Hello everyone, I recently had a brainstorm and came up with a new breed of undead and wanted thoughts/opinions. The general concept was Midas's golden touch meets Dread Wraith. So I designed a dread wraith that slowly turned beings into mithral statues instead of dealing CON damage. The base stats etc for the wraiths are the dread wraith and I changed a couple of little things without modifying the CR.
Here it is:
Mithral Wraiths; CR 11; Large undead; HD 16d12, hp 104; Init +13; Speed fly 60 ft. (good); AC 25, touch 25, flat-footed 16; Base attack +8; Attack +16 touch melee (2d6 plus Mithral Touch, incorporeal touch); Space/Reach 10’/10’; SA Mithral Touch; SQ darkvision 60’, daylight powerlessness, Incorporeal traits, Lifesense 60’, Undead traits, Unnatural aura; AL LE; SV Fort +5, Ref +14, Will +14; Str -, Dex 28, Con -, Int 17, Wis 18, Cha 24.
Skills: Diplomacy +9, Hide +24, Intimidate +26, Knowledge (religion) +22, Listen +25, Search +22, Sense Motive +23, Spot +25, Survival +4
Feats: Alertness, Blind-fight, Combat reflexes, Dodge, improved initiative, Improved natural attack (incorporeal touch), Mobility, Spring attack
Mithral Touch (Su): Living creatures hit by a mithral wraith’s incorporeal touch attack must succeed on a DC 25 Fortitude save or take 1d8 points of Dexterity drain. This attack hardens the skin of the creature, for every two points of Dexterity drain the target’s skin hardens and gains +1 natural AC. When a target’s Dexterity reaches zero he has been totally transformed into mithral and dies. The save DC is Charisma-based. On each such successful attack the mithral wraith gains 5 temporary hit points.
I'm going to assume that when/if this dexterity drain is healed, the character loses the natural armor/mithral-ness? If not, heck, find me a caged one and let it drain me near to death, then somebody cast restoration (well, greater restoration) on me!
*Runs around all shiny and mithral*
I'm going to assume that when/if this dexterity drain is healed, the character loses the natural armor/mithral-ness? If not, heck, find me a caged one and let it drain me near to death, then somebody cast restoration (well, greater restoration) on me!
*Runs around all shiny and mithral*
Ummmm yes. I suppose that I should have specified that ...
I just had an alternate option - make the damage permanent. Perhaps with the option for a Wish or Miracle to reverse the damage.
any thoughts?
I certainly don't think that the damage should be permanent, i.e. resistant to restoration/greater restoration. I, as a player, wouldn't like that much, and as a DM, I wouldn't want to hear my players whine about it.
And as I said, I was assuming that it worked like you meant it to, but I find that it's best to always be very clear in descriptions like that, otherwise, you're going to have players arguing that they should get to keep the natural armor bonus, and that's just something that is best avoided, I think.
With Life Sense 60' a bunch of the feats seem redundant or at least really sub-par. Alertness is a minimal benefit at beast. Blind Fight seems really bizarre - what can blind a wraith? It detects you by life force and moves through walls! The Spring Attack also seemed a little unnecessary. Its incorporeal - it seems out of place to have it dodging in and out to fight PCs. Their not supposed to be able to effectively fight back - cowardly incorporeal undead just does not really sit right with me.
Anyway I like your wraith a lot - my high AC pcs are doomed to stumble upon a lot of powerful incorperal undead during their careers and I might well throw this nasty into the mix.
With Life Sense 60' a bunch of the feats seem redundant or at least really sub-par. Alertness is a minimal benefit at beast. Blind Fight seems really bizarre - what can blind a wraith? It detects you by life force and moves through walls! The Spring Attack also seemed a little unnecessary. Its incorporeal - it seems out of place to have it dodging in and out to fight PCs. Their not supposed to be able to effectively fight back - cowardly incorporeal undead just does not really sit right with me.
Anyway I like your wraith a lot - my high AC pcs are doomed to stumble upon a lot of powerful incorperal undead during their careers and I might well throw this nasty into the mix.
Thanks for the comments and the vote of confidence,
the base for the monster is the dread wraith which has all those feats and abilities. I see your point about some of the feats and life sense.However the spring attack and incorporeal nature is a perfect fit. They hide in the walls spring out, attack and then retreat into the walls. With abnormally high INT and WIS it makes perfect sense for the wraiths to use advanced tactics. They want to slowly wittle down the PCs and turn them into mithral.
Although I did not include it in the original post I was going to have the mithral wraiths be dwarves that became too obsessed by mithral - eventually they starved to death and became the mithral wraiths. When they encounter PCs they want to add the PCs to their collection by turning them into mithral statues.
Thank you for the background info! I was wondering what in the world inspired the idea of mithril-making undead. Seemed really bizarre at first, but with that additional information, it makes a lot more sense and is rather interesting.
With Life Sense 60' a bunch of the feats seem redundant or at least really sub-par. Alertness is a minimal benefit at beast. Blind Fight seems really bizarre - what can blind a wraith? It detects you by life force and moves through walls! The Spring Attack also seemed a little unnecessary. Its incorporeal - it seems out of place to have it dodging in and out to fight PCs. Their not supposed to be able to effectively fight back - cowardly incorporeal undead just does not really sit right with me.
Anyway I like your wraith a lot - my high AC pcs are doomed to stumble upon a lot of powerful incorperal undead during their careers and I might well throw this nasty into the mix.
Ahh... Jeremy, you obviously have never had the pleasure of seeing greater shadows and dread wraiths leaping in and out of corridor walls and ceilings and attacking, then leaping back into the stone and out of harms way. If you want to exasperate PCs just follow those tactics and see them squirm.
Ahh... Jeremy, you obviously have never had the pleasure of seeing greater shadows and dread wraiths leaping in and out of corridor walls and ceilings and attacking, then leaping back into the stone and out of harms way. If you want to exasperate PCs just follow those tactics and see them squirm.
True I never noticed that little gem. OK I can see the point of Leap Attack - though I'd not use it on my PCs generally. Not because it is to evil but because I need to use the incorperial undead to block the exits otherwise my PCs all run away and thats no fun now is it.