>>4778129
I would play this, start as a zombie, and never stop eating brains even as a liche

that sounds pretty sweet man, but whats the setting? Is it like a George Romero zombie apocylapse or something a little more traditional.

>>4778161
>>4778158

It's DnD 3.5, so it's going to be something like Ravenloftish. The party are servant of a powerful necromancer, and are forced to run errands for him, deal with people out to kill them, and go into enemy territory to conduct raids for him.

I'm trying to figure out how to balance out the classes, which are again at http://pastebin.com/f21d8d23

And figure out what kind of spell-likes to offer, or how to handle them. As well as abilities.

I must play this

If I get some help figuring this out, I'll happily put out the finished product for /tg/'s use.

>>4778180
I approve 100% then, this seems to have alot of potential.

OP here

Here's one of the basic ideas. Instead of just allowing people to choose spell-likes as they please, I've been considering creating paths.

Things like Ice Death, Madness, Drowning, Dessication, immoliation, Darkness etc.

Plays choose a path from the outset, and can't switch until they've completed that tier (Much like Shadowcasters).

So a zombie created from a burn victim might gain access to some fire based spell-likes, and maybe some abilities like adding fire damage to their touch, or bursting into flames so that people attacking take fire damage. Buy Fire resistence etc.

These are some fuckwin pictures, here.

>>4778245
He picks and chooses what he buys from the list at his leisure, and he needs to buy a minimum amount before he can change to another path.

Well hi there, Liberi Gothica.
Without the lolis.

>>4778251

Of course, there would be some free floating abilities like Damage Resistence, Turn resistance, feats like multi-attack or improve natural weapon, proficiencies, some specific abilities for certain kinds of undead. No feat progression, but rather certain feats would be purchasable when you met the right level. This is to get rid of the fact that a lot of feats require a high BAB which undead simply don't have. As opposed to their often highly boosted stats.

Any suggestions are welcome, I've been figuring this out for a few days now, but I need some input besides my own.

Come on, /tg/.

Creativity is your forte, rules are your bitch. Let's see some of those skills

Is there any special reason why all the classes have terrible fort saves? Also, how many skills/level do they get?

>>4778404
Still working on both of those. The reason they have terrible fort saves is because undead are immune to anything fortitude based that isn't based around hurting objects.

The tables there are mostly the standard undead ones, which I'm tweaking.

As for skills, what would be a decent progression? Should it be flat, or different for each type?

>>4778421

I'm thinking of

(4+Int Mod)x4 for base
4+int mod per level

Let me read through and think. I might have some ideas.

Bump for cool idea.

Do they get all class skills or do they get skill points? Just asking cause I don't see skillpoints mentioned anywhere...

Cool stuff and sounds interesting to play. I presume you checked out Libris Mortis, myes?

Maybe you could scrap the whole EXP thing and have something like... your undead collect "dark matter" or souls, or lifesource, or whatever and can use that to upgrade themselves. Gained from killing living things and awarded by the quest giver necromancer (RP bonus :P). A feat costs X dark matter, a stat point costs Y, a higher tier form of unlife cost Z (Z= a fuckton) which opens up new feats and higher stat caps. Then you can just throw the whole level thing away .. The necromancer can rearrange how these points are spent (so if you have enough total points you can upgrade yourself one tier and don't have to hoard the stuff).

Dangerously on a road to some kind of WoD/DnD hybrid, but sounds good imo.

>>4778499
>>Dangerously on a road to some kind of WoD/DnD hybrid, but sounds good imo.

I thought WoD used experience points for advancement? (They're like "5 exp for next skill" but still pretty similar)

I like the idea of ignoring XP, but you might want to do a hybrid: you gain XP which you increase your class levels while you increase your undead power with stolen souls or negative energy fonts or dark rituals or something that makes sense in your campaign (we'd ignore the template ECL for purposes of gaining XP).

>>4778421
I think for skills, I see a few things to consider.
First off, none of the classes has a traditional spell progression, so I don't see why they would choose to take concentration unless for a feat requirement; same for spellcraft since they're not going to be counterspelling.
Second, every class is able to get hide and move silently as class skills; I don't know if that's intended, but it just seems odd to me. Perhaps you could disallow hide as a class skill for zombies, so that the power of exhumation tapers off at later levels.
Lastly, none of them gets open lock or disable device. It seems like Shadows are meant to take those as class skills, being the most roguey, so why not just give them and take away the 2 of players choice?

Let me drop a couple of random progressions

Zombie>Mummy>Salt Mummy>Dry Lich
Zombie>Mummy>Salt Mummy>Mummy Lord

Skeleton>Bone Claw>Skull Lord+Templates

>>4778499
Skill points mentioned a
t>>4778453

oh god, PLEASE give me one more dark essence for every brain I munch. I will eat so many brains, so many.

>>4778569
>>4778558
>>4778499

My only issue with the dark matter routine is that encourages combat, since it's the only way to gain XP. I tend to award XP in level chunks in my games, outside someone who crafts. So after X number of sessions, you gain a level. That way I can control the challenges.

Depending on where you're doing it, you could get some pretty cool intrigue. I find that PbP is better for that sort of stuff, but you might be able to do it IRL.

So, let's say that the amount of "evil energy" you get from a soul is based on how evil the person is.
>>The amount of "evil energy" you get from a soul is based on how evil the person is.

Now, some people would see this as revenant undead going against deserving souls. But let's say that certain undead foster evil in the heart of mortals so that they could be better delicacies.
>>Certain undead foster evil in the heart of mortals so that they could be better delicacies.

If you do that, then you could have both evil and good PCs, plus you can get certain players trying to gain control of countries and stuff so that they can slowly corrupt (and then devour the souls of) everyone in it.

>>4778591
Just make them understand that if they get a mob to stick a pitchfork/torch up their ass they won't be able to make much use of the stuff they collected.

Also, you could just say that what they collect is "raw material" and has an incubation time or has to be refined by their creator, and then hand them out in chunks as you see fit.

Finally, you MUST have some kind of zombie that steals spells by eating the brain of a caster. Something like... steals a random prepared unused spell by eating the brain of the target. Giving the zombie, or maybe some kind of other frankensteinien monster an ability to graft "stronger" body parts to gain better ability scores, possibly even skills sounds quite awesome in concept as well.

>>4778611
I think I'm going to stick with chunk EXP for this, since it'd be a pain in the ass to balance out everyones Negative Energy consumation and keep certain characters from ravaging everything for EXP or getting the biggest bonuses because they're better at killing.

And right now I'm not going to balance to level 20, but rather to the first type change, and then balance again from there.

>>4778665
>>Finally, you MUST have some kind of zombie that steals spells by eating the brain of a caster.

Use modified Spellthief rules from Complete Arcane. Make it so that they are able to steal more spells than Spellthief to compensate for the fact that it's harder to do (and a one-time deal).

Looking at the Allip and Shadow, between them wouldn't they just rape the everloving crap out of anything they wanted? They both fly, so they can attack anywhere without provoking AoO; wis drain to rape the front line, str drain to rape the back rank. I guess you might need a ghoul to handle clerics.

>>4778683
>>4778665

Hm. I might have an ability like that. Right now, I've got a huge list of every undead monster of every CR range. I'm going to encourage players to peruse books and find something logical to progress to, and then stat that.

I want them to be creative in their choices, and there's a lot of choices.

>>4778683
I was thinking of suggesting that, but he seems to be trying to keep spells on the minimum. Can't say I blame him, I wouldn't want WTFPWN magic zombies either.

>>4778715
Not at a minimum, but rather I'm focusing more on a toolkit of special abilities from classes, from pathways, and some free floating ones. They're going to have MORE then enough abilities just from those.

I mean, most undead have a couple of special abilities, and those add up fast with pathways. You'd end up with a good range.

I'm also banning DC or die spells, and turning them into DC or SR bypassing damage.

>>4778699
Well, your best bet might be to just ask the players what they want to play, show them a bunch of examples (maybe save this topic as well...) and then try to work out some way to keep them on the same power level.

Again, unless you want to go Libriss Mortis you'll have to houserule the shit out of everything anyway (and CR/HD is NOT a good indicator of a monster's power asa player character so using that is pretty much out of the question), so you can either try to work out a whole coherent system for it, or just sit down with the players, talk it over and wing it.

In case you are going with the whole new coherent system thing, you have my axe.

>>4778715
Just a guess (OP, correct me if I'm wrong) but I assume he's trying to avoid SPELLCASTER EDITION (I only play 3.5, but it definitely has a huge emphasis on spellcasting and magic. Which is how I like it). If he made spells more special (like a few 1/day stuff, after all, he still has Deathlok with spell-like abilities), I think it would be fine.

(Plus, you can get some "You have to let me EAT YOUR BRAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIINS!")

>>4778762
A complete system can only be born through winging in the games and seeing what works. So right now I'm going to work on getting it together enough to be somewhat balanced and playable, and then tweak it as the game progresses.

>>4778777
Absolutely correct. I'm trying to avoid caster edition completely, and make it into "a good chunk of spell-like abilities based off your undead types, and your pathway which is based around how you play that kind of undead. A burn victim zombie with armor melted to his skin, a frozen skeleton archer, a shadow who attempts to drive people insane, a ghoul who attempts to drown people when eating them".

You get the idea. Undead tend to have a TON of abilities just for their type.Allips wis damage, madness, and babble are an example.

>>4778786
You're far too disparaging of pre-planning!

That being said, I think you're just going to have to accept the fact that a) this isn't going to be balanced and b) you shouldn't care. If you read through some of the design decisions of D&D 3.5, you'll see that they made the decisions that they did to keep balance BUT they encourage the DM to ignore balance in favor of making a fun game and a good story (re: quests for Prestige Class advancement in Unearthed Arcana).

I'd say the best thing would just to make decisions based on what you think is cool and hope that your players are mature enough to take suggestions from you if they start making the game unfun for others.

>>4778846

HAhaha. Well, I'm not aiming to make it balanced as in, you can port this system into your normal 3.5 ed GAMES! This is meant for this specific kind of setting. An all undead game.

Oh, I knew I forgot something I wanted to say!

How are you going to deal with what I'm going to call Frankenstein-syndrome i.e. self-modification. Now, some of it is pretty simple. Undead don't feel pain, so what's preventing a skeleton player from sharpening his fingers or, hell, putting in blades? Or what happens when a zombie player wants another arm so he stitches one on?

You could just say "No" point-blank, but I think their might be some advantage to some of this stuff.

Also, if you just don't allow primary spellcasters, you could still have the players gain normal character classes. Could be interesting. An undead warblade, "He can fight for days. He will never get tired, never stop until you're dead. And he has the skill to do it", ghost rogues, and whatever else the players can think up.

>>4778866
EXACTLY! This is a very specialized campaign and probably for a specific group of players! We're not going to go out of our way to fuck balance, but if it happens, so what?

Oh, also Undead Paladin "Death couldn't stop my crusade. What makes you think that you can?"

>>4778904
Nope. No normal class levels. It ruins the spirit of the game, and it really doesn't mesh with the fact that they get all these whacked out abilities to cover that sort of thing. I wanted the general feel of progression to be more about your undead gaining power in an undeadish way

As for self-modification. That's easy. It would be like grafts. Expensive, hard to find, but giving some cool bonuses. Besides, I don't think many people will stay a zombie for the entire game.

3x+3=19 what is X?

>>4778934
>>4778934

7.33 repeating

>>4778923
But grafts are very underpowered. It's that whole balance thing again: they didn't want grafts to be a main part of the setting, so they keep them weak.

I'm just speaking if I was a player in your game. I would be continually trying to find self-modification. Maybe you're players won't, but you should have at least an idea when somebody says "Oh, cool. Can I pry out his laser-shooty eye and put it in my socket?"

>>4778974
Oh, and if you're not using normal classes, you might still want to find some cool class features and modify them for potential stuff (I noticed you did that a bit with the berserk ability)

>>4778866
Hmmm... maybe you could work out a system from the ground up?

Maybe you could do something like...

The "undead type" will act as your class. Categorize them by the usual striker/defender etc.. roles. Types have level progression. Getting into a "paragon path" is the "undead type change" youhave been mentioning.

Then add "Past". Past will act like your race. A burn victim skeleton and a burn victim zombie will probably have similar abilities.

Finally, add feats. Feats are either restricted to undead type and/or past, + some general feats.

It sounds a lot like this could work like a kind of mix between 3.5 and 4e. You got the foundations from 3.5, but you get a bunch of abilities that can be used at regular intervals like 4e, and feats that are tied to your race and class.

>>4778974
And as if I were your DM, I would go.

How do you plan to have it attached? It's going to be expensive to find someone to implant it. How are you going to power it, given grafts only work with living beings? And it's going to have drawbacks, of course. If you get a couple new arms attached, you're a lot slower and more unwieldly.

IF you do implant it right away, how are you going to explain to your necromatic overlord that you took a valuable treasure like that and didn't tell him about it? You're going to need his permission, as you're his servant, to alter yourself. Roleplay it out.

>>4778992
Have you read the class file? Or most undead profiles.

All but the weakest undead have a cocktail of diseases, curses, status effects, unique abilities, and various spell-like abilities.

This is included with the pathway system, which allows you to gain abilities related to how the undead became undead and it's specialty, free-floating abilities and feats, and so forth.

In no way is a class necessary. The type of undead is the class, and they're even a little bit broken at times. If hadn't nerfed Shadow and Allip for example, they'd run around STR and WIS draining everything into oblivion.

>>4779011
And as a player, I'd go:
"Grafts work on non-living beings as well (re: Maug grafts from Fiend Folio). I plan to get it attached by getting some help from someone with a good Heal check. How do I power it? How did he power it? (The monster I was thinking of was an undead by the name of Red Eye of Fear or something like that). And drawbacks I can deal with, but when you have something crazy like a Grick or an Achaeri, it's obvious that all drawbacks have their solutions (though being a stitched-together freak has it's own drawbacks, not to mention certain instabilities). And if you can explain to me how my Overseer would not want me to become more powerful and thus that better at destroying his foes, I'd be surprised. But, you're the GM so you make the final decision."

>>4779041
Yeah, I've read it. I'm just saying that if you need more stuff, you have a ready source besides just monster abilities (though the monster abilities are probably going to be cooler).

And I have to say that the Allip and Shadow are still going to be draining everything. Remember, they're incorporeal. That means that every pure monster can't do anything ("magic for purposes of damage reduction" doesn't do anything about incorporeal) and a single Shadow can kill an entire city, especially in a low-magic campaign. I've had it happen.

>>4779162
Actually, now that I think about it, if you go with the "necromantic energy" or "dark matter" or whatever way of advancement, the extra energy for grafts and stuff comes from that. So, the "dark matter" can be spent on improving abilities or powering grafts or maybe creating evil magic items.

>>4779162
Differentfag here. As a DM my first opinion would be that the Necromantic magic that holds you together would not immediately mesh onto whatever item you grafted to your body, because Necromancy in my mind doesn't work that way. Therefore, at the very least you'd right away need your Necromancer master to do it for you, and I think he's a bit too busy to bother with your upgrade bullcrap when he thinks you do fine as you are.

This >>4779162
dude has a point about incorporeality. You may want to save that for higher tier forms, as well as flying.

>>4779162
Then I punch you in the face.

Actually, I just explain to you that if you keep putting things into your body, I'm going to start having you roll rejection checks, because you can't just piece yourself together willy-nilly. And beyond that, you're going to need a shit load of cash to pay people for the several day long operations to do it.

And fine, you can power them just fine, but with the draw backs, downtime, cost of the grafts, fact that higher powered grafts are going need to be more then a lololol heal check, fact that the grafts will take the slot of magical items and so forth.

I would patiently work it out with you, while reminding you that there are downsides to every benefit, and that you have to take into account the power levels of the other characters.

If you can't handle that, I ask you to reconsider to please leave the game.

>>4779276
It's not really a big deal in my mind, if you remember that they're also unable to wear any equipment, wield any weapons, or interact with the normal world because of it.

Sure, they can toss out a few spell-likes and fly around, but they can't actually do much.

>>4779251
In D&D, it all comes from negative energy. It provides the power for the parody of life that is undeath.

Fluff-wise, I'd say that you couldn't just stick something on and have it work. The specific necromantic magic needs to be modified to accept the different magic and make it one form and one soul.

>>4779276
Flying isn't anywhere as near as game-breaking as incorporeality. The reason why it's not in more games is because it breaks certain GM short-cuts - the pit-traps, traps that rely on weight, impassable walls, etc. But those short-cuts are mostly lazy design on the part of the GM and should probably be avoided anyways.

>>4779307
>game-breaking as incorporeality

Normally, that would be true. But the characters are never going to have access to caster progression or normal classes. So flying 60 feet in the air and dropping spells is going to be hard, when you have a limited pool of special abilities, and your touch attack is your primary offense besides that.

>>4779307
Yeah, I'm more into the fluff angle you proposed is what I'm saying. The Necromancer designated a system for animating your body, not your body and whatever else you decide to stick on. Requires more energy and the magic to be altered, and you as a low level undead are incapable of doing that yourself or have no friends in positions to do so.

>>4779284
You misunderstand my position. I'm not saying "DO THIS OR YOUR A BAD GM". I'm saying that when I first heard of this I was like "Cool, Frankenstein!" and if one of your players has the same thought, then you're going to disappoint him if you just say no.

And for cost, what happens when they start getting the other players to help them instead of an expensive NPC? Why pay 4000 gold for a Necro-Surgeon, when a fellow player will do it for free or low cost? Why pay 20,000 gold to a Necromancer, when you can get a fellow player to do it at cost?

If the undead can't be necromancers, the players are going to ask why. You should have a fluff-appropriate response ready instead of making it up on the spot and potentially alienating your players when it seems like you just don't like their character concept. Maybe the negative energy that animates them would interfere with the manipulation of said energy, causing destructive interference in both.

(...man, Necro-Surgeon sounds awesome.)

>>4779370
You seem to be missing the entire point of the game, the methods of progression, and how it all works.

>>4779335
>>Normally, that would be true. But the characters are never going to have access to caster progression or normal classes. So flying 60 feet in the air and dropping spells is going to be hard, when you have a limited pool of special abilities, and your touch attack is your primary offense besides that.

I wasn't even thinking of being a spellcasting gunship, I'm talking about: immunity to mundane weapons, natural attacks, and passing through stuff. One incorporeal undead in a city = dead city. "HAHA! I'm touch attacking you peasants! Uh oh, here comes some guards with magic weapons! Look out suckas! Looks like you can't pass through walls or hide in the ground like me! You'll have to sleep sometime! HAHA!"

>>4779377
Please explain it then (and that's not a haughty "explain it", that's a sincere one).

>>4779370
Well I think it's a privilege reserved for higher levels anyway. It is something they can aspire to given the right progression choices. Being a player Necromancer would probably require a sequence of ability choices that would give them great Necromantic power in the long run, but for various reasons they'd end up utterly weak:

1. They're not training under arcane tutors for mystic purposes, because they're undead, not living player races
2. Making those decisions forces them to eschew some of the standard options just because a limited resource pool forces specialization

At least, that's how I'd see it.

>>4779389
Well for whatever reason, players are able to hunt down undead capable of completely evading them all the time. I may be pushing the limits of RPing here when I suggest this, but perhaps that implies most undead are short on mental faculty and thus must be played that way? Maybe a system of a certain amount of "cunning moves" per day based on type progression?

>>4779414
>>1. They're not training under arcane tutors for mystic purposes, because they're undead, not living player races

This would require the non-existence of liches and undead necromancers being so rare that they can't train neophytes.

Which is fine, if that's what the OP's campaign world is like. However, that's something that needs to be thought about and decided upon now.

>>4779446
Urgh, I wouldn't put rules on it. Just make sure that the players a) play to their Intelligence and Wisdom and b) that they realize that undead usually have pathological hatred of the living or the ever-pressing need to consume.

>>4779451
I haven't played 3.5 in a long time so I can't remember if those are supposed to be common or not. I've been playing 1e for my past several games now, so you can imagine the explanations I'd actually have for that.

Generally speaking, once again this is a case of limiting player resources by the fluff that at low level they are too insignificant to attract that attention, even with money.

>>4779470
Oh, and of course the reason the players are able to hunt down incorporeal creatures is because they're the players. The story couldn't progress if they didn't.

Gameplay and story segregation.

>>4779470
True, good point. Scratch the idea

>>4779389
Given it's an undead based campaign, don't you think people would have come up with lots of ways to deal with them? That's how I plan to do it. Townsfolk with holy water arrows, blessed weapons, aligned ones. You get the idea. Sure, they're immune to natural attacks--except for the six million things with "Natural attack treated as a magical weapon."

>>4779400
You start was one of those kinds of undead.
At level 4, you turn into a greater type of undead. Anything from the 4-8 CR range. You literally change what kind of undead you are through a ritual, while retaining the abilities and so forth of your own skills. Each of this undead types serves as a class for those levels, with progression. At 8, you do it again or start adding templates with level like progression.

This happens again at 12-15

Along with this, you gain points each level to advance your path. (Dependant on how you play the undead), and buy free floating abilities like multi-attack, improve natural weapons, DR etc. What you have access too is dependant on your level.

You never touch a base class, or become a necromancer. You can advance to a type of undead with animate dead or down a path that allows it, but you never gain a non-undead race class.

>>4779414
This is correct.

>>4779473
>>Generally speaking, once again this is a case of limiting player resources by the fluff that at low level
>>low level

That just pushes the problem to the side. What happens when they are high enough level? All of a sudden, in addition to the powers granted by the higher undead level, they now have access to friendly necromancers who can perform the rituals, influence, etc. Their power level will all of a sudden blossom and if the GM is prepared for it, it can be campaign-ending.

Basically, we want to think up all the problems now when nothing is at stake instead of an entire campaign.

>>so you can imagine the explanations I'd actually have for that.

Actually, no. I haven't played OD&D. I've played 3.X for tabletop and 2e for CRPGs (which is a bit different, but BGI, BGII, and Ps:T are pretty close from what I've read of the books), so go right ahead and say it. I'd be interested.

>>4779499
However, the undead you become has to be plausable within fluff. A zombie can't become a ghost for example, but a shadow could become a wraith

>>4779499
Actually, now that I think about it, you DO have to address the logical possibility of an undead with intelligence being capable of learning a class skill simply through a choice of training under one who is willing to do so. Fluffing it up that no one in the world wants to train you in that way is going to be disappointing to the player, but I agree you can't up and give them that option.

Basically you need to somehow avoid letting them become WoW Forsaken (sorry /tg/)


However, I have an additional, somewhat related thought: the rituals. How much of this is all fleshed out already? You're essentially fleshing out the "wide and wacky world of the Undead" in a way that D&D probably hasn't ever done before. If this gets completed it'll provide precedent and backbone for all kinds of monster and campaign creation beyond just your Undead campaign.

>>4779499
>>"Natural attack treated as a magical weapon."

That doesn't count. It's a common piece of misinformation, but the FAQ deals with it:
__Does the monk’s ki strike (magic) only allow her to
overcome damage reduction or does it make her natural
attacks count as magic weapons for all effects (such as
affecting incorporeal opponents)?__
The PH states that ki strike affects the monk’s unarmed
strikes “for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with
damage reduction,” but says nothing about any other effects.
Thus, the monk’s unarmed attacks aren’t considered magic
weapons for any other purpose, including affecting incorporeal
foes.


Of course, given that it's a commonly misinterpreted, if you just rule that way then most people would probably not even notice the difference. (Though I would be careful of the person who knows the correct information, attacks a creature because they think they can't get hurt by the natural weapons, and then get a nasty surprise. They're probably going to start complaining then and that should be preempted now)

>>4779524
The rituals as I've been discussing them with a couple of other people, would be much like the quests undertaken to gain a PrC. A zombie becoming a mummy would have to find someone to mummify is his corpse, remove his organs and so forth. A shadow becoming a wraith would have to find a spot to gather negative energy into itself in order to become more substantial.

You get the idea.

>>4779529
Anything with damage reduction has its natural attack treated as a magical weapon.

>>4779556
Just be careful that the specific skills required to do the ritual can't be acquired by the PCs. Otherwise, they'll just go through the middleman. (You might want to let some of the skills be acquired by the PCs so that they can help out and maybe get a discount, but they should never be able to get the critical skills)

I'm the one that linked OP to the Grim Harvest box set, so I think this thread needs a bump.

Although it sounds like everything's going pretty swimmingly. I look forward to the end result.

Now. As for how to suss out them not being able to learn character classes? They are intelligent undead, but why would they need too? They're powerful enough as is without having to bother with mortal passions. In the same way that demons don't learn to be warblades. Because for the most part, their innate abilities and strengths don't require them to do so.

If you can kill a man from one hundred feet with your mind, why would you bother learning to swing a sword?

>>4779570
No, it's treated as a magic weapon for purposes of damage reduction.

It's subtle, but it exists. For example, someone who's natural weapons overcome magic would still be able to do so in an antimagic field, since they aren't actually magic.

>>4779511
Oh, sorry. Basically the first edition logic for anything boils down to "You're insignificant and you'll probably die, don't worry about it."

That is to say, the world and system are designed with the assumption in mind that there is a resilience against progression, not an encouragement for. Magic-Users are greedy and horde their spells, and MIGHT teach you ONE spell from their book if, and this is the book example: "You saved his life, offered a spell of equal value, as well as some gold appropriate the spell level." And then in addition to that the idea of Necromancy was so rare that it wasn't even addressed in the rules, so the assumption there was that the nature of evil, culture, and magic prevented players from even attempting to play a Necromancer.

A "first edition centric" explanation I would use would be that: you are insignificant at low levels, at high levels you'll have to go on a long overland quest to even find a person capable and morally willing to do so, and no matter what you're not increasing yourself in power substantially except in key ways.

Then for explanations like special shooty eyes or something, I'd fluff it up that the magic holding them together granted them the power, and that it's not a case of grabbing up the shooty eye, but finding a Necromancer to enchant YOUR eye.

And then finally my ultimate fallback is the assumption that your Necromancer-in-command, being a standard authority figure, doesn't actually WANT you to progress in power, for fear of usurpation. Like all authority figures the minute you begin to get too powerful I'd have him hunt you down.

Note I never said I would not allow it, though.

>>4779584
But if you can only bite people really well, why wouldn't you want to learn to kill people with your mind?

Players are going to want to know why they can't have a PC class. Just saying "no" won't work. Saying "it's unbalancing" might work if your players are mature enough, but even that is still unsatisfying. There should be a fluff reason.

I can't think of one, but that's because I'm in favor of them gaining class levels so I'm biased. Somebody who's opposed: any idea?

>>4779609
How about "you can't learn to swing a sword with Fighter Bonus Feats because your arm would fall off from the strain"?

>>4779617
Er, lemme clarify: your undead body, not your mind, is what's preventing you from doing it.

>>4779609
Because they understand the nature of the game? When I lay out the rules and the idea for the campaign, they accept them and we play them? Just like how when people say "Why can't I cast spells if I'm a fighter? I mean, it's just reciting words. I should be able to memorize a scroll and get spells that way?"

>>4779617
And yet you're strong enough to lift somebody off their feet and strangle them?

Now, I'm going to be devil's advocate here for the fluff suggestions. Usually on 4chan that's "devil's advocate" = "stealth troll", but I'm not trying to do that. If you don't want the PCs to gain normal classes, then good for you. You're the GM and you should be able to make that decision.

But if you can provide a strong fluff reason to the players, something that will make them say "That makes sense", then you're going to leave them much more satisfied.

>>4779626
I'm just saying that if you can provide them a reason, they'll be happier. They might _accept_ that it's all part of the game, but that's different from being _happy_ with it.

For example, that very thing you mentioned has always annoyed me about D&D and I'm working on my own system which solves that. So if you have something that nags at the back of your player's head enough that they want to make their own system, you should probably do something about it.

>>4779633
Well the explanation varies from undead type to undead type. Which one exactly are we talking about here? Old school zombies wouldn't be able to be fighters because they're not fast enough. Undead are specialized toward doing what they do and not much else; they are not adaptable human bodies, they're macabre puppets made of human flesh. Hell, that even goes right along the lines of this path progression OP has going.

>>4779646
Oh! Okay, here's a possible fluff thing.

While their souls have fled their mortal shell, the imprint of it still stays behind. That is what separates them from mindless undead: they still have the barest sliver of a soul. However, that also prevents them from learning new abilities. It's the disconnect between what they were, what they are, and what they are trying to become. Dissonance of the soul. It's a nagging feeling at the back of the head that something isn't right - because it isn't. Too much has changed for them to even try to relearn what they once knew. Their soul is askew and there is only two ways to stop it: to pass on to the final rest or to apply a certain ritual to get rid of it. However, the imprint of the soul is what keeps them from being mindless. Without it, they can't think so the ritual does them no good.

Probably still has some holes fluff-wise, especially since I don't know the fluff of your campaign fully. Maybe you can make something of it?

>>4779669
Actually, I'd go with the WoD explanation.

Undead can't learn. Oh, they can get stronger, and they can pick up a few tricks but they don't actually Learn. Dead things simply can't change without taking away things from the living. As an undead you don't have muscle memory or reflexes or anything the like. You simply can't pursue the same paths as the living. You can't learn spells by yourself, or learn how to use weapons. All knowledge and abilities must be implemented, not learned. You can of course get someone to implement them for you, but you are still unable to learn or advance without outside help.

>>4779669
>>Old school zombies wouldn't be able to be fighters because they're not fast enough

No, that means they won't be able to be _effective_ fighters. And what about Skeletons? They're not too slow.

You're next explanation, however, is far more acceptable and runs along what I suggested in my post after yours. Some combination of the two would definitely be something that I could accept.

>>4779713
>>All knowledge and abilities must be implemented, not learned.

"Mr. Necromancer, please implant me with the ability to implant abilities."
"Sure, why not. I'm an insane necromancer who believes in the superiority of the undead so I see no reason not to!"
"Hurray! Now to turn on my master!"
"OH WHAT AN UNFORESEEN RESULT!" *dies*
"Now to implant this ability to other undead! MUAHAHAHA!"

Plus, if they can't learn, they you would need to play them like goldfish (which aren't actually like that, but whatever):
"Okay, go down to the Village Market and pick up my groceries"
"YES MASTER...where is that?"
"Dammit, you just go down the street, turn to the left, go another block, and it'll be right there."
"...what will be there?"
"THE STORE!"
"...why am I going to the store?"

>>4779715
Glad we're coming to something of an agreement. To be honest I AM biased against undead getting class traits, because I want to see a system completely divorced from established player classes if I'm going to play in a world so presumably foreign (the world of the dead) from conventional thinking.

>>4779742
*off to work on a Goldfish campaign*

>>4779744
Of course you're biased. You're trying to make something that the players haven't experienced before. There is going to be resistance, so you want to make it as easy as possible. You want things to slide in easier into their minds, so you need some sort of lube and then you can just start thrusting away and...that sentence ended up in a different place than it started out in.

>>4779752
Don't forget the Necro-Surgeons.

>>4779758
bahahahahahaha

That was my post though, and I'm not OP. I'm trying to help OP with whatever I can think of, though. Especially interesting in that I'm currently running an "undead heavy" campaign with a lot of homebrew rules and undead types.

>>4779752
"...do what now?"

>>4779742
*sigh*

For the first one, it has to be implanted FROM SOMEWHERE. Even if they get the ability to implant stuff for themselves, they'd have to take it from someone else.

For the second one, "can't learn" doesn't mean that they can't acquire new knowledge in this context. They could study mathematics for example, but they'd lack what is needed to apply it, or use it creatively/invent ways to solve complicated problems.

ANYWAY, I ripped the whole thing from V:tM, and it sounded kinda bullshit vamp angst already. But it'd fit.

>>4779799
>>Even if they get the ability to implant stuff for themselves, they'd have to take it from someone else.

So you're saying there's something wrong with an undead horror running around stealing the abilities of the living through dark magics? 'Cause that sounds pretty awesome.

>>"can't learn" doesn't mean that they can't acquire new knowledge

Sorry, I don't buy they can "acquire" new knowledge, but they can't learn. How exactly are they "acquiring" new knowledge if not by learning? It's been imprinted on their brain-equivalent, so it's learning in my book. Plus, if you say they can't apply it creatively, then what happens when the player wants to apply something creatively? Do they say "Oh crap, forgot I can't be creative!" and go back to, say, walking into an obvious trap?

However, I'm not attacking you but the explanation put forth by Vt:M. I like a lot of stuff from the setting, but that's just ugh.

>>4779858
Incidentally, OP, you can go ahead and put someone in the campaign world who thinks that undead have the capacity to learn, feel, etc. Then have them being eaten by a zombie when they try to teach it math.

I'm self-deprecating in that regard.

OP here.

Here is my basic idea for the fluffy reasons.

When you're reborn as undead, even intelligent undead, you lose your soul. What memories and thoughts you have are what remains of that essence trapped to you by the negative energy the reanimates you. If you're incorpereal, it's the negative energy you're made of or the ectoplasm keeping it there

Because of this, you don't have the same ability to learn as normal souled creatures do. Your soul doesn't strengthen or grow, but rather the negative energy that powers you does. Thus you can gain abilities from that, but the normal process of learning isn't there because you lack that spark to learn it.

>>4779884
...problem with this is, placing any barrier between what can and can't be learned is completely arbitrary. They can learn what needs to be learned to accomplish a task, presumably, manifested in players reacting to a situation creatively - but a skill, and then a class (a set of skills), is just that same form of learning applied over and over and turned into a permanent ability.

I like the specialization explanation, myself... maybe that's because it's my own though =D

>>4779884
>>But some part of the person remains behind behind and it understands what it has become. And it hates itself. This hatred drives them, makes them strike out at the living. They would gladly strangle their master, every breaking neck bone a symphony, if not for the powerful magics which bind them to his will.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was saying in >>4779702. The only explanation that makes sense is one which explains the problem as being inherent to the nature of negative energy and undeath.

>>4779858
I don't have any problem with it. I'm just saying that if he wanted to give his implant ability to another undead he'd have to give HIS implant ability... or take it from someone else then give that.

And yeah, I really don't know how the hell that works. in V:tM the "tragedy" of artists that get turned (Torreadors) is that undead/vampires can't create anything new. Which is bull since they have singing and making music/lyrics in the fluff descriptions of social abilities. Not to mention the one that said that all medical discoveries of the last 5 centuries had been made by vampires... but ANYWAY, I haven't got the book right now so I can't quote the exact thing. The point was that they can make use and apply their current knowledge but they have a hard time creating/accepting new ideas as their own. They are, after all, undead that never change.

>>4779930
I'm all up for blaming their presumed "tragedy" on their own mental problems. They can't see what they've created, only what they lost.

>>4779945
Haha, yeah, that'd fit a toreador pretty well.

>>4779963
Actually you can expand it to all vampires.

Those who can't give up on their humanity can only focus on what they have lost, instead of what they can do.

Those who accept what they can do, become ravenous predators driven only by hungers and urges.

Now THAT's a curse. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Oh, and Necromancers should probably be pretty paranoid. They're afraid of the pitchfork-and-torch wielding mobs, afraid of the meddling crusaders and hunters who are always on the lookout, but most of all afraid of their own minions. They're afraid that they're not as stupid as they act, that he's not really in control, that it's only a matter of time before they're overpowered by their own creations.

Undead are statues of flesh, bone and negetive energy.

They can't progress in classes because they are stagnant.

The very nature of undeath is to hold a being in a stasis between life and death.
You neither grow or rot.

You can solve puzzles and learn simple things, like fire = hot, library = books, and follow instructions. You can ever devise strategies and remember things you see to a degree.

However, any change that requires growth or progression is beyond you.
Such changes require a fundemental change in your structure to accomidate.

additionally, undead have no ambition or drive.
They follow their instincts, or the magical commands of their master.

Come on OP, what's your current need for stuff? I think we've gone over a good amount of stuff, so point us in the next direction.

>>4780092
I think we've pretty much beaten this stuff to death (AHA! PUN) at this point and should probably move on. We've got a number of good ideas and the OP can always leave it as just a bit of a mystery. Maybe it's something that's hotly contested by necromancers. Whatever.

>>4780215
That picture is awesome.

Also, bump.

>>4780289
You might be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you dance with the reaper.

So, taking a different tack, I thought I'd suggest some possible character progressions. Is this what you had in mind, OP?

Skeleton (1-4) -> Baneguard (5) -> Direguard (6+) <both from Lost Empires of Faerun>

Ghoul (1-4) -> Wight (4-11 MM) -> Vilewight (12+ Book of Vile Darkness)

OP back again!

Progression isn't going to be set in stone, because there are so many undead types, and I want people to be creative. Crystal Keep has a list of monsters by CR, and one for undead specifically. I'd like people to look at those, look them up, and then if it makes sense with the fluff of their current class, go for that.

Anyways, at the moment, I'd like some help with the following.

Special ability gains work in paths. Each path has a number of abilities that can be bought. You can't move on in paths until you've bought a number of abilities from your base on. They will get progressively stronger.

At the beginning of the game, you have your origin path. This is the specifics of how you died, and they determine your base path. I have the following so far.

Immolation: You burned to death
Drowning: You were drowned
Hypothermia: You froze to death
Electrocution: You were electrocuted
Premature Burial: Rocks fell, a cave in , or you were simply buried alive
Dessication: You died of thirst or hunger
Poison/Disease: You were poisoned or died of a disease
Madness: You went insane and killed yourself
Exanguination/Blunt force trauma: You were stabbed or beaten to death

What else would you recommend?

>>4782760
So if you died of say Madness. You would gain access to a pool of confusion/dazing/insanity causing spells, as well as abilities like minor wisdom damage when attacking and so forth.

>>4782789
Of course, you would have to buy these ability with the points you get at a level. But you'd start with a couple minor spell-likes at 3/day, and maybe a bonus effect, much like choosing a domain. Then you'd spend your points collecting more. You'd need X number to be determined abilities, before you could move out of madness, but you could always keep buying from the madness pool, which scales as you level up.

>>4782804
These would only go up to say, 3rd level spells and their equivilent. After that, you'd have to take a higher level path. Which isn't dependent on your starting one.

So a higher level one might be Pestilence, Insanity, Darkness, Draining. You get the idea.

Thoughts? Suggestions on Origin paths, later paths, abilities, new classes, what have you?

Come on now, /tg/. This is the last I'll need you for awhile.

OP, I really like you. A lot. In fact, I'm making a card game around this very idea. The PC's aren't batshit retarded because the necromancer implanted "Scrubbed", or blank, souls into several corpses. They are able to think, but suffer minor amnesia, making it very difficult to develop the {muscle, reation, etc} memory needed to learn new skills. New abilities should be available, though.
The PC's can't kill their necromancer because if they do, they will also die (or so they THINK!)
Have the players roll a 10 sided die to figure out which corpsetype they are. since you listed 9, 10 (or 0) could be the player's choice.
Could you please send me approx. 1/2 gallon of your sperm to me, via organmail? I swear I'm just going to donate it to the sperm bank. Really.
Mission ideas:
"Hey, minions, there's this upstart necromancer, invading my corpse-lots. Go eat his brain."
"Go scavange some corpses for me."
"Terrorize this village, don't kill too many people, just eat a few of the old people. That'l teach 'em to pay me my tribute ON TIME next year."
"Some holy order is putting some fighting spirit into the locals. End them."
"Oh shit, paladins! Defeeeend Meeee!"
"Bring me 10 house cats."
"Take this message, this corpse, and these 4 minions to my buddy." Of course the corpse is huge, and in a cart, so it slows you down, makes you vulnerable. The 4 minions are really useless, but will obey basic commands. No capacity for thought, like the PC's, though.

>>4782760
Hai, I was posting here a while ago but had to go to work. Glad to see this thread is still alive. First Editionfag here.

The first thing I think of when I look at that is that, as far as practicality goes, dying by electrocution is virtually the same as dying by burning. You are fried, no two ways about it. The burns look slightly different, but the death, as far as I know, is caused by burning.

Also, giving elemental powers based on method of death only really works if there's some kind of lingering effect. I'd say that, of course, if someone was frozen, then when animated they are animated with all the frost still around them. But a burn doesn't really have anything to do with fire specifically, and so I'd think more along the lines of giving an ability to cause flesh to immolate and possibly even rot. Basically, death by immolation allows you to kill and blacken skin with a "rotting touch," at least, that's how I'd interpret it.

Also, I'm not terribly versed on the undead of 3.0 and up, but I do know that one of my favorite undead monsters is the Drowner from The Witcher, which I imported into DnD as "Vodnik" (which is what they're called in the Witcher novels). A slimy creature that comes up from the water with intent to drown (using grapple rules in my game, of course).

I think if you're doing an undead game, to be honest you want to go with horror first, gameplay next, THEN established creatures. I know I'm suggesting a lot more work, but I'd rather see a lot of altered and from-scratch monsters, almost an alternate system, than DnD monsters imported into a player game.

>>4783381
>continued

Specifically: I don't know how a Bog Mummy in D&D works, but I do know that Bog Bodies, which are dead bodies (usually murdered and tied down) that have been preserved in bogs with EXTREMELY RARE and SPECIFIC conditions, would not have any bones. Therefore, an undead made of one would move more like a four-limbed octopus and be extremely agile in the water, not so much on land.

Basically, creativity over convention. Fuck convention, because streamlined, media-presented undead are never as impressive as the legends the very concept of "living dead" was born of. Most magic in real folklore has to do with the dead, dying, and the undead, so rather than imagining "the undead" as one facet of the world, think of it as the backbone of all mythology.

>>4783389
Not op.
But thats cool. You give good advice.

Also, OP, I'm extremely grateful to you for all these images. I'm saving every one of them. They are incredibly inspiring.

>>4783389
Ooh, I had another thought on this: in addition to "how" you died, to what intent you died and the "sins" you committed before you died have a lot to do with the folklore surrounding the undead. Undead monsters appear more often in folklore than not from murderers and torturers OR those that have been extremely grievously wronged.

You could therefore have two columns: one for method of execution, and one for miscellaneous "circumstances," and these have values such as:

Murdered and/or tortured wrongly
Killed for a grievous crime
Killed in battle
Killed while very young
Died by accident/old age

Actually, now that I think about it, the above could have to do with the creature's alignment! In fact, you could completely substitute "intent of death" for the alignment system!...but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

did op jump ship?

Oh noes OP don't go.

How long until /tg/ topics are purged? Hopefully OP sees this.

bumping for homebrew

>>4784038
4chan doesn't purge, it just autosages threads after they've been active for a while and gotten a certain number of replies. Once the thread drops past page 10, it's gone.

In that case, bamp.

Someone should archive this.

What's the auto sage limit on /tg/. Anyway, bump attempt.

Also, I was thinking maybe this could be used as a base for a "Libris Mortis" like book for 4e. As an Undead you'd be using the Blight powersource. Multiclassing into an Undead class would be basically getting bitten or cursed or something like that, and slowly turning into a monstrosity. Multiclassing from an Undead class could be like gaining stuff back from your life (or just learning stuff as usual). Paths are used as ways for you to upgrade your undead type to monster type, as the dark energy of the Blight transforms and reshapes your husk further.

The Sins/The Way You Died can be incorporated into class features, or possibly used as a race. (Charred bone skeleton=burned, Chilling bone skeleton=frozen)

Feats could build onthis then ("chilling" undead can add +X frost to their attack or something.)

Finally, add some unique mechanics to the undeads to put emphasis on the un-life aspect (dailies, healing surges, action points etc... not recharging if they don't eat living flesh, no bloodied state etc...)

I'm thinking roles could be along the lines of...

Zombie=Defender (needs some kind of unique way to mark), may gain controller-ish abilities. Paths involve becoming a ghoul/ghast (builds making use of the debilating effects of your touch), or an Abomination (think Pudge. Huge meat wall, basically).
Skeleton=Striker. The skeleton can move fast as his lithe form is not burdened by flash. He is also more flexible, and can use this flexibility to attack and avoid attacks in unnatural ways...
I can imagine something banshee like for a controller with a splash of leader.

Bumpin'.

I want to see the OP's write-ups for the secondary classes. Mummies and such.

Bump, cause why not?

Ah-ah-ah-ah staying aliiiiiive