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| #1kazumoshunJun 09, 2008 16:13:40 | So. I've created this, and I want your opinions on if it is horribly overpowered, underpowered, or whathaveyou, and just how to optimize it. My current plans for it are straight fighter. The most amusing thing is, at level 1 (with a DM to playtest it with) I had this character deal 144/224 to a Solo Black Dragon 4 before dying. I did get incredibly lucky with the rolls, got my daily off, as well as all my encounter powers, along with the custom abilities. Rise again is particularly -awesome- as a Heroic feat, without being too horrendously overpowered. It was playtested numerous times, and it ends up you arent going to be relying on it too terribly much. Later we playtested with similar level 1s, and the Paladin did considerably well at staying alive and doing damage. Paladins are pretty rock awesome. 'Devour the living' however is a splendid power to use, and the playtesters found that it either works really well when you need it, or nearly has you wasting your turn. Fortunately if you don't get your 'grab' to succeed you don't have to waste the encounter power. As an added benefit, 'Death Grip' is flavorful and fun, and can have some particularly good synergy uses with being 'sticky'.. if they can't get out of your grip, you can just wail away at them, preventing them from moving. Out of everything, I payed close attention to how 'powerful' Minotaur could be, and the limits of a 'high end' racial. Dragonborn immediately came to mind, and as you'll see the power was designed after it in a sense. The higher damage die is rationalized because you need two rolls to get the power off, along with it only being single target. One last note of contention - I only placed one attribute (Strength) as having a bonus. I believe that they are on the level of the other races in the MM and the PHB... so I nixed out the con bonus because it might give them 'just one too many advantages'. So without further ado, The Hungry Dead. Average Height: 5'6" - 6'2" Average Weight: 135 - 220 lbs. Ability Scores: +2 Str Size: Medium Speed: 6 Squares Vision: Darkvision Languages: Common, any one Skill Bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 Perception Undead: Unaffected by spells/affects which target living creatures. Immune to Poison and Disease. Does not need to breath or sleep. Resistances: Necrotic 5+1/2 level Vulnerability: Radiant 5+1/2 level Death Grip: Opponents recieve a -5 penalty to escape from the Hungry Dead's fearsome grip. Devour Living: Hungry Dead Racial Power You lurch in, grasping the sweet smelling, warm flesh of your opponent. Ruthlessly your teeth tear into it's flesh, devouring it on the spot. As soon as the horrible wounds appear, your flesh regenerates in turn. The realization of being eaten alive is enough to shake the resolve of any living being. Encounter Minor Action Melee*Fear Target: One creature Attack: Strength+2 vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d12+Strength Necrotic damage. The victim takes a -2 penalty to all defenses (Save ends). Recover HP as if you spent a healing surge. Increase to +4 bonus and 2d12+Strength modifier at 11th level, and to +6 bonus and 3d12+Strength modifier damage at 21st level. Special:This power only affects the living. You must have your opponent grabbed. Heroic Racial Feat Feat: Rise Again (Hungry Dead) Prerequisites: Undead Benefit: You gain the ability to use the Daily power 'Rise Again' Rise Again: Feat Power Your body just doesn't know it's dead. You don't know when to stay down, to the charign of your enemies. Daily No Action Personal Trigger: The first time the Hungry Dead is reduced to 0 HP. Effect: Spend a healing surge and recover that HP. You rise from prone as a free action. Paragon Racial Feat Feat: Save some for Later (Hungry Dead) Prerequisites: Undead Benefit: Whenever you use 'Devour Living' you may opt to either take the healing surge immediately, or replenish one of your spent healing surges. This may not exceed your maximum amount of healing surges per day limit. The Hungry Dead Sometimes, the dead come back. In areas of thick negative energy, or where the barrier between the planes is weak, sometimes one can come across curious anomalies.. the dead rise, spirits appear, and dark creatures spawn into the night. The most common affect of this is the rise of corpses into flesh hungry monsters..who only exist to feed. These are not very troublesome beings, but sometimes.. just sometimes, the being retains consciousness. You wake up. Your eyes just flick open, and the first thing you can feel is hunger, and the overpowering desire for warmth of the living in your mouth. You cannot remember much of your life, although some things are familiar. You may have some old skills; Echoes of the past which haunt you, but little more than that. Apparently death was denied your soul completely, and part of it lingers behind, wondering what its doing here. Often the Hungry Dead go mad, having to feed on living flesh to survive or they degenerate even further into monstrosity. Some live on hunting animals, others just give in and be as evil a creature as the power which animates them. The Hungry do not really seek life again..in fact, most avoid it, for they'd be returning to a life they have no recollection of, and no familiarity. They are used to not feeling pain, and enjoying the pleasures of living warmth. They do not get sick, nor do they age...but if they forget to feed for too long, rot will set in, showing their monstrosity to all. They are free to choose their destinies..but it is quite difficult to be a crusader of light when its time to gorge upon flesh... Author's Note: Hungry Dead are meant to be once human, but not typically the other races. |
| #2ariasilverhandsJun 09, 2008 20:28:24 | Interesting. I guarentee you'll have some people whining about it being too much like the undead from WoW. I like it though. May tweak it for my campaign sometime in the future. |
| #3DoomDuckJun 10, 2008 17:22:36 | Encounter This would be my only sticking point. I love the flavor of the class, but this seems like a racial ability far above those of other races. It's an extra healing surge per combat, plus damage, and its a minor action once you have something grappled. Consider changing from Healing Surge to some Temp HP: Right now, if I ever played a Hungry Dead, at the end of every encounter I'd leave one weak fellow alive/ incapacitated and then use my ability, thus ensuring a steady stream of healing all day long. If its temp. HP then it means you have to use it mid combat to gain a benefit. If you did this, the Paragon power could increase the amount of temporary HP gained. Consider Str Mod + 1/2 Level temporary HP or something along those lines - the Strength representing how big a bite you take from your enemy. The flavor of the race is great though, and I'll probably include it somewhere in my campaign as an enemy for the players, and maybe as a race later on. Props for a job well done! ~DD |
| #4kazumoshunJun 10, 2008 21:52:50 | Interesting. I guarentee you'll have some people whining about it being too much like the undead from WoW. I like it though. May tweak it for my campaign sometime in the future. WoW undead? Uhh, never even crossed my mind. In all honesty, I created this as an 'original character' at one point, and thought of the attributes to give her, or what her 'race' would be like. I've done the Hungry Dead in 3.5 as well. It works very well as a modern type character, where you can have that whole infection stigma going (oh noes zombie apocalypse!) Another note on the 'WoW' undead.. they're not hunters for one (I made this more like a 'hunger' type) and Devour the living needs to be done on something still alive. Cannibalize from the Forsaken eats a carcass. So it is in essence that rare 'super zombie' you see in movies, books, comics and 'cartoons' from time to time. Also, it pays homage to the asian zombie, those who basically still look whole, but walk around with an unnatural hunger... DoomDuck posts. The steady 'extra' healing surge per encounter is great. I balance it against the devestation a dragonborn can do to a group, as opposed to a single target, double defensed power. It -is- a minor whilst in a grab, but remember for a grab you a) need one hand free, which means you either are wielding a one handed weapon and a buckler(light shield?), or a two handed weapon and forgoing the use of your weapon attack that turn. From there, you need to make a Str vs Reflex roll. Thats.. Strength.. 1/2 your level and.. are there many bonuses to grab? No, but if you miss the grab you don't expend the power. Grabbing is still a useful tactical option. Next, you have to work with a scaling Str vs Fortitude. More than one chance to blow it. I've scaled some of the damage return - in the end a healing surge is 1/4 your HP total. At level 1, you're getting 5-7 HP. At level 21, you're getting approximately 40-50. And at high level, getting two defenses off is going to be hard pressed to do. Either it works well, or it wastes your turn when you could be using a much stronger encounter power, that probably heals you anyhow. What I'm more interested in is what y'all think of Rise again. Should it consume two healing surges? Or is that one good? I've found in playtest it is pretty fun. |
| #5DoomDuckJun 11, 2008 15:10:54 | WoW undead? WoW Undead are a lot like zombies. These guys are a lot like zombies. I'm with KazumoShun in that I really don't see an issue there. Though, at the same time, the poster of that comment is right in that people will find things to complain about *grin*. The steady 'extra' healing surge per encounter is great. I balance it against the devestation a dragonborn can do to a group, as opposed to a single target, double defensed power. It -is- a minor whilst in a grab, but remember for a grab you a) need one hand free, which means you either are wielding a one handed weapon and a buckler(light shield?), or a two handed weapon and forgoing the use of your weapon attack that turn. From there, you need to make a Str vs Reflex roll. Thats.. Strength.. 1/2 your level and.. are there many bonuses to grab? No, but if you miss the grab you don't expend the power. Grabbing is still a useful tactical option. Next, you have to work with a scaling Str vs Fortitude. More than one chance to blow it. My issue is that the ability is abusable, as I see it. It does require a grapple and a hit, but those can be pretty easily achieved by incapacitating the last enemy, having allies assist at the end, etc. The effects don't just help in that single combat, but aid in keeping the character persistently at Full healing surges throughout the day. I still think it should be changed to Temporary HP, which would have a very similar flavor. I do agree with you, though, that having the double-defense aspect of it is a bit much for a Temp HP power - perhaps change it to a Standard action, Strength vs. Reflex attack and make it Reliable? I'm not trying to mess with your concepts, but I feel that as written this ability is abusable. What I'm more interested in is what y'all think of Rise again. Should it consume two healing surges? Or is that one good? I've found in playtest it is pretty fun. I think consuming one healing surge is fine here. It's a pretty awesome flavor ability, and I think its shared by the zombie brute in the MM, too, so I think the level of power is fine as is. Sounds like it would be pretty fun *grin*. ~DD |
| #6kazumoshunJun 11, 2008 21:20:01 | I think consuming one healing surge is fine here. It's a pretty awesome flavor ability, and I think its shared by the zombie brute in the MM, too, so I think the level of power is fine as is. Sounds like it would be pretty fun *grin*. It's super fun in playtest, and the game I've gotten to use it in so far. I did take it directly from the zombie hulk (Level 8 Brute) , and instead of having them return to bloodied HP, I made it merely a healing surge. (Since most of the powers seem to be dumbed down for PCs in conversion, from what I've seen of the MM monsters in the back for PC consumption). I will keep in mind the temporary HP part. I'd just like to find a way ... hmm, perhaps I can limit it by STR or CON bonus times/day, showing how much they can force into their bellies before they're 'full'. The Paragon tier feat would still probably allow them to 'replenish' their already spent healing surges. |
| #7DoomDuckJun 11, 2008 21:23:37 | It's super fun in playtest, and the game I've gotten to use it in so far. I did take it directly from the zombie hulk (Level 8 Brute) , and instead of having them return to bloodied HP, I made it merely a healing surge. (Since most of the powers seem to be dumbed down for PCs in conversion, from what I've seen of the MM monsters in the back for PC consumption). Limiting it by Str/ Con seems like a good fix *grin*. Like I said, really like the race, my players may not like it as much when they find a city of these guys in the Shadowfell (or something), but that's not really my concern *grin*. ~DD |
| #8kazumoshunJun 11, 2008 21:41:52 | Limiting it by Str/ Con seems like a good fix *grin*. Like I said, really like the race, my players may not like it as much when they find a city of these guys in the Shadowfell (or something), but that's not really my concern *grin*. Mwahaha. Awesome. One more thing. I only gave them a +2 To strength. Can a +2 to con as well be rationalized or is that pushing it? I have a 'PC' version of 'Undead' if GMs feel outright immunity to two powerful player-screw powers is too much. I tried to take some queues from Living Construct.. though it was hard to nail it right. -+5 to defense/saves vs poison/disease. (Immune to living only disease) -You do not need to eat, drink or breath, but this does not render you immune to any effect. Certain undead may still find eating pleasurable, although it is typically a forbidden substance or practice.(i.e. flesh/blood) -You need only 4 hours to benefit from an extended rest. -Spells/Effects that affect living creatures do not work against you. -Spells/Effects that affect the Undead type affect you. |
| #9DoomDuckJun 11, 2008 22:07:20 | Mwahaha. Awesome. One more thing. I only gave them a +2 To strength. Can a +2 to con as well be rationalized or is that pushing it? In this respect, I might recommend going for a more "living" undead. That is, the Save bonus to Disease instead of immunity to it, 4 hours of rest instead of no sleep. As for effects that target living creatures - what're some examples of that? I'm afraid I don't know any off the top of my head. ~DD |
| #10kazumoshunJun 12, 2008 9:03:17 | In this respect, I might recommend going for a more "living" undead. That is, the Save bonus to Disease instead of immunity to it, 4 hours of rest instead of no sleep. Yeah I was going for that whole ordeal. For the 'Living' Undead that takes away the immunities and replaces it with a lofty bonus to saves vs poison and disease, it sounds pretty nice. The 4 hours needing to benefit from an extended rest seems like a nice power too..but you can only get 1 extended rest in 24 hours anyways, right? The other thing I was playing around with was like this. Ability Scores: +2 Strength +2 Constitution Size: Medium Speed: 6 Squares Vision: Darkvision Languages: Common, any one Skill Bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 Perception (+2 Endurance?) +5 to saves vs Poison/Disease +2(+1?) to Fortitude Saves -You do not need to eat, drink or breath, but this does not technically render you immune to any effect. Certain undead may still find eating pleasurable, although it is typically a forbidden substance or practice.(i.e. flesh/blood) -You need only 4 hours to benefit from an extended rest. -Spells/Effects that affect living creatures do not work against you. -You have the 'Undead' type. Spells and affects that specifically target Undead target you. -Radiant Vulnerability 5+1/2 level -Necrotic Resistance 5+1/2 level Death Grip: Opponents recieve a -5 penalty to escape from the Hungry Dead's fearsome grip. Racial Encounter Power, Devour the Living.... Those new bonuses come in since they are no longer immune to those effects. Like the Con, the Fort bonus, and possible Endurance. Spells that affect only living creatures? Well, Devour the living is one (but I made it). It says it in the MM, regarding the Undead type..if you read up on it. |
| #11kazumoshunJul 24, 2008 18:25:39 | EDIT/UPDATE. Devour Living allows you to spend a healing surge, instead of simply recovering the HP. Removed 'Save some for Later'. Replace with two Paragon feats. Remove bonus to Fortitude saves. Bonus to saves vs Poison or Disease remains at +5. Ravenous Appetite As long as you remain in a grab with your opponent (sustain minor) at the start of your turn you deal an ongoing 5 Necrotic damage, and regain 1 HP. This increases to 10/2 at 21st level. Efficient Digestion Whenever you succeed at your Devour Living racial power, you recover an additional 1d6+Strength modifier HP. |