Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Braekor Dragonfang 07-06-07, 11:31 PM	Risen One The Risen Ones are somewhat of an enigma to most normal creatures, and the bane of all undead, particularly vampires. Risen Ones were once vampires themselves, but for various personal reasons, chose to abandon their predatory undead existence for a higher calling. Becoming a Risen One is an agonizing process, usually involving prolonged exposure to sunlight, positive energy and the tattooing of painful holy runes using blessed or holy objects. In some cases, this goes as far as literally carving the runes into the prospective candidate’s flesh, which afterwards become persistent stigmata that slowly bleed like open wounds. This serves as a constant reminder of the candidate’s past misdeeds. The pain of such rituals is said to help cleanse the soul of the defiled creature, but it more readily ensures that only those vampires who are the most committed and truly dedicated to their reform will survive the process. Risen Ones usually have alabaster skin, dark hair, and vibrant, gem-colored eyes. Most runic brands or tattooes are crimson or black in color. “Risen One” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the vampire template. The base creature loses all benefits and changes given by the vampire template, including level adjustment, lowering their character level, but replace them with the traits of the Risen One template. Size and Type: The base creature’s size remains unchanged, but it’s type changes to Deathless (see the Eberron Campaign Setting for details). Hit Dice: All current and future racial hit dice change to d12. Speed: As the base creature. Armor Class: The base creature’s natural armor bonus increases by +2. Attack: A Risen One retains all attacks of the base creature Full Attack: The Risen One usually fights using weapons or it’s Avenger (see below) Damage: As the base creature. Special Attacks A Risen One retains the special attacks of the base creature and gains those described below. Avenger (Su): An Avenger is a sword of semisolid golden-white light, created from the Risen One’s own soul, and formed by it’s desire to destroy what it once was, and protect others from becoming just that. Avengers deal damage as a bastard sword, but can be wielded as if it were a short sword for all purposes. Because the blade is derived from their own soul, Risen Ones can harness that soul energy and apply it more effectively than their own strength, and so they add their Wisdom bonus to attack and damage rolls with an Avenger rather than their Strength bonus. The Avenger deals double damage to undead, and against vampires, it’s critical threat range and multiplier are modified to 17-20/x3. Avengers have no relation to mind blades, and are never treated as such. Avengers take time to learn to use properly, and Risen Ones must have proficiency in the short sword or bastard sword to use them without penalty. Kensai may select Avengers as their signature weapon. Avengers cannot be used in an antimagic field or in a dead magic zone. The Avenger has hardness equal to the Risen One's hit dice, and hit points equal to the Risen One's wisdom score. If sundered, the Risen One takes one point of temporary wisdom damage that recovers normally; and the Avenger can be reformed as a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity from adjacent foes. A Risen One's Avenger can be dispelled by a Dispel Magic spell or similar effect. For the purposes of opposing any caster level check, the Risen One's caster level is equal to his hit dice plus his wisdom modifier. If the blade is dispelled, a Risen One cannot call it forth for 5 rounds, and take a -2 penalty to their wisdom score for that period of time. Greater Dispel Magic causes the Avenger to remain dispelled for 10 rounds rather than 5. Reaving Dispel doubles the wisdom penalty the Risen One recieves, and dispels the blade for ten minutes. Mordenkainen's Disjunction will supress the blade for an entire day. Blessed Touch (Su): The Risen One’s body is infused with positive energy, and they can channel it into a touch attack. Their touch deals 1d8 + 1 point per level of positive energy damage to undead, and any undead touched must make a will save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wis mod) or be dazed for one round. Because the Risen Ones are specifically trained to combat vampires and other undead, this ability cannot be used to heal living creatures, though they do possess minor healing ability. Spell-like Abilities (Sp): Risen Ones Detect Undead as the spell. Risen Ones with 6 hit dice or more gain access to the following spell-like abilities: 3/day- Cure Light Wounds, Searing Ray, Daylight. With 9 hit dice or more the Risen One's repertoire of spell-like abilities expands to include the following abilities. 1/day- Cure Serious Wounds, Sunbeam. Risen Ones with 12 hit dice or more gain access to the following spell-like ability. 1/week- Sunburst. Save DCs are 10 + spell level + Wis mod Special Qualities Painful Resilience (Su): The painful divine runes inscribed on the flesh of a Risen One during their transformational ritual take a toll on them, but also serve as a tool for their use. Risen Ones permanently lose one hit point per hit die they possess and lose another hit point each time they increase in level. In trade however, they heal damage equal to their hit die each hour. The Risen One still dies at 0 hit points, but continues to heal damage each hour until it returns to life. Being reduced to -10 can permanently kill them if dealt damage by negative energy, an evil aligned weapon, spell, or unholy water. Sunwraith (Su): Risen Ones can assume an incorporeal form for a number of minutes each day equal to their character level, it need not be used all at once. They can use their Blessed Touch special attack while incorporeal, but otherwise cannot attack. They lose their strength score and all armor and natural armor bonuses, but gain a deflection bonus to armor class equal to 2 + their Charisma modifier. In areas of bright sunlight, Risen Ones in sunwraith form become invisible as the spell. Sunlight Vulnerability (Ex): Though they are forces of good and light, Risen Ones still harbor an innate weakness to the sun. Abrupt exposure to sunlight (not a daylight spell) blinds Risen Ones for 1 round. On subsequent rounds, they are dazzled as long as they remain in the affected area. In addition, they take 1 point of damage per damage die from any Searing Ray, Sunbeam, or Sunburst spell or spell-like ability they cast. In addition, they take 50% more damage from those same spells or spell-like abilities when subjected to them. Damage Reduction (Ex): Risen Ones have DR 5/evil Negative Energy Vulnerability (Ex): Because their bodies are so flooded with positive energy in an effort release any clinging negative energy during their transformation, Risen Ones develop a weakness to negative energy. They take 50% more damage from attacks that deal negative energy damage. Turning Resistance +4 (Ex): The Risen One has +4 turn resistance. Abilities: +2 Str, +4 Dex, +4 Wis, +2 Cha. As deathless, Risen Ones have no constitution score Skills: Risen Ones have a +4 racial bonus on Balance, Climb, Diplomacy, Heal, Hide, Move Silently, and Tumble checks. Feats: As the base creature Alignment: Risen Ones must be good aligned, but lawful or chaotic tendencies depend on the character, their background, race, and cultural traits. Many go by the alignment of a deity whose church is responsible for their reformation. Most Risen Ones are neutral good, those that remain are usually equally divided between lawful good and chaotic good. In Faerun, Risen Ones tend toward neutral good more so than normal because of the link with the church of Lathander, and their are generally more of lawful good alignment than chaotic good. In Eberron, Risen Ones of Aerenal are predominantly lawful good, however, Risen Ones associated with the Tairndal Blades or Valenar elves are generally chaotic good and their is a small number of neutral good Risen Ones among both. The Silver Flame and church of Dol Arrah have successfully created a small number of risen ones, all of which tend toward lawful or neutral good rather than chaotic good. Level Adjustment: +4 In the Realms Rumors are circulating that Lathander’s clergy have successfully attempted the redemption rituals needed to create a Risen One, and that they have formed a secret society known as the Eclipse Knights, in charge of spying on known vampires to see if they might be willing to reform, or kill them if they aren’t. At least two Risen Ones are residing in the temple to Lathander in Daggerdale, and they are in charge of keeping the citizens safe from any vampiric threat. In Eberron Aereni elves pioneered the creation of deathless, and the Risen Ones are no exception. The first Risen One was a warrior of Aerenal who was turned in an epic battle against the now defunct House Vol. The warrior was a shell of his former self, and his mother, a powerful Priestess of Transition, became obsessed with finding a way to change him back, and eventually cured her son using a painful process of branding a crimson, positive energy infused Dragonmark on his skin. Now, that same process is used to save warriors who are turned by the Blood of Vol cult and Stillborn faction of elves. __________________________ Ok, that's it. I've always wanted a natural counter to the vampire, so this is what I came up with, all thoughts, comments, and (hopefully constructive) criticism welcome :)
penchant 07-07-07, 12:39 AM	This is good. Its very well thought out. I would like to point out that the +4 move silently in the sunwraith form is redundant since incorporeal are inherently silent. Will you address alignment since you provide more than Eberron entries? And you should also address the innate sunswords and their potential interraction with other abilities. For instance, what happens if one of these guys is a soulknike? Can he manifest this sunblade as a light offhand weapon to use with his mindblade? Is it enchantable or does it escalate in power? Can a Kensai make it his special weapon and enchant it that way? Does a person need to be proficient in either short sword or bastard sword to use it effectively or is it a natural weapon? Its expanded crit range and multiplier is larger than any weapon created by WotC to date, since every weapon has either one or the other but not both. You should likely choose one or the other. Certainly forbid taking keen or improved critical with it, since having a threat on a 14-20 is pretty severe. I think the Level Adjust ment is a bit low. The race is patterned after the vampire which is a +8 LA template. It has a form of slow regeneration, but the material weakness is rarer and isolated to magic using classes or expensive magic items thus making it more beneficial than silver for example. Overall I would make it a +5 or +6.
Braekor Dragonfang 07-07-07, 12:20 PM	This is good. Its very well thought out. I would like to point out that the +4 move silently in the sunwraith form is redundant since incorporeal are inherently silent. Will you address alignment since you provide more than Eberron entries? And you should also address the innate sunswords and their potential interraction with other abilities. For instance, what happens if one of these guys is a soulknike? Can he manifest this sunblade as a light offhand weapon to use with his mindblade? Is it enchantable or does it escalate in power? Can a Kensai make it his special weapon and enchant it that way? Does a person need to be proficient in either short sword or bastard sword to use it effectively or is it a natural weapon? Its expanded crit range and multiplier is larger than any weapon created by WotC to date, since every weapon has either one or the other but not both. You should likely choose one or the other. Certainly forbid taking keen or improved critical with it, since having a threat on a 14-20 is pretty severe. I think the Level Adjust ment is a bit low. The race is patterned after the vampire which is a +8 LA template. It has a form of slow regeneration, but the material weakness is rarer and isolated to magic using classes or expensive magic items thus making it more beneficial than silver for example. Overall I would make it a +5 or +6. thanks for the input, I'll be updating and changing the template as I go 1. alignment... on it :D 2. The expanded critical threat/multiplier applies exclusively to vampires as stated. Also, it is not a mind blade, and therefore cannot be treated or enhanced as such, and you must be proficient in the short sword or bastard sword to use an Avenger properly. Kensai may choose their Avenger as a signature weapon, and I'm working on a ring that enhances the Avenger (sort of like an Amulet of Natural Attacks) 3. The material weakness is fairly easy to overcome with unholy water or evil aligned weapons, and many outsiders and other evil creatures have evil aligned natural attacks. Personally I thought it was on par with a Half - Celestial, hence the LA.
penchant 07-07-07, 01:20 PM	Half celestial is good, but their SLAs are hit die oriented and nearly all are once per day. The Risen get theirs all at first and most are 3/day. Regeneration is a very powerful ability. A troll has a +5 Level adjustment just from Regen, Rend and its impressive ability adjustments. It could be considered a +1 or +2 on its own. You should notice that even a vampire does not get regeneration but only fast healing. An actual sunblade costs over 50k gold and the expanded critical is well worth giving up the +2 (+4 to evil) enhancement bonus of a sunsword, especially since the avenger is scalable. You also cannot lose or have the avenger dispelled, whereas a sunblade is still just another item. Blessed touch is a scalable, at will supernatural ability that is equivalent to a 3rd level spell (Cure Serious wounds) though limited in scope. It should be noted that it does not have the +15 cap that the spell has. Plus an incorporeal ability and a few other goodies. I know you put in the negative energy vulnerability, but that ability is not nearly as common as fire or cold. Again note the troll. The sunlight vulnerability is inconveniencing at worst. While they take damage from their own searing light, that doesn't mean they have to use that ability. Ask drow if they worry about being dazzled. I'm afraid that even with the built in weaknesses, it still has a net benefit over and above what a half celestial gets.
Braekor Dragonfang 07-07-07, 11:28 PM	weakened the damage on blessed touch and changed the SLAs to accrue by hit dice * also editted Avenger to include rules for sundering and dispelling * Changed Sunlight Vulnerability to add 50% damage when subjected to the spells themselves
Braekor Dragonfang 07-10-07, 10:41 PM	:bump:
Melayl 07-11-07, 03:53 AM	Very Nice. You've obviously put alot of work into this (and did a good job on it). I would agree that the LA is a little low. Try YabatheWhat's feature points for a good estimate of LA.
Braekor Dragonfang 07-11-07, 10:47 AM	Very Nice. You've obviously put alot of work into this (and did a good job on it). I would agree that the LA is a little low. Try YabatheWhat's feature points for a good estimate of LA. Thanks :D Well I sifted through about every page in the feature points thread, and though it looks interesting, it's too much of a pain to have to sort out, if there isn't, someone should write up a compiled thread. In the short term, I'm not sure what to do as far as balancing it out, because I would like this to stay a +4 template if possible. I suppose I just don't see the huge deal, since the majority of it's offensive abilities are specifically for undead only. Avenger is powerful, granted, double damage vs undead is great, but it's only vs undead, and again, the expanded crit range and multiplier, while excessive, applies exclusively to vampires and only vampires. Blessed Touch can only be used against undead, and the spell-like abilities either heal allies, hurt undead, help find undead, or deal damage to the Risen One. It's most effective qualities are contingent with getting a lot of undead tossed at you during a campaign or adventure. Painful Resilience and Sunwraith are the only universally useful abilities, and the regenerative healing is powerful, but it's hourly, and eventually the Risen will run out of gas or be killed (and re-killed when he wakes up, and by then he's probably chained, manacled, possibly anti-magic fielded and gagged) until the bad guys can get to the nearest Evil General Store for some unholy water. The abilities are less than a half celestial gets, which I tried to balance by adding the skill bonuses, and it only recieves a +2 bonus to it's natural armor, which, I think should be increased, even if just a little. but if I'm missing something, by all means, please fill me in
metalmayhem80110 07-13-07, 02:18 AM	I like the idea behind it an all, but there is no way any pc can use it. If you take vampire and add this template to it... you are almost in your epic levels already...
Melayl 07-13-07, 03:14 PM	You must have missed this part: The base creature loses all benefits and changes given by the vampire template, including level adjustment, lowering their character level, but replace them with the traits of the Risen One template.