Undead template WIP, ghosts are OP?

[Greywander]

I'm working on a set of undead templates, both for PCs and for monsters. Corporeal ("fleshy") and skeletal undead are more or less balanced, and shouldn't be a problem for PC use. Spectral undead, on the other hand, are straight up OP. By my reckoning, here's what spectral undead get, on top of the standard undead package:


Flight. You have a walking speed of 0, and a flying speed of 40 feet.
Note: May include the ability to hover. Speed varies with specific undead type, but 40 is the most common.

Incorporeal Resistance. You are resistant to acid, cold, fire, lightning, and thunder damage, and to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons. You are also immune to necrotic damage.

Incorporeal Resilience. You are immune to the grappled, paralyzed, petrified, prone, and restrained conditions.

Incorporeal Movement. You can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside an object.
I just... can't see any way to balance this for PC use.

Flying races exist, although they all require wings. If it was just the flight, spectral undead would still be a lot more appealing than other types, especially without any apparent downsides.

The range of damage resistance (plus necrotic immunity) goes way beyond what you would see in a playable race. Most playable races get resistance nothing, but some get one, maybe two damage types, and never a weapon type. Undead are already immune to poison (except vampires, apparently?), and this stacks on all of the most common damage types you'll see.

That's a lot of condition immunities, in addition to poison and exhaustion from vanilla undead. It makes sense, as an incorporeal entity, that most of these wouldn't affect you. It's just that there doesn't seem to be any drawback to incorporeality to balance it out.

Incorporeal movement is cool, and probably the main appeal of ghostly characters. It's probably more OP than flight, though. There's no limitations on when you can use it, or what types of materials you can pass through. A wall needs to be at least 40 feet thick in order to force you to take damage if you Dash through it. And the Mobile feat means you ignore difficult terrain when you Dash, letting you clear walls 100 feet thick in one round.

I'm playing with the idea of replacing pretty much all of the above with the ability to step onto the Ethereal Plane at will. It gives you a similar feeling to being a spooky ghost, but imposes downsides while using your ghost powers. This is normally a 7th level spell, so I'm wondering why this might be so strong.

Or maybe a reverse of Etherealness; where you have to specifically manifest in order to interact with things, but in doing so you lose all of your ghostly powers. My concern here is that you end up with a "combat mode" (manifested) and "exploration mode" (incorporeal).

What else could I do to balance this out while still retaining the feeling of being a ghostly character?

[Zetakya]

I'd start with vulnerability to Radiant and Psychic Damage and being treated as an outsider (native plane according to alignment) for the purposes of Banishment, Magic Circle etc

[JackPhoenix]

Step 1: realize that some abilities are simply not balanced for PC uses, especially in a race, which generally gives only a small boost of power to the characters
Step 2: realize that powers of incorporeal undead fit into this category
Step 3: ???
Step 4: profit. Well, time is money, and thus you'll save money by not wasting time on idea that would either be unbalanced, or lead to weird results, like the ghost only being ghost for a short time, or not behaving like any other ghost in the game. It was bad enough when 3e did that with stuff like playable "mind flayers" who couldn't suck out brains or "medusas" without petrifying gaze.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

To the OP:
If everyone is overpowered no one is overpowered.
Just make sure that all the PCs are ghosts and make the encounters harder.




Step 1: realize that some abilities are simply not balanced for PC uses, especially in a race, which generally gives only a small boost of power to the characters
Step 2: realize that powers of incorporeal undead fit into this category
Step 3: ???
Step 4: profit. Well, time is money, and thus you'll save money by not wasting time on idea that would either be unbalanced, or lead to weird results, like the ghost only being ghost for a short time, or not behaving like any other ghost in the game. It was bad enough when 3e did that with stuff like playable "mind flayers" who couldn't suck out brains or "medusas" without petrifying gaze.

There was playable mind flayers that suck out brains and medusas with petrifying gaze.

The medusa have 6 HD and LA -
The mind flayer have 8HD and LA -

This mean that the DM need to choose a LA as it is not listed.
Anyway at higher levels the full casters are stronger.

[NatureKing]

There was playable mind flayers that suck out brains and medusas with petrifying gaze.

The medusa have 6 HD and LA -
The mind flayer have 8HD and LA -

This mean that the DM need to choose a LA as it is not listed.
Anyway at higher levels the full casters are stronger.
Intriguing, which books were these in?

[Quoz]

I dont see an elegant way to do what you're trying to accomplish within the normal 5e framework. Even if you put in some horrible downsides (may not use any equipment, for example) this will still be impossible to balance within a race.

The only cost that could offset the unique abilities is an opportunity cost in class features. The old 3.5 savage species supplement would point you in the right direction: make it a race and a class, so to get these unique benefits will cost about 5 class levels. Then you can load it with enough unique features to be equivalent to a 5th level character without terribly unbalancing the game

[Brookshw]

Intriguing, which books were these in?

Seeing as he's talking about LA, I think the correct question is "which edition".

[JackPhoenix]

There was playable mind flayers that suck out brains and medusas with petrifying gaze.

The medusa have 6 HD and LA -
The mind flayer have 8HD and LA -

This mean that the DM need to choose a LA as it is not listed.
Anyway at higher levels the full casters are stronger.

No, LA - doesn't mean "DM needs to choose", it means "it's not indended as playable". Things that are playable have numeric value, even if that value is +0. Also, MM mind flayer has LA of +7, making them (in theory only, because monstrous races in 3.5 were horrible idea that didn't work) equivalent to level 15 character. Savage species version, which is the one I'm talking about, doesn't have brain sucking until level 12. Good luck getting there before you starve.

[TripleD]

You know that old gag about a ghost (or skeleton) trying to eat and drink but it just passes through them? How about ghosts cannot wield material weapons, armor, or magic items? Or basically anything else that is material? If something like a spellcasting focus wasn’t on you when you died (and is this part of your spirit form) you can’t grab one post-mortem or multi-class into it.

You’re basically a shadow that can deal necrotic damage or possess enemy characters.

[Aimeryan]

You know that old gag about a ghost (or skeleton) trying to eat and drink but it just passes through them? How about ghosts cannot wield material weapons, armor, or magic items? Or basically anything else that is material? If something like a spellcasting focus wasn’t on you when you died (and is this part of your spirit form) you can’t grab one post-mortem or multi-class into it.

You’re basically a shadow that can deal necrotic damage or possess enemy characters.

Moon druid. Sorlock spamming Agonising EB. Monk?

[Seclora]

Intriguing, which books were these in?

Savage Species, and the Fiend Folio to a lesser extent, from 3rd and the Monster Manual for 3.5 edition. Racial HD counted as levels but had no features beyond the normal for the species, LA or Level Adjustment was additional levels worth of character that you counted as but got no HD for.
I had a DM who let us drop Racial HD, and **** got broken real quick. Like Lycanthropy (LA +2 or +3 with control of your form) without HD allowing Were-any animal in the book. I took Legendary Bear, and ended up with a character who could safely wield a yacht like a warhammer without penalties [I didn't, vow of poverty meant she'd never touch a yacht unless someone else clearly possessed it, and certainly never actually use it.]


5th edition is not designed for monstrous characters. Your best bet for conversion would be to use CR as level, and then on level up, take 1st level in a class. Even then, some creatures either have too clear of weaknesses or strengths to work in most games.
A playable ghost might have a trait to replace incorporealness that looks like:

Incorporealness: A ghost character can use the following spells once per Long Rest. Charisma is your spellcasting stat for these spells. You can use the Cantrip Chill Touch. At 3rd level, you can cast Invisibility as a 2nd level spell, targeting only yourself. At 5th level, you can cast Blink as a 3rd level spell.

Invisibility lets you explore unseen, while Blink gives you a little Etherealness and incorporeality that doesn't even take concentration. They're both strong spells unto themselves, and Chill Touch gives you that Haunting grasp feel without making up a lot of extra rules.

I can see Advantage against Grapple, Prone, and Restrained, but with the strength of the above trait you would need a drawback. Susceptibility to turn undead, and probably spells with added effectiveness against undead seems suitable. Outright immunity seems too strong for all of those conditions, and would give a character a strong advantage against many creatures. And although petrification is an adequately niche immunity as to make it acceptable, Paralysis as well would be too strong. So maybe a trait like:

Spiritual Form: You have advantage on checks made to resist being Grappled, made Prone, or Restrained. You are also Immune to Petrification. However, when it would be disadvantageous to you, you count as undead whenever you would be within the area of effect, or directly targeted by, an effect with additional effects against undead. For Example, if targeted by Chill Touch, you would have disadvantage on attack rolls against the caster until their next turn. If you were targeted by a spell such as Blight, which normally has no effect on undead, you would still take the normal effect.

Resistances are okay, but that is too many of them. Resistance to Cold and Necrotic would be acceptable. Resistance to non-magical Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing would be the single strongest racial trait in the game, including a free Feat and the ability to reroll 1s. If you wanted that, you need to also include Sunlight Sensitivity and Radiant Vulnerability. Even with those vulnerabilities, I'm not fully convinced that it would counterbalance the strength of taking half damage from nearly every attack in the game.
So I would give them a trait like this:

Ghostly Resistance:You have resistance to Cold and Necrotic Damage.

or like this

Ghostly Resistance:You have resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage from non-magical sources.
Sunlight Vulnerability: You have disadvantage on all attack rolls and Wisdom(Perception) checks when you or your target are fully within an area of Sunlight, and have Vulnerability to Radiant Damage.

You should also have Darkvision 60ft. This has nothing to do with balance, you should just include it as well.

Make Flight accessible by feat, and make it 30ft.

[PhantomSoul]

Ghostly Resistance:You have resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage from non-magical sources.
Sunlight Vulnerability: You have disadvantage on all attack rolls and Wisdom(Perception) checks when you or your target are fully within an area of Sunlight, and have Vulnerability to Radiant Damage.

[...]

Make Flight accessible by feat, and make it 30ft.

Building on this, I'd be tempted to make it Hover instead of Flight (plausibly as sole Movement type), but either way.

If you want to drop the HP for balance, well, Constitution is a physical stat based on their body, and they no longer really have one. I'd probably affect the Hit Die (if reasonably doable; e.g. reducing by X size, reducing Hit Dice, etc.) and use Charisma (for homebrew lore reasons) or otherwise change/remove the Constitution bonus to HP.

[NatureKing]

Savage Species, and the Fiend Folio to a lesser extent, from 3rd and the Monster Manual for 3.5 edition. Racial HD counted as levels but had no features beyond the normal for the species, LA or Level Adjustment was additional levels worth of character that you counted as but got no HD for.
I had a DM who let us drop Racial HD, and **** got broken real quick. Like Lycanthropy (LA +2 or +3 with control of your form) without HD allowing Were-any animal in the book. I took Legendary Bear, and ended up with a character who could safely wield a yacht like a warhammer without penalties [I didn't, vow of poverty meant she'd never touch a yacht unless someone else clearly possessed it, and certainly never actually use it.]
Ah, I was wondering if there had been an announcement or UA bringing them in. And as mentioned, LA- is non playable.

LA was a trap even after buy off. Racial HD was also largely a trap as you only needed the type, rather than the HD. Exceptions existed: some of the variant dragons got low HD and RHD, with full BAB, Sorcerer Spellcasting, Dragon immunities, d12 HD etc, whole Lesser Phaerimm were similarly broken due to scaling spellcasting on HD.

And Yacht wielding Werebears, VoP or not, RHD or not, was hardly the most broken thing in 3.5, compared to say Greenbound Summon Druids or Planar Shepherds, Infinitained Scholars, StP Erudites, Dominant Time Mantle Ardents, etc Arbitrary Strength builds through Cancer Mage were a thing.

[Seclora]

Ah, I was wondering if there had been an announcement or UA bringing them in. And as mentioned, LA- is non playable.

LA was a trap even after buy off. Racial HD was also largely a trap as you only needed the type, rather than the HD. Exceptions existed: some of the variant dragons got low HD and RHD, with full BAB, Sorcerer Spellcasting, Dragon immunities, d12 HD etc, whole Lesser Phaerimm were similarly broken due to scaling spellcasting on HD.

And Yacht wielding Werebears, VoP or not, RHD or not, was hardly the most broken thing in 3.5, compared to say Greenbound Summon Druids or Planar Shepherds, Infinitained Scholars, StP Erudites, Dominant Time Mantle Ardents, etc Arbitrary Strength builds through Cancer Mage were a thing.

Oh no, she wasn't even the worst in the party. She was a VoP Hobgoblin Soulknife WereLegendaryBear Half-Celestial Saint. We also had an Erudite(DM banned StP, one of the only bans), Six-Armed Gunslinger with bullets that cast Heal on hit, Werewolf Spellsword(not as good as he thought), Null-time demiplane crafter, Persistomancer Cleric(We ended up with about 30 party buffs, all day, across the party, Dispel checks took an hour sometimes), a Ranger who fell so far behind it was sad, and a Pixie Rogue.
I ended up building an Ubercharger in the next game just to prove that Sneak Attack wasn't the best way to deal damage, made a habit of one-shoting bosses. 3.5 is not a good standard for sanity or balance, and a sufficiently lenient DM is a beautiful thing.

[Galithar]

To try to get around these obstacles means going outside the standard 5e format.

They have to many resistances? Give them less health and AC.

Incorporeal Nature -
As a (Incorporeal Undead) your physical body has withered away leaving nothing but your spirit behind. Your class hit die is reduced by 2 sizes (minimum 1d4) [Alternatively just a straight -2 HP gained per level]
Your lack of substantive physical form prevents you from utilizing armor of any kind. Your AC is equal to 11 + Dex mod.

This eliminates the possibility of a strength build for most characters, but I personally don't imagine the incorporeal undead as the ones wielding brute strength anyways.

It's nothing like 5e, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work. If you're homebrewing multiple undead races I can only assume you're okay with major change.

Now their incorporeal resistances keep them alive instead of still alive 5 rounds after the rest of the party wiped :P

Now some people would say 'Just remove the resistances instead of punishing players' to which I say 'shuddup' :P my goal here is to keep the undead flavor intact but remain close to balanced.

[TripleD]

Moon druid. Sorlock spamming Agonising EB. Monk?

I’ll give you the Sorlock, but for Moon Druid I’d rule you just turn into animals with a ghost template applied. Monk is similar: fists just pass through people.

I agree with the other posters who say their isn’t really a way to make this work as a race. It really needs to be a class of slowly unfolding “ghost powers”.

[noob]

Step 1: realize that some abilities are simply not balanced for PC uses, especially in a race, which generally gives only a small boost of power to the characters
Step 2: realize that powers of incorporeal undead fit into this category
Step 3: ???
Step 4: profit. Well, time is money, and thus you'll save money by not wasting time on idea that would either be unbalanced, or lead to weird results, like the ghost only being ghost for a short time, or not behaving like any other ghost in the game. It was bad enough when 3e did that with stuff like playable "mind flayers" who couldn't suck out brains or "medusas" without petrifying gaze.
actually in 3e you can play a mindflayer and eat brains it is just that you basically are considered as being someone starting at something like level 15(so you are a lot of levels behind the others) due to la and rhd



Ah, I was wondering if there had been an announcement or UA bringing them in. And as mentioned, LA- is non playable.

LA was a trap even after buy off. Racial HD was also largely a trap as you only needed the type, rather than the HD. Exceptions existed: some of the variant dragons got low HD and RHD, with full BAB, Sorcerer Spellcasting, Dragon immunities, d12 HD etc, whole Lesser Phaerimm were similarly broken due to scaling spellcasting on HD.

And Yacht wielding Werebears, VoP or not, RHD or not, was hardly the most broken thing in 3.5, compared to say Greenbound Summon Druids or Planar Shepherds, Infinitained Scholars, StP Erudites, Dominant Time Mantle Ardents, etc Arbitrary Strength builds through Cancer Mage were a thing.

Nope you do not get the full stat boosts from being a savage progression werebear if you do not take the animal class levels (that includes a whole bunch of rhd)
Phaerimm are truly broken only if you use bestow curse to gain age(and become an epic level caster in a few spells) otherwise the la is quite hampering and you have an hard time gaining levels.

[Nagog]

I feel as though this could be adaptable, but you'd have to place quite a few restrictions on it, that could fit with flavor. For one, perhaps they cannot interact with the physical world around them while incorporeal, perhaps even limiting their communication with party members? Another spin could be that they have a mortal form (perhaps a corpse they're possessing or something like that) that they need to remain within a specified distance of (which couldn't move without them inside the body), and while outside the body the body is essentially an object (Low AC and health). This limits the incorporeal and mostly invulnerable form to essentially scouting purposes, which would also be limited to a specified distance around the tethered body. Perhaps keep it around 100 feet, similar to a Familiar? The benefit of this is your "familiar" wouldn't be made of wet tissue paper and could also cast some spells, at the cost of leaving your tether vulnerable.