5e: Could an undead Paladin work?

[PangolinPie]

Something one of my players was wondering for a character idea they had. They want to play an undead Paladin. But I mean…Paladin magic is divine in nature so like isn’t that the antithesis of undead? Especially radiant based spells? Or is there some kind of loophole like a special type of undead or something? And I’m assuming he wouldn’t be able to heal himself either way since necrotic energy heals undead.

He wanted to play a ghost more specifically based on homebrew rules for “Awakened Undead” found here:

http://imgur.com/a/U1rZW

[Khrysaes]

Have him play a reborn from van richtens guide to ravenloft, and/or use the boon from wildemount.

[Millstone85]

The usual loophole is that D&D is full of evil gods granting (un)holy powers. There is an undead paladin page 47 of the MM, and the mummy lord page 229 casts cleric spells.

Then Eberron RftLW offers good-aligned undead, the "undying" page 311, who run on positive energy, the love they receive from the living, and their own devotion to protect the latter. In previous editions, this concept was also found in Forgotten Realms with archliches and baelnorns.

[solidork]

A paladin's power springs from their conviction in their Oath. A paladin who dies and returns as a ghost that still holds true to those beliefs could easily still be a Paladin.

Certain class features would backfire on them though, which isn't ideal.

[OldTrees1]

Something one of my players was wondering for a character idea they had. They want to play an undead Paladin. But I mean…Paladin magic is divine in nature so like isn’t that the antithesis of undead?
No. Divine magic includes the divinity of the gods of undeath too. Animate Dead is a Cleric spell.

However there is a subcategory of Divine magic that deals with positive energy / life / radiant. (as you mentioned)


Especially radiant based spells? Or is there some kind of loophole like a special type of undead or something?

WotC is not perfectly consistent here, but the general theme is Life magic (positive / radiant energy) is to undead as necromancy (negative / necrotic energy) is to normal life. However human clerics can use necromancy despite being alive.

The character could be an undead that wields their antithesis similar to a human wielding a torch (or a cleric casting inflict wounds).

OR the character could be one of the special types of undead. Since undeath is an animated state outside of life or death that is powered by an energy (usually negative / necrotic energy), WotC has frequently introduced the deathless/undying as "undead but powered by radiant / positive energy instead.


And I’m assuming he wouldn’t be able to heal himself either way since necrotic energy heals undead.

This is entirely up to you (the DM) and the player. You could introduce this as an interesting restriction. Or you could rule their healing spells swap between radiant vs necrotic energy depending on who they are healing. Or you could rule all of their radiant / positive energy will be necrotic / negative energy instead.


He wanted to play a ghost more specifically based on homebrew rules for “Awakened Undead” found here:

http://imgur.com/a/U1rZW

You have options. Personally I think the "Negative energy Ghost that channels positive energy but can't heal themselves" would be a wonderful framework.

[JLandan]

RAW has no racial restrictions on Paladins. Some oaths have alignment requirements. I didn't see any alignment restrictions in the Awakened Undead material.

One comment on the Awakened Undead race: the Ghostly Magic feat has an option of Wis or Cha for modifying ability; it should only be Cha IMO, because the power is derived from being a ghost, not their previous life experience.

[Chronos]

Some oaths have alignment requirements.
The only alignment restriction in any of them is that, to go from Oathbreaker to any other oath, you need to cease being evil. Which would probably be awfully inconvenient for a good vengeance paladin who broke their oath and fell by being too merciful, since oathbreaker itself doesn't actually require evil.

Some oaths may be suggestive of certain alignments, but none of them are actually required.

[Mastikator]

Oathbreaker?

[Millstone85]

Oathbreaker?Oh, you do not know about the paladin subclass that was so spooky they had to hide it in the DMG?

Yeah, it is page 97, next to the Death domain for clerics.

[JackPhoenix]

The only alignment restriction in any of them is that, to go from Oathbreaker to any other oath, you need to cease being evil. Which would probably be awfully inconvenient for a good vengeance paladin who broke their oath and fell by being too merciful, since oathbreaker itself doesn't actually require evil.

Some oaths may be suggestive of certain alignments, but none of them are actually required.

That's because paladins may fall without becoming Oathbreakers.

[Yamin8r]

There’s nothing in the rules saying that necrotic damage heals undead specifically. Lots of higher CR undead will be immune to necrotic damage but your bargain bin zombies and skeletons are going to react badly to necrotic damage the same way they’d react to a mace to the face.

In fact, there’s a bunch of revenant knights in curse of strahd, for example, and one of them has paladin-type spellcasting without any issues. There’s nothing in the rules getting in the way of that home brew race being a divine caster just like theres nothing stopping you from being a dhampir paladin.

You can easily introduce complications for such a character—maybe a major organization of undead hunters could be too dogmatic to see the PC as anything but a monster—but it’s not like a paladin is damaging themselves with their divine smite.

Necrotic = healing for undead just isn’t the case unless a given undead creature has that ability on their stat block. There shouldn’t be any hurdles to overcome mechanically here.

[Kane0]

Something one of my players was wondering for a character idea they had. They want to play an undead Paladin. But I mean…Paladin magic is divine in nature so like isn’t that the antithesis of undead? Especially radiant based spells? Or is there some kind of loophole like a special type of undead or something? And I’m assuming he wouldn’t be able to heal himself either way since necrotic energy heals undead.

He wanted to play a ghost more specifically based on homebrew rules for “Awakened Undead” found here:

http://imgur.com/a/U1rZW

Nah, there are oaths that work fine with an undead. Vengeance, Conquest, Oathbreaker, Crown, Glory, UA Treachery...

There are a few ways to do undead as a race, like Dhampir, Reborn and UA Revenant. Plane shift has Vampire too.

[Dienekes]

Ya’ll forgetting one of the most badass events in the comic this is a fan site for?

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0449.html

Paladin whose conviction is so great it lasts after their death? That’s rad as hell.

Yeah, you won’t be able to heal yourself. Not too terrible a limitation with someone that can deal necrotic on the team. But if you’re the DM and allowing homebrew anyway, you can just ignore that if you want.

Or keep it. Neat limitation.

As to an undead using radiant damage themselves, I don’t see the problem really. It’s not like a wizard is immune to fire damage when they cast fireball.

[animorte]

People are already on top of this, good-on-ya!

I've run an Undead Warlock/Oathbreaker Paladin for rather amusing Form of Dread and Dreadful Aspect pairing.

[solidork]

Nah, there are oaths that work fine with an undead. Vengeance, Conquest, Oathbreaker, Crown, Glory, UA Treachery...

There are a few ways to do undead as a race, like Dhampir, Reborn and UA Revenant. Plane shift has Vampire too.

Honestly, this thread has made me want to play a Devotion Paladin that's a ghost. Your conviction is so strong that not even death could claim you, but you can't return to your old life and Order. You're not going to give up though, even if you consider your current existence a curse - you can still find a way to give this half life meaning and do some good.

You could also have been like a bigshot hero paladin and "lost" most of your powers when you died.

[Sigreid]

5e paladins are no longer divine. They can be powered by their own sense of moral superiority. Should work fine.

[Greywander]

Something one of my players was wondering for a character idea they had. They want to play an undead Paladin.
Great! Sounds like a cool concept. Oathbreaker is a nice mechanical fit, but certainly not the only option. Playable undead is something I've spent a lot of time working on, so this is something that's come up for me. I do like me some funny skeletons.


But I mean…Paladin magic is divine in nature so like isn’t that the antithesis of undead?
No? You might be thinking of positive and negative energy, but even in 5e radiant damage (which might be positive energy) damages everyone, not just undead, and necrotic damage (which might be negative energy) likewise damages everyone, even undead (if they're not immune). Cleric necromancers are actually a thing, and similar to the Oathbreaker, there's also a Death Domain for the cleric hidden in the DMG.

It's true that clerics specifically get an ability to Turn Undead, and paladins also deal extra damage to undead when they Smite. I suspect this is merely due to 5e's player options being a bit reductive, assuming that divine magic is being bestowed by a Good deity, and likewise assuming that undead are typically Evil. Once you start getting into non-evil undead, or clerics to non-good deities, abilities like Turn Undead become a bit more dubious.

But you could technically make a homebrew god of undead and it would be totally fine. As others have pointed out, Animate Dead is already on the cleric list.


Especially radiant based spells?
Surprisingly, no. Divine Smite is a specific feature that does radiant damage that also happens to do extra damage to undead and fiends. Not every spell or ability that deals radiant damage has a special interaction with undead, and in fact most do not. And only a few undead (such as shadows) are actually weak to radiant damage. There's also vampires, who have their regeneration paused when they take radiant damage. But that's about it.


Or is there some kind of loophole like a special type of undead or something?
One isn't needed, everything works out of the box.


And I’m assuming he wouldn’t be able to heal himself either way since necrotic energy heals undead.
Ah, now we're getting to some of the interesting stuff. So technically, necrotic damage still hurts undead, unless they're immune to it (many are, but many are not). It's not like older editions where you can heal undead by casting Inflict Wounds on them; Inflict Wounds would still damage an undead.

However, it is true that a lot of healing effects specifically call out that they don't work on undead or constructs. So Cure Wounds wouldn't have any effect on an undead (it wouldn't even damage them). But there are a few loopholes for healing an undead. The Regenerate spell works, as does Goodberry. Potions work. The Healer feat works. The Celestial warlock's bonus action heal works. Resting always works. It's very restricted, but you do have a couple options if you need them.


He wanted to play a ghost more specifically based on homebrew rules for “Awakened Undead” found here:

http://imgur.com/a/U1rZW
Ghosts are pretty neat, but tricky to do. For the undead race I was working on, I ended up with two ghostly subraces. One was a sort of shadow; it could go through walls, but only in dim light or darkness. If you poked your head out of a wall and that side of the wall was brightly lit, you took force damage and were forced out. It was a compromise that allowed you to still go through walls, but tried to make it a bit more balanced for a player.

For the other ghost subrace, I pretty much gave up on balancing it. By default, it's incorporeal, which means it can go through walls and gets a bunch of bonuses. But it also can't carry or use items, which is a problem because it needs to stay within a certain distance of a "soul anchor" of sorts. Still, they'd make terrifying monks if you let someone else hold the soul anchor and stay close enough to you. Anyway, their schtick was their possession mechanic, allowing them to possess anything from dead bodies to suits of armor to seige weapons. You can see why I gave up trying to balance it. But it seems like such a fun race to play.

The one you linked to looks fine to me, I'd probably allow it. Then again, I'm a bit on the permissive side, so long as it's not completely broken.

If you wanted to take a crack at putting together your own undead race, here's a generic undead template I made that captures the common traits shared by almost every undead. Do note that there are a very few standouts, like zombies not being immune to exhaustion, or vampires not being immune to poison. So far, at least, those seem to be the exception, rather than the rule. But in reality, the traits for each undead are set individually, as in 5e, creature types don't have any mechanics attached to them (e.g. undead don't automatically not need to breathe, it just so happens that almost every undead released so far coincidentally gets a trait that says they don't need to breathe).

Anyway, here's the template:


Undead Nature. You don’t require air, food, drink, or sleep. Your creature type is undead instead of humanoid (or whatever it was previously).

Although you don’t require food or sleep, nothing prevents you from eating or sleeping.

Note: Not requiring sleep simply means you won’t gain levels of exhaustion if you skip a long rest. Taking a long rest still requires sleeping for 6 hours. Though ask your DM, they might rule otherwise.

Undead Biology. You are immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.

Note: Undead are not immune to disease. In fact, almost no monsters are. This might be an oversight.

Tireless. You are immune to most mundane forms of exhaustion. Character features (such as racial traits or class features) and magical effects that cause exhaustion still affect you normally.

Note: This is a compromise to allow a player to enjoy most of the benefits of exhaustion immunity while avoiding a few potentially game breaking interactions.

Darkvision. Even the most elementary undead are able to see in the dark. You have darkvision out to 60 feet.

You can apply this on top of any creature (for a PC, have them pick a race, then apply this on top of that). It just makes them generically undead. If you want spooky ghost powers, you'll have to add them yourself, at which point you might want to consider not having them pick a race, as their spooky ghost powers would be strong enough to count as their race pick. By itself, though, the template should be rather power-neutral, as there are several downsides to being undead that balance out with the benefits you get.

You can also look at the Reborn for an official "kind of but not really" undead race. Technically, they're not undead, which means healing works fine on them, but they get a lot of undead traits, like not needing to eat or breathe.

[RogueJK]

You might be thinking of positive and negative energy, but even in 5e radiant damage (which might be positive energy) damages everyone, not just undead, and necrotic damage (which might be negative energy) likewise damages everyone, even undead (if they're not immune).

Yep. It sounds like the OP might be thinking of an earlier edition. In 3E/3.5E/PF, negative energy hurt the living and healed the undead, and vice versa with positive energy. So Cure Wounds would heal the living and harm the undead, while Inflict Wounds would heal the undead and harm the living. But that's not the case in 5E.


However, it is true that a lot of healing effects specifically call out that they don't work on undead or constructs. So Cure Wounds wouldn't have any effect on an undead (it wouldn't even damage them). But there are a few loopholes for healing an undead. The Regenerate spell works, as does Goodberry. Potions work. The Healer feat works. The Celestial warlock's bonus action heal works. Resting always works. It's very restricted, but you do have a couple options if you need them.

There are a number of other options for healing undead as well:
-Aura of Vitality
-Life Transference
-Vampiric Touch
-Heroes' Feast
-Dreams Druid's Balm of the Summer Court
-Stars Druid's Chalice Form
-Shepherd Druid's Unicorn Spirit
-Grave Cleric's Keeper of Souls
-Peace Cleric's Balm of Peace
-Spirit Bard's Tale of the Angel
-Alchemist Artificer's Healing Elixer
-Battle Smith Artificer's Arcane Jolt
-Clockwork Soul Sorcerer's Clockwork Cavalcade
And I'm sure there are at least a couple others that I've overlooked.

Basically, unless it specifically calls out that it doesn't work on undead, it can be used to heal undead. So that mostly just excludes the standard healing spells like [Mass] Cure Wounds/[Mass] Healing Word/Heal/Power Word Heal and a couple others like Healing Spirit, along with a few traditionally "good-aligned" healing abilities like Life Cleric's Preserve Life and Paladin's Lay on Hands. (Although I don't see why an Oathbreaker Paladin's Lay on Hands shouldn't work on undead...)

[sambojin]

For full-on homebrew, and an interesting way of doing it, is to be a permanent Summon Undead spell.

Just drop the HP to starting at 10+Con for lvl1, and 5+Çon for every level after. Starts with 1 attack, gets 2 at lvl7, 3 at lvl11, 4 at lvl15, 5 at lvl19. AC scales the same way.

Choose your undead type. They're your racial abilities. Have fun!

Quick and dirty and easy :)