About the undead and their fondness for raging

[Muser]

Something has been bothering me and it has done so for a few seasons to boot. Back when J. Frost was the campaign lead, the undead were rather plentiful. Season zero had them in droves, in fact so many that every Ranger, mine included, was an undead hunter. Season two saw a lot of adventuring in, and here I'm quoting a local player, that "hideous affliction" called Taldor AND continued the Zyphus plotline which included some undead-heavy shenanigans as well.

Now during Frost's reign it became rather obvious that at least some of the staff hadn't studied on how the undead creature type actually works. The most memorable face palms in my career as both a player and a gm have included, for instance, a ghost barbarian that rages if attacked on the Ethereal, a ghast barbarian with renewed vigor, and, as a cherry on top, a troop of skeletal champions raging in a cornfield.

My question is pretty simple: How should we run these creatures? As they are with the rage applying to a creature incapable of benefitting from morale boni or increased Constitution? With the rage applying to Charisma instead of Con, as I recall was Josh's suggestion? Should we omit the rage stat boni but allow rage powers to work?

Some general guideline would be sweet as I quite like running AND playing the early seasons, but this tendency sticks out like a sore thumb.

[Andreas Forster]

I'm not sure if a morale bonus is actually a morale effect. The Android race (from Inner Sea Bestiary), for example, explicitly says they can never gain morale bonuses, which the undead traits don't say.
Undead will definitely not be able to be forced into a rage with the Rage spell, because it is mind-affecting, but I don't see why an intelligent undead shouldn't be able to enter a rage on its own.

As for the CON-bonus, by RAW it would do nothing unless there's an official ruling that lets rage work differently for undead.
For incorporeal undead, this becomes even more complicated, because they also lack a STR score.

[Muser]

Andreas, I wish I shared your optimism!

The important thing to note is that in the scenarios where the undead do rage, their rage is fully included in their stats. If we are to run them as is, then rules-as-written no longer apply.

[FLite]

The raging Ghast in particular is a PETA because, as written into his stat block, his rage bonus gets redirected to his charisma, which then boosts the Save DCs of all his powers by 2.

This seems to require a massive rewrite of the RAW.

[Jiggy]

FLite wrote:

The raging Ghast in particular is a PETA

*tries to imagine a ghast angrily protesting on behalf of animal rights*

[Rogue Eidolon]

FLite wrote:

The raging Ghast in particular is a PETA because, as written into his stat block, his rage bonus gets redirected to his charisma, which then boosts the Save DCs of all his powers by 2.

This seems to require a massive rewrite of the RAW.

To be fair, a raging gorgon or dragon would also increase its DCs by 2, so it's not impossible even in strict RAW.

[LazarX]

Muser wrote:

Andreas, I wish I shared your optimism!

The important thing to note is that in the scenarios where the undead do rage, their rage is fully included in their stats. If we are to run them as is, then rules-as-written no longer apply.

It's generally safe to assume that if the rage has no effect that's figured into their stats as well.

[GM Lamplighter]

Back at the time, the discussion ended up with a, "it's an exception, just let it work for these specific cases". Partly damage control, and partly because they could have just invented a special prestige class that allowed the same mechanical effects but required 1,000 words to detail, and used that instead.

I usually describe them as "growing with negative energy" or something instead of the usual "spittle-flying Tasmanian Devil" look (since that's what ghouls/ghasts are like to begin with).