Greywander
2020-05-27, 05:21 AM
I wanted to come up with a character build that could be used as a "default" character, something I could bring to any table without needing to know much about party composition or house rules and without needing much in the way of DM approval. The thing is, as I developed the character concept, it started getting more complex to point that it started needing homebrew to support it mechanically. So I thought it would be interesting to bring the character concept, starting with the original RAW character followed by escalating layers of homebrew, to the forum to see where most people would draw the line. How much is too much for your table?
Without further ado...
Chapter 1: By the Book - "Deus Vult!"
Variant human Grave cleric. The idea is that she is a priestess of a Good goddess of Death, but after looking at the actual gods of Death, Kelemvor seems the closest fit. Neither Good (Lawful Neutral, though backstory suggests he may have once been good before becoming a god), nor a goddess, but still has the "Don't Fear the Reaper (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DontFearTheReaper)" vibe I'm looking for.
For our free feat, we're taking Magic Initiate to grab Find Familiar for a flavorful pet (probably cat or raven), Mold Earth (great for digging graves!), and one other cantrip (probably Light). Cleric cantrips would be Guidance, Thaumaturgy, and Toll the Dead. Grave clerics get free Spare the Dying. As I level, I would pick up Sacred Flame and Word of Radiance, so that I have options against enemies resistant to necrotic or with high WIS saves. I'm also considering ditching Guidance for Light or Mending, though Guidance is on point for someone who guides the dead into the afterlife.
What's my backstory or motivation to adventure? I dunno. I'm sure I could come up with something, but the character concept had already developed past this point before I started to get a good idea of who they were beyond just a collection of stats.
Chapter 2: The Refluffening - *Ring* *Ring* "Bring out Your Dead!"
One of my main points of contention with the vanilla build was that I wanted something that was more of a white mage, and less of a crusader. The armor is fine, it makes sense that an adventurer would wear armor. But the shield really has to go. Thing is, as a caster cleric, I really have no reason to hold a weapon, and the AC bonus from a shield is too good to give up. There's no point in having both hands free, so I gain nothing by dropping the shield.
The other thing was I actually wanted to use a staff as a holy symbol. A staff with chimes or bells on the end. I don't know why I fixated on this, but I did. Now, I could hold the staff and still use a shield, but now I have no free hands for spells (Warcaster would eventually make this moot). Also, I can just put the holy symbol on my shield, so the staff is pointless. But what if... what if I were to refluff a shield as a staff and disguise it as my own cooking? I get to have my chime staff, get rid of the shield, and still keep the AC bonus. Delightfully devilish, Seymour!
So, here's the TL;DR for this bit of homebrew: sacred chimes have similar (but not identical) mechanics to a shield. Sacred chimes can be affixed to a staff +X to turn it into a Not Shield +X.
Here's the current write up for the homebrew (cross-posted from this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612895-Cleric-s-Sacred-Chimes-(shield-holy-symbol-alternative)&p=24527792#post24527792)):
Sacred Chimes
Sacred chimes are a holy symbol that can be used as a spellcasting focus. They are typically held in the hand or affixed to a staff, club, rod, scepter, or similar object. Some religious orders might use a cross, crosier, censer, khakkhara, or other holy symbol or object, instead of chimes. Sacred chimes have a value of 15 gp and weigh 2 lbs. They can be affixed to or removed from a suitable object as an action.
If you affix the chimes to a weapon, such as a quarterstaff, that weapon becomes too unwieldy to use as a weapon. The weapon loses all of its weapon properties and becomes an improvised weapon. It retains any other properties, such as magic item traits.
Some divine spellcasters forgo training with shields, instead receiving a divine blessing from their deity that protects them. As a cleric, paladin, or other divine spellcaster, you may choose to give up the shield proficiency you would normally gain from that class to instead receive this divine blessing. You can invoke this blessing as an action, uttering a prayer, ringing the chimes, or performing some other ritual that calls upon your deity's protection. When you invoke the blessing of protection, you gain a magical +2 bonus to your AC. This bonus lasts until it is dispelled or you end your turn without the chimes in your hand. This bonus can't be used with a shield; you must choose which of the two AC bonuses to use.
If the chimes are affixed to a magic weapon that grants a bonus to attack and damage rolls with that weapon, the weapon loses that property as it can no longer be used effectively as a weapon. Instead, this bonus is replaced by an equal bonus to your AC when you invoke the blessing of protection.
But now there's more the character's backstory. We're ditching Kelemvor for a homebrew goddess, like I originally wanted. I'll need to do an actual write up of the religion, so don't expect that here, but would have something ready to give to the DM. The main thing would be the chimes as a sacred symbol, the use of them to guide the dead into the afterlife, and the cat as a sacred animal (now I know what my familiar will be). While many of the priests of this church remain in one place to provide their services to those who live there, some of the priests are itinerant, wandering the land to provide services to those beyond the established reach of the church. My character would be one of these itinerant priests.
Hmm, we're still missing something, though... We need to make this... personal.
Chapter 3: This is Homebrew Country - "And then Jon was a Zombie"
You know what would be a big twist on a Grave cleric dedicated to preserving the boundary between life and death and hunting down and destroying the undead? An undead Grave cleric. Now our character has a personal motivation to go on a quest: she seeks a cure for her curse, or the release of death. Fortunately, I've done extensive work on playable undead. On top of her regular race/class, we can apply the following template:
Undead Template
The following traits are common across almost all undead. Notable exceptions are that zombies are not immune to exhaustion, and vampires are not immune to poison. Aside from that, just about every undead have the following traits. You can use this as a template to make a character undead with minimal other changes.
Undead Nature. You don’t require air, food, drink, or sleep. Your creature type is undead instead of humanoid.
Although you don’t require food or sleep, nothing prevents you from eating or sleeping.
Darkvision. Even the most elementary undead are able to see in the dark. You have darkvision out to 60 feet.
Immunities. You are immune to poison damage, and to the poisoned and exhausted conditions. You are also immune to disease.
Note: Being undead means some spells, like Hold Person, no longer work on you, but many healing spells also don’t work, and spells like Detect Evil and Good will work against you, as does Turn Undead. So being undead is a double-edged sword. Also, most people will assume you are evil if they learn you are undead.
I've estimated that this is a power-neutral template. You are neither weaker nor stronger, just different. Opinions may vary on this subject, however. There's certainly a potential for exploitation, but many of these exploits only work if the entire party is undead, much in the same way that an entire party of flying races opens up new possibilities that a single flying PC wouldn't have.
How did our character come under such an affliction? Well, I might let each respective DM invent their own cause of the curse, whatever best fits into whatever campaign plans they already had. Otherwise, my go-to might be that she died in an accident, and a mysterious traveler offered to bring her back to life. But instead of a normal resurrection, she was turned into an intelligent undead. At first no one realized the difference, but once it was noticed she was taken to a local temple for the goddess of Death for healing. The priests couldn't help her, nor did they have the heart to end her, so they trained her as a cleric so she could go out into the world to find a cure to her curse. And, of course, to track down the mysterious traveler and confront him (he could be good or evil, depending on how the DM runs it).
Chapter 4: The Final Homebrew - "I guide others to a treasure I cannot possess."
Of course, this does beg the question of why she doesn't just off herself. Or why the priests don't do it. We can handwave it and say, "They just don't want to," but what if the real reason was that she just couldn't die? Or rather, didn't know how to. As I said, I've done extensive work on playable undead, so why settle for a generic template when I can pull out an actual undead race? Something that would actually give us some character?
Another TL;DR for this one: dual-type humanoid and undead, can only be killed by specific methods, bad touch attack, staring contests, and fear of rivers.
Note: Since I don't feel like editing it to remove these references, you'll probably see references to "graveborn" and "stillbloods". These are the undead race and subrace, respectively. The race doesn't necessarily exist in-universe, unless the DM really wants to introduce them.
Graveborn Template
Graveborn are a special breed of undead, and receive the following traits in addition to the base undead traits. You can apply this as a template over an existing race to make them a graveborn.
Undead Template. You gain all the traits of the base undead template shown above.
Dual Nature. Although you are undead, graveborn stand out from other types of undead in that they haven’t completely left their humanity behind.
You have two creature types; one is undead, and the other is whatever your creature type was before becoming undead (usually humanoid).
Withering Touch. As an action, make an unarmed weapon attack with a free hand against a target within reach. On a hit, the target takes necrotic damage equal to 1d6 + your Constitution modifier. This attack uses Constitution instead of Strength for the attack roll.
This damage increases by 1d6 at 5th, 11th, and 17th level.
Vigor Mortis. Whenever you are reduced to 0 hit points, you automatically stabilize, and even decapitation can’t kill you. There are only a few ways you can be permanently killed:
If you receive enough damage to kill you instantly, as described on page 197 of the Player’s Handbook.
If an effect kills you without reducing your hit points to 0, as with power word kill.
If your body is disintegrated, as with the disintegrate spell.
If your body is completely destroyed in acid or fire. When you take acid or fire damage while at 0 hit points, your maximum hit points are reduced by that amount instead. This reduction lasts until you finish a long rest. If your maximum hit points are reduced to 0, you die.
If you are slain inside an anti-magic field. While you are inside an anti-magic field, this feature is suppressed, allowing you to be slain just like any other mortal. If you are removed from the field while still dying, this feature reactivates, instantly stabilizing you.
If the lichstone that resides in your chest is destroyed. Your lichstone can only be attacked while you are at 0 hit points, and is immune to all damage except bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from magical weapons. The lichstone is a black pearl with hit points equal to your level + your Constitution score and an AC of 20 + your Constitution modifier, and regains its hit points when you finish a long rest.
If you take radiant damage that reduces you to 0 hit points or while at 0 hit points, you do not stabilize and must make death saving throws like normal. Subsequent radiant damage causes you to fail death saving throws as normal, but all other damage does not.
If you are unconscious for at least one hour, then you may gain the benefits of a short rest when you wake up.
Features that normally trigger or activate when you make a death saving throw, such as the Celestial warlock’s Searing Vengeance feature [XGtE], can be triggered or activated for the next five turns after you are reduced to 0 hit points.
Since we're dual-type, that means that spells like Hold Person work on us again, and yet healing spells still don't work. So that is a strict downgrade, but overall I think this template is stronger than the generic undead template. Withering Touch will generally be worse than Toll the Dead, especially since our CON will be lower than our WIS, but it's still a handy (ba dum tsh!) backup attack in case Toll the Dead can't be used for some reason. Vigor Mortis is the main point of interest here. I originally designed it to counteract your inability to heal*, so you're harder to heal but harder to kill. In this case, it gives us a narrative excuse as to why you can't just die (maybe you've tried, or the priests tried, and it didn't work).
*Remember, most healing spells explicitly say they don't work on undead or constructs. This isn't a penalty or restriction I've added, it was always there in the PHB.
But we're not done yet, this isn't complete without the subrace. I've written up six different subraces, each with varying degrees of balance. Since I still want to appear as human, there's really only one option to choose.
Stillblood Traits
False Appearance. While you remain motionless, you are indistinguishable from a dead body. You appear to be a somewhat fresh corpse, already cold but showing no signs of decay yet.
Masquerade. You can pass as a living member of your original race with reasonable success without taking special measures to disguise your true nature. Only your pale skin, red eyes, cold touch, and still breath betray you. Even those who notice something is off about you are unlikely to guess your true nature, unless they are already familiar with stillbloods.
Alluring Gaze. As a bonus action, you affix a creature you can see with your alluring gaze. If the creature is able to see you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or else it finds itself unable to look away. Your gaze holds the creature’s full attention, giving them disadvantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks. The effect ends when either you or your target can no longer see each other. Your target may repeat the saving throw if eye contact is broken for a moment, such as either of you getting distracted and glancing away, or an opaque object briefly passes between you. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this feature.
Your alluring gaze is considered a magical charm effect. For example, a creature that is immune to being charmed can’t be affected by your alluring gaze, and your gaze has no effect inside an anti-magic field.
Harmed by Running Water. You take 1d10 acid damage if you end your turn in running water.
As with the generic undead template, we should end up mostly power-neutral here. Each subrace comes with it's own drawback, and it always relates to one of the ways of killing a graveborn. In this case, falling into a river is a good way to kill yourself for good, thanks to acid being one of the ways to destroy us. In return, we get the ability to still look human as well as to distract people with a staring contest. Alluring Gaze will be of limited usefulness since our CHA won't be as high, but we'll probably get more mileage out of it than we will Withering Touch.
So now we can add a bit more character to our... character. She knows mundane weapons can't kill here, but otherwise isn't sure how she can die. She knows running water burns like acid, so she's afraid of rivers and refuses to swim in them, but has no problem with still water like a lake. She's a pure soul who would never tell a lie... but she might be willing to distract a guard with her Alluring Gaze while her friends pull some shenanigans.
The Conclusion
Well, I started with wanting a nice, generic character who could slide into practically any D&D game, and ended up creating a monster (literally). Where did I go astray? At what point would you cut this off? Where's the line at your table?
I know you can't assume any homebrew will be allowed when joining a new table/gaming group (and, in a sense, it might be rude to ask if you're a new player), but I'm interested in seeing where most of you draw the line for this character.
Also, I thought there was an actual poll function on the forums, but I can't find it. ¯\(ツ)/¯
Without further ado...
Chapter 1: By the Book - "Deus Vult!"
Variant human Grave cleric. The idea is that she is a priestess of a Good goddess of Death, but after looking at the actual gods of Death, Kelemvor seems the closest fit. Neither Good (Lawful Neutral, though backstory suggests he may have once been good before becoming a god), nor a goddess, but still has the "Don't Fear the Reaper (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DontFearTheReaper)" vibe I'm looking for.
For our free feat, we're taking Magic Initiate to grab Find Familiar for a flavorful pet (probably cat or raven), Mold Earth (great for digging graves!), and one other cantrip (probably Light). Cleric cantrips would be Guidance, Thaumaturgy, and Toll the Dead. Grave clerics get free Spare the Dying. As I level, I would pick up Sacred Flame and Word of Radiance, so that I have options against enemies resistant to necrotic or with high WIS saves. I'm also considering ditching Guidance for Light or Mending, though Guidance is on point for someone who guides the dead into the afterlife.
What's my backstory or motivation to adventure? I dunno. I'm sure I could come up with something, but the character concept had already developed past this point before I started to get a good idea of who they were beyond just a collection of stats.
Chapter 2: The Refluffening - *Ring* *Ring* "Bring out Your Dead!"
One of my main points of contention with the vanilla build was that I wanted something that was more of a white mage, and less of a crusader. The armor is fine, it makes sense that an adventurer would wear armor. But the shield really has to go. Thing is, as a caster cleric, I really have no reason to hold a weapon, and the AC bonus from a shield is too good to give up. There's no point in having both hands free, so I gain nothing by dropping the shield.
The other thing was I actually wanted to use a staff as a holy symbol. A staff with chimes or bells on the end. I don't know why I fixated on this, but I did. Now, I could hold the staff and still use a shield, but now I have no free hands for spells (Warcaster would eventually make this moot). Also, I can just put the holy symbol on my shield, so the staff is pointless. But what if... what if I were to refluff a shield as a staff and disguise it as my own cooking? I get to have my chime staff, get rid of the shield, and still keep the AC bonus. Delightfully devilish, Seymour!
So, here's the TL;DR for this bit of homebrew: sacred chimes have similar (but not identical) mechanics to a shield. Sacred chimes can be affixed to a staff +X to turn it into a Not Shield +X.
Here's the current write up for the homebrew (cross-posted from this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612895-Cleric-s-Sacred-Chimes-(shield-holy-symbol-alternative)&p=24527792#post24527792)):
Sacred Chimes
Sacred chimes are a holy symbol that can be used as a spellcasting focus. They are typically held in the hand or affixed to a staff, club, rod, scepter, or similar object. Some religious orders might use a cross, crosier, censer, khakkhara, or other holy symbol or object, instead of chimes. Sacred chimes have a value of 15 gp and weigh 2 lbs. They can be affixed to or removed from a suitable object as an action.
If you affix the chimes to a weapon, such as a quarterstaff, that weapon becomes too unwieldy to use as a weapon. The weapon loses all of its weapon properties and becomes an improvised weapon. It retains any other properties, such as magic item traits.
Some divine spellcasters forgo training with shields, instead receiving a divine blessing from their deity that protects them. As a cleric, paladin, or other divine spellcaster, you may choose to give up the shield proficiency you would normally gain from that class to instead receive this divine blessing. You can invoke this blessing as an action, uttering a prayer, ringing the chimes, or performing some other ritual that calls upon your deity's protection. When you invoke the blessing of protection, you gain a magical +2 bonus to your AC. This bonus lasts until it is dispelled or you end your turn without the chimes in your hand. This bonus can't be used with a shield; you must choose which of the two AC bonuses to use.
If the chimes are affixed to a magic weapon that grants a bonus to attack and damage rolls with that weapon, the weapon loses that property as it can no longer be used effectively as a weapon. Instead, this bonus is replaced by an equal bonus to your AC when you invoke the blessing of protection.
But now there's more the character's backstory. We're ditching Kelemvor for a homebrew goddess, like I originally wanted. I'll need to do an actual write up of the religion, so don't expect that here, but would have something ready to give to the DM. The main thing would be the chimes as a sacred symbol, the use of them to guide the dead into the afterlife, and the cat as a sacred animal (now I know what my familiar will be). While many of the priests of this church remain in one place to provide their services to those who live there, some of the priests are itinerant, wandering the land to provide services to those beyond the established reach of the church. My character would be one of these itinerant priests.
Hmm, we're still missing something, though... We need to make this... personal.
Chapter 3: This is Homebrew Country - "And then Jon was a Zombie"
You know what would be a big twist on a Grave cleric dedicated to preserving the boundary between life and death and hunting down and destroying the undead? An undead Grave cleric. Now our character has a personal motivation to go on a quest: she seeks a cure for her curse, or the release of death. Fortunately, I've done extensive work on playable undead. On top of her regular race/class, we can apply the following template:
Undead Template
The following traits are common across almost all undead. Notable exceptions are that zombies are not immune to exhaustion, and vampires are not immune to poison. Aside from that, just about every undead have the following traits. You can use this as a template to make a character undead with minimal other changes.
Undead Nature. You don’t require air, food, drink, or sleep. Your creature type is undead instead of humanoid.
Although you don’t require food or sleep, nothing prevents you from eating or sleeping.
Darkvision. Even the most elementary undead are able to see in the dark. You have darkvision out to 60 feet.
Immunities. You are immune to poison damage, and to the poisoned and exhausted conditions. You are also immune to disease.
Note: Being undead means some spells, like Hold Person, no longer work on you, but many healing spells also don’t work, and spells like Detect Evil and Good will work against you, as does Turn Undead. So being undead is a double-edged sword. Also, most people will assume you are evil if they learn you are undead.
I've estimated that this is a power-neutral template. You are neither weaker nor stronger, just different. Opinions may vary on this subject, however. There's certainly a potential for exploitation, but many of these exploits only work if the entire party is undead, much in the same way that an entire party of flying races opens up new possibilities that a single flying PC wouldn't have.
How did our character come under such an affliction? Well, I might let each respective DM invent their own cause of the curse, whatever best fits into whatever campaign plans they already had. Otherwise, my go-to might be that she died in an accident, and a mysterious traveler offered to bring her back to life. But instead of a normal resurrection, she was turned into an intelligent undead. At first no one realized the difference, but once it was noticed she was taken to a local temple for the goddess of Death for healing. The priests couldn't help her, nor did they have the heart to end her, so they trained her as a cleric so she could go out into the world to find a cure to her curse. And, of course, to track down the mysterious traveler and confront him (he could be good or evil, depending on how the DM runs it).
Chapter 4: The Final Homebrew - "I guide others to a treasure I cannot possess."
Of course, this does beg the question of why she doesn't just off herself. Or why the priests don't do it. We can handwave it and say, "They just don't want to," but what if the real reason was that she just couldn't die? Or rather, didn't know how to. As I said, I've done extensive work on playable undead, so why settle for a generic template when I can pull out an actual undead race? Something that would actually give us some character?
Another TL;DR for this one: dual-type humanoid and undead, can only be killed by specific methods, bad touch attack, staring contests, and fear of rivers.
Note: Since I don't feel like editing it to remove these references, you'll probably see references to "graveborn" and "stillbloods". These are the undead race and subrace, respectively. The race doesn't necessarily exist in-universe, unless the DM really wants to introduce them.
Graveborn Template
Graveborn are a special breed of undead, and receive the following traits in addition to the base undead traits. You can apply this as a template over an existing race to make them a graveborn.
Undead Template. You gain all the traits of the base undead template shown above.
Dual Nature. Although you are undead, graveborn stand out from other types of undead in that they haven’t completely left their humanity behind.
You have two creature types; one is undead, and the other is whatever your creature type was before becoming undead (usually humanoid).
Withering Touch. As an action, make an unarmed weapon attack with a free hand against a target within reach. On a hit, the target takes necrotic damage equal to 1d6 + your Constitution modifier. This attack uses Constitution instead of Strength for the attack roll.
This damage increases by 1d6 at 5th, 11th, and 17th level.
Vigor Mortis. Whenever you are reduced to 0 hit points, you automatically stabilize, and even decapitation can’t kill you. There are only a few ways you can be permanently killed:
If you receive enough damage to kill you instantly, as described on page 197 of the Player’s Handbook.
If an effect kills you without reducing your hit points to 0, as with power word kill.
If your body is disintegrated, as with the disintegrate spell.
If your body is completely destroyed in acid or fire. When you take acid or fire damage while at 0 hit points, your maximum hit points are reduced by that amount instead. This reduction lasts until you finish a long rest. If your maximum hit points are reduced to 0, you die.
If you are slain inside an anti-magic field. While you are inside an anti-magic field, this feature is suppressed, allowing you to be slain just like any other mortal. If you are removed from the field while still dying, this feature reactivates, instantly stabilizing you.
If the lichstone that resides in your chest is destroyed. Your lichstone can only be attacked while you are at 0 hit points, and is immune to all damage except bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from magical weapons. The lichstone is a black pearl with hit points equal to your level + your Constitution score and an AC of 20 + your Constitution modifier, and regains its hit points when you finish a long rest.
If you take radiant damage that reduces you to 0 hit points or while at 0 hit points, you do not stabilize and must make death saving throws like normal. Subsequent radiant damage causes you to fail death saving throws as normal, but all other damage does not.
If you are unconscious for at least one hour, then you may gain the benefits of a short rest when you wake up.
Features that normally trigger or activate when you make a death saving throw, such as the Celestial warlock’s Searing Vengeance feature [XGtE], can be triggered or activated for the next five turns after you are reduced to 0 hit points.
Since we're dual-type, that means that spells like Hold Person work on us again, and yet healing spells still don't work. So that is a strict downgrade, but overall I think this template is stronger than the generic undead template. Withering Touch will generally be worse than Toll the Dead, especially since our CON will be lower than our WIS, but it's still a handy (ba dum tsh!) backup attack in case Toll the Dead can't be used for some reason. Vigor Mortis is the main point of interest here. I originally designed it to counteract your inability to heal*, so you're harder to heal but harder to kill. In this case, it gives us a narrative excuse as to why you can't just die (maybe you've tried, or the priests tried, and it didn't work).
*Remember, most healing spells explicitly say they don't work on undead or constructs. This isn't a penalty or restriction I've added, it was always there in the PHB.
But we're not done yet, this isn't complete without the subrace. I've written up six different subraces, each with varying degrees of balance. Since I still want to appear as human, there's really only one option to choose.
Stillblood Traits
False Appearance. While you remain motionless, you are indistinguishable from a dead body. You appear to be a somewhat fresh corpse, already cold but showing no signs of decay yet.
Masquerade. You can pass as a living member of your original race with reasonable success without taking special measures to disguise your true nature. Only your pale skin, red eyes, cold touch, and still breath betray you. Even those who notice something is off about you are unlikely to guess your true nature, unless they are already familiar with stillbloods.
Alluring Gaze. As a bonus action, you affix a creature you can see with your alluring gaze. If the creature is able to see you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or else it finds itself unable to look away. Your gaze holds the creature’s full attention, giving them disadvantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks. The effect ends when either you or your target can no longer see each other. Your target may repeat the saving throw if eye contact is broken for a moment, such as either of you getting distracted and glancing away, or an opaque object briefly passes between you. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this feature.
Your alluring gaze is considered a magical charm effect. For example, a creature that is immune to being charmed can’t be affected by your alluring gaze, and your gaze has no effect inside an anti-magic field.
Harmed by Running Water. You take 1d10 acid damage if you end your turn in running water.
As with the generic undead template, we should end up mostly power-neutral here. Each subrace comes with it's own drawback, and it always relates to one of the ways of killing a graveborn. In this case, falling into a river is a good way to kill yourself for good, thanks to acid being one of the ways to destroy us. In return, we get the ability to still look human as well as to distract people with a staring contest. Alluring Gaze will be of limited usefulness since our CHA won't be as high, but we'll probably get more mileage out of it than we will Withering Touch.
So now we can add a bit more character to our... character. She knows mundane weapons can't kill here, but otherwise isn't sure how she can die. She knows running water burns like acid, so she's afraid of rivers and refuses to swim in them, but has no problem with still water like a lake. She's a pure soul who would never tell a lie... but she might be willing to distract a guard with her Alluring Gaze while her friends pull some shenanigans.
The Conclusion
Well, I started with wanting a nice, generic character who could slide into practically any D&D game, and ended up creating a monster (literally). Where did I go astray? At what point would you cut this off? Where's the line at your table?
I know you can't assume any homebrew will be allowed when joining a new table/gaming group (and, in a sense, it might be rude to ask if you're a new player), but I'm interested in seeing where most of you draw the line for this character.
Also, I thought there was an actual poll function on the forums, but I can't find it. ¯\(ツ)/¯