Awakened Dead (Base Class) (WIP)

[LordErebus12]

Awakened Dead
Sometimes when a spellcaster reanimates a corpse with necromantic magic, the body’s soul unexpected returns to the newly reanimated corpse and becomes bonded to each other by an unknown and enigmatic curse.

The reanimated creature awakens as if from a deep sleep with a new hunger for something they can’t quite understand or explain. It isn’t long before they realize the horror of their fate, as the curse forces the Awakened Dead to sate its hunger almost instinctively. With most good aligned Awakened Dead, the awakening is a traumatic one. They have their souls and suffer because of their undeath. The unending hunger of the curse takes its toll on the psyche of the Awakened Dead, as they’re body grows in necromantic power. For evil aligned Awakened Dead, the awakening is more tolerable, if still extremely disturbing.

Other unintelligent undead creatures seem to flock to the Awakened Dead, as if it were under some sort of spell. The Awakened Dead begins to draw power from the growing curse, using Invocations of necromantic magic.

Role: The Awakened Dead uses its necromantic powers and horde of undead to overwhelm their foes.

Hit Dice: d8 (Uses Charisma instead of Constitution for modifying hit points)

Class Skills
The Awakened Dead’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are
Skill Ranks per Level: (?) + Int modifier.



Level
Base Attack
Bonus
Fort
Save
Ref
Save
Will
Save
Special
Invocations
Known
Horde
HD


1st
+0
+2
+0
+2
Curse, Hunger of the
Curse, Least Invocations
1
-


2nd
+1
+3
+0
+3
Undead Grace
1
-


3rd
+2
+3
+1
+3
Tomb-Tainted Soul
1
-


4th
+3
+4
+1
+4
Horde, Hunger Traits +2
2
4


5th
+3
+4
+1
+4
Hunger Power
2
6


6th
+4
+5
+2
+5
Greater Curse
2
8


7th
+5
+5
+2
+5
Lesser Invocations
3
10


8th
+6/+1
+6
+2
+6
Hunger Traits +4
3
12


9th
+6/+1
+6
+3
+6
()
3
16


10th
+7/+2
+7
+3
+7
Hunger Power
4
20


11th
+8/+3
+7
+3
+7
Mutations (3 pts.)
4
24


12th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8
Hunger Traits +6
4
28


13th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8
Greater Invocations
5
34


14th
+10/+5
+9
+4
+9
Unbreakable Curse
5
40


15th
+11/+6/+1
+9
+5
+9
Hunger Power
5
46


16th
+12/+7/+2
+10
+5
+10
Hunger Traits +8
6
52


17th
+12/+7/+2
+10
+5
+10
Mutations 6 pts.)
6
60


18th
+13/+8/+3
+11
+6
+11
()
6
68


19th
+14/+9/+4
+11
+6
+11
Dark Invocations
7
76


20th
+15/+10/+5
+12
+6
+12
Death Incarnate,
Hunger Power
7
84




Class Features
All the following are class features of the Awakened Dead.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency:
The Awakened Dead are proficient with all simple and martial weapons. They are proficient with all armor and shields (but not tower shields). Armor does not interfere with the Awakened Dead’s class features.

1st Curse:
This ability sets up the type of undeath that the character has.

Strength +2, Constitution ––, Charisma +2
Type: Undead (the creature gains undead traits).
Senses: The creature gains darkvision 60 ft.
Defensive Abilities: channel resistance +2.

1st Hunger of the Curse:
All awakened undead have a hunger, brought about by their curse. The curses vary, but typically they resemble the creatures that were trying to become.

Lust – Vampire:
5th - Vampire Power
10th - Vampire Power
15th - Vampire Power
20th - Vampire Power

Gluttony – Ghoul:

5th - Ghoul Power
10th - Ghoul Power
15th - Ghoul Power
20th - Ghoul Power

Greed – Mummy:
5th - Mummy Power
10th - Mummy Power
15th - Mummy Power
20th - Mummy Power

Sloth – Zombie:
5th - Zombie Power
10th - Zombie Power
15th - Zombie Power
20th - Zombie Power

Wrath – Wraith:
5th - Wraith Power
10th - Wraith Power
15th - Wraith Power
20th - Wraith Power

Envy – Ghost:
5th - Ghost Power
10th - Ghost Power
15th - Ghost Power
20th - Ghost Power

Pride – Skeleton:

5th - Skeleton Power
10th - Skeleton Power
15th - Skeleton Power
20th - Skeleton Power

1st Invocations
1st 7th 13th 19th

2nd Undead Grace

3rd Tomb-Tainted Soul

4th Horde:
This ability allows the Awakened Dead to control a group of mindless undead to some extent. They follow and obey him to their best abilities, but are limited to simple orders.

4th Hunger Traits +2
4th 8th 12th 16th

5th Hunger Power
5th 10th 15th 20th

6th Greater Curse

9th ()
9th 18th

11th Mutations (3 pts.)
11th 17th

14th Unbreakable Curse

20th Death Incarnate



INVOCATIONS


Least


Invocation Name
Short Description


1 Chill of the Grave
Deal extra cold damage on all natural weapon and manufactured weapon attacks.


2 Corpseflesh
Gain damage reduction and natural armor.


3 Embrace of the Dead
Heals the Awakened Dead and all adjacent undead with a burst of negative energy.


4 Living Guise
Create an illusionary disguise that allows the Awakened Dead to pass itself off as a living creature. This does not fool those with scent.


5 Tomb Chant
Reanimates corpses to add to the horde’s size.


6 Undead Influence
Charm Person, as the spell.


Lesser


1 Captivating Glare
Potent glare attack that captivates targets.


2 Contaminated Body
Inflicts a disease to those who fail a fortitude save after being hit by the awakened dead’s natural and manufactured weapons.


3 Undead Toughness
Gain temporary hit points and turn resistance.


4 Vile Stench
Functions similar to a troglodyte’s stench, sickening or nauseating targets in range.


5 Wandering Limb
The awakened undead removes his arm and throws it. The arm picks itself up on its fingers, like some horrible spider, and acts under the control of the Awakened Undead.


Greater


1 Awaken Undead
Create a temporarily intelligent undead creature from a member of the horde.


2 Exploding Organ
The awakened undead draws a pulsing organ from within its body and hurls it. It explodes either on impact (free action) or within 1d4 rounds of contact (swift action).


3 Regenerative Aura
The awakened dead and all nearby undead gain fast healing. They can reattach limbs with a full round action.


4 Rigor Mortis
Paralyzes those touched by the Awakened Dead.


5 Undead Apocalypse
Summons a massive horde of mindless undead creatures to add to your horde.


Dark


1 Airborne Pathogens
Create a toxic cloud, filled with one poison or disease of your choice.


2 Desecration Aura
As desecration, but centered on the Awakened Dead.


3 Dominating Presence
As Dominate Monster.


4 Killing Curse
As Slay Living.

[LordErebus12]

Reserved for Invocations and horde statistics.

========================

Below is fine to post.

[Almarck]

Very interesting. I would have thought you'd have made a race give the title but I suppose that limits things don't it? I do like the idea of a variety of paths of different undead types


Anyways I love the idea of a megahorde at the controllers beck and call I've thought up of doing entire classes that use the concept myself.

How does the horde work. What kind of special rules does it have so far?

[LordErebus12]

Very interesting. I would have thought you'd have made a race give the title but I suppose that limits things don't it? I do like the idea of a variety of paths of different undead types


Anyways I love the idea of a megahorde at the controllers beck and call I've thought up of doing entire classes that use the concept myself.

How does the horde work. What kind of special rules does it have so far?

not much, still trying to plan out the details.

the horde has to be mindless undead, with the limited hit dice on the class table. otherwise, im open to suggestions.

[Almarck]

They should obviously be treated as a troops mob or swarm to keep it simple. I imagine that some affinities would get bonus HD or abilities for the horde. Maybe we can add customization similar to an eidelions.

Obviously no gear allowed on the horde since there's so many of them. But to compensate we give it upgrades that boost relevant stats.

On ability I think the horde should have is the ability to autopasses dangerous skill tests by taking "20" if you get what I mean. When rolling on acrobatics, swimming or whatever, on any result less than the minimum dc for success, the horde takes d6 damage for every point of difference on the result.

The idea is they don't care about casualties or danger and will not hesitate to fling themselves off a cliff if it mmeans following an order. Disable device will be... interesting too

[LordErebus12]

They should obviously be treated as a troops mob or swarm to keep it simple. I imagine that some affinities would get bonus HD or abilities for the horde. Maybe we can add customization similar to an eidelions.

Obviously no gear allowed on the horde since there's so many of them. But to compensate we give it upgrades that boost relevant stats.

On ability I think the horde should have is the ability to autopasses dangerous skill tests by taking "20" if you get what I mean. When rolling on acrobatics, swimming or whatever, on any result less than the minimum dc for success, the horde takes d6 damage for every point of difference on the result.

The idea is they don't care about casualties or danger and will not hesitate to fling themselves off a cliff if it mmeans following an order. Disable device will be... interesting too

That makes sense. they are there to kill opponents or die in the process. great for triggering traps.

[Almarck]

Acceptable Losses: At ---- has learned that the lives of its minions are completely replaceable given enough time. It stops caring for the survival of every individual minion in it and instead focuses on maintaining the survival of the group, regardless of the costs.

When failing a skill check involving acrobatics, climb, fly, swimming, (Add more) involving the use of the horde, the ----- may opt to force a success on the attempt, by eschewing the survival of some of the minions that hold the group behind. Doing so causes 1d6 points of untyped damage not reduced by damage resistance per number of difference between the horde’s attempted roll and the minimum required successes dice check.

If the horde is reduced to 0 HP as a result of using Acceptable Losses, the horde's attempt was both a failure and the horde is slain.

The --- may never choose to employ or forgo Acceptable Losses or not. All skill attempts by the horde are automatically treated as a use of Acceptable Losses

Here you go.

[Solaris]

I wouldn't ban their having gear - just make it so that any gear the horde has has to come out of the PC's WBL. If we give them bonuses for free, this character will ruin action economy with absolutely no drawbacks.

How about the horde and the character sharing a sort of hive mind link? Something like a cross between the formian and the thrallherder.

With mindless undead, using lots and lots of cheap skeletons is less than optimal. Most people will go with big undead monsters that have a lot of HD, on account of those being harder to kill and more useful.

[Almarck]

I wouldn't ban their having gear - just make it so that any gear the horde has has to come out of the PC's WBL. If we give them bonuses for free, this character will ruin action economy with absolutely no drawbacks.

How about the horde and the character sharing a sort of hive mind link? Something like a cross between the formian and the thrallherder.

With mindless undead, using lots and lots of cheap skeletons is less than optimal. Most people will go with big undead monsters that have a lot of HD, on account of those being harder to kill and more useful.

I thought because the term horde was used the op was going for lots and lots of smaller minions that are so weak they'd die in one hit and only survive by being in a big blob. The reason for the lack of item usability was to facilitate having so many minions that improving just one wouldn't work. Same with acceptable losses some of the undead would pass the check at the expense of those who failed.

If I misunderstood it was only because the term group of undead was being used.

[LordErebus12]

I thought because the term horde was used the op was going for lots and lots of smaller minions that are so weak they'd die in one hit and only survive by being in a big blob. The reason for the lack of item usability was to facilitate having so many minions that improving just one wouldn't work. Same with acceptable losses some of the undead would pass the check at the expense of those who failed.

If I misunderstood it was only because the term group of undead was being used.

personally, i feel that they should be low hit-dice mindless types of undead. limit of a few hit dice each or considered a collective creature (swarm/mob).

[LordErebus12]

added short descriptions on the invocations to describe what I wanted from them.

[Solaris]

Then you're going to need to put that limit in explicitly, and in the interest of not taking two hours per turn write in some manner of expediting the horde's actions, such as explicitly describing the horde as having the mob template. Otherwise, it's a tradeoff between going for one big stack of Hit Dice as a one-minion 'horde' and spending an eternity running each round.

[LordErebus12]

Then you're going to need to put that limit in explicitly, and in the interest of not taking two hours per turn write in some manner of expediting the horde's actions, such as explicitly describing the horde as having the mob template. Otherwise, it's a tradeoff between going for one big stack of Hit Dice as a one-minion 'horde' and spending an eternity running each round.

Yeah, I want the horde to function like a swarm (IE: one creature, rather than a group of minions). The horde should only be able to perform one action each round.