Would you let your PC's become undead?

[Voadam]

In my ravenloft campaign one of the PCs got turned into a wight and he has been questing for a number of years now (IRL) to lose the undead status. It makes him one of the most powerful and dangerous PCs in the campaign and he is not balanced against the other PCs.

This is fine for my campaign. In it you can become more powerful or less powerful and things happen to characters to shift power balances. They started off balanced against each other but new PCs don't come in as experienced as the existing ones and losses can be harsh (permanent stat losses, item losses, divine patronage losses, etc.) They never know if they are going to be dealing with level 1 commoers and experts or goblins, something tough but manageable or liches way above their power level.

I didn't add on an ECL because he was not a starting character.

Undead and templates can work depending on the type of campaign you run.

Minor plugs

My wight template will be in the upcoming Penumbra Bestiary, and I have variant vampire and mummy templates in the upcoming GF PDF: Monsters supplement.

 

[Voadam]

The big deal about undead and other templates is that they are big ECLs if you are making balanced starting characters, and they almost all have major drawbacks.

Undead have turning vulnerability, vamps have sunlight, coffin requirements, wierd weaknesses, and in ravenloft, harsh drinking requirements.

Lycanthropes can involuntarily shift, problems with armor, and in ravenloft, absurd consumption requirements (weretigers 50 pounds of raw meat a day!).

 

[Dinkeldog]

Voadam, that just means that your average villager will only last 3 days.