After sinking a ton of time working on my Stronghold rules, the Awakened Undead fell by the wayside for a little bit.
Well, no longer! The spooky, scary skeletons (and revenants and, now, ghosts!) are back in force, rebalanced, tweaked, and with all-new content.
What content is that? Let's see what the changelog has to say.
WHAT I CHANGED:
- Playable Ghosts! These spectral undead have been added to the roster, take a look and tell me what you think!
- No more Exhaustion immunity. Instead, Exhaustion for undead is treated as being one level less than it is.
- Diversified Skeletons and Revenants! Skeletons can now pop off their arms to beat people with or pick locks, and Revenants get tHP when they refuse to die.
- Sidebar rule with brief guidelines on dead characters returning to play as awakened undead, and awakened undead returning to mortal life.
CONCERNS:
- Ghosts trend strong, but I think I managed their abilities well. Ghosts have a good deal of kit, making it hard to confine them to just a subrace, but I'm fairly sure they are balanced as presented here.
- I essentially gave both Skeletons and Revenants a minor buff. The Revenants could stand to have one, but Skeletons were already powerful. Still, the buff for Skeletons is mostly just a fluff power, albeit one that allows you to use what's basically a bludgeoning rapier by disarming yourself.
WHAT I LEARNED:
- Racial magic feats (a la Svirfneblin Magic) are weird. Svirfneblin Magic has a 2nd level spell cast at-will (albeit not a particularly useful one), and three 1st level spells cast once a day. I jettisoned the at-will in mine and allowed casting three spells from a small spell list per day, which included 1st-3rd level spells thematically appropriate for a ghost. I figure the axing of the at-will probably covers the difference of power in terms of spell slots, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
I love this race. So much so that I'm running a skeleton wizard at this very moment. I have two concerns about the update: the first is that a 1d8 natural weapon seems high to me. You usually see 1d4, or 1d6 as a spell, especially since it's a finesse + proficiency weapon. The second concern is that ghosts effectively get to cast Passwall every encounter. It's mitigated somewhat by their smaller number of special abilities, but it's still remarkable, especially with a permanent fly speed. I'd still play the heck out of either one.
ReplyDelete>skeleton wizard
ReplyDeleteHah, that sounds awesome! Mind if I ask what school he went with?
I'd love to play a skeleton necromancer who treats his job like social work, helping poor mindless drudges rise above their station and get a better lot in life. "Go! Attack, my minions! But, y'know, only if you really feel like it!"
>1d8 natural weapon seems high to me
Mitigated somewhat by you having a literal arm off while using it, but I take your meaning. I'll drop it down to 1d6 in the next pass I make.
>The second concern is that ghosts effectively get to cast Passwall every encounter
Yup, but I mean, ghosts. Ghosts gotta walk through walls, otherwise they're not much of ghosts.
The only alternative to this I can think of is tying it to a modifier score - probably CON - and saying that they can pass through a number of walls daily equal to that score. I think it'd effectively be about the same, though, and short rest is easier to track and manage.
>Hah, that sounds awesome! Mind if I ask what school he went with?
DeleteWell, everyone always thinks he’s a necromancer, but that’s just racist. He’s going for Transmutation, following up on some cryptic notes he found on a possible “cure” for undeath.
>I'd love to play a skeleton necromancer who treats his job like social work, helping poor mindless drudges rise above their station and get a better lot in life. "Go! Attack, my minions! But, y'know, only if you really feel like it!"
Funny you should say that. He has an old friend who does that, and she’s also a skeleton. But she’s also a mask-maker for a theater troupe, so she masks up and wraps her arms and legs, so no one knows she’s just bones under her costume.
Coming up with personalities and backgrounds for these guys has been fantastic fun.