Applying the Death Knight Template [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

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The Kind Knido

2013-11-25, 02:21 AM

I'm in a tiny group of evil adventurers (and a lawful cleric) and my fighter is asking to become a Death Knight from Vecna but I'm having some trouble applying it effectively.

PC (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=667212)

I rolled my HD first (9d12+4) and ended up with 130 HP. Then I read on after adding a some things from the template in a poor way since I've no clue where I should put them for them to be convenient. Oh ****. I'm undead. I don't have an constitution score anymore. Now what am I to do? Do I really not have any mod to my HP gain? Do I still have them but they've just been increased and I just have to stop gaining +4 HP each level from now on?

This is a tough thing to organize and write properly. Any ideas as to how to totally convert this character to a Death Knight?

Death Knight is on page 207 of Monster Manual II (3.5)

Feralventas

2013-11-25, 02:37 AM

When you become Undead, you no longer have a Constitution score. Your HD are all changed to d12's. Feats like Improved Toughness still improve your HP pool though. There are some specific features, usually Unholy Toughness or something to that effect which are specific to a few monster entries, but that you can talk to your DM about possibly switching out existing aspects of the Death Knight template for; charisma to HP in place of Con.

Alternatively you could ask for Pathfinder's undead HD, which are d8's, but naturally have Charisma mod added per HD.

herrhauptmann

2013-11-25, 02:40 AM

Is this a level 9 game?
Is there free LA in this game?
Is this a character for a brand new game? Or are you applying DK to an existing character?

First off, Death Knight has LA+5.
For a brand new character in a game:
That means in a ECL 9 game, (a normal human character would be level 9) you should have 4 levels of classes, and 5 more get eaten by DK. So fighter3. Your hitpoints will be 4d12. Yeah, ouch.

Your Con score isn't "0," it's "-". That means you don't get a bonus or penalty to things Con related like HP or concentration.

So
build your character like he's level 4. Then start making changes.
Change AC.
Make note of new special attacks.
Make note of your immunities and special abiilties like Summon Mount.
Change strength by +4, and wisdom and charisma by +2.

If this is an ECL 14 game, build your character like he's level 9, (fighter6/chaotician3 with 9d12 HP) then follow steps 2,3,4,5 above.

There's probably other templates similar to death knight that are better, I'd recommend checking for those. Try players guide to faerun, monsters of faerun, and a few others. Champions of ruin, lords of darkness, elder evils...

The Kind Knido

2013-11-25, 04:21 AM

It's not a new character. We started at 1st level and have been playing modules up to this point.

The Kind Knido

2013-11-25, 04:25 AM

Your Con score isn't "0," it's "-". That means you don't get a bonus or penalty to things Con related like HP or concentration.

So
build your character like he's level 4. Then start making changes.
Change AC.
Make note of new special attacks.
Make note of your immunities and special abiilties like Summon Mount.
Change strength by +4, and wisdom and charisma by +2.

If this is an ECL 14 game, build your character like he's level 9, (fighter6/chaotician3 with 9d12 HP) then follow steps 2,3,4,5 above.

There's probably other templates similar to death knight that are better, I'd recommend checking for those. Try players guide to faerun, monsters of faerun, and a few others. Champions of ruin, lords of darkness, elder evils...

I was going to do those, I just wasn't really sure what to do with my HP exactly and how to organize it efficiently since there's so much to add.

About the template though, I chose Death Knight because there will eventually be a lich and a vampire as well.

herrhauptmann

2013-11-25, 04:48 AM

I was going to do those, I just wasn't really sure what to do with my HP exactly and how to organize it efficiently since there's so much to add.

About the template though, I chose Death Knight because there will eventually be a lich and a vampire as well.

Alright, HP=9d12.
Faerie Mysteries Initiate would get Int to HP, but that's dragon magazine material. 9d12+18

I'd say condense your fear aura somehow. Either scroll to the side on a line, or put the full text in Additional Information on the bottom of your sheet.
You shouldn't need to list your weapons/armor, not if you're a straight fighter with no alterations.
Ditch Toughness if you can, at least get Improved Toughness, +1 per HD. I'd retrain Great Cleave as well as Weapon Focus/Spec too, unless your game has a lot of mooks or those are prereqs.
I don't see what combat expertise is giving you.
You really need to get some magic weapons/armor ASAP.

You know that absent houserules, your belt of strength and gauntlets of strength don't stack right? Same with potions of bulls strength. They're all enhancement bonuses.

Your AC is wrong, it's giving you your full dex to AC, even though your plate limits you to +1.

Your attack bonus for the greatsword should be 2 higher than your standard attack bonus. 1 for masterwork, 1 for weapon focus.

I dunno how wearing a towershield on your back protects you from 'back effects' or flanking. Yes you're wearing it, but it's not equipped. Think of Link in Ocarina of Time. He carried his shield on his back, but when it wasn't on his arm, he didn't get a benefit.

rexx1888

2013-11-25, 04:58 AM

weird question, but who in an evil party is nice enough to help you put your armour on????

The Kind Knido

2013-11-25, 05:30 AM

Alright, HP=9d12.
Faerie Mysteries Initiate would get Int to HP, but that's dragon magazine material. 9d12+18

I'd say condense your fear aura somehow. Either scroll to the side on a line, or put the full text in Additional Information on the bottom of your sheet.
You shouldn't need to list your weapons/armor, not if you're a straight fighter with no alterations.
Ditch Toughness if you can, at least get Improved Toughness, +1 per HD. I'd retrain Great Cleave as well as Weapon Focus/Spec too, unless your game has a lot of mooks or those are prereqs.
I don't see what combat expertise is giving you.
You really need to get some magic weapons/armor ASAP.

You know that absent houserules, your belt of strength and gauntlets of strength don't stack right? Same with potions of bulls strength. They're all enhancement bonuses.

Your AC is wrong, it's giving you your full dex to AC, even though your plate limits you to +1.

Your attack bonus for the greatsword should be 2 higher than your standard attack bonus. 1 for masterwork, 1 for weapon focus.

I dunno how wearing a towershield on your back protects you from 'back effects' or flanking. Yes you're wearing it, but it's not equipped. Think of Link in Ocarina of Time. He carried his shield on his back, but when it wasn't on his arm, he didn't get a benefit.

I've no clue what you're talking about when you say to condense my aura or have a scroll on the side.

Toughness was a feat I got right from the start because the other two characters are spellcasters and I've been very effective in damage sponging. Improved Toughness will come later. I don't see why I should get rid of Great Cleave as well as Weapon Focus/Spec because they've been much more useful than I thought they would. There's not really too many feats that are helpful anyways. Our games have been having a ton of "mooks". I took out 19 dudes with a great cleave, so that's not going anywhere..

As far as magic weapons and armour go, we're getting there. We're focusing on gathering as much gold as we can for +10 mithril plate, a phylactery, probably a lot of equipment, etc.

Having separate pieces of equipment not stacking doesn't make sense. It's like in the Elder Scrolls (and really, any game) where you can only have 2 rings. We should theoretically wear 20 at a time normally and in those games, you NEED to stack effects for things like 100% chameleon. We clearly won't wear 20 rings since it would be a lot of upkeep, so stacking armour makes total sense. It's been like this for a while now.

I knew there was something wrong with AC. I remembered my dex restrictions on plate and I asked "Wait. I shouldn't get full dex from this unless I get mithril." Really not sure the exact details. I'll change that immediately.

About the sword, if by standard attack bonus, you mean BAB, I placed weapon focus and masterwork in misc, so it's already there.

The towershield is another story. We took into account that one can wear a tower shield on their back to prevent arrows from being mean. To keep it balanced we just halved the default effects tower shields provide.

weird question, but who in an evil party is nice enough to help you put your armour on????

The armour was equipped by the mystical RPG equip window.

EDIT: OH! I'm stupid as hell. What you meant by condense Fear Aura was to put it somewhere else. Yeah, I see now. I put the whole thing there to reduce switching between things. I didn't really think that I'd have so many feats or abilities that I'd have to put it anywhere else. I thought that was pertaining to having a bonus to HP gain a level. >_>

EDIT AGAIN: I just remembered your comment about the Bull's Strength potions. I see nothing wrong. That's how many I have.

Hamste

2013-11-25, 06:03 AM

It might not make sense (it sort of does, imagine that the magic is preprogrammed to change certain spots of your body to be stronger first but because there is already muscles there in the same way it would do it nothing happens. Different bonuses effect your body differently and therefor stack) but it is true that like bonuses don't stack. I shudder to think what happens with a concealment miss chance if you let it stack with other concealment miss chance (1 in a 32 hit chance on top of armor anyone?).

Anyways, yeah low hp is one of the main weaknesses of undead in d&d. With an average of 6.5 health each level up (slightly more than a wizard with 16 con) it is quite the loss not to have constitution to health and you can't even go unconscious...you just get destroyed at zero. If you can try to convince the DM to allow you to take unholy toughness as a feat as this low health with be quite inconvenient for your fighter

Duskranger

2013-11-25, 06:10 AM

Like two people have said. Bonuses with the same type do not stack. Enhancement bonuses therefore do not.

And the rings, in DnD as far as I know you have 2 ring slots meaning you can only carry/wear 2 rings. Luckily there are rules of stacking abilities onto other items.

A character in DnD has just as in any game a certain amount of slots to put items in. I'm sure that there is a comprehensive guide on items online which will show you what slots there are and how many.

The Kind Knido

2013-11-25, 06:12 AM

Hamste

2013-11-25, 06:27 AM

How did you end up with 95? Assuming max at first and half rounded up (rather the more traditional 6.5 time amount of levels) plus toughness I get just 71

The Kind Knido

2013-11-25, 06:59 AM

How did you end up with 95? Assuming max at first and half rounded up (rather the more traditional 6.5 time amount of levels) plus toughness I get just 71

Oh good. I forgot the immediate 15 HP from the start. Always nice.

I got 95 because we roll 4 times and take highest considering how horribly screwed over a player gets if they spend hours to level up and get a really low HP gain.

Abaddona

2013-11-25, 08:03 AM

herrhauptmann

2013-11-25, 11:30 AM

Toughness was a feat I got right from the start because the other two characters are spellcasters and I've been very effective in damage sponging. Improved Toughness will come later. I don't see why I should get rid of Great Cleave as well as Weapon Focus/Spec because they've been much more useful than I thought they would. There's not really too many feats that are helpful anyways. Our games have been having a ton of "mooks". I took out 19 dudes with a great cleave, so that's not going anywhere..
It was optimization advice. If you're doing fine, so be it.
Although I really wish Improved Toughness had a line in it that said it qualified like Toughness for prereqs. Anyway...

As far as magic weapons and armour go, we're getting there. We're focusing on gathering as much gold as we can for +10 mithril plate, a phylactery, probably a lot of equipment, etc.

Why wait that long? That's 100k for your magical enchantments alone. It's going to take a very long time to build up that money unless the DM misreads his loot tables.
Even if you only get +1 armor, you can start putting additional effects on it that will help keep you alive. Common in low-op is fortification (which you don't need). Many of my characters carry Soulfire armor, it wouldn't be unreasonable to do a reversed Soulfire that protects your undead butt from Positive Energy effects. Check Book of Exalted Deeds.
Question: If you have +1 armor (~1000 gold) in your game, and want to upgrade that exact suit to +3 (~9000 gold), what do you get charged? It should be 8k.

Having separate pieces of equipment not stacking doesn't make sense. It's like in the Elder Scrolls (and really, any game) where you can only have 2 rings. We should theoretically wear 20 at a time normally and in those games, you NEED to stack effects for things like 100% chameleon. We clearly won't wear 20 rings since it would be a lot of upkeep, so stacking armour makes total sense. It's been like this for a while now.

This is actually an important thing. If it's a houserule in your group, fine. But you gotta understand that it's a houserule and everyone will provide advice based on the standard rules.
When two things (items, spells, whatever) provide bonuses of the same type, those bonuses don't normally stack. You take the largest one. So +2 gloves of dex and a potion of cats grace? For the duration of the potion, you'll have a +4 over your nonmagic self. Afterwards, you'll have a +2.
In this case, your belt, gloves, and potion all give Enhancement bonuses. If you really wanna get a +4 for cheap (which is what you're doing), one of those needs to be something different. Profane/sacred, morale, something. That requires researching a new spell that duplicates bulls strength in all respects except the bonus type, then crafting a new item.
About the only exception to the nonstacking, is Dodge bonuses to AC, and maybe deflection. It's why everyone makes a big deal here about finding untyped bonuses. They always stack with everything.

As far as multiple rings? Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to wear a dozen magic rings. In fact, nothing is stopping you from doing it. You can just only have 2 of them active at once in D&D at once (there's ways around it).

EDIT AGAIN: I just remembered your comment about the Bull's Strength potions. I see nothing wrong. That's how many I have.
Nothing wrong with having multiple potions in your bag. But again, you can't down 2 bulls strength potions in a row and get a +8 to strength for 3 minutes. Same type bonuses don't stack. And multiple bonuses from the same source (spell of bulls strength) don't stack either, you just take the highest one. In this case, that's belt, gauntlets, and potion.
See Stacking. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#stacking

Abaddona

2013-11-25, 01:53 PM

Also about stacking or rather - wearing multiple magical items, I'm not 100% sure but fluff reason for not being able to wear more than two rings etc. is AFAIR in magic of incarnum - basically each slot represents not body part, but "chakra" which is some sort of source of magic energy - you can wear multiple magical rings (or other items in similiar fashion) but additional ones simply will lack this source of energy and therefore will not function.

Grollub

2013-11-25, 04:56 PM

I don't remember where it is.. but there is a specific feat that gives undead cha to hp ( replacing the standard con to hp )

The Kind Knido

2013-11-25, 05:14 PM

If you are playing in low-op then everything is fine, but you may try to use miss chance (or even deny your enemies ability to take action... even simple grease can be very mean spell when used on certain enemies) AC scales pretty badly and it's hard to keep it high enough so it will stay relevant.

Things like toughness, weapon focus/specialization are considered very weak because bonuses are scaling pretty badly (compare weapon focus to knowledge devotion, not to mention power attack/shocktrooper combo).

Stacking bonuses from same soure may be problematic houserule, but if your group is fine with that then all is good.

How your DM ruled Level Adjustment? Because that +5 can really be painfull.
Also as a side note - if you are undead and have a crafter in team (and DM agree), then you can become spellstitched.

Our sorcerer picks out the cheapest spells for his load out such as Phantasmal Killer and Ray of Stupidity and Chilling Touch, so if there are enemies subject to that, we need not worry at all. As far as miss chance goes, I could just activate Anarchic Grace if things get too heated and I rarely get hit anyways. Being a Death Knight, the times I get hit (natural 20s) would be effectively useless now so there's nothing to worry about until we start up harder adventures (we're going to convert Dungeonland).

The spellstitched suggestion is a pretty good idea.

OldTrees1

2013-11-25, 05:26 PM

I don't remember where it is.. but there is a specific feat that gives undead cha to hp ( replacing the standard con to hp )

3rd party feat (not in any WotC book)

The Kind Knido

2013-11-26, 03:34 AM

I don't want to have to revive my own thread so late into it being buried, but I have no choice.

What in the holy name of Azathoth does damage reduction 15/+1 mean? We think it means a +1 or higher weapon ignores it but that's both useless and unconfirmed. There isn't a thing online that explains this so I had to come here and ask.

RedWarlock

2013-11-26, 03:53 AM

It's 3.0-style DR. Same thing as DR 15/magic.

The Kind Knido

2013-11-26, 04:00 AM

So in that case, useless and any magic/magic weapon can get through it anyways?

RedWarlock

2013-11-26, 04:32 AM

Magic weapons, yes.

Does make you nigh-invulnerable to low-level NPCs and unbuffed animals, though.

Tevesh

2013-11-26, 05:00 AM

Actually, DR being converted from 3.0 to 3.5 was sort of a free-for-all. You could make it whatever your DM thought was appropriate. For example, because Skeletons got DR 5/Bludgeoning but a Death Knight is more potent than Skeletons it could be DR 10/Magic Bludgeoning (had to be a bludgeoning weapon that was enchanted).

You could also go with Cold Iron, Silver and/or Good. I've seen a lot of different Undead have those DR limitations.

Wizards wizened up with later releases, spelling out exactly what DR should be converted to in the Fiend Folio but there was nothing official for MM2.

Nezzarine

2017-10-21, 06:15 AM

Why is this so difficult? That’s pretty simple. It sounds very much like you have an incredibly inexperienced DM. After looking over your entire initial character and all the posts, I don’t think any of you have slowed down and just read the rules at least once,. Most importantly, it is painfully obvious that your DM hasn’t. That needs to change very quickly. Allowing the stacking of same source buffs is rookie shennanigans. It really doesn’t matter how you slice it. Wearing a tower shield on your back to get one half the armor bonus. Really? Wow. Ever seen a real tower shield? If you haven’t, you need to. Shields provide bonuses because they are placed in harm’s way ACTIVELY by their wielder. Your group’s line of logic makes the same sense as saying that you don’t need to unsheath your sword to cleave the 19 does you were bragging about. Negate flanking? Wow. That’s even further than a stretch of the imagination. Your DM house ruled if you strapped a 5’-6’ tall, 3’-4’ wide shield on your back, then that would not only provide a partial shield bonus to AC, but remove flanking bonuses. That’s downright stupid. Wearing a wall on your back makes you immune from being surrounded? I bet that also prevents rogues from sneak attacking. Back effects? I’ve played and run games for 32 years and never seen those two words put together EVER. Back effects. Wow. Are you taking the -2 to hit with all attacks since you are you are gaining an epicly wrong awarded partial shield bonus, flank immunity, and back effect immunity as you should be doing? Nope. Didn’t even half that and apply did you? Of course not. I read the above posts, but I’m going to say it again anyway. You are attempting to stack your bracers and the armor on AC. They don’t. Period. That’s why your able to smugly brag about nat 20’s only hitting you. You’re stacking gloves of ogre power, a belt of giant strength and potion of bull’s strength and the house rules it as allowable. He needs to quit. It isn’t a +5 masterwork flaming keen wounding mighty cleaving greatsword. It’s a +5 flaming keen wounding mighty cleaving greatsword. It was masterwork, then it was enchanted. Drop the masterwork. It’s not relevant anymore. I see you also “houserule” putting ranks in any old skill that you want. Do you know what trained only means? Apparently not. You are also not paying double unless my math is off. You have a max sexy bonus of +1 and you are applying your full +3 to your AC. Nope. That’s not right either. Since you’ve cheated every way possible to crank your AC through the roof, why do you have combat expertise and power attack? Do you activate both at the same time? You should houserule that too while you’re at it. I would advise you on the proper feat selection to make a two-handed weapon fighter sing, but you will so busy defiantly defending your painfully ignorant point of view that it will be pearl before swine. However, your selection of combat feats suck. Proper combat feat selection is beginners work. You have a long road ahead.

ATHATH

2017-10-21, 02:04 PM

weird question, but who in an evil party is nice enough to help you put your armour on????
Just because you're Evil doesn't mean that you have to be an a-hole, you know (especially to your party members/friends).

Hiro Quester

2017-10-21, 09:50 PM

Thread necromancy.

Please read the forum rules, Nezzarine. Don't post on threads from long ago.