Well, I guess I should explain a little. Last week my PC's entered into town and while being in the marketplace with wall to wall people were stopped by a dim-witted bard asking for directions to one of the local taverns. When the PCs arrived at their destination, they noticed several items were missing. Basically the bard was the face man while an elf used slight of hand to rob them. The next morning they used detect objects to find the bard who happened to have one of the items on him. Now his intelligence was fairly low, 8. He had a bad memory of things and when they asked him where he got the item, he said he found it yesturday. Which was true, his elf friend leaves him things as part of his payment, but never just hands them over. He gives the PCs back the ring he had and is a little confused about the whole situation. Then the "good" characters, cleric and wizard leave and the two neutral dwarves decide that stealing = death. The bard has never cast a spell or drawn his weapon. And they presume to kill him before the bard ever gets a turn in initiative.
So I decided since they were in a LE town that the guards would not look into a thief being brought to the guards dead and the PCs who have some fame tell them he was caught stealing items from the party. So I have decided that the guard would just dispose of the body as they normally do, but getting a few coins and selling the body to a local necromancer. Who in turn would cast Create Undead on the bard and use him for some nefarious purposes. I figured I'd bring him back as a ghast, but I was unsure of how to stat him up. He was a 5th level bard when he died, and I wanted him to be a 6th level bard when he goes on a quest for vengeance from the two dwarf brothers. Ghasts have 4hd, but I wasn't sure if I should just make him a ghast / Bard 6 with a total of 10 hd with D12 for all 10 hd.
I also plan for the good cleric to roll percentiles everytime he casts a spell, and on less than 20% his spell was denied for his encouragement of the situation in which he had a feeling would occur when he exited stage left.
Anyone have any advice for me? I hate to see random violence go unpunished. =P
Seems fairly clear that this undead bard's name is going to be "Rob Zombie".
(rimshot)
Seems fairly clear that this undead bard's name is going to be "Rob Zombie".
(rimshot)
Too funny! When I saw the thread, I assumed someone was statting up the ghostly bard from Downer...whose name escapes me.
I still remember Downer's taunt after killing him. (Paraphrase: "That's what you get for bringing a gee-tar to a dungeon fight, motherf~*&er!")
I use this site a lot to do the main builds for important NPCs.
*Click Here*
They have some of the templates for undead you can throw on.
As for the bard and vengeance. Don't. Have him impact them in another way. A villain is born out of their murderous urges. Have him have his own course and purpose in the story. The characters can meet him later on (and hopefully won't recognize him). That way you can get the old batman scene "You made me."
Doesn't undead status sometimes hinge on how the individual died? Shouldn't the bard be something like a Revenant? I'm not sure where the template is located, but if you are pretty much limited to the core rulebooks, I'd go with something like an Allip or Mohrg.
Yeah, that probably would happen, if the guy arose spontaneously. However, the necromancer raised him, and thus the necromancer got to choose what he got. See what I mean? Any corpse can be made any undead if the necromancer wants.
I figured I'd bring him back as a ghast, but I was unsure of how to stat him up. He was a 5th level bard when he died, and I wanted him to be a 6th level bard when he goes on a quest for vengeance from the two dwarf brothers. Ghasts have 4hd, but I wasn't sure if I should just make him a ghast / Bard 6 with a total of 10 hd with D12 for all 10 hd.
Ghastly Creature template from Dragon Compendium Volume One (or Dragon magazine issue 307), however, it does require that the base creature have at least 7 HD. So he would have to pick up a level somewhere.