Hello Messageboards!
I am currently GMing RoTRL, and have a really cool idea in mind, but I'm not sure how to implement it. Also, all kinds of spoilers, so you've been warned, stop reading now! There will be TL;DR periodically, as I'm sure this will be rather long winded for some.
So the set up, my initial party consisted of A Dwarf Fighter, Human Samurai, Elf Ranger, and Human Vitalist (yes the psionic one). Non of my players seemed keen on being the "healer" of the party, until one found the Vitalist and was interested by it. I rather like psionics, so I had no problem allowing it. I just rationalized it story wise that psionic people or creatures are rather rare within Varisia, and none of my players had an issue.
SO! During chapter 2, at the misgivings, this Vitalist fell prey to haunt which causes the afflicted character to jump out of a 3 story window off a 300 foot cliff. Astoundingly, both he and every person in the party failed every save and check they needed to save him, and he regrettably fell to his death on the rocks below.
>>TL;DR Vitalist got his mind messed with and died.<<
The party was somber, but met up with a Druid (the players new PC) and have been adventuring with him and his sorceress girlfriend for a while now and having a grand old time.
Now, the party hasn't actually removed Vorel's spirit from the house yet, and has been preoccupied planning a trip to Magnimarr. They were also never able to find the Vitalist's body, which is what spawned this idea.
Imagine, if you will, Vorel's spirit, enraged at the PC's intrusion of the house, as well as them destroying Aldern, raises the Vitalist back to life, using the "Zombie Lord" template, and sends him to rain hell on the farmlands to draw the PC's back (after Magnimarr, but before Turtleback Ferry, as they have more than enough reason to return to Sandpoint in between; mostly that one of the PCs knocked up Shayliss, but that's another story).
>>TL;DR I want to bring the Vitalist back as a badass undead enemy.<<
My initial idea was to leave him as a 5th level Vitalist as he died, while adding 5 levels of Aegis Abberant (another psionic class archetype, which alters his own body into a monster to fight), and the Zombie Lord template. This would make a powerful creature indeed, far too strong for them to take down in their current state, but I'd rather them try to reason with him and remind him of who they are to deal with the issue.
This whole thing came about because a couple party members pondered (before quickly dismissing) the idea about him coming back as undead, and I thought that was awesome.
>>TL;DR Classic "remind the monster who he is so he doesn't murder you" scenario.
I think it would be a cool plan, but since it deviates a decent sight from the RoTRL story, I wanted to throw it up on here to get some opinions or suggestions about this. There is also the issue that the character that died happened to be psionic, which typically don't mix with undead. I just like the idea of an undead creature using psychic powers to warp his body into tentacles and spines and using it as a un-living weapon (I've seen my best friend play WAY too much Resident Evil).
>>TL;DR Necromorph/Nemesis inspired thingy.<<
So what do yall think? Dumb idea? Cool idea? Better/different way to do it? Feedback, go!
Yea the Zombie lord template was what I was going to use to make it. I just read that psionic undead can't use psychometabolism on themselves which is disappointing, since that makes every Vitalist power he has except Steal Health useless.
I suppose I could just say screw it and make this a super unique case, but since I'm building a creature out of effectively a dead player (I'm actually using his old character sheet for reference on stats etc) I kinda wanna play by the rules here.
That being said, I suppose I could just swap and go 10 levels of Abberant, but that somehow doesnt feel right, it loses the flavour. Maybe a Ghul template instead, since they still have a metabolism and such?
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Agreed on the Zombie Lord template.
If your group was a higher level, an excellent monster to give a "We are fighting Nemesis" feel would have been the Grave Knight, but that's typically reserved for guys in heavy plate and who in life had a tendency to carve a bloody indiscriminate path through all they met.
Check out the Deathleech template.
Also... Hi, Deathy! :)
Thank you for all the suggestions! I will look them over and see what I like. Side note, yea, Graveknights are badass, would love to see one in a game at some point.
Also....Hi Reod!