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Saintjebus
2008-12-11, 10:52 AM
I need a little bit of help. I'm creating an undead focused dungeon for my group, and I was having a little trouble coming up with a lot of varied encounters with just the undead in the MM, mainly because this needs to be a third level dungeon. I've come up with a rough template for making a monster undead, any critiques/ideas for me?

Undead Template
Can be added to any monster

Monster gains the "Undead" keyword
Monster gains Vulnerability: Radiant 5
Monster gains Resist: Necrotic 10

Mando Knight
2008-12-11, 11:06 AM
Not much of a template... but it makes sense. You could make it a "Zombie Template," giving it Immunity to disease and poison in exchange for killing its Dexterity, Charisma, and Intelligence...

juggalotis
2008-12-11, 11:07 AM
possibly add something like the trolls healing where unless something in particular (ie radiant damage or dissassembly of corpse) It reawakens on the turn after it is reduced to 0 hitpoint with a set hp value

im glad this came up actually because im in the middle of trying to do the exact same thing for a campaign

Dentarthur
2008-12-11, 11:09 AM
Try the other way around. Take the standard undead and give it creature properties. They don't have to be much different, either. Give a zombie Shifty, you've got a kobold zombie. Give a skeleton an oversized weapon, you've got a bugbear skeleton. You can even have several types of undead be mechanically identical, and just describe them differently to make them feel different.

juggalotis
2008-12-11, 11:10 AM
add a disease to it's attack maybe that if character dropped to 0 before disease is cured it reawakens as an undead (this could also work well with some clever dm'ing if a player WANTS to be an undead)

Mauril Everleaf
2008-12-11, 11:12 AM
One of the nice things that 4e recommends (but that you could do in any edition) is to take the stat block for any monster, strip the fluff and keep the crunch, and then re-fluff it. You need undead? Take a skeleton or zombie, call it a necro-goblin or a grave creeper and call it a day. But, if you are wanting to give it some of the special abilities of certain low level monsters, you seem to be on the right track. But I would also alter the monster's speed (reduce it by one or two), give it immunity to disease and poison (which both zombies and skeletons get) and add darkvision.

juggalotis
2008-12-11, 11:13 AM
Hmmmmmmm an undead leader/controller construct as other enemies die it can absorb bones or body parts etc etc and use them either for interesting modifications to himself (ie: gain abilities unique to the enemy killed) or use it to charge an attack ( ie: damage as 1d10 + 5/enemy absorbed, or alternativly having to absorb so many to make the attack, this being an interesting alternative to rolling to recharge.)

Saintjebus
2008-12-11, 11:14 AM
Oops. I missed something that I had originally added to the template:

Monster gains immunity to disease and poison.

Basically, I just looked at all the low level undead to see what they had in common. The vulnerabilities, resists and immunities were it. I like giving features to make different undead. The reason that I wanted to make it a template was because I like the different abilities that a lot of monsters have, i.e. some of the goblinoid controller abilities.

juggalotis
2008-12-11, 11:26 AM
I agree with what was said earlier to. just modify regular characters. say for an undead ogre. knock off some speed, pop in the immunites, weakness to radiant, say a bonus to strength and fortitude, and a wicked slash to dex, reflex and will saves.


Wow im already drawing up new character blocks. i love this thread *undead hug*

allonym
2008-12-11, 11:40 AM
I'd personally just use a Zombie Hulk for that.

Because Zombie Hulks are badass.

Mauril Everleaf
2008-12-11, 11:43 AM
Basically, I just looked at all the low level undead to see what they had in common. The vulnerabilities, resists and immunities were it.
They also both have Darkvision and they seem to have a -1 to Fort, Ref and Will (from what I can tell from their stats). So, for example, the undead template on an Orc Skirmisher would look something like this:


Undead Orc Skirmisher
Initiative +5 Senses Perception +1; darkvision
HP 46; Bloodied 23; see also warrior’s surge
AC 17; Fortitude 14, Reflex 13, Will 11
Immune disease, poison; Resist 10 necrotic; Vulnerable 5 radiant
Speed 5 (7 while charging)
--- Greataxe (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
+8 vs. AC; 1d12 + 3 damage (crit 1d12 + 15).
--- Handaxe (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
Ranged 5/10; +7 vs. AC; 1d6 + 3 damage; see also killer’s eye.
--- Warrior’s Surge (standard, usable only while bloodied; encounter)
✦ Healing, Weapon
The orc raider makes a melee basic attack and regains 11 hit
points.
--- Killer’s Eye
When making a ranged attack, the orc raider ignores cover and
concealment (but not total concealment) if the target is within 5
squares of it.
Alignment Unaligned Languages -
Skills Endurance +8, Intimidate +5
Str 17 (+4) Dex 15 (+3) Wis 10 (+1)
Con 14 (+3) Int 3 (-3) Cha 3 (-3)

Both the zombie and skeleton had very low Int and Cha, so I lowered those for the Undead Orc Skirmisher too. Hope this helps.

Artanis
2008-12-11, 12:01 PM
Another option is to use the guidelines in the DMG for changing a monster's level. It's actually fairly simple: just take the existing monster and add or subtract (if raising or lowering the level, respectively) a few of the stats, and voila! Instant level-appropriate monster =P.


Your template looks pretty good, though while you probably already know this, I'm certain it would weaken the monster overall. Simply adding the "undead" template makes it targetable by some stuff it wasn't before (especially from the Divine classes' powers), and a vulnerability is probably going to come into play more than resistance and/or immunities. That goes double for resistances and/or immunities to relatively more rare damage types like Necrotic (which even against a "normal" enemy won't be coming into play as often as something like Fire).

Oracle_Hunter
2008-12-11, 03:59 PM
Try the other way around. Take the standard undead and give it creature properties. They don't have to be much different, either. Give a zombie Shifty, you've got a kobold zombie. Give a skeleton an oversized weapon, you've got a bugbear skeleton. You can even have several types of undead be mechanically identical, and just describe them differently to make them feel different.

I like this suggestion.

Personally, I use massive re-skinning in my campaign. Currently I'm making up a Random Encounter table for a forest that is infested with Ettercaps, Spiders, and Beetles. But I thought using basically only 4 different types of insects was, well, boring. Some things I did:

Reskinned Lightning Scorpions into Lightning Beetles - very easy, I just wanted something more appropriate to the climate.

Reskinned a Rat Swarm into a Gnasher Beetle Swarm - also easy; I did it because the Rot Scarab swarm was too high level.

Reskinned a Choker into a Skynet Spider - more difficult, but interesting. Now it's a spider that can spin and fire a special web that constricts on its target, slowly crushing them to death. They name comes from their penchant to lurk in trees and scoop up their pray, hanging them in the air until dead :smallbiggrin:

This is definitely easier than trying to make some sort of template, particularly since the zombie-versions of things should be different than the living versions (different speed movement and so forth).

juggalotis
2008-12-11, 07:19 PM
hm spiders and other numerous bugs have EXOskeletons. how are we to know if they are undead or not? i mean my last appartment may have been infested with undead ants last year.

Inyssius Tor
2008-12-11, 08:54 PM
The little red eyes and aura of necrotic energy are a dead giveaway.

EDIT: I should contribute!

...yep, that template looks fine to me. Doesn't really stand out, but it works just fine. I personally would make actual new monsters, but I clearly have too much time on my hands.