Playing as a Ghost

[Sabeta]

My current Adventurer is a bit if a suicide jockey, so I thought I might brainstorm my next hero just to be ready.

The concept is somewhat simple, but has a lot of intricacies that I would like to try and iron out before attempting to play this character. So without further adieu:

Introducing Anna.

Anna was born a Human, and lived a fairly boring life. She had always wanted to be an adventurer, so at the age of 16 she left home seeking fame and fortune. Less than 10 miles from home she was ambushed and killed by Goblins. After some time, Anna rose as a Ghost, and with that came certain powers.

The way I see it, "Anna" will become a custom background. Any race or class may become "Anna" by way of possession. My main problem is trying to balance the knowledge that an ageless Ghost may have.

Skill Proficiencies: History and (Undecided)
Languages: Common, Dwarvish, Elvish, Gnomish (Choose Two)
Equipment: None

Effect: Anna is a ghost obsessed with living. She is capable of possessing a Creature, and if she stays within the host for more than one week then it becomes permanent. Once permanent, the Host is erased and Anna gains their memories; granting them any skills and abilities they had in life. (This is represented in Race/Class selection), Anna loses knowledge that goes unused, and as such tends to forget languages and proficiencies not being used in her current life.

As far as role-playing is concerned, Anna is fueled by a desire for glory. A Ghost in love with life, she has gone on many adventures as many people, but is never quite satisfied. She still dreams of becoming an adventurer famous enough to have statues built in her honor and kingdoms dedicated to her name. Even if she succeeds, she will likely live on, wanting to experience it all again as a different type of hero.

She is always Evil. Even if she decides to play the role of a heroic Paladin any good she does is just an act. (and I'm not too sure how many gods are willing to let a ghost become a Paladin). She also has a deep rooted hatred for Goblins, and prioritized her own safety above that of others.

Thoughts, Concerns, Improvements, Gripes?

My two biggest concerns are A) Playing an evil hero, and B) Playing with a Paladin, Cleric, or perhaps even a Druid. For the first, I've simply never done an evil character before. I don't know how to play Evil while still not being horrible to the party. I've played with plenty of evil Rogues who steal from the party, but I want to be just a bit more tasteful than that. For the second, perhaps once a Possession becomes permanent it is no longer detectable and/or dispellable.

(As an aside, the first time I use her will be as the patron for a GOO Warlock)

[ClintACK]

My two biggest concerns are A) Playing an evil hero ... For the first, I've simply never done an evil character before. I don't know how to play Evil while still not being horrible to the party. I've played with plenty of evil Rogues who steal from the party, but I want to be just a bit more tasteful than that.

That part is easier than you might think.

Being evil doesn't have to mean that you have *every* negative quality there is. And it doesn't mean you aren't human with the whole range of human emotions.

Evil doesn't mean you have to be horrible to everyone -- especially to the people closest to you. You can be an amazing person to your friends and family. And when helping and protecting them requires barring the doors to an orphanage and burning it down with the kids and nuns locked inside -- you're just the person to do it. You care about your friends that much. Not everyone is cut out for the hard work of being a great hero, like you. :)

Just make sure you form relationships with the other PCs, and that you're pointed in generally the same "big picture" direction as they are. Then you're Magneto working with the X-men and rolling his eyes at their naive moral weakness. Doing the things they're too weak to do for themselves.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Seems like a cool idea, and I agree with what ClintACK says about responsible evil. I don't know if this is an option for you, but I saw a homebrewed Ghost race recently that might be fun. Link here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?491810-Playable-Monster-Races-PEACH).


and I'm not too sure how many gods are willing to let a ghost become a Paladin

On this point: gods don't create paladins; their power comes from the strength of their faith and an oath willingly given. It's pretending to be a cleric where you might get into trouble.

[Sabeta]

snip

Then she'll probably trend more towards the Lawful side of Evil. Willing to do whatever it takes to achieve fame and glory, and willing to cut down any opposition to that path. That seems fairly manageable, but our Good Paladin would probably designate me as Kill on Sight. He's very Trigger Happy and will Smite anything he deems evil before even bothering to learn if they're actually evil or not. So, I would either have to manipulate him into seeing things my way, or avoid detection from my own party. Tips?


snip

That version of Ghost does seem fun, but also horribly imbalanced. I think relegating what I can do as a Background Feature with some personality will work better than an entire race complete with bonuses and flinging objects around. My DM is also extremely new, so the Ghost Background may already be a hard sell; I'm not going to push my luck with a race.

As for Paladins and Clerics; Anna has no immediate plans to become one. I'm just curious how it might work. I said earlier that she would become the Pact necessary for a GOO Warlock on her first "life", but she clearly can't do the same for Paladin or Cleric (and even for GOO it's a bit of a stretch, it's just the closest thing to spooky ghost powers 5e has at the moment). Either way, both are typically front-line fighters that she want to avoid as she's still afraid of dying. She gets attached to whatever Host she's a part of.

[CursedRhubarb]

Oh man, clerics would be rough but Anna should steer clear of any warlocks. Imagine never aging, eternal life, and possibly eternal servitude since the pact bindings could ensnare her. Forcing her into the contract she didn't make but her host did.

[Sabeta]

Oh man, clerics would be rough but Anna should steer clear of any warlocks. Imagine never aging, eternal life, and possibly eternal servitude since the pact bindings could ensnare her. Forcing her into the contract she didn't make but her host did.

This is the exact reason I'm allowing her to fulfill the conditions to be a Warlock on her own, rather than risk possessing an existing Warlock. I can't imagine any Fiends or Fey would take kindly to their pact being intruded on, and Anna probably wouldn't trust them enough to make a pact with them in a "fresh" body. Now that I think about it, Anna's love for life would translate well into Monk territory, specifically so she can get the timeless body and prolong living as long as she could.

I think I'm just going to forbid Clerics from Anna's choosable classes. Paladins are also kind of iffy, but I'll at least think on them more.

As an aside: Being able to replay the same character repeatedly might be overpowered on its own, right? If Anna ever dies she could potentially just possess someone else and reinstate herself as another Warlock; since most DMs allow you to come in at a level close to the party's this would essentially be like you never died. I don't intend to do this, as I've personally crafted Anna's personality to want to try new things, but the possibility alone seems to lower the stakes of a character dying.

[Axorfett12]

There is a phenomenal home brew of a warlock patron called The Spirit on Middle Finger of Vecna. Idk if I'm allowed to link things, so I'll just mention it. It seems like a better flavor fit than GOO.

[90sMusic]

One of my players is playing a half-dragon and the party occasionally interacts with his mother, the dragon.

She is a lawful evil, green dragon, posing as a human and acting as queen of the land they began their adventures in.

She is Lawful Evil. She has committed a ton of evil acts such as murdering the former royal family, heavily taxing all of her subjects just to grow her own hoard of wealth, and occasionally sending great heroes off on seemingly impossible tasks to try to get them killed so they can never threaten her. Most of what she does is through lies, manipulation, and acting. She will kill anyone who gets in her way, threatens her, or doesn't show her the respect she deserves. However, she is far from mindless. She doesn't just go on murder sprees or anything, the kingdom she rules is mostly happy under her rule. She made changes within the kingdom to better the quality of life of her subjects and takes steps to boost the economy and productivity. Even throws frequent, grand celebrations, usually in her own honor. She does good things. But she doesn't do them to be good, she does them to be evil. She is driven entirely by greed and being the intelligent ancient green dragon that she is, knows that you get more gold and treasure in the long run by keeping the people who are generating this wealth for you motivated and in good enough condition to make more of it for you. She 'could' rule by fear, threats, and dominance if she wanted as sometimes other dragons do from time to time, but she is smart enough to realize that such threatened, oppressed people are terrible workers and don't WANT to serve you, want to actively seek to remove you from power and plot against you, and do anything they can to prevent giving you their wealth. She is playing the long con.

She also tends to generously buy magical items and artifacts from people, paying gold for them. The reason she does this is to add more value to her hoard and to have interesting possessions that she otherwise would have more trouble obtaining. Spending the gold is no problem, because she controls the taxes of the kingdom, so any wealth she spends within her own borders makes it's way back to her eventually through taxation.

Despite her evil nature, the blissfully ignorant subjects consider her good and kindly. Even her own son knows she is a malicious creature, but she still has that maternal instinct that drives her to care about him and try to protect him and help him from time to time.

Evil doesn't have to be dark lord sauron seeking to kill and destroy everything. I mean hell, virtually every single evil person in the real world genuinely believes they are doing good or the right thing. You know what they say about the road to hell... :P

Evil player characters CAN work, but it is difficult to pull off. The story and setting has to let it make sense. I mean, you could have a band of evil monsters who, for whatever reason, decide they want to save the world, but that isn't a very convincing story because it doesn't really make sense.

I played a devil once who joined with a group of good adventurers. The setting was essentially a demon lord was working towards eventually tearing open a massive rift to the abyss to flood the material plane with demons. As a devil, my character was a natural enemy of demons as all devils are. They were created specifically for that purpose above all else, to destroy demons. Additional motivations include practicality. If demons destroy the material plane and kill all the mortals, that would suck massively for Baator (hell) because they need mortal souls to fuel their powers. Devils dont want the world to end and they wouldn't kill everyone in the world if they could because it is impractical. They do, however, want to corrupt mortals, turn them evil, and then kill them after they're satisfied their soul will end up in hell. Sometimes they don't even bother killing them and just corrupt them and wait for them to die on their own.

My character was an exceptional liar and always pretended to be a good guy, doing all the cliche good guy things. But while the party slept, I would sneak off and start corrupting mortals. Primarily this involved convincing them to commit evil acts or occasionally i'd write up an infernal contract and convince them to sign it, giving me ownership of their soul in exchange for some service I could provide. Wasn't easy and didn't always work, but I collected quite a few souls while I was out saving the world.

Eventually the party found out what I was, primarily through metagaming. That is the biggest shame about D&D, characters will never look into or suspect something until the player gains meta knowledge about it and then suddenly their character wants to conduct a full scale investigation because "reasons". After they found out, they were impressed I kept it a secret from them for so long. The characters understood the world-ending stakes at hand and knew the demons had to be stopped, so they agreed having a devil in the midst wasn't such a terrible thing since, as far as they knew, I hadn't done anything evil around them. I just told them the truth about devils and demons and said I wanted to stop the world from ending. That was a super fun campaign, after it was over I told them about all the evil things i'd done along the way that they didn't know about and their jaws dropped. :P

As long as your being evil isn't going to tear the group apart or disrupt the game in some way (like killing tons of npcs you come across), it can be done, but the circumstances have to be right and the character has to be right for the setting. You can't just force it to happen in any game because it just doesn't work. There has to be a legitimate reason for an evil being to be hanging out with good guys going around doing good guy things.

Anyway thats just a tidbit about my experiences dealing with evil. They don't have to be obvious, cliche villains. Evil takes maaany forms. And avoiding interparty conflict is KEY. People's thoughts and opinions on PVP and party conflict vary, but in my games I typically like my players to be cooperative instead of adversarial. You need a reason the other characters can understand and support to justify you being with them after they find out, and they WILL find out. Whether by some random uses of Primeval Awareness, Divination, or whatever else, they'll eventually catch on (especially if the players themselves know, because meta gaming jerks cant help themselves). I'm not sure i'd be cool with an evil spirit that possessed people for funsies to play out some game where they pretend to be a hero. That sounds like a backstab waiting to happen.

[Sabeta]

snip

I like your Devil idea, or rather the implementation of it. I could easily imagine Anna playing good for the party, but going around haunting fools at night (perhaps even haunting the party in their dreams on occasion; if I'm feeling particularly mischievous or if someone slights me). Act on behalf of the greater good in public, but my true intentions are far less noble. Sort of like the Masochistic Knight in Konosuba. She puts up a front about protecting the weak and the honor and duty of a Knight, but in reality she just loves pain and can't get enough abuse.

Anyway, looking into Ghost more I think I may try to craft them as a Race afterall. I think I can make one that's balanced a bit better than the one linked earlier. I've tried doing google searches, but aside from the Monster Manual there doesn't seem to be too much in the way of Ghost Lore that would help me write out how exactly this race could work. Does anyone have any good references, especially regarding "old" ghosts (500+ years) with or without attachments to the material plane? I'd like to essentially write a permanent character, but if that directly conflicts with lore then I may do some rewrites.

[Axorfett12]

What follows is speculation and my personal take on ghosts. I couldn't find any concrete lore so I used my imagination.

In most stories, a ghost is a remnant or memory of what once was. Memories fade. Remnants are forgotten. I feel that as the ages pass, a ghost should fade somewhat as well. They are most powerful in the moment of manifestation. After that time, the force that drives them should diminish slowly. This could manifest in a lessening of power, but I think a loss of memory is more roleplay friendly. As you grow older, you begin to forget...

Imagine being Anna in such a situation. Your entire existence is a struggle to do just that. Exist. Your only desire is to make your presence known, to show that "Cogito, ergo sum." To begin to lose your sense of self, you identity... Nothing is more terrifying. As a ghost whose existence spans centuries, Anna would be in a constant state of questioning her sanity. Sometimes she forgets easy things. Her name, her old face, these are faint visions to her memory. More likely than not, they are false images conjured by her in an attempt to recall that which she lost ages ago.

A ghost would most likely take up adventuring in an attempt to solidify thier existence. Perhaps to recover lost memories through magic, perhaps to be ressurected. In Anna's case, to leave a mark on the world before the world forgets her. Or was it the other way around? Each new host is another desperate attempt to immortalize herself before it's too late. Before Anna is gone and only the ethereal monster remains.

My two cents. Do with it as you will.

[Sabeta]

The best thing I've found so far is from older editions.

A Ghost's form is tied strongly to their Mental state

A Spirit who hasn't yet come to terms with their death may still bear physical markings of how they died. Someone who drowned may appear drenched, with water dripping off of them that disappears the moment it would hit the ground. Someone who died in battle may be riddled with holes or even missing limbs. Once they have accepted their death they usually move on.
A Spirit who remains bound because of unfulfilled promises or tasks may feel burdened by their failure. Such spirits usually appear as normal beings, but bound in chains that symbolize their burden. Such spirits often take new names to represent their unfinished goals (Penance, Retribution, Hope)
A Spirit can remain on the material plane with no Torment, but the only thing keeping them there is pure will-power. As such, they are typically weaker than other spirits and are more easily forced to move on


There were also some entries on Ghost Society; where groups of Ghosts band together to recreate a semblance of life. This typically happens in Crypts and Graveyards, away from prying eyes; however the societies don't last terribly long. As Spirits "Move On" or leave to try and fulfill their destinies the communities crumble and ultimately scatter. The Ethereal Plane itself seems very difficult to conceptualize though. It's described as a Misty, fog bound dimension like a great ocean, but at the same time its shores overlap that of the material world so that all Material locations have an Ethereal counterpart (just like they Feywilds and Shadowfell). It also overlaps the Elemental Planes, and perhaps even the Elemental Chaos, so it's hard to envision exactly how one would leave the "Border Ethereal" to reach the vast ocean-like parts of it. If I'm playing a Spirit who can make use of this Plane, I would be very keen understanding how it functions. Oh, did I mention that this plane is also apparently the source of "Force" Element? (So much for Necrotic Ghosts)

Etherealness has this to say about what you see and here there:

You step into the border regions of the Ethereal Plane, in the area where it overlaps with your current plane. You remain in the border plane for the duration (8h) or until you use your action to dismiss the spell. During this time, you can move in any direction. If you move up or down, every foot of movement costs and extra foot. You can see and hear the plane you originated from, but everything there looks gray, and you can't see anything more than 60 feet away.

While on the Ethereal Plane, you can only affect and be affected by other creatures on that plane. Creatures that aren't on the Ethereal Plane can't perceive you and can't interact with you, unless a special ability or magic has given them the ability to do so.

You ignore all objects and effects that aren't on the Ethereal Plane, allowing you to move through objects you perceive on the plane you originated from. When the spell ends, you immediately return to the plane you originated from in the spot you currently occupy. If you occupy the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved.

This spell has no effect if you cast it while you are on the Ethereal Plane or a plane that doesn't border it, such as one of the Outer Planes.

Doesn't really explain the Deep Ethereal, but I guess it's sufficient for my uses. This is; however, a 7th level spell. A Playable Race should probably have severe limitations on attempting to use this as a racial passive (if at all). ie: being able to blink into the dimension, but being unable to move or take actions other than to leave.

[ClintACK]

I could easily imagine Anna playing good for the party, but going around haunting fools at night (perhaps even haunting the party in their dreams on occasion; if I'm feeling particularly mischievous or if someone slights me). Act on behalf of the greater good in public, but my true intentions are far less noble.

Be careful about that.

At some point the other players *will* figure out that their friend is an evil ghost -- or that there's an evil ghost possessing their friend. The one thing you've got going for you is that you're their friend, you're on their side. If you're not... the only thing slowing down the exorcism and killing of the evil ghost will be the fact that you're a human player like them and there's some social stigma to PvP.

You're playing an evil character in a good party. The burden is on *you* to make that work, to keep conflict to a minimum. When they discover your nasty side, they need to think of you as *their* little monster. It should absolutely never cross their mind that you would hurt them -- they should be worrying about who you might hurt trying to support them.

You have to be more gung-ho about the team and the mission than everyone else put together. Or else it doesn't work.

[Sabeta]

Duly noted. The idea wasn't to reveal myself though. The body I possess and my spectral form would most likely look very different, and I mostly play on Roll 20 so GM Whispers are an option (especially for sneaking away in the night to do regular non "pvp" hauntings). I don't plan on haunting PCs, but it's a possibility if someone annoys me enough.

[Sabeta]

Sorry for the double post, but I did have one more concern before finishing off this concept.

There NEEDs to be some risk of death for my character. I've decided that Anna being able to freely possess and move around bodies has too many ways to be exploited. Even if I stipulate that her current physical body must die before picking out a new one, that doesn't stop her from simply committing suicide to get a free reclass. On top of that, Reincarnation/Revival is an entire spell on its own, and having that as a mostly at-will power (even on a recharge system, it's more likely to be ready by the time I actually need it) strikes me as a little bit too powerful.

Basically, no other Race has any kind of advantage over death that a Ghost would have. At the same time, I want this character to be something repeatable and reusable. The best I could come up with so far is being prone to exorcisms when outside of a body, but since a Ghost has a fly speed it could realistically outrun any attempts to "purify" it. Any thoughts on how to balance an essentially immortal character?