Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Pennarin Aug 22, 2010 22:37:21	WotC seems adamant in brining in old-style undead like the lich into the Athasian fold, despite earlier attempts by TSR to back away from the usual lot, and it's not a bad idea. I still feel though that Athas is prime for its own powerful undead templates (a la DMG). Here's a few ideas: Morg: Still a potent transformation that has no direct port from 4e, with unique powers all its own. I've already made a template for that. T'liz: Refluff the Vampire Lord template, since vampires are energy drainers and still appear alive, and t'lizes were both these things. Getting rid of the Mist Form power, maybe adding powers from the Lich template, or creating new ones.   Kaisharga: No idea...albeit all current kaishargas, the Dead Lords serving the Dragon, have become liches. The bad part of this is that liches are still spellcasters even in 4e, and evidently many of the novels' kaishargas were warriors. Krag: Coolest undead evar, but does it need a template, or should it be a monster with many variations on the central theme?  Since the WotC blogs and podcasts have revealed that the general consensus at WotC is that the DMG1-DMG2 templates (and MM1-MM2 monsters in general) were too weak, we can pile up more powers to our liking. For years now I've been writing an adventure (I'm not that good at it, hence the time) that involves a morg, and been amassing ideas for an adventure involving the Black Sands Raiders, making Fevil into a t'liz from the get go.
#2 Larni Aug 23, 2010 2:50:31	I would go for making each Athasian undead totally unique individuals. As the stat blocks for even high level baddies are quite spartan it should not take top long to isolate the cardinal powers from the 3.5 stat blocks for the creature you want to use. Then you can pick virtually any power from any premade baddie and use it as required. This way means you get exactly the baddie you want with out the risk of doing loads of work deving up monsters you might not actually use. Course there's fun to had there, too though.
#3 visanidethdm Aug 23, 2010 4:45:24	The issue with Kaishargas could fairly easily solved in 2 ways, thanks to the 4e format: - using a template; turning a caster into a melee type in 4e isn't that challenging since the defenses and attack bonuses are more or less uniform, and the template bonuses tend to cover the bases where stats need to increase. The biggest limit is that templates make the monster massively more powerful, and that would risk making most kaishargas elites-who-turn-solo... hardly a desireable solution, since you would end up having Borys sporting an army of warriors more powerful than some SKs. - another option is to rework the liches into the monster builder; fundamentally you input the Lich datas, then change their type to Soldier, and then fix the mess and change the powers. It's a longer process, but it will avoid excessive power inflation. I'll try a writeup later, as an example.