Undead Fighter

[Blackhawk748]

yes, i want to be an undead fighter, basically i want to look like a skeleton but with no lvl adj. the character concept i have going is a Barrow Wight

[Alaris]

yes, i want to be an undead fighter, basically i want to look like a skeleton but with no lvl adj. the character concept i have going is a Barrow Wight

Umm... well, if you'r going for a Skeleton-like thing... umm... try to get your DM to let you play an "Awakened" Skeleton. Basically, it's a Skeleton, but with all the mental stats retained (or rerolled, technically).

The Awaken spell for this case (I think) would be this:
http://dndtools.eu/spells/libris-mortis-the-book-of-the-dead--71/awaken-undead--1468/

Notably, normal skeletons do not have any level adjustment, so you'd be set.

[KillianHawkeye]

Necropolitan template, Libris Mortis

[Alaris]

Necropolitan template, Libris Mortis

That also works, though you do lose a level going into it. Requires an unspeakably evil ritual (I think). And you retain your skin. Though it gets pale, and stretches over the skin.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There's the karnathi skeleton. Comes with three RHD though, and you might have to get a DM to ad-hoc a LA. I don't remember if it had one or not by default. (no reasonable DM that would let you play one would assign it a LA higher than +0)

This isn't really the best idea, BTW. [D12 + no con < d8/d10 + con] most of the time. The laundry list of immunities is nice but a warforged gets a pretty good portion of the same and still has a con score.

Warforged can be found in ECS, Races of Eberron, and MM3; of which I think RoE is the most recent.

[Wookie-ranger]

The spell create bone-creature creates an advanced and free-willed skeleton. Just buy a scroll and have the party wiz cast it on you.

edit: spelling :smallwink:

[Coidzor]

Reflavored Frank & K Swordwraith from Tome of Necromancy (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19527634/Tome_of_Necromancy) might be of interest if you're willing to go to homebrew.

Otherwise reflavored necropolitan and bone creature are your main options.

[Urpriest]

The spell create bone-creature creates an advanced and free-willed skeleton. Just buy a scroll and have the party wiz cast it on you.

edit: spelling :smallwink:

Advanced and free-willed, but still LA --. You become an NPC.

The lowest LA undead are Necropolitan (already mentioned) and Gravetouched Ghoul (at LA +2, from Libris Mortis).

[Curmudgeon]

basically i want to look like a skeleton Start with Necropolitan, then add a Hat of Disguise so you look like a skeleton. You'll detect as Undead, and you'll look the part.

[TopCheese]

Have the DM create a "balanced" undead race.

Or find one from a homebrew thread? Or request one?

Get a way to gain Hp based off another stat than con and just roll up like a normal character. There may be a feat that based con off from cha? Not sure...

[Theoboldi]

If Eberon material is allowed, you could see if your DM would allow the bloodtouched rite from the player's guide to Eberon. It permanently costs you 2 points of constitution, but allows you to add your charisma modifier to your hp instead, as well as giving you some other bonuses against things you'll already be immune against anyway, since you'll be undead. Combine it with a Necropolitan, and you'll be able to live without constitution.
It is rather cheesy, but the only other option to replace the loss of con to HP is becoming a dry lich, which is for spellcasters only.

[Jeff the Green]

Skeletal undead are few and far between, and like everyone's said, there aren't any good ones for PCs. Your best bet is Curmudgeon's recommendation of a hat of disguise or simply refluffing.

You could be a necropolitan fire elf and go with a the Faerie Mysteries Initiate feat to base your HP off of Intelligence instead of your nonexistent Constitution. For class, you could consider Duskblade, Daring Outlaw, a Wizard, Archivist, or Psion gish, Warblade, Factotum, or some mix of the above.

Alternatively, if you're starting at a high enough level, a Cleric 3/Walker in the Waste 10 is undead (dry lich) gets Charisma to HP and can fight reasonably well with DMM'd Divine Power.

Edit: Oh, and if homebrew is okay, there's this vampire class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8056982&postcount=173).

[Egopunk]

The Gravetouched Ghoul Template is also good although you retain your flesh, albeit stretched and pale and grow claws.

It has a level adjustment of +2 but that's small enough not to be a major disadvantage. Works well with dex/range/finesse fighters.

http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/gravetouched.shtml

Also you could just go with a living fighter and get flesh grafts of Bonemail (Interlocking bone armor grafted to the subjects chest, +2 natural armor to AC, 16k gp) and Skeletal Hands (gives you claw attack equal to a skeleton of equiv size, bit of a waste of 3k gp but flavourful as hell for your purposes).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The Necropolitan template in Libris Mortis is probably the easiest way to be undead. You're behind by a few thousand XP instead of permanently burdened with a level adjustment (or stuck buying it off for just as much XP). Being behind a level makes you get more XP per encounter so you'll definitely catch back up, unless you're still spending XP on something.

Pick up Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm), you'll get a 10% bonus to all current and future XP, and it's incredibly difficult for it to be lost or destroyed if you do it right. Make it a small worn item such as a ring, and wear something over it such as a glove or gauntlet so opponents will never have line of sight/effect to it. That way it will be impossible to Sunder or Slight of Hand it. Item familiars are intelligent items, which per the DMG are handled as constructs. Constructs cannot be disabled via Dispel Magic or Disjunction, and they continue to function in antimagic and dead magic areas. An intelligent item gets its own actions every round in addition to your character's actions, and it can spend those to activate its own abilities. For example, you can start with a +1 Ring of Protection for 2,000 gp, make it an Item Familiar, and upgrade it yourself as though you possessed the right feats. Hire an NPC spellcaster to cast Invisibility each day for 20 days for 1200 gp at standard rates. Upgrade it to a Ring of Invisibility with a +1 Deflection bonus to AC per MIC p234, which costs you another 10,000 gp and 800 XP. Now after you've spent your turn attacking or whatever else your ring of invisibility item familiar can make you invisible until you attack again, which would last through all of your opponents' turns unless you make an AoO.

There are tons of other advantages to being undead, for example certain conditions during your undead creation can give you added benefits absolutely free. Having been created in a Desecrate spell with an evil altar present will give you +2 HP per level permanently, plus some other minor bonuses that end once you leave the Desecrate. If you were created by a Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror who was at least 8th level, you'll get another +2 HP per level and a +4 Enhancement bonus to Strength and Dexterity permanently. If your creator also had all of the Corpsecrafter line of feats in Libris Mortis, you'll get some redundant Enhancement bonuses, another +2 HP per level, +4 more turn resistance, +1d6 cold damage per natural weapon attack, +2 natural armor, +4 initiative, and +10 ft. land speed. Granted the Dread Necromancer and Corpsecrafter benefits are specific to undead that were created with a necromancy spell, but it's not stated anywhere that the ritual to create a Necropolitan isn't a necromancy spell, and as a general rule any undead which were not spawned from the corpses of a creature's victims are created by necromancy spells.

Start with the Evolved Undead template from Libris Mortis, which has a +1 LA. Once you hit your third class level, buy that off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm). Your next level gained should be spent to gain Evolved Undead again, with a new +1 LA. When you hit your sixth class level you can buy off that one. Your next level is again going to be spent on Evolved Undead, which can then be bought off at your ninth class level. I'm actually running a game right now in which a player is doing this, the party is currently 9th level and he's still at 8th but I didn't even let him take Item Familiar. Note that the spell-like abilities gained via Evolved Undead can be picked instead of randomly rolled, and there's never a minimum caster level for spell-like abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities) so the built-in limitation based on caster level is absolutely irrelevant as it's based on a greater-than-zero limit.

[TopCheese]

If all you want is to look undead...

How about as a child you were cursed by a witch/wizard/god/something else. You have all the same stats as your parent's race.. You however look like a skeleton... Which lead to some weird stuff as you was growing up.

The spell could be something like a wish or yeah... Need to look into this.

Boom insta skeleton PC that isn't broken (more so than normal) and you can get some great background and roleplay :D

Pros: Look like a skeleton.

Cons: Villagers will freak when they see you.

*shrug*

Edit: It will be funny when your party cleric tries to turn you...And nothing happens...

[ravagerofworlds]

yes, i want to be an undead fighter, basically i want to look like a skeleton but with no lvl adj. the character concept i have going is a Barrow Wight

Sounds like a permanent disguise spell. Or a constant effect object with disguise spell. No mechanics required. May use up an item slot.

[Theoboldi]

I doubt that Blackhawk will be satisfied in his desire to play a barrow wight just by having his character put on a hat and dressing up too early for halloween.
Anyway, there is also the bone knight, from Five Nations. It gets some some semi-undead abilities and also gets to wear a badass bone-armor. Otherwise, it's basically a necromancer paladin.

[Urpriest]

Actually, having done some research, you could play a Necropolitan and get everything you want. Necropolitans aren't skeletal by default, but you shouldn't be hurt or inconvenienced by just carving your excess flesh off your bones: Flensing appears in the rules in spell form, and that spell requires a Fortitude save and does not affect objects, so undead are immune to it, which indicates to me that undead are immune to the negative consequences of having their flesh ripped off.

[ravagerofworlds]

Actually, having done some research, you could play a Necropolitan and get everything you want. Necropolitans aren't skeletal by default, but you shouldn't be hurt or inconvenienced by just carving your excess flesh off your bones: Flensing appears in the rules in spell form, and that spell requires a Fortitude save and does not affect objects, so undead are immune to it, which indicates to me that undead are immune to the negative consequences of having their flesh ripped off.

Negative ghost rider. The spell states that it affects any corporeal opponent, but not gaseous enemies. It is magic spell damage, so the undead would have to be immune to magical spell damage for flensing not to work.

To quote another playgrounder "You have failed to identify fluff from crunch."

And Barrow Wights are based on Draugrs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugr). They are not missing flesh. The normal "wight" template is DnD's version, even using Wight from barrow wight. You can't get something for nothing in a well balanced game- either take the ECL modifier along with the undead traits... or talk the GM into some sort of homebrew intelligent skeleton.

[Urpriest]

Negative ghost rider. The spell states that it affects any corporeal opponent, but not gaseous enemies. It is magic spell damage, so the undead would have to be immune to magical spell damage for flensing not to work.

To quote another playgrounder "You have failed to identify fluff from crunch."


Irrelevant. It affects any corporeal creature, but it still allows a fortitude save, which means the undead are immune to it per the undead type.

[ravagerofworlds]

Irrelevant. It affects any corporeal creature, but it still allows a fortitude save, which means the undead are immune to it per the undead type.


Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects.
Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.
Cannot heal damage on its own if it has no Intelligence score, although it can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. The fast healing special quality works regardless of the creature’s Intelligence score.
Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).

So it is- I missed the word Fortitude in your original. Wouldn't that mean that no fluff actually occurs then to a necropolitan? Since they are immune. Immunity to damage implies no actual effect of the spell. So flensing doesn't damage undead, so no actual effect of any kind should occur.

[Curmudgeon]

Flensing appears in the rules in spell form, and that spell requires a Fortitude save and does not affect objects, so undead are immune to it, which indicates to me that undead are immune to the negative consequences of having their flesh ripped off.
That doesn't follow at all. They're immune to the spell, which means nothing happens to their flesh. You can't draw any conclusions about what might happen to an undead creature from losing their flesh, based on an effect that does nothing to that flesh. :smallconfused: