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View Full Version : Reverant (Skeleton/Zombie Template, 3.5 Core) PEACH



Carl
2013-08-17, 04:59 PM
In addition to re-writing my Witch Hag class i've got a rather nasty little necromantic based class on the go, however the Core list of undead leaves a lot to be desired, particularly in the way of primarily martial champion type undead so amongst the classes spells is going to be a hefty cost, (including sharp XP cost), spell that lets them boost some undead types by applying a permanent template.




Ok after feeback below I've decided to take an attempt at doing it as a totally separate template from the Skeleton/Zombie, i've still updated the template above based on feedback, (and will do some more when i get a moment), but below is the separate template, again please PEACH.

Revenant Template:

"Revenant" is a template that can be applied to any corpse or any existing Skeleton or Zombie. When applied to a Skeleton or Zombie it replaces the existing Skeleton/Zombie template, so use the original living base creature’s stat’s to determine how the template affects them.

Type: A Revenant is a form of Undead and with the exception of any differences noted below posses all the features and traits of the Undead creature type. It also gains the Evil Subtype.

Hit Dice: Take all hit Dice (including those granted by class levels), and increase the die size to D12, these dice are then maximized, (i.e. treat each hit Die as having rolled a 12 when determining the hitpoints total of the final creature).

Speed: The base creature's speed increases by 10ft in all movement modes, and if the base creature could fly it retains this plus gains an increase in it’s maneuverability rating to perfect.

AC Bonus: A Revenant retains the base creatures existing natural armor bonus, if any.

Base Attack: A Revenant’s Base Attack Bonus is equal to it’s Hit Dice.

Damage: All of a Revenant's attacks, (including attacks with manufactured weapons and special attack’s such as Trample or Powerful Charge), now inflict Negative Energy damage in equal to 1/2 their hit dice.

Special Qualities: A Revenant looses all Supernatural and Spell like ability’s, regardless of source. As well as everything granted by class levels except Feats and Hit Dice. It retains all Extraordinary Abilities not granted by class levels except the following: Alternate Form, Antimagic, Change Shape ,Charm And Compulsion, Damage Reduction, Etherealness, Fast Healing, Gaseous Form, Incorporeality, Polymorph, Psionics, Regeneration, Scent, Spell Immunity, Spell Resistance, Spells, Summon, Telepathy.

Author Note: I’m well aware that 90% of the above are either never granted as Ex Abilities, or are never on creatures that could be turned into undead in the first place, I’m just making sure to cover all possible bases, that way nothing comes back to bite me in the ass later.

Revenants gains DR15/Magic and Good if their CR is 20 or lower or DR15/Epic and Good if their CR is 21 or higher.

A Revenant gains Spell Resistance equal to its Hit Dice.

A Revenant gains Fast Healing equal to half it’s Hit Dice

Special Attacks: A Revenant gains the ability to cast one of the following spells as a swift action as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to its CR, with a caster level equal to its hit dice if it is a Skeleton or half its hit dice if it is a zombie: Bane, Cause Fear, Doom, Inflict Light Wounds, Darkness, Death Knell, Desecrate, Inflict Moderate Wounds, Silence, Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, Blindness/Deafness, Contagion, Deeper Darkness, Inflict Serious Wounds, Poison, Obscuring Mist, Sleep, Chill Touch, Ray of Enfeeblement, Acid Arrow, Fog Cloud, Summon Swarm, Web, Command Undead, False Life, Ghoul Touch Scare, Stinking Cloud, Rage, Halt Undead, Ray of Exhaustion, Vampiric Touch, Blink, Gaseous Form, Slow.

A Creature that possessed Supernatural or Spell Like abilities before acquiring the Revenant Template gains one additional selection from the list above for each such ability it formerly possessed. If the creature could cast Spells of any kind it gains an additional number of bonus selections from the list above equal to the maximum spell level it could cast in life.

A Revenant created from a base creature type that did not posses a breath weapon may choose not to select a spell like ability by default and instead gains the breath weapon outlined below, a base creature that did posses a breath weapon when alive replaces it with the one given below.

A Revenant’s Breath weapon is of the Line type with identical length and area characteristics to those of a Dragon of the same size. Damage is 1D6 Force Damage per 3 HD.

Saves: All Saves are equal to 1/2 HD +2.

Abilities: Revenants gain a bonus to strength and Dexterity equal to half their HD. They posses no Constitution or Intelligence Scores. Their Wisdom is 10 and their Charisma 1.

Skills: A Revenant retains none of the skill ranks of the base creature type, though it retains all racial Modifiers. In addition it gains a competency modifier to all spot and listen checks equal to it’s HD + 3.

Feats: A Revenant retains all existing Feats it had, including feats and bonus feats from class levels. In addition a Revenant that can fly gains wingover as a bonus feat if it did not already posses it. A Revenant with 3 or more Natural Weapons gains the Multi-attack feat as a bonus feat. A Revenant with 3 or more hands gains the Multi-weapon Fighting feat as a bonus feat.

CR: Not sure, probably either equal to 3/4 HD, (rounding fractions up), or equal to HD.

Notes for the DM: Whilst this Template is meant for a specific class, it is also perfectly appropriate for a DM controlled enemy. However be very wary of letting your PC’s use this if their class doesn’t explicitly allow it as it isn’t really designed for normal full spellcasters and the like. However for reference the class that can use this pays the following costs to apply the template:

A Spell casting equivalent to a Spell of a level half the CR of the final creature.
A large amount of XP, (400XP per final point of CR rating if the final creature is CR10 or less, 1600XP per point of CR if it is 11 or more final CR),
A large amount of Black Onyx Stones with a value in GP, (2000GP per final CR for CR10 or less, 8000GP per final CR if CR11+).


Old version below:

I'd like you to PEACH the template, particularly the CR adjustment, this is rather powerful and maybe a bit too powerful tbh. The template can, (obviously), only be applied to Skeletons or Zombies.



Revenant Template

"Revenant" is an acquired template that can be applied to any creature with any one of the skeleton, zombie, necrocarnum zombie, skeletal dragon or zombie dragon templates (hereafter referred to as the base creature.

Creating A Revenant

Hit Dice: The revenant gains extra hit points based on the base creature's hit dice: +3 bonus hit points per Hit Die if it is a a zombie, or +6 bonus hit points per Hit Die if it is a skeleton.

Speed: The base creature's speed increases by 10 ft. A skeleton with wings may now fly as it could before it applied the skeleton template, and all flight-capable creatures have their maneuverability increased to Perfect.

AC Bonus: A revenant's natural armor bonus increases by + 2 for every size category above Medium it is.

Base Attack: A skeleton's base attack bonus increases to its Hit Dice, and a zombie's base attack bonus increases to 3/4 its Hit Dice.

Damage: All of a revenant's attacks, (including attacks with manufactured weapons), now inflict Negative Energy damage in addition to any other damage. A skeleton's negative energy damage equals 1/2 its Hit Dice, and a zombie's equals 1/4 its Hit Dice. Their attacks are now considered both magic and evil for the purposes if overcoming damage reduction.

Special Attacks: A revenant gains the ability to cast one of the following spells as a swift action as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to its Challenge Rating with a caster level equal to its Hit Dice if it is a skeleton, or half its Hit Dice if it is a zombie: acid arrow, animate dead, bane, bestow curse, blindness/deafness, blink, cause fear, chill touch, command undead, contagion, darkness, death knell, deeper darkness, desecrate, doom, false life, fog cloud, gaseous form, ghoul touch, halt undead, inflict light wounds, inflict moderate wounds, inflict serious wounds, obscuring mist, poison, rage, ray of enfeeblement, ray of exhaustion, scare, sleep, slow, stinking cloud, summon swarm, vampiric touch and web.

Special Qualities: A zombie-based revenant loses its single actions only ability, and a skeleton-based revenants gain a permanent effect on itself as an extraordinary ability.

Both skeleton and zombie revenants gain Damage Reduction 15/Magic and Good if their CR is 23 or lower, or they gain Damage Reduction 15/Epic and Good if their CR is 24 or higher.

A revenant gains Spell Resistance equal to its Hit Dice if it is a skeleton revenant or half its Hit Dice if it is a zombie revenant.

Feats: A revenant that can fly gains Wingover as a bonus feat. A Revenant with 3 or more natural weapons gains the Multiattack feat as a bonus feat. A revenant with 3 or more hands also gains the Multiweapon Fighting feat. In addition, a revenant with 12 or more Hit Dice gains a number of bonus feats equal to one quarter its hit dice if it is a skeleton or one eighth its hit dice if it is a zombie. All class, level, ability score, and skill score prerequisites are ignored. These feats can be epic feats if the revenant is CR 24 or higher.

Challenge Rating: +6


Also a side question, is their an extended variant of the Zombie/Skeleton CR table anywhere? They stop a bit sort of where i'd like them to and i'd appreciate not having to extend them myself if a good alternative exists.

TuggyNE
2013-08-17, 10:44 PM
Did you mean "Reverant" (i.e., a creature that reveres or respects or honors something) or "Revenant"? (i.e., a creature that has re-animated due to strong will or deadly passion)?

The HD and Feats entries are strange, since, so far as I know, there are no other mechanics that add a fixed number of HP per HD, and mindless creatures can't gain feats (so would these be bonus feats, or does the template make them no longer mindless?). Also, of course, ignoring prerequisites is pretty powerful, especially since even [epic] feats are included.

Normally, scaling AC bonuses to compensate for size are natural armor bonuses.

Carl
2013-08-18, 12:43 AM
Probably Revenant, i remember coming across an undead with the name ages back in some game systems somewhere and couldn't remember the spelling exactly. It seemed like a decent source of a name for the template so i went with it.

To try an answer some of the rest:

1. This is supposed to be providing a scaling effect on any zombie or skeleton it's cast on, so any bonus hitpoints should be scaling with the base creature's hit dice rather than say it's size. It's in effect a replacement for the lost Con modifier. I'd have gone with the simpler "maximised hit dice", but that helps zombies a LOT more than skeletons.

2. The feats are bonus feats, i threw this together rather last last thing last night so i forgot to list that, also they're not supposed to get access to Epic Feats unless they're finial CR rating would be 24 or higher, thanks for the heads up on that, meant to add it and forgot. Again the feats are about scaling, so it was important to make them easily available even if the low scores in some area's would normally preclude them, they also help you customise the hired help a little more which was important since the cost of this makes it a non-trivial template to apply. Your not going to be walking around with an army of these, maybe a couple at high levels, but no more.

3. The AC bonus was simply to help bring them back in line with their former living AC to a degree, zombies and skeletons typically get far less AC overall than the base creature, especially as they get larger.


The overall idea here is that it empowers the creature to a state that closer to the living creature whilst still maintaining the undead feel.Your creating a sort of personal undead champion, (the spell to apply it is even called "Awaken Champion"), and the stats and capabilities should now reflect that, it's still subservient to your will, but it's now also much more powerful. I simply chose a skeleton/zombie template as the basis because they're an already fairly uniform type of undead that have varying levels of power, (making this spell workable in weaker form at lower levels).

If you want to suggest some radical changes to achieve that, feel free, it's the aim rather than how we get there that's important TBH.

Debihuman
2013-08-18, 06:06 AM
Why not just maximize the hit points per hit die? Other templates do this.

Debby

Arcanist
2013-08-18, 06:08 AM
Why not just maximize the hit points per hit die? Other templates do this.

This was unnecessarily funny to me... :smalltongue:

Rolep
2013-08-18, 09:00 AM
Here is the template reworded somewhat.


Revenant Template:

"Revenant" is a template that can be applied to any creature with any one of the skeleton, zombie, necrocarnum zombie, skeletal dragon or zombie dragon templates (hereafter referred to as the base creature.

Hit Dice: The revenant gains extra hit points based on the base creature's hit dice: +3 HP per HD if they are a zombie or +6 HP per HD if they are a skeleton.

Speed: The base creature's speed increases by 10ft. A skeleton with Wings may now fly as they could before they applied the skeleton template, and all flight-capable creatures have their manoevrability increased to Perfect.

AC Bonus: A Reverant natural armour bonus increases by 2 for every size category above medium it is.

Base Attack: A skeleton's base attack bonus increases to it’s hit dice, and a zombie's base attack bonus increases to 3/4 it’s HD.

Damage: All of a Revenant's attacks, (including attacks with manufactured weapons), now inflict Negative Energy damage in addition to any otherdamage. A skeleton's negative energy damage equals 1/2 their hit dice, and a zombie's equals 1/4 their hit dice. Their attacks are now considered both magic and evil for the purposes if overcoming damage reduction.

Special Attacks: A Reverant gains the ability to cast one of the following spells as a swift action as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to its CR, with a caster level equal to its hit dice if it is a Skeleton or half its hit dice if it is a zombie: Bane, Cause Fear, Doom, Inflict Light Wounds, Darkness, Death Knell, Desecrate, Inflict Moderate Wounds, Silence, Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, Blindness/Deafness, Contagion, Deeper Darkness, Inflict Serious Wounds, Poison, Obscuring Mist, Sleep, Chill Touch, Ray of Enfeeblement, Acid Arrow, Fog Cloud, Summon Swarm, Web, Command Undead, False Life, Ghoul Touch Scare, Stinking Cloud, Rage, Halt Undead, Ray of Exhaustion, Vampiric Touch, Blicnk, Gaseous Form, Slow.

Special Qualities: A Zombie based Rrevenant looses their single actions only ability, and Skeletons gain a permanent haste effect on themselves as an extraordinary ability.

Both Skeleton and Zombie Revenants gain DR15/Magic and Good if their CR is 23 or lower or DR15/Epic and Good if their CR is 24 or higher.

A Reverant gains Spell resistance equal to its hit Dice if it is a Skeleton Revenant or half its hit dice if it is a Zombie Reverant.

Feats: A revenant that can fly gains hover and wingover as bonus feats. A Revenant with 3 or more Natural Weapons gains the Multi-attack feat. A Revenant with 3 or more hands gains the Multi-weapon Fighting feat. In addition, a Reverant gains a number of bonus feats equal to one quarter its hit dice if it is a Skeleton or one eighth its hit dice if it is a Zombie. All class, level, ability score, and skill score prerequisites are ignored. These feats can be epic feats if the revenant is CR 24 or higher.

CR: Dunno but +8 seems a little overkill.

Debihuman
2013-08-18, 02:21 PM
Template could use a bit of spit and polish but is otherwise pretty good. Since the flying revenant has Perfect maneuverability it doesn't need Hover as a feat. You probably have too many spell choices for the spell-like ability and it has too many bonus feats so start that at 12 or more HD.

Revenant Template

"Revenant" is an acquired template that can be applied to any creature with any one of the skeleton, zombie, necrocarnum zombie, skeletal dragon or zombie dragon templates (hereafter referred to as the base creature.

Creating A Revenant

Hit Dice: The revenant gains extra hit points based on the base creature's hit dice: +3 bonus hit points per Hit Die if it is a a zombie, or +6 bonus hit points per Hit Die if it is a skeleton.

Speed: The base creature's speed increases by 10 ft. A skeleton with wings may now fly as it could before it applied the skeleton template, and all flight-capable creatures have their maneuverability increased to Perfect.

AC Bonus: A revenant's natural armor bonus increases by + 2 for every size category above Medium it is.

Base Attack: A skeleton's base attack bonus increases to its Hit Dice, and a zombie's base attack bonus increases to 3/4 its Hit Dice.

Damage: All of a revenant's attacks, (including attacks with manufactured weapons), now inflict Negative Energy damage in addition to any other damage. A skeleton's negative energy damage equals 1/2 its Hit Dice, and a zombie's equals 1/4 its Hit Dice. Their attacks are now considered both magic and evil for the purposes if overcoming damage reduction.

Special Attacks: A revenant gains the ability to cast one of the following spells as a swift action as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to its Challenge Rating with a caster level equal to its Hit Dice if it is a skeleton, or half its Hit Dice if it is a zombie: acid arrow, animate dead, bane, bestow curse, blindness/deafness, blink, cause fear, chill touch, command undead, contagion, darkness, death knell, deeper darkness, desecrate, doom, false life, fog cloud, gaseous form, ghoul touch, halt undead, inflict light wounds, inflict moderate wounds, inflict serious wounds, obscuring mist, poison, rage, ray of enfeeblement, ray of exhaustion, scare, sleep, slow, stinking cloud, summon swarm, vampiric touch and web.

Special Qualities: A zombie-based revenant loses its single actions only ability, and a skeleton-based revenants gain a permanent effect on itself as an extraordinary ability.

Both skeleton and zombie revenants gain Damage Reduction 15/Magic and Good if their CR is 23 or lower, or they gain Damage Reduction 15/Epic and Good if their CR is 24 or higher.

A revenant gains Spell Resistance equal to its Hit Dice if it is a skeleton revenant or half its Hit Dice if it is a zombie revenant.

Feats: A revenant that can fly gains Wingover as a bonus feat. A Revenant with 3 or more natural weapons gains the Multiattack feat as a bonus feat. A revenant with 3 or more hands also gains the Multiweapon Fighting feat. In addition, a revenant with 12 or more Hit Dice gains a number of bonus feats equal to one quarter its hit dice if it is a skeleton or one eighth its hit dice if it is a zombie. All class, level, ability score, and skill score prerequisites are ignored. These feats can be epic feats if the revenant is CR 24 or higher.

Challenge Rating: +6

Debby

Carl
2013-08-18, 02:59 PM
@Debihuman (post 1): The problem is that for a given base creature type a Zombie gains more hit Die, and even by CR rating the Hit Die favours the zombie considerably with suitably excessive consequences. In short with maximised hit dice i figure that a Zombie base creature would always be preferential.

@Rolep: Thanks, bad wording is my biggest flaw tbh, i tend to suffer from a lot of issues there due to my dyslexia and dyspraxia. I have a habit of weird wordings or getting so over verbose trying to cover all my bases that i end up confusing people. Plus i wrote this very rapidly late last night

@Debihuman (post 2): I simply threw every spell from the cleric and sorc lists that seemed thematically appropriate on there, of course many are highly redundant. Also if you want to limit Feats to more powerful base creatures i recommend a CR based limit as zombies would tend to get them easier otherwise. I threw Hover feat on because i wasn't sure the hover granted by perfect manoeuvrability granted everything the feat did, the Fly rules being something i've never used before are more murky than the rest. Also thanks for the CR suggestion, i went overboard to start with on purpose.


All that said i've got a question that kind of hit me as i read over the updated forms Debihuman and Rolep threw out. What i've got here so heavily modifies the base templates it's working off that it's only semi-recognisable. Does anyone think this might work better as a totally separate variable CR template, (i.e. exactly what the existing Zombie and Skeleton templates are)? It would let me get around a lot of the more major issues with things like hit dice and i wouldn't need the complicated problem of specifying separate effects for most of this for Zombies and Skeletons. Thoughts.

Debihuman
2013-08-18, 03:42 PM
One thing that would be easier would be splitting the Template into two. Once strictly for skeletons and the other strictly for zombies. So you'd have Revenant Skeletons and Revenant Zombies each with their own template.

Another thing: don't throw everything AND the kitchen sink on a template. Keep it relevant. When you paint with a broad brush, you miss the nuances that a good template should have.

Debby

Carl
2013-08-19, 11:51 AM
Another thing: don't throw everything AND the kitchen sink on a template. Keep it relevant. When you paint with a broad brush, you miss the nuances that a good template should have.

Well that's kind of why i think a totally separate undead template might work better. I'm trying to create something that can turn potential remains, (or already animated generic undead, like Skeletons or Zombies), into undead with a power level noticeably higher. Unfortunately both the Zombie and Skeleton Templates make any creature rather generic. So any boosting become equally generic. Having a totally separated template would open more room for power increases without the same genericness getting in.

Updated the OP with a non-skeleton/zombie based form and updated the old form to the suggested wordings btw.

HandofShadows
2013-08-19, 06:00 PM
Probably Revenant, i remember coming across an undead with the name ages back in some game systems somewhere and couldn't remember the spelling exactly. It seemed like a decent source of a name for the template so i went with it.


Revenant's are actually from folklore and the ledgends of them have been around for something like 1,000 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenant Revenant's show up in many D&D style games (including D&D itself).