Can Undead Qualify for Human Heritage?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Human Heritage requires being half-human or a human-descended race. Do undead that used to be part human (or have parts of them that used to be human, a la the Dream Vestige) qualify?

[Thurbane]

The limits of who or what can take the feat are fairly poorly defined. This is definite "Ask your DM" territory IMHO.

[MisterKaws]

That feat has had a big fat "rule 0" sticker slapped on top of it since it's been printed.

[Crake]

You're almost absolutely not going to get a straight answer on this topic, the real question is, are you looking to be persuaded toward a leaning, or are you looking to justify an answer you already have? If it's the former, then you'll likely be looking forward to a long discussion on the topic, but if it's the latter, well, I suggest you just take your choice and run with it, because you'll find plenty of supporting evidence either way.

Anyway, assuming the former, let me weigh in my opinion on the matter: There are multiple angles to this discussion, first of which is to note the "special" part of the feat. If you go to page 150 in races of destiny, you'll see a variant rule, where human descended characters basically get this feat for free, for better or worse (certain circumstances, like planetouched, would likely not want to lose the benefits of being an outside for example). This feat is meant to be used as an option for tables that don't use this variant rule. So ask yourself, if you were using this variant rule, would you make all "human descended" undead humanoids? I doubt it. Thus they shouldn't qualify for it. This point covers both templated undead and non-templated undead.

The second angle to take in this is to consider, what is a descendant. Naturally one must have a lineage to be descended, and thus an undead must be born to have a lineage to be a descendant. But undead are not born, they are created (I'm sure there's an exception somewhere out there, like half vampire or something), thus they inherently cannot be descended from something, thus they do not qualify. This point is more relevant to non-templated undead.

The third angle to look at is the case of taking this feat, and then becoming an undead through a template. Since human heritage must be taken at first level, it is clearly not something that can simply be acquired at some point, thus the feat can be considered, in a way, as something of a template itself, changing the creature type of the character. This occurs upon taking the feat, but when gaining an undead template, the type change to undead is superceded by the feat. A common argument to be made against this is the first part of the feat "You are treated as a humanoid with the human subtype for the purpose of adjudicating all effects." saying that you're treated as humanoid either way, but the counter argument to this is that the first line is stating the outcome of the feat, while the second line is stating the method through which that outcome is achieved, that is to say, by changing your type outright.

The final angle which I will discuss is qualifying for the feat in the first place. This circles back around to point two, but in the case of a templated undead. As noted, undead are created, not descended, thus when you gain an undead template, you are, in essence, a new creature, using a modified stat-block of a deceased creature. Thus, you would have the human heritage feat, but, as you are no longer a human descended creature, but rather one spawned into existence with necromantic energies, you would no longer qualify for the feat, meaning you no longer gain the benefits of the feat until you qualify once more, such as through being resurrected.

[redking]

Human Heritage requires being half-human or a human-descended race. Do undead that used to be part human (or have parts of them that used to be human, a la the Dream Vestige) qualify?

1. Yes. But;
2. They shouldn't get any mechanical benefit beyond what unambiguously human-derived undead without Human Heritage get.

What was the mechanical hack that you were hoping to deploy?

[ekarney]

As others have said this is a sketchy topic, so I'm going to do exactly what you don't want me to do, which is weigh in on both sides. (As likely you're looking for an answer, not some weirdo debating with himself)

The No answer: This keys onto the "human-descended race" part. This is where you interpret "race" as "what the character currently is". I'll use necropolitan for this example, in the race section of your character sheet, you would put "Necropolitan" not "Human". If you chose to take RHD, you'd be taking undead, not humanoid which would arguably disqualify you from being human.

The Yes answer: Provided the undead in question is not totally pulled out of thin air as a race, then yes, as transforming something into undead requires a base creature, and if that base creature was a human then arguably, that human was also descended from humans, now all you've done is added a template to that human and templates do no change your characters parents. Unless you do some weird things with symbiotic creature. Since your parents are still human, you are still descended from them. Also things like half-undead (Various template from Dragon #313) would definitely qualify so long as the other half is human. If the other half isn't human, then no, it wouldn't, of course then you can get into the argument of "Okay but the undead was a human, so if my undead parent used to be a human I'd still maybe be descended from humans" and that wouldn't go anywhere.


As a DM: Yes, I'd allow it.

[Asmotherion]

Well for a "cleaner" perspective they probably quallified for the feat before becoming undead.

They would not get it's benefits though as their type has changed to undead. Perhaps they would qualify for something that has being Human as a pre-req (Human Paragon?) but that's up to DM judgment.

i'd personally judge that they loose the pre-req and thus the benefits.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Prerequisite: Half-human race or human-descended race.
Special: This feat may only be taken at 1st level.

1. Undead base creatures can't meet the feat's prerequisites.
2. Templates that change a creature to undead are all acquired, i.e. the creature is not born with them. Acquired templates can only be added to a creature with at least 1 HD, so you could only ever gain that feat before becoming undead.
3. Assuming you start as a race that qualifies for the feat, take the feat at 1st level, and then become undead, your type would be Undead (Augmented Humanoid, Human), along with any other subtypes you had prior to becoming undead.

[Mato]

Human Heritage requires being half-human or a human-descended race. Do undead that used to be part human (or have parts of them that used to be human, a la the Dream Vestige) qualify?
The limits of who or what can take the feat are fairly poorly defined.
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See the Variant: Half-Humans and Humanlike Races sidebar, page 150, for more about races eligible to select this feat.

Also "undead" is a type but you're asking about races, so like did you mean an awakened zombie human? A ghost half-elf? A mohrg or shadow? It's hard to say an apple is an orange without polymorphing the apple first.

[Thurbane]

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I'm well aware of the passages in question, and have read them in full; if you read some previous threads about this feat, as well as some of the other replies in this topic, you'll see that there is some confusion and disagreement as to what qualifies and what doesn't.

Things like half-ogre, half-elf etc. are pretty clear cut. Other races are much less obvious or less well defined as to being "human descended".

The section causing issues is "Half-Humans and Humanlike Races". Is the list of examples they give exhaustive, excluding anything not mentioned?

Brood Monkeys (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20041126a), for instance, are specifically called out of being descended from humans, but no not appear in the examples given in RoD. Are they eligible?

[Mato]

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[PoeticallyPsyco]

The specific example I was thinking of for the extreme end of "human related" (and thus the sketchiest) was Dream Vestiges, undead formed out the souls of hundreds/thousands, presumably mostly human souls. There might be something out there with a less direct claim to the feat, but if so I don't know it.

For the record, as a DM I would allow the feat for ghouls and such that were human or human-descended while alive, even though mechanically they are an entirely different creature.

[Crake]

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I'm well aware of the passages in question, and have read them in full; if you read some previous threads about this feat, as well as some of the other replies in this topic, you'll see that there is some confusion and disagreement as to what qualifies and what doesn't.

Things like half-ogre, half-elf etc. are pretty clear cut. Other races are much less obvious or less well defined as to being "human descended".

The section causing issues is "Half-Humans and Humanlike Races". Is the list of examples they give exhaustive, excluding anything not mentioned?

Brood Monkeys (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20041126a), for instance, are specifically called out of being descended from humans, but no not appear in the examples given in RoD. Are they eligible?

Given the context of the thread, it sounded like you were saying that the feat is poorly defined to the point of potentially allowing undead to take it and be considered humanoid. When taking into account the sidebar in question, i think its unambiguously obvious that undead should not qualify, though people seem to disagree with that.

That said, going into more murky territory, yes, the line of where human descended is drawn does get murky, and does become DM dependant, but I would think being undead is quite clearly on the far side of that murky line, well away from the blurring. I honestly don’t understand how people could possibly believe that an undead would qualify without some serious cognitive dissonance.