Coidzor
2011-05-11, 10:29 PM
Many undead have more in common with constructs (skeletons, necrosis carnexes) than something that is spread by disease (ghouls), negative energy (wights), or both (vampires), but I have never run into anything that attempts to address this, really.
With the notable exception of Frank and K's Tome of Necromancy which addressed mindless undead in the idea of a construct or simple computer and also provided feats that allowed one to use rituals that had skill requirements to create various undead & control them without being a rebuking character of OMG higher level(or cheating via multiple stacking magic items).
Now, I've always been intrigued by the Hordeficer Artificer build, which focuses on building and improving several homunculi types to serve as one's bodyguards/mini army until the artificer can begin to create a central golem that the homunculi then support in combat. Especially because homunculi are servitors that have an explicit way through which they can scale up along with their master.
I saw an idea in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197520)about what we wished we could do within the rules the most, of monkeying around with undead and having some way of giving them more abilities or even class levels rather than just giving existing controlled undead more HD, and the gears of my mind started turning so I wanted to see if anyone knew of any homebrew along these lines.
Posts in particular:
Anyway, D&D-wise I think the OP isn't looking for mechanical patches (be an effective S&B fighter, for instance, isn't the kind of response being looked for), but rather qualitatively different powers. One thing I would like would be the ability to create monsters as a player. Several monsters (Owlbears come to mind) are supposed to have been created by wizards, but wizards have no way to create them. This saddens me.
Adding on to that, I'd like the ability to create decent humanoid undead.
I'm not talking about going and finding a better base creature or adding HD, I'm talking about being able to take a human body raise it and then start monkeying around with it so it has better abilities, and maybe a few class levels.
To that end, a craft undead feat might be nice.
So anyone got any leads or even have their interest piqued for a moment by the idea?
With the notable exception of Frank and K's Tome of Necromancy which addressed mindless undead in the idea of a construct or simple computer and also provided feats that allowed one to use rituals that had skill requirements to create various undead & control them without being a rebuking character of OMG higher level(or cheating via multiple stacking magic items).
Now, I've always been intrigued by the Hordeficer Artificer build, which focuses on building and improving several homunculi types to serve as one's bodyguards/mini army until the artificer can begin to create a central golem that the homunculi then support in combat. Especially because homunculi are servitors that have an explicit way through which they can scale up along with their master.
I saw an idea in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197520)about what we wished we could do within the rules the most, of monkeying around with undead and having some way of giving them more abilities or even class levels rather than just giving existing controlled undead more HD, and the gears of my mind started turning so I wanted to see if anyone knew of any homebrew along these lines.
Posts in particular:
Anyway, D&D-wise I think the OP isn't looking for mechanical patches (be an effective S&B fighter, for instance, isn't the kind of response being looked for), but rather qualitatively different powers. One thing I would like would be the ability to create monsters as a player. Several monsters (Owlbears come to mind) are supposed to have been created by wizards, but wizards have no way to create them. This saddens me.
Adding on to that, I'd like the ability to create decent humanoid undead.
I'm not talking about going and finding a better base creature or adding HD, I'm talking about being able to take a human body raise it and then start monkeying around with it so it has better abilities, and maybe a few class levels.
To that end, a craft undead feat might be nice.
So anyone got any leads or even have their interest piqued for a moment by the idea?