hyenas will eventually get full and lose interest in the decanter of endless brains (which may be the Best Item Ever, btw ), because theirs is a natural hunger.

The question is whether the ghouls will ever get full with an endless brain supply? Or alternately, will they ever die if they never eat?

If they feed because they need sustenance (ie, metabolize), then I'd rule that the ring will work. If they feed because they have an unnatural/spiritual/infernal desire to eat brains, then I'd say the ring of sustenance won't work, because they don't need sustenance. I can see it going both ways, depending upon what it means to be a ghoul. Same for the vampires.

IOW, it's highly game specific.


Aside: since 3e vampires gain temporary hp by feeding on blood, do they gain temporary hp with a ring of sustenance? I'm inclined to say "of course not". But if vampires metabolize blood, then I'm less certain....

 

[Quantum]

Aside: since 3e vampires gain temporary hp by feeding on blood, do they gain temporary hp with a ring of sustenance? I'm inclined to say "of course not". But if vampires metabolize blood, then I'm less certain....

I'd rule not. Because when you think of it, it would mean that a vampire would have unlimited, or at the very least a huge store of HP with a ring of sustenance. Which also opens up other cans of worms. It would make them much more powerful. And of course you'd have to rule either in favor of the ring of in favor of feeding in order to get HP, because there would be the potential for gaining an incredible amount of HPs if they could do both.

 

[pawsplay]

The Liber mortis provides canonical answers to ghoul and vampire hunger if anyone cares.

 

[Sigurd]

The Liber mortis provides canonical answers to ghoul and vampire hunger if anyone cares.

Pity we're not talking about vampire or ghoulish canons then.


If you think that they only need blood than vampires are little different from a carnivore that needs meat. This is a sensibility question. I think vampire hunger is more of a curse. The curse of cannibalism and wanton horrifying violence. Sustenance by its nature is not depravity or gluttony. A ring of sustenance cannot satisfy the curse. I suspect any polite method of sustenance would require legendary nobility or it would simply make for a larger more powerful starving vampire.



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