Undead, Taint, Corruption, and Depravity

[Doctor Despair]

I was hoping for some outside perspective on how an undead (say, someone taking the Necropolitan template) scores with regard to taint. I'm not sure if I'm parsing the ability properly.

Heroes of Horror states that...

"Creatures with the Evil subtype and undead creatures are

immune to any negative effects from taint. They automati-
cally have effective corruption and depravity scores equal

to one-half their Charisma score, +1 for undead or +2 for
outsiders. They take no penalties due to these taint scores,
but they can use them to qualify for feats or prestige classes
(see Chapter 5)."

Now, this seems fairly straightforward, except that the actual effects of taint aren't granted purely by points; they're granted at various score thresholds depending on ability scores.



Con or Wis Score
No Taint
Mild Taint
Moderate Taint
Severe Taint
Dead/Insane


1-4
0
1
2-5
6-13
14+


5-8
0
1-3
4-11
12-27
28+


9-12
0
1-5
6-17
18-41
42+


13-16
0
1-7
8-23
24-55
56+



Now, the first quotes declares that Undead have effective corruption scores based on the formula. As an Undead creature, however, you have no constitution score, so regardless of being immune to the negative effects of corruption, doesn't that mean you can never achieve even mild corruption, barring you from gaining any of the beneficial traits that corruption might bestow to an undead creature?

Mild Corruption:

Skin Seeps: +2 Escape Artist/Grapple

Moderate Corruption:

Bones Thicken: +2 Str
Paralyzed Face: +1 Bluff
Skin Thickens: +1 AC

Severe Corruption:

Lich Eyes: 60 feet dark vision, or +30 existing
Wrigglers: +2 Intimidate




However, if I'm parsing it correctly, you don't need both corruption and depravity to achieve taint threshholds, but rather one or the other; if you have a low enough wisdom score, you can still achieve tain threshholds by merit of your depravity, right? Which would allow you to get the benefits of depravity traits (notably, guaranteed "Hubristic" granting immunity to divine healing when that divine healing would negatively impact you) and the "free" bonus feats so long as you have that low wisdom score/high charisma?

[Kayblis]

You are correct, both corruption and depravity count towards taint, and both are checked separatedly. Corruption is measured against the Con score, and depravity against the Wis score. So you can still get Severe Taint without a Con score.

I also want to say that, if you're playing with both taint and undead PCs, I recommend you houserule that Undead/Evil-subtype characters can't raise their taint scores beyond the baseline through the usual methods. A common exploit includes becoming a Necropolitan and performing several taint-gaining acts to rack up a massive Taint score, and then apply this huge number to rolls by virtue of classes and feats without drawbacks. When coupled with Tainted Scholar and the sort, this just becomes effectively infinite spells at effectively infinite DCs, which isn't fun for anyone.

[Doctor Despair]

You are correct, both corruption and depravity count towards taint, and both are checked separatedly. Corruption is measured against the Con score, and depravity against the Wis score. So you can still get Severe Taint without a Con score.


Thanks for confirming that for me; I'm not sure why, but the whole taint system is giving me a hard time for some reason. Haven't been in a game where anyone referenced it yet, either, so I've got less experiecne to go from than usual.



I also want to note that, if you're playing with both taint and undead PCs, I recommend you houserule that Undead/Evil-subtype characters can't raise their taint scores beyond the baseline through the usual methods. A common exploit includes becoming a Necropolitan and performing several taint-gaining acts to rack up a massive Taint score, and then apply this huge number to rolls by virtue of classes and feats without drawbacks. When coupled with Tainted Scholar and the sort, this just becomes effectively infinite spells at effectively infinite DCs, which isn't fun for anyone.

I was reading about that, yeah. If I run a campaign, I'd probably use that houserule, or recommend the DM use it if I or a party member was thinking about cheesing it like that. Definitely Pun-Pun level shenanigans. Honestly, that was part of why it was difficult to fact-check my question; most of the threads online are just people complaining about how broken Necropolitan Tainted Scholars are, or arguing about whether or not Undead can gain additional taint, haha.

[Segev]

It may still be too high a threshold, but one way to handle it might be to have the threshold at which a non-[evil], non-undead character stops being playable be the threshold at which an [evil] or undead character simply stops gaining more taint. Call that point "fully corrupted," and there's just no more "room" for taint. The character is "tainted with evil" in the same sense that a barrel of crude is "water tainted with some amount of oil."