no, all undead are evil and by the fact you cannot be a paladin and undead.
The bolded part is merely 99% true.
How did JJ put it? (I hope I get it right)Non-evil Ghosts are rare.
Compared to non-evil Ghosts, non-evil Vampires are rare. (OTOH, I cannot remember a single canonical one)
Compared to non-evil Vampires, any other non-evil Undead are very rare.
So, it can be done, in theory.
However, unless there is a really epic story to it, it shouldn't be.
And, frankly, the fact that a player considers it 'cool' does not constitute an epic story, as far as I am concerned.
So, in a nutshell... nope. I wouldn't allow it.
(I didn't check what you have to to to actually become a Graveknight; the procedure might preclude being anything but evil in its own right already... which of course would nix even the theoretical chance)
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Would you allow a player to become a graveknight paladin, I am thinking of doing this by going graveknight then having another player cast atonement on me, as a DM would you allow this?
Most paladin would choose death over life as an undead. Undeads are abomination of nature, the form of an undead corrupts the mind and forces it to do evil, vengeful things.
In order to become a graveknight, you must create/order an armor that will host you (you're having an evil attemp by doing it, so you will lose your paladinhood), then you seek a truly evil being and must serve it in a war against good and finally you must take part in a ritual where you bath in the blood of good creatures of your race.
I'm only doing a quick summary here, the process is long, and truly evil. You can have all the details in Undead Revisited, but I believe it is simply NOT possible to become a graveknight paladin.
I would allow atonement to be cast on you, but to atone yourself, you would have to kill the entity that you served and then destroy yourself within a week, or destroy yourself right now if it cannot be done.
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Non-evil Ghosts are rare.
Compared to non-evil Ghosts, non-evil Vampires are rare. (OTOH, I cannot remember a single canonical one)
Compared to non-evil Vampires, any other non-evil Undead are very rare.
(Spoiler from Carrion Crown)
I am aware :)
Still, the poor chap would remain good for a certain amount of time.
Thanks Darkorin, someone else was planing on casting atonement on me, I am in the green although weird it will be fun.
Umm...
.I would allow atonement to be cast on you, but to atone yourself, you would have to kill the entity that you served and then destroy yourself within a week, or destroy yourself right now if it cannot be done.
is not exactly 'in the green', as far as I understand...
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There for I'll go back to LG I think, am I missing something. I just thought it would be awesome being an undead paladin.
Yes you would go back to LG, but any Paladin would despise the form of a Graveknight and recognize it as a threat. The Armor you inhabit is a form of corruption, so you will go back to evil after some time, and you will kill innocent creatures and go back to your evil way.
And the horror you had to make in order to become a graveknight... you did those not as a: "Yes a made an evil act once, and lost my way but i'm back" you intention was to become a graveknight, to become a creature of pure torture and evil. It's not just a little alignment infringement, you despised, killed those you used to fight with, and violate everything you tried to fight for.
A paladin who became a Vampire... He did not really chose it, his form corrupted his mind, but you... you would have chose to become a graveknight on your own free will, and fought for years as a warrior of evil.
So the only possible outcome for you to save your soul (because there really isn't anything else to do at that point), would be to kill yourself before your mind goes back to what you came to love and cherish... torture and kill people...
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Awesome undead and paladin don't really go together in my book but to each their own.
While yes technically an atonement would fix you for a short while ultimately I as a GM would rule that the act of becoming a grave knight so heinous that atonement would not fix it. Have you read up on grave knights at all? The acts that must be done to become one are some of the worst things a person could do, let alone a paladin. Not to forget that the act of raising an undead is an evil act (up for debate i guess) and you are raising yourself.
Also the graveknights armor is inherently evil and as that is where you soul lives, I'm not sure how you could argue being good.
Here just read more about them and them me in a compelling argument how they could ever be good, let alone a paladin. It'd be like having have lich paladin, or cleric of a LG deity.
Also what if you wished to become a graveknight without having to kill anyone, therefore doing nothing evil?
Quite easy: You wouldn't be able to become a Graveknight.
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Also what if you wished to become a graveknight without having to kill anyone, therefore doing nothing evil?
Not possible, as I said earlier, in order to become a graveknight you must serve an great evil power and fight in a crusade for him(so there's plenty of evil here), and one step of the final ritual needed in order to become a graveknight is to bath in the blood of good creatures of your race that you killed (plenty of evil again!).
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Could you help me word such a wish so that I would become a good graveknight?
In order to be a graveknight, you must infuse your armor with torture, killing, etc... then bound yourself to it. You would become Evil because your mind would be twisted by the armor where your soul rest.
And as I said earlier, no good paladin would ever WANT to live as an undead.
And a wish is powerful but would probably not be enough. Maybe it could make you bypass some of the requirement to become a graveknight but not all of them... To become a graveknight your soul must be tortured and evil...
Edit: as you said these wish can grant greater power, but the dangerous part for you would be that you become evil, since you wished to become a creature of torture and killing (and you would lose your paladin power, because honestly, no good deity would let you keep your power when you wished to become what you sworn to destroy...)
But wish says 'You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous.' Therefore wouldn't a well worded wish work or am I missing something.
You are pretty much ignoring what an undead, specifically a Graveknight, is, and stands for. Other than that... no, you aren't missing much.
Then again, it's your game; do whatever you want. No matter what we tell you, you keep on insisting anyway, so I see no point in discussing this any further.
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If I am your dm, it would be a lost battle.
Why? because the casting of atonement is a second chance that your deity gives you. Will your deity gives you a second chance at "life" every single day of your undeath?
My answer would be no.
But in the end it all depends on your dm and how well he knows graveknights...
The closest undead I could think of that would be a paladin is a mummy. Instead of undead, you could use the Deathless type. You were sent back because the desendant of someone you swore to protect is in mortal danger, but once the deed is done, you'd go back to your rest. that, or an example of that, is the ONLY exception, in my opinion...Maybe vampire, but we need no Louis Pointe du Lacs running around.
Thanks Luna for the suggestion, most helpful
I know because I once played one. My character had died many centuries before the game, and one of the most important NPCs was descended from the King he had sworn to protect. He failed in protecting the king and they both died. Shortly before the final battle, the spirit of his king returned and blessed him, allowing him to appear as he did in life. It was fun and I really enjoyed the character. Give it a try, just ask your DM if you can supress you Despair ability as a free action.
Graveknights: Graveknights do not feed on pain or death, nor do they need to kill in order to continue their existence. Though some slaughter mortals out of anger, for revenge, or simply to continue proving their battle prowess in much the same way they did in life, others do so merely out of reflex, with no more thought to the lives they cut short than someone swatting a fly.
So they don't need to do evil in order to exist: so they could become good.
The only reason it is evil is to empower the armor:
Once the armor is complete, the hopeful graveknight must don the armor and then seek out a powerful evil patron to sponsor his cruelties—this patron can be a mortal tyrant, a hateful monster, a demonic god, or similar power.
The last stage in becoming a graveknight is to construct a pool, pit, or other large concavity, into which the graveknight must place 13 helpless, good-aligned creatures of his own race, who must be sacrificed by the graveknight or his patron using acid, cold, electricity, or fire.
... Once this final step is taken, the graveknight-to-be has a 75% chance of rising as a graveknight.
So worship evil and sacrifice people is evil.
Um, anti-paliden grave knight is the answer you are looking for, have to be CE though, but remember, CE serves thier desire, so, save the girl cause it makes me look esteemed in the kingdom, my glory shines, destroy the vampire and then I know I'm stronger, my glory shines, kill my brother cause he ate my twinkies, I'm am now purified of annoyance, my glory shines, all hail my glory!
My thing is, why would you want to take this path? For an evil character being a Graveknight would be the Sh!t. But none of a Graveknights abilities would even cross over to a good character.
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Perhaps not helpful, but I'm a huge anti-fan of takign existing evil things and then just making the good version. Maybe its my classical training in philosophy where evil is the banal, unoriginative, corruptive force makes me dislike the 'Lich but good!' thing.
Graveknights in general are not goodies.
If I was going to make a heroic variant, I'd probably just make something entirely different (the idea of a holy knight, skeleton in armor fighting evil is a powerfully cool one though) as opposed to the evil 'By your Elements Combined, I am Captain Deathknight!' stuff the Graveknight exemplifies.
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I'm surprised no one has brought up Lord Soth yet. Don't people remember the classics anymore?
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Lord Soth was a whole lot more good-aligned than a paladin that even considers becoming a graveknight! At least Soth had some remorse, occasionally :) .
On the other hand, I like the paladin mummy idea. It's a much better thematic fit.