In my homebrew setting, there is an order of Paladins called the Oathbound. They swear never to rest until every undead on the planet has been laid to rest (usually by force), at which point they too will rest.
I'm trying to find a way to make it balanced and fair for an undead PC to be a part of a standard party. It's also important that the character should be able to exist as a living paladin until their first death, at which point they become undead.
My first thought is to make an alternate Divine Bond. It would change the focus from massive damage (or having a mount) to being resilient and resistant to things that would harm undead. I may also have that they are unique undead in that they are animated by positive energy rather than negative and can be healed normally.
Any ideas? I may also include a favoured enemy undead as per Ranger rules, progressing slower (up to +6, perhaps).
Umbral Reaver, I have three suggestions.
1) I you can use the Deathless type from the Book of Exalted Deeds, and arrange it so that the paladin's Oath (maybe rewrite a makeshift oath from the Cavalier playtest class for the Oathbound Order) is to eradicate undead, and one of the benefits is that upon death they becomes a "deathless" creature. You may need to convert it to PAthfinder rules, but here it is. This would be my first choice.
Deathless is a new creature type, describing creatures that have died but returned to a kind of spiritual life. They are similar in many ways to both living creatures and undead. However, while undead present a mockery of life and a violation of the natural order of life and death, the deathless merely stave off the inevitability of death for a short time in order to accomplish a righteous purpose. While undead draw their power from the Negative Energy plane, the deathless are strongly tied to the Positive Energy plane, the birthplace of all souls. In fact, the deathless are little more than disincarnate souls, sometimes wrapped in material flesh, often incorporeal and hardly more substantial than a soul in its purest state.
Features
• 12-sided Hit Dice.
• Base attack bonus equal to 1/2 of total Hit Dice (as wizard).
• Good Will saves.
• Skill points equal to (4 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die.
Traits
• No Constitution score.
• Darkvision out to 60 feet.
• Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
• Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects.
• Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, or ability drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution) as well as fatigue and exhaustion effects. Unlike undead, the deathless are subject to energy drain. Like living creatures, deathless are harmed by negative energy and healed by positive energy.
• Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save, except for energy drain attacks, effects that also work on objects, and harmless effects.
• Cannot use the run action.
• Uses Charisma modifier for Concentration checks.
• Not at risk of death from massive damage, but when reduced to 0 hp or less, it is immediately destroyed.
• Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect the deathless if they
are willing. These spells turn deathless creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming deathless.
• Evil clerics can turn or destroy deathless creatures as good clerics turn or destroy undead. Good clerics and paladins can rebuke, command, or bolster deathless creatures as evil clerics rebuke, command, or bolster undead.
• Deathless creatures gain the same benefits from consecrate and hallow as undead do from desecrate and unhallow, and they are hindered by desecrate and unhallow as undead are by consecrate and hallow. Hide from undead and undeath to death also work against deathless. Detect undead and deathwatch also reveal deathless, and allow the caster to distinguish deathless creatures from undead. Evil casters can be stunned by overwhelming auras of deathless creatures as good casters can be stunned by overwhelming undead auras. Use the “undead” line in the detect evil spell description when deathless are in the area of a
detect good spell. Deathless are healed by disrupt undead and damaged by unholy water as undead are by holy water. Deathless are not affected by disrupting weapons. Spells that have greater than normal effect against undead creatures—including chill touch, magic stone, searing light, sunbeam, sunburst, and wall of fire—do not have these enhanced effects against deathless creatures. Deathless take only 1d6 points of damage per two caster levels from searing light. Spells such as command undead, control undead, create undead, create greater undead, and halt undead do not affect or create deathless creatures.
• Proficient with its natural weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entries.
• Proficient in whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Deathless not listed as wearing armor are not proficient with armor.
• Deathless do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
2) Use the Revenant (p.93) in Monsters of Faerun as a template for the "risen" paladin once he dies. He keeps all his class features but adopts the revanant "template".
3) Use the deathknight template from the Monster Manual II 3.5 (p.207), remove or alter unneeded/noncompatible abilities (fire blast, etc.), add the sanctified creature effect from Book of Exalted Deeds (p.186).
Hope that helps.
Now, I just may need to go an convert the Deathless type for myself.
My main worries are:
No constitution score, meaning an Oathbound player might be inclined to dump Con at the start in anticipation of dying and not needing it. I may have to grant some bonus or penalty based on the character's former Con score.
And all those immunities. That's quite a hefty package. It's not so overwhelming now that undead are subject to critical hits, but all the others are a worry. I may rule that intelligent undead are still subject to mind-affecting effects, too.
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My main worries are:
No constitution score, meaning an Oathbound player might be inclined to dump Con at the start in anticipation of dying and not needing it. I may have to grant some bonus or penalty based on the character's former Con score.And all those immunities. That's quite a hefty package. It's not so overwhelming now that undead are subject to critical hits, but all the others are a worry. I may rule that intelligent undead are still subject to mind-affecting effects, too.
"Justice never dies!"
Neat idea. I'd definitely allow mind-affecting effects to work on the now-undead Paladin, since he's still got a mind to affect.
You could just make the 'undying' Paladin a unique form of pseudo-undead that *does* have a Con score (precedent for that sort of wonkiness are the Warforged, Constructs with Con scores, and Int scores, for that matter). He would still have a sort of 'metabolism,' even if it isn't fueled by air and food and water any longer. Like some vampires of lore, he might still be affected by diseases and poisons (although, as a Paladin, diseases won't be an issue for long) as they throw the energies that sustain his quasi-living state into imbalance. In his case, it isn't that his body is dead and animated by necromantic energies, but that its 'death' has been held in abeyance, and partially transubstantiated into the eternal flesh common to good outsiders. While still subject to damage, if someone were to cut his arm off, they would see no sign of blood, or bones, or muscles, just softly glowing smooth undifferentiated tissue.
Various effects would work the same as they would on a living or undead target, as you choose, but be 're-envisioned' to suit his new state.
Example (assuming that a Bleed attack would affect him at all, which it might not, depending on which immunities you choose to go with!);
When hit with a Bleed attack, he instead 'leaks' golden smoke, or perhaps the wound burns for a moment with a rose-colored line of fire, 'burning out' when the Bleed effect ends.
The Con score issue is a quibble, and the easiest way to deal with it is to make the undying state not entirely an advantage. If the Paladin is strongly motivated to remain fully in the world of the living as long as possible, he'll have sufficient motivation not to dump Con.
If you don't intend for the Paladin to be running around in this state for long, you could put a set limit upon it, so that the Paladin only remains in this state until his current target undead is destroyed, and is compelled to do everything in his power to destroy that undead. The state is no longer, 'Oh, I'm undead now. Cool,' but a specific event meant to allow him to finish his task, and *then* die and go on to his final reward.
The Unfailing PrC in Hollowfaust (for a warrior-bodyguard caste for ruling necromancers in that setting) has a similar effect. If they drop to negatives attempting to defend their charge, they function normally to -10, at which point they gain the Undead type, and can continue functioning up to negatives equal to their original positive hit points. When they reach that number, their Undead form is also destroyed. When the combat ends, they die immediately, making it a one-use power, unlike, say, a Frenzied Berserker's similar ability to go into all sorts of negatives.
I wouldn't use the Unfailing PrC as a guideline, just an inspiration. In this case, the Paladin isn't becoming Undead, but a being half-flesh and half-spirit (like a Celestial outsider), and if he's healed up during that fight with undead, he won't *actually* die. The effect would only happen during fights with Undead, for the Paladin, and not serves as a 'get out of death free' card for one that falls into a spiked pit trap and drops to -14.
This variation would also preclude dumping Con, as the Paladin is going to spend the vast majority of his adventuring career alive and breathing, only having a short burst of 'breathless' activity if he drops to negatives in fights with Undead (and is healed to -9 or better before the combat ends, as he'll *really* die at the end of the combat!).
With this sort of limitation, allowing all of the Undead immunities, even to mind-affecting effects, would probably be fine, since it's not a state in which the Paladin is going to spend much time, and not one that he can generally choose to enter. (It even works thematically, as his flesh fails and becomes infused with celestial spirit-stuff, his spirit and purpose are bolstered and become unshakable in pursuit of his Undead quarry.)
Interesting ideas.
In this case, the Oathbound Saints are such paladins that died in the first war against an army of undead. They are the warriors that accompanied their god (when he was still human) on a suicide mission to take out the undead leadership. They failed, but as Ennan died he also ascended to godhood as the patron of undead slayers. The reason that his followers are prone to becoming undead is that his corpse and that of his followers were animated by the remaining liches. In this setting, each god performs an incredible divine act upon or shortly after ascension, and Ennan's was to wipe out all extant undead. His followers remained standing as the first of the Oathbound. Since that time, other necromancers have become liches and undead threaten the world again. There's also the threat of extraplanar undead, too.
Since the Oathbound Saints are so old that their bones are nothing but dust in suits of armour driven by their spirits, I may change the level 20 capstone to reflect that state. Immunity to critical hits, perhaps, along with counting as an Outsider (lawful and good subtypes) rather than undead.
The downside of being an undead Oathbound is that if the paladin code is violated such that powers would be lost, the animating force granted by their god is also revoked. The paladin drops dead right there. Normal resurrection is still possible.