The effect of the undead

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I've just thought about the ways dealing with the undead daily or next to daily for prolonged periods of time should affect a paladin or cleric or any undead-hunting characters and I've come to the conclusion that it would be really hard to preserve a more or less normal human personality, without issues, in such circumstances. Moreover, I don't understand why undead monsters don't come with a will save vs fear of at least some low DC. Come on, what would your reaction be if you saw a dead corpse moving? It's dead. And it moves...

Besides, what about monks? Monks fight with their limbs, which means they have to *touch* all the undead, trolls and other ahygienical abominations. Eeek.

 

Yeah, but what makes undead any more freaky than an orc or a yuan-ti or another murderous human?

 

Most undead have no comprehension of emotions. What's left to be afraid of? Dying again? The intelligent undead (vamps, liches, etc.) do get a save because they are smarter than the average dead whatever.

Or did you mean something different?

My monk doesn't think of her hands, knees, feet, etc. as her 'limbs' while fighting. Those appendages become 'weapons', an extension of herself but not part of her.

 

I think it's weird you don't have to save vs fear when you're facing undead creatures. It's understandable with an oh-so-high-level character who has seen some, but your average adventurer should be quite afraid. Let alone a henchman, peasant or something.

@HB: The undead are unnatural, that makes them more fearsome than your average orc. Same way, a murderous human won't inspire as much fear as a vampire. The undead radiate foul magic or a curse or whatever evil force binds them. They are always bad news and there's no way around that, no redemption, no reasoning, nothing.

Plus, rotting corpses don't smell cyclamen (unless they actually do ) and they aren't really hygienic.

 

I'd be severly freaked out at first. But I'm not an adventurer, and they're supposed to be made of sturdier stuff. Henchmen make morale checks.

As a side note, you might enjoy the Ravenloft campaign setting (it's basically the scary movie of campaign settings). There's something implemented in it called a "horror" check (or something like that). When something really frightening happens, you have to make a horror check or else...well, I think it depends on the circumstances and the DM. Anyway, check out Ravenloft.

EDIT:
Also, we're coming at this from a world where dead people don't walk. But in D&D, Animate Dead is only a third level spell for a cleric, making skeletons and zombies very commonplace. And to be honest, not that hard to beat. When Billy-Bob the water boy can smash a skelly or zombie with a lucky swing, there's not really much to roll a save over.

As for vampires and other greater undead, well that's just common sense. If you have no magical weapons...

 

For rotting, I always thought that being undead generally just put the creature in a sort of stasis, where it's not alive, but it's also not rotting. Exceptions probably exist; the mohrg is just downright visceral. So physically, I see nothing wrong with fighting undead from a sanitary perspective; being around undead all day and handling dead bodies/undead bodies will probably have adverse effects, but even paladins need time to recuperate, get out of the dungeon when they realize there's something they can't handle right away, and might their next plans toward defeating the undead.

For fear, I consider demanding Will saves vs. fear necessary only when the fear is supernatural or magical in a sense. Undead might be disgusting and scary, so you could certainly justify impose a -2 to rolls the first time you encounter the living dead, and/or if it's especially dramatic (like seeing your dead brother lurch out of the grave). It should be a roleplaying issue, I suppose.

As for undead actually having some sort of strange malevolent aura -- that probably varies. A ghast probably can't assimilate itself very well into normal society, but I imagine that some kind of intelligent, non-stinky, non-monstrous undead could fit in fairly well provided he had the right ranks in Diplomacy, Bluff, etc. skills.

It's my opinion that people who fight undead (or against, orcs, elves, devil worshippers, etc.) should be a bit different. An experienced cop in the inner city or someone who's worked with the FBI for 20 years will probably have a fairly different outlook on life that other people. On the other hand, slaying the undead in D&D is not usually a morally ambiguous task, so your paladins may turn out to be more stable -- and moral -- people than usual.

 

As Felinoid said, undead are too common (at least to the adventurers) to be scary enough for fear effect.


I was just thinking how undead cannot be rotting, since if they were, sometime in near future, every undead should look skeletal. Unless there's some slow regeneration process going on.
But then i flick open my monster manual and check Ghoul/Ghasts. Description clearly says they are rotting, yet their attacks (claw/bite) does not convey any disease oriented properties, which should be common sense. Paralysation is there, though.

For monks, it's not logical at all. Not just undead, just about anything. Plate armor for example. Punch into solid steel may be harmless enough when their fists are suitably hardened, but there are all sorts of nicks and edges. It would require careful aiming not to hurt himself, which should be rather hard to do in the thick of combat.

But then, when was D&D logical and went along with physics?

 

My understanding of Monks has always been that they're sort of based on the ancient Shaolin which means that a hit is also a focus of 'chi' (the natural energy of the body in reference to its surroundings) and as such you hit with an envelope of chi around the hand, fist etc. thus negating the unclean hit as you never actually physically hit.

As for the undead and save vs fear I agree with Fel that they are adventurers and the normal undead skeletons, zombies etc they would be used to, but the high level ones would be rare and more scary; you should really need fear checks unless you've buffed yourself beforehand.

 

I don't think it works like that. You channel the qi to a part of your body, not outside it.

Geez, things like micro organisms didn't exist in those days... ok, they did, but what you don't know can't hurt you... or it actually could hurt you, you just didn't know what exactly hurt you. D&D is a medieval world, I'm not so sure they were that concerned about hygiene. And even if they were concerned about hygiene, the monk has nothing to fear, because at level five he/she gains control of his/her immune system and becomes impervious to deceases

EDIT: typo

[ January 11, 2006, 14:15: Message edited by: Mesmero ]

 

Actually, you channel the ki through your body, to your extremities, but it can be projected outside the body. It's just that your starting Monk won't be able to perform such a feat, that only becomes possible when you master your art better. Hence the bypassing of levelbased damage immunity at higher levels, that is the "enveloping" DS mentioned.

But, none of you seem to consider the very easy solution: they probably wear gloves.

 

I agreee with Felinoid that you check out Ravenloft campaign setting. Ravenloft have alot of these things, like the horror checks etc everytime you witnes an undead. It also have tables of things that could hapen to you if you failed such a test. There is also 3 different levels of tests, depending on what check you take etc.

*flips through the book*

you have Fear, Horror, and Madness checks.

Fear is merelly used for scenes where you are outnumbered, in dire phsical danger, or if your most powefull team member is slain etc.

Horror is used in scenes where something is "wrong" as in "not suposed to be". like seeing a friend torn limb from limb, seeing someone polymorphed into another creature etc, and witnessing teh undead.

Madness is used for stuff like mental contact with a demon, alignment change, a paladin looseing his/her powers etc.

Also all kinda fun results to these checks, like phobias etc. They can actually alter the personality of the character.

 

It does not make sense to have to roll a will save everytime something scary happens. After all, an adventurer that cannot deal with more frightening things than a normal person will not be an adventurer much longer.

Will checks for fear should only be made when something so horrific or intimidating happens that the fear accually overwhelms the person and causes them to run away screaming like a little girl.

Completly off-topic but:
Monks do not have to punch an opponent to strike them. Punches are used when hitting an opponent in a soft area where concentrating the impact area by using the knuckles causes more damage than would be caused by a palm strike. Such as punching someone in the stomach.

Against an opponent in full-plate most palm and forearm strikes as well as most kicks would work quite well with out harming the monk. The chi powers would (hypothetically) increase the force of the blows and protect the monk.

 

I doesn't have any sense that you roll dice every time you see undead, like zombie. There are some undeads like liches, when you have to roll fear DC, if you are close enough and your HD isn't high enough. This was only one undead with that ability. Although it really depends what kind of house rules DM make.
I have been dungeonmastering D&D quite much and want to say that that kind of rule would be very annoying and frustrating...

 

In a typical D&D world, undead, especially lower level undead like skeletons and zombies, are just part of the known world. Maybe in a low magic world, undead would be quite rare. Even so, I think the fear factor would only effect commoners. Anyone with a character level should expect the unknown.

Now a 40 ft dragon would be something intirely different.

 

That's what I dislike about high magic settings. Everything is so normal.
The average Joe Fighter has been afraid for a wasp for 15 years, but now, since he got his first level of fighter, he isn't afraid of the walking corpses that lurk below his mom's hut, he isn't afraid of the half snake, half human invaders, the giant, poisonous spiders or anything else without the Frightening Presence ability...

 

Don't worry Master of Nuhn. When you walk into furball situation in my campaign, you'll learn to be afraid.

BE VERY AFRAID *evil cackle*



Actually, I don't think that undead require a frightful presence ability. I think that players as a whole should stop playing their characters as invincible, nothing-fearing badass mother****ers. I know I'm guilty of it myself, but ... a lot of the realism in a game comes from what the DM and the players put in it.

You see an undead coming your way? Cry out in terror/disgust and try to put distance between it and you. Don't go on the offensive until you have to and your survival instinct kicks in.

Not everything requires a mechanical regulation.

 

Faragon: I absolutelly agree, but in the end i have realised that *everyone* loves to play the cold person that never gets unsettled etc. So in order to ever get anyone to show some sign of "fear" i have had to include some of this kind stuff.

But i usually let them "skip" it after a few times. so no they would not need to take a horror check after the 5th time they met a zombie forexample.

 

Going on the offensive is not that bad in this situation. For some, it is a way to express their fear. Their modus operandi is to strike at whatever scares/threatens them, without second thought. Charging at an undead is not always a sign of boldness. Boldness would be to start taking on a solid unshaking defensive formation with the characters of your party, to intercept the undead and deal with it in an orderly fashion, just like they would do with the next orc.

 

Browsing the arguments featured here, I wonder if you people would at all be interested in the World of Darkness series RPGs by White Wolf Publishing, in particular, Vampire - The Requiem . Raptors description of the Ravenloft campaign put me in mind of it - a game featuring personality, mental and situational effects to every event (For example, a characters reaction to their party being decimated/brother being zombified, etc). A more cerebal Role Playing, as it were - much less badass mother****ers, Fara

 

Skeletons, ghouls, ghasts and zombies are all kind of creepy, and so might dishearten a low level commoner, but their effect would hardly be worth mentioning on a higher level stud-muffin PC. Ghosts force some fear related saves, and Vampires have their charm effects. Mummies have their disease inducing touches. So, I guess what I'm saying is that the higher level ones DO have some game related effects linked to their disgustingness or horrible appearance.

As for monks, for one thing they can use some weapons, and for another thing, they are in such complete control of their bodies that they don't worry about minor external defilements as long as they have their mental facilities intact to exercise "mind over matter".