Rule experts, help plz

[Rarelyfly]

Well, here we go... So I have a player who wants to be a ghost. Is that even a thing? I showed him the revenant race from heroes of shadow, but the didn't like it... So, idk, help?

[Gabe]

There's deffinately rules for being a ghost. I don't know them or have access to them at the moment because I don't have my DDI at work.

iirc being a ghost drops your surges by half. Ghosts have 1hp, but can't be hurt by non-magical attacks or blasts. If you "die" you can spend a surge to become recorporeal during a short rest.

Hope this helps at least a little.

[Ashdate]

iirc being a ghost drops your surges by half. Ghosts have 1hp, but can't be hurt by non-magical attacks or blasts. If you "die" you can spend a surge to become recorporeal during a short rest.

Citation needed (I looked and I can't find it), but I would note that would be a terrible trade-off, so terrible that not only cannot I not recommend that a player take it, but that if it does exist (and I'm doubtful), the person who created it should be ashamed of themselves.

To the OP: you might be able to refluff some aspects of the system to get something more "ghost like", but the truth is that to really feel like a ghost, you'd probably want something that has flight, insubstantial, and phasing, to feel suitably ghost-like. You can pick up pieces of those, but they'll likely never be a 100% of the time thing, as 4e frowns upon allowing PCs to have access to them all the time.

I would ask your player what it *is* about playing as a ghost that attracts him. If he wants flight, insubstantial, and phasing at level 1 all-the-time then he's playing the wrong game. If he just wants a character who is occasionally ghost-like, he could do worse than playing a Shade (Heroes of Shadow) with the Scion of Shadow background (Neverwinter Campaign Setting), and then picking powers that allow him to get brief bursts of flight, insubstantial, and phasing.

(Technically the original Assassin would be a good flavor fit as it uses mostly shadow powers, but if you wanted to go down that path you'd want to house-rule the class to make it stronger.)

[Kurald Galain]

Well, here we go... So I have a player who wants to be a ghost. Is that even a thing? I showed him the revenant race from heroes of shadow, but the didn't like it... So, idk, help?

There is a ghost "template" in one of the later dragon magazines, yes.

Personally I would make him a shadar-kai, that's pretty fitting.

[Gabe]

I think it might be in Dragon 420. I'm in work at the moment and a lot of websites etc. are blocked so I can't really provide citation. But it is a real thing published in a Dragon Mag.

[allonym]

There are indeed Unearthed Arcana rules for playing a ghost, which are, as Gabe says, found in Dragon 420. Playing a ghost halves your HP, reduces surges to 2, and gives you some new powers, none of which are particularly worth using. Being Insubstantial kind of makes up for the halved HP, and you get an encounter power, tied to your worthless at-will, which gives you surges.

It's weird, fiddly, and you should never use it, like all the other Unearthed Arcana stuff.

If your player wants to be a ghost, refluff stuff.

[Kurald Galain]

It's certainly fiddly.

But a 1/enc touch attack for 1d10+weaken+gain a surge is not bad, and a close burst that dazes enemies and forces them to use their only action on a move (provoking OAs) is not bad either. Note that you gain all that for free in addition to your class powers. Plus you get +4 to stealth, the ability to make yourself untargetable by moving into walls, and the free ability to convert damage to psychic (which has good feat support).

Of course, having two healing surges sucks, and effectively taking double damage from force/psychic is not very nice either.

[allonym]

It's certainly not necessarily weak, especially because it's free. I do like the half HP/Insubstantial thing, it seems elegant. The attacks are of the +3/+5, no keyword level so they're just too inaccurate for a standard action, though a couple of the utility powers are somewhat useful.

When I say you should never use it, I mean that it just shouldn't be allowed by DMs at all. I don't see any campaigns being improved in any way by the rules. It's not quite on the level of the Unearthed Arcana Multiclassing Rules, but still.

If you did want to houserule in a ghost, I'd consider half HP, Insubstantial, resist necrotic/poison, if you wanted some mechanics for being a ghost, but the rest of it is just lots of cruft.

[Surrealistik]

Crude ghost 'race' I put together that was inspired by the UA ghost:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=6912555#post6912555

Far from finalized ofc; I'll be working on it more over the next couple of days.

[Surrealistik]

Satisfied with it as a first draft goes; also gave it some racial powers and feats.

[Tvtyrant]

I like it, but I think the Durable feat becomes something of a feat tax. Is there any reason you would not take Durable as the ghost?

[Surrealistik]

I'm not so sure I'd consider it a feat tax between the 'donation' element of Hollow Soul, the relative ease of leeching surges, and the fact that Durable increases your normal maximum surges per Extended Rest which in turn makes it harder to fully restore all of your hit points by exceeding that amount.

It's good, but not a must have in my view.