quick questions concerning an undead character

[Kol Korran]

hey all! one of my players is going to play an undead character (sort of necropolitan) which brought up a few questions (i've never done this before):
1) can undead be reduced to negative HP, or are they destroyed at -1? if they can go to negatives, do they become unconscious? bleed? what?
2) if an undead is killed, can the soul be raised by any means? if so, which? is there an item that enables it?
3) is there a sort of "negative lesser vigor" spell? needed for wands of negative healing.

thanks in advance,
Kol.

[Mordokai]

Undead are destroyed when they reach zero hit points and that's it. Short story, you drop to zero hp, you're dead-dead. I think they certain undead can be raised/ressurected by higher level spells(True Res), but I forgot which ones specific. As for healing, buy a wand of inflict lesser/moderate/serious wounds. That should cover you. Or wand of Harm, if you have the funds.

[Yora]

A destroyed undead is just "dead". He can be resurrected as any other character, but it will be in his original form, not the undead form. If he wants to become undead again, he can kill himself and have someone turn his corpse into an undead.

The only thing you can't do is resurrecting a character while he is still undead. Like hacking off a zombies hand and using it to ressurect the person, while the zombie still exists.

That is by RAW. Would certainly be fun to meet your old undead body and have to fight him.

[KillianHawkeye]

I believe Libris Mortis has a revive undead spell, but I can't remember the specifics on it. I don't believe there is any "negative" version of vigor, though.

[Choco]

That is by RAW. Would certainly be fun to meet your old undead body and have to fight him.

I don't THINK there is anything stopping you from turning your old body into an undead after you are already back. It doesn't specify what happens to your old body when you come back in a new one.

[HunterOfJello]

The negative energy version of lesser vigor is usually considered to be 1 level of Warlock.

If you can hire a level 1 warlock to follow you around, they can heal you up after every battle. (And if they're a warforged scout you can keep them in your Bag of Holding.)

[Duke of URL]

By RAW, an undead that reaches 0 hp or lower is destroyed and that body may not be used to create another undead creature.

I believe there might be a feat (I thought I saw reference to it yesterday, I just don't know where) that would allow an undead to survive a single hit that would bring it to 0 or less hp.

There is the revive undead spell, as noted. It is pretty much similar to raise dead, except that it only works on undead and brings them back as undead. Does include the permanent level loss, however. Also noted above is that the normal resurrection line can convert an undead (destroyed or not) back into a living, breathing person (assuming the original creature breathes, of course). Technically, raise dead would work as well, but that has such a severe time limit that it only applies in specific cases.

The negative energy version of lesser vigor is usually considered to be 1 level of Warlock.

Um... how? A Warlock's eldritch blast does untyped damage, not negative energy damage. I'd think a Dragon Shaman's fast healing aura (fast healing works fine on undead) would work better, though only to 50% of maximum hp.

Edit: @V Yeah, Dread Necromancer makes much more sense, with charnel touch.

[TheCountAlucard]

Err, I think he meant Dread Necromancer.

[Gullintanni]

Technically, raise dead would work as well, but that has such a severe time limit that it only applies in specific cases.
[/I]

I wonder if an undead who'd be walking around for months and months could be the target of a raise dead, given that the original body had been (and I suppose still is) dead for all that time.

[Duke of URL]

The spell description states:

You can raise a creature that has been dead for no longer than one day per caster level.

However, I was incorrect in that you can't use it at all for this purpose:

A creature who has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be raised by this spell.

Even resurrection, which can raise an undead from the dead, requires the undead to have been destroyed first.

[Kol Korran]

thanks for the response guys!