Bah! Now my party is undead

[dascarletm]

Okay, so if you recall my other thread on my good ol' friend that I'm playing with again it turns out I'm going to just DM. They play weekly, and I can only come once every 2-3 weeks, so I'm running another campaign.

If you are interested in my major ideas.
Alright, I was loosely basing some of my ideas after the world of Demon King Diamo, that one anime, and a little samurai jack. It's on netflix. So basically I was going to have my party (they are evil, blackguard, evil kensai, evil "samurai", and an assassin) eventually find out about this evil lich who has a network of undead infiltrating the world. The lich found some deal to make him the only god... at the end of their big confrontation I was going to have them flung into the future due to many other plot ties. They'd need to samurai jack their way back or demon king kill "God" in a crazy fururistic magitech world where they are highly powerful due to everyone being spoiled.

So first session(started at 6) they are the agents of an evil power center, and find in their travels a town being ravaged by a vampire. To make a long story short...ish turns out that one of the BBEG's powerful vampire agents had a mistake vampire (villages former governor) and the PC's decide to go kill it. The vampire was a gish battle sorcerer, and when they were dealing with his spawn he started buffing up. Unknown to the rest of the party the assassin got dominated and killed the Cohort cleric. One player, being attached to her and not knowing he was dominated started killing the rouge while the vamp-sorc dealt with the rest of the party. They all died, except for one of them who was clinging to life. The blackguard blood drained.

It was fairly early in the session so I had the survivor wake up to the other players rising from the dead, One a vampire the others via necromantic means. They ended up being an Undead party.

It is kinda cool, but makes the feel I was aiming for in the end of the campaign (going to the future) seem... not what I was going for.

I don't know if I should go back, have the undead party be DM controlled, say the one person made it out and take the end of last session back,

or

Should I just roll with it? If going back do you think it would ruin their immersion? How have others handled this? If rolling with it, what should I take into account now that one is a vampire, one is a ghoul, and the other is a ghost?

Also, any other ideas on what I should do when I samurai jack them into the future that is Aku.... I mean the future.:smallbiggrin:

Thanks

[Venusaur]

The easy way to do this would be to make them all necropolitan. Simple, and the benefits are not over the top. They also don't gain a ton of weird abilities or racial hit dice/LA either. It still screws anyone with high CON though.

[nedz]

So, TPK at the start of session 1.:smallamused:

One idea:
When they go to the future you could have them become unundead ?
(unundead/exundead/? - I'm not sure what the word is for this ?
Anyway the trip to the future makes them living again.

[dascarletm]

So, TPK at the start of session 1.:smallamused:

One idea:
When they go to the future you could have them become unundead ?
(unundead/exundead/? - I'm not sure what the word is for this ?
Anyway the trip to the future makes them living again.

Yeah... they could of had the encounter. if they played a little smarter. They lost with the baddie having only 10 HP.

I like the idea of un-un deading them.:smalltongue: When they get to the future. If they look into why I could have some deal where the lich altered reality so that undead don't exist. Less of a threat for him since everyone now is immortal but him.

I like it.

Anyone ever successfully ran a campaign with a player vampire? I would think the abilities/weaknesses could be a problem if not planned for.

[roguemetal]

Yeah... they could of had the encounter. if they played a little smarter. They lost with the baddie having only 10 HP.

I like the idea of un-un deading them.:smalltongue: When they get to the future. If they look into why I could have some deal where the lich altered reality so that undead don't exist. Less of a threat for him since everyone now is immortal but him.

I like it.

Anyone ever successfully ran a campaign with a player vampire? I would think the abilities/weaknesses could be a problem if not planned for.
Abilities are rarely the issue with a Vampire PC. I had two in my last campaign, and the biggest issues they had were hiding what they were and avoiding sunlight. Objectives which required them to move during the day were a serious problem, although they dealt with it by purchasing a carriage.

Underground and in dungeons, the bad tended to outweigh the good, as there are far too many abilities that effect undead. Every time an evil cleric showed up the party risked complete wipe-out.

Of course this party eventually did go on to stray from the main goal of the campaign based on the mention of a long ago evil plot to shroud the world in darkness by some unrelated villain. Which they decided to pursue and fulfill, deciding a world in darkness is easier to move around in... Anyway... After they beat up a bunch of demons of a higher CR than should have been possible, they returned to save/enslave the day.

So, basically, play your cards right and even a hijacked campaign can be enjoyable.