Got an idea for a short campaign. Session 1, entire party is killed by BBG. Session 2 they are all resurrected as undead for BBG's army. For some reason, they retain their free will and must try again to take down BBG.
I had a player go undead before.They got the undead type instead of humanoid,gained resistance to necrotic damage and an ability that let them detach body parts to distract enemies (which I ultimately used in a non-undead related subclass).
This however might not work as well for a whole party,because the whole party getting an niche ability is odd.Plus the whole party being unhealable by cure wounds is fairly harsh.
Haha that sounds awesome. Do you have a Cleric? I hope there are terrified of turning themselves. :p
Could be a lot of fun to make each one a different kind of undead. Like the rogue ends up a ghoul, the barbarian a giant zombie, the wizard a vampire or something. Would need some balancing but would be awesome.
You could make it that this can happen at any point in the campaign when there is a TPK. Make the encounters hard and always roll in front of the screen. It'll happen!
Great. Now I've got Oingo Boingo stuck in my head. ♫ It's an undead party. Who could ask for more. Everybody's coming, leave your body at the door. ♫
Aaaanyhow. I had an idea for a future character, maybe something similar could work for this. So I was looking at the UA for the Undead subclass of warlock and thought maybe long ago when some Mummy Lord was buried he was interred with a bunch of servants who were also mummified, because that's how mummy's roll. So maybe recently some grave robbers broke into the tomb and stole some expensive stuff. So the Mummy Lord is proper miffed, and he wakes up a few of his servants and gives them the task of going out into the world to find and return the stolen items. So the warlock's Form of Dread is actually his real appearance and when he looks normal that's the real illusion. And so that provides a clear motivation for the character and a clear explanation for where he gets his powers from.
So maybe something similar could work for a one shot or a short campaign for a whole party. Maybe they were all the servants who were buried with a Mummy or a Vampire or whatever. And some tomb robbers broke in and stole something, so the boss wake up a few of his servants and sent them out to retrieve the stolen property. It's a clear direction, clear motivation, and the characters would have to be granted a certain degree of free will in order to deal with whatever random hurdles they might happen across.
As far as creating characters who are undead, well, you could use the UA for Dhamphir and Reborn. Or you could just have them create regular characters of their choice, then alter them to make them undead - which probably means they can be turned by clerics, they have resistance to necrotic damage, they don't need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep, and maybe they have disadvantage to all their rolls while in direct sunlight.
I think the information in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft would be helpful there.
That's probably the logical solution to the problem, but it also runs into the problem that it basically forces everyone to play as a Reborn, which removes most of your characters' Racial Traits and replaces them with the Reborn traits. Not the end of the world, but it does kind of flatten out the variety in your party. Especially if the Undead shift is meant to be a twist and now suddenly everyone loses any cool racial features they were excited to play with in this short campaign.
I'd say the best thing to do is to just let everyone come back as their characters, but they're visibly decayed and whatever injury killed them is still prominent. Just make it so they're obviously undead so they can't just decide to escape the Undead horde and return to society like nothing happened. Their typing changes to Humanoid/Undead, so they're still susceptible to spells and abilities that specifically target Undead, but stuff like Cure Wounds still works on them. The only thing I would take from Reborn is to have them no longer need to eat, drink, or breathe, but otherwise they're still the same basic characters they created at the start of the adventure.
Got an idea for a short campaign. Session 1, entire party is killed by BBG. Session 2 they are all resurrected as undead for BBG's army. For some reason, they retain their free will and must try again to take down BBG.
Has anyone done something like this before?
Are there any good mechanics for undead players?
I've never done anything remotely similar in my games, nor played in one like it.
So then, the main question that was asked is what about being brought back from the dead and made into Undead could do to mechanically improve their chances of taking down the BBG?
I hate trying to deal with rules and mechanics. I'm terrible at that. The first problem I run into here is that I don't know what races or levels the characters are.
What about a Dhampir?
Speed. Your walking speed is 35 feet.
Ancestral Legacy. If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness as shades of gray.
Deathless Nature. You don’t need to breathe.
Spider Climb. You have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. In addition, at 3rd level, you can move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings, while leaving your hands free.
Vampiric Bite. Your fanged bite is a natural weapon, which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient. You add your Constitution modifier, instead of your Strength modifier, to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with this bite. It deals 1d4 piercing damage on a hit. While you are missing half or more of your hit points, you have advantage on attack rolls you make with this bite.
When you attack with this bite and hit a creature that isn’t a Construct or an Undead, you can empower yourself in one of the following ways of your choice: You regain hit points equal to the piercing damage dealt by the bite. You gain a bonus to the next ability check or attack roll you make; the bonus equals the piercing damage dealt by the bite, you can empower yourself with this bite a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
It's all very situational.
Speed is a maybe, Ancestral Legacy could give you the ability to fly, except that "If you choose a lineage, you might have once been a member of another race, but you aren’t any longer. You now possess only your lineage’s racial traits." So your wings fall off.
Darkvison is maybe useful if you can't get hold of a torch, Deathless Nature is going to be very difficult to use to fight someone, so it's almost maybe a little useful? There could be situations where Spider Climb was useful. We don't know what race or level the characters are, so unless they are at 3rd they get nothing a rope wouldn't do. That leaves the Vampiric Bite. Finally, a combat ability! Is it worth losing so much else?
I don't really see anything useful in the Hexblood. So the Reborn?
Ancestral Legacy. If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.
Deathless Nature. You have escaped death, a fact represented by the following benefits:
You have advantage on saving throws against disease, death saving throws, being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.
Knowledge from a Past Life. You temporarily remember glimpses of the past, perhaps faded memories from ages ago or a previous life. When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 immediately after seeing the number on the d20 and add the number on the d6 to the check. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest
Once again, this is highly situational.
Is there anything in there that you can be certain will help you defeat the BBG? It's almost entirely defensive stuff. I don't see a single thing in there that's a combat ability.
Since they were part of the BBG's army, they might have magical weapons, possibly the very ones they had when they died, to use. They could have magic items that would allow them to turn the BBG's army to the character's side of the fight. There are loads of magic items that would come in right handy, if you can figure out why the BBG would give them out instead of keep them. Any items the BBG has would have to be superior to the ones the characters had.
Hi,
Got an idea for a short campaign. Session 1, entire party is killed by BBG. Session 2 they are all resurrected as undead for BBG's army. For some reason, they retain their free will and must try again to take down BBG.
Has anyone done something like this before?
Are there any good mechanics for undead players?
I think the information in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft would be helpful there.
<Insert clever signature here>
I had a player go undead before.They got the undead type instead of humanoid,gained resistance to necrotic damage and an ability that let them detach body parts to distract enemies (which I ultimately used in a non-undead related subclass).
This however might not work as well for a whole party,because the whole party getting an niche ability is odd.Plus the whole party being unhealable by cure wounds is fairly harsh.
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Haha that sounds awesome. Do you have a Cleric? I hope there are terrified of turning themselves. :p
Could be a lot of fun to make each one a different kind of undead. Like the rogue ends up a ghoul, the barbarian a giant zombie, the wizard a vampire or something. Would need some balancing but would be awesome.
You could make it that this can happen at any point in the campaign when there is a TPK. Make the encounters hard and always roll in front of the screen. It'll happen!
Great. Now I've got Oingo Boingo stuck in my head. ♫ It's an undead party. Who could ask for more. Everybody's coming, leave your body at the door. ♫
Aaaanyhow. I had an idea for a future character, maybe something similar could work for this. So I was looking at the UA for the Undead subclass of warlock and thought maybe long ago when some Mummy Lord was buried he was interred with a bunch of servants who were also mummified, because that's how mummy's roll. So maybe recently some grave robbers broke into the tomb and stole some expensive stuff. So the Mummy Lord is proper miffed, and he wakes up a few of his servants and gives them the task of going out into the world to find and return the stolen items. So the warlock's Form of Dread is actually his real appearance and when he looks normal that's the real illusion. And so that provides a clear motivation for the character and a clear explanation for where he gets his powers from.
So maybe something similar could work for a one shot or a short campaign for a whole party. Maybe they were all the servants who were buried with a Mummy or a Vampire or whatever. And some tomb robbers broke in and stole something, so the boss wake up a few of his servants and sent them out to retrieve the stolen property. It's a clear direction, clear motivation, and the characters would have to be granted a certain degree of free will in order to deal with whatever random hurdles they might happen across.
As far as creating characters who are undead, well, you could use the UA for Dhamphir and Reborn. Or you could just have them create regular characters of their choice, then alter them to make them undead - which probably means they can be turned by clerics, they have resistance to necrotic damage, they don't need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep, and maybe they have disadvantage to all their rolls while in direct sunlight.
Whatever works. Have fun!
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
That's probably the logical solution to the problem, but it also runs into the problem that it basically forces everyone to play as a Reborn, which removes most of your characters' Racial Traits and replaces them with the Reborn traits. Not the end of the world, but it does kind of flatten out the variety in your party. Especially if the Undead shift is meant to be a twist and now suddenly everyone loses any cool racial features they were excited to play with in this short campaign.
I'd say the best thing to do is to just let everyone come back as their characters, but they're visibly decayed and whatever injury killed them is still prominent. Just make it so they're obviously undead so they can't just decide to escape the Undead horde and return to society like nothing happened. Their typing changes to Humanoid/Undead, so they're still susceptible to spells and abilities that specifically target Undead, but stuff like Cure Wounds still works on them. The only thing I would take from Reborn is to have them no longer need to eat, drink, or breathe, but otherwise they're still the same basic characters they created at the start of the adventure.
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I've never done anything remotely similar in my games, nor played in one like it.
So then, the main question that was asked is what about being brought back from the dead and made into Undead could do to mechanically improve their chances of taking down the BBG?
I hate trying to deal with rules and mechanics. I'm terrible at that. The first problem I run into here is that I don't know what races or levels the characters are.
What about a Dhampir?
It's all very situational.
Speed is a maybe, Ancestral Legacy could give you the ability to fly, except that "If you choose a lineage, you might have once been a member of another race, but you aren’t any longer. You now possess only your lineage’s racial traits." So your wings fall off.
Darkvison is maybe useful if you can't get hold of a torch, Deathless Nature is going to be very difficult to use to fight someone, so it's almost maybe a little useful? There could be situations where Spider Climb was useful. We don't know what race or level the characters are, so unless they are at 3rd they get nothing a rope wouldn't do. That leaves the Vampiric Bite. Finally, a combat ability! Is it worth losing so much else?
I don't really see anything useful in the Hexblood. So the Reborn?
Once again, this is highly situational.
Is there anything in there that you can be certain will help you defeat the BBG? It's almost entirely defensive stuff. I don't see a single thing in there that's a combat ability.
Since they were part of the BBG's army, they might have magical weapons, possibly the very ones they had when they died, to use. They could have magic items that would allow them to turn the BBG's army to the character's side of the fight. There are loads of magic items that would come in right handy, if you can figure out why the BBG would give them out instead of keep them. Any items the BBG has would have to be superior to the ones the characters had.
<Insert clever signature here>
Take a look at the supplement from Nord Games called Ultimate Bestiary- The Dreaded Accursed.
You might want to check and see if your players are okay with this kind of thing first.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep