4th Ed. Undead Race

So, in my campaign I would like to offer the PCs immortality in undead form / have them be turned undead but have found nothing that really involves this idea in 4th edition. I bought Open Grave hoping for something like it, but all I found was undead grafts - intended for NPCs!! Dragon magazine has the Revenant race and Dampyr bloodline but neither of those is quite what I want.

My idea is to combine the Dampyr bloodline idea with an undead graft a piece to create a sort of template to put on the PCs. When they turn / are turned undead they will get a free feat called Undeath which will make them undead for game purposes, unlock future feats if they're interested in reveling in undeath, and whatnot. Things like Dampyr's +1 speed feat. Depending on the player, they might get a graft like the zombie arm so they can have a natural attack. Maybe. Not so sure it would ever get used though >.<

The way the game is set up I don't mind if the PCs become evil or become good (they are mostly Unaligned now) but I want the temptation there for "Oh, hey it is actually sort of useful to be undead."

Has anyone tried this or done it successfully before? Any tips? I will post more specifics when I work them out a bit more.

The PCs are : a Tiefling Bard (the party leader) a Human Rogue (the impulsive one) a Human Fighter (the 'let's beat our way through this' one) and an Elf Druid (the conscience of the party).

The game world is low wealth: the PCs are level 3-4 with 2 magic items each and about 100gp each.

Okay some updates:
Feat: Undeath
You are considered undead for the purposes of effects targeting you. You do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe to survive. You gain a racial +2 to stealth and arcana checks. You must still rest for 6 hours to regain daily powers. During each extended rest, you lose one healing surge. If you eat living flesh before taking a rest, you recover 3 healing surges during your rest. If you eat humanoid flesh before your rest, you recover all of your healing surges during that extended rest.

Feat Undying Resolve
Choose either Fortitude or Will Defense. You gain a +2 racial bonus to that defense.

Feat Improved Undying Resolve [REMOVED]
Gain +2 Constitution [good point, too strong]

Feat Necrotic Influence
You gain resist Necrotic 5 + 1/2 your level. You gain vulnerable Radiant 10.

Feat Natural Weapons [edited]
You gain the use of your claws as natural weapons. They deal 1d6 dmg with a +2 proficiency bonus and are considered light blades.

Feat Improved Natural Weapons
Your claws also deal +1d6 Necrotic damage.

Feat Vampire Fangs
You gain the Blood Drain Encounter Power (As listed in Dragon Magazine #371)

Then I could have all the Dhampyr feats that improve Blood Drain, too.

I think that Natural Weapons would be good for the rogue maybe, but I don't have any ideas for cool stuff for a Druid, Bard, or Fighter... Any ideas?

Revenant, DR376.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by psiclone57

During each rest, you lose one healing surge. If you eat living flesh before taking a rest, you recover 3 healing surges during your rest. If you eat living, sentient flesh before your rest, you recover all of your healing surges during that rest.

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Broken. In both ways. If you have no access to the meat (What qualifies as living flesh, anyway? Do you have to eat them while they're still living, or can you kill them first so it's easier to get them down?), then you'll be losing surges left and right, forcing the group to retire early for your sake. If you do have access to flesh, then you'll never have to stop except for refreshing dailies... which as many a 1st level character can tell you, you can live without.

Also, this isn't satisfactory for all kinds of undead. Skeletal undead generally don't eat the living, neither do ghosts. Vampires don't need to constantly feed to survive, either. Not even those brain-craving zombies need to eat all the time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by psiclone57

Feat Improved Undying Resolve
Gain +2 Constitution

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No. Ability scores are never increased by feats in 4e. Wanna see why? Just make this feat available to Battleminds and Infernal, Vestige, or Star Warlocks. The list of ones that don't take it are weakness-roleplayers and a handful of Star Warlocks.


In the end, just follow vasharanpaladin's suggestion and use the Revenant race. They even count as their choice of another race for prerequisites and such.

You could try adapting the Necropolitan template from Libris Mortis?

I'm not familiar with 4e, but the Necropolitan template basically applies the core undead traits to a humanoid. They get a +2 Bonus resist turning and effects that control undead, and they heal at the same rate as humans.

They don't have to feed on sentient flesh.

They're basically just thematic undead.

As one of the above post said, look at the Revenant!!!!!!
It happens to be my favourite 4e race and fits perfectly with my favourite 4e class.

The Revenant is a race, though.
I have players who already have races that I want to put a template of sorts on that will make them undead. Sort of like the Dhampyr bloodline idea - it isn't a race (I'm a Dhampyr) its a bloodline (I'm a Human Dhampyr).

I had meant the flesh eating thing as a sort of negative thing to tempt players into doing bad stuff, because undead are usually evil. Perhaps that is a bad way of doing it, though. Does anyone have any other suggestions on that specific idea? (Dealing with the hunger of being undead, that is)

It doesn't make complete sense that an undead type creature would lose surges when it rests. 4e generally works so that you lose surges when you get healed. You could make it so that instead of losing a surge whenever it stops and rests, for each extended rest, if it has not killed something in combat, it can't spend healing surges?
its a little tricky here. idk, although i can relate to you. in a campaign I ran not too long ago, I made Lycanthrope heritage feats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by psiclone57

Feat Natural Weapons
You gain the use of your claws as natural weapons. They deal 1d8 dmg with a +2 proficiency bonus and are considered light blades.

Feat Improved Natural Weapons
Your claws also deal +1d6 Necrotic damage.

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You sure you want to give rogues 1d8+1d6 that can be used with abilities?

Some of the [3W]+dex - [5W]+dex abilities are going to be hitting crazy hard at low levels.

Suggest you drop it to d6 and d6.

[edit] or take light blade classification off of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ihouji

You sure you want to give rogues 1d8+1d6 that can be used with abilities?

Some of the [3W]+dex - [5W]+dex abilities are going to be hitting crazy hard at low levels.

Suggest you drop it to d6 and d6.

[edit] or take light blade classification off of it.

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That's actually a good point. I will do that, then.

As far as the healing surge idea is concerned, the effect I'm going for is "Your undead body craves humanoid flesh, but it is usually evil to eat the flesh of sentient creatures. You can decide not to consume it, but it will make life difficult for you." Like a curse the players can give in to to easily get all their surges back, or fight and have to rarely get surges back.

Should I change it to "You do not regain healing surges unless you feed on humanoid flesh before / during your extended rest." That way the losing surges would be out, but so would the easy out "I kill and eat a boar, okay I gain some surges."

If you're just giving them an undead template, then just make it adding an undead template. Giving the characters additional bonuses for being undead gives them no reason to not become undead, and you cannot exactly exchange the racial bonuses without a lot of rewriting and some very confusing inconsistency. Did undead humans suddenly forget some skills and at-wills?

Give them the ability Undead Origin, meaning they are now undead, and allow them an extended rest in 6 hours. The rest in unnecessary and overreaching.

I'm having a hard time considering how good the racial feats are without seeing what else the new race has access to. Most racial feats still give feat or untyped bonuses, though, not racial bonuses. Then again, your basic idea is "make them the same, just with undead type." It shouldn't be surprising, then, that there aren't many ideas coming around. If they can still pick up their previous racial feats, then adding the Revenant / Dampyr ones as well should be sufficient.

Hmm, well I guess there isn't really anyone else interested in this idea after all. Thanks for the nuts and bolts help on a few of the feats and things, everyone.

If I do end up using it, I'll post how it turned out.

Actually, revenants are just dead people sent back by the raven queen for some reason and can still be sort of another race due to their past life race feature. They can also still look like a member of their original race.