[races] Forsaken as player characters

[Big Mac]

The World of Warcraft MMO allows players to play as forsaken PCs, but D&D has mostly treated undead as something "unplayable". Forsaken are one of those few exceptions to this. I'm interested in what people think of Sword & Sorcery Studio's take on Forsaken.

Has anyone ever used Forsaken in their games?

How do you think they compare to Ghostwalk's playable ghosts?

Do you think that the Forsaken would work better as deathless than as undead? Or is sentient undead the best option for them?

I believe that both elves and humans have been turned into Forsaken. Are there any statistical differences between the two?

[Zeromaru X]

In the MMO, while both elves and humans are turned into Forsaken, the player only can play the "human" one. I know the banshees (NPC guards of Undercity) are of elven origin, at at least mechanically speaking they are more badass (as they are elite guards). In the RPG, there no are other options than the standard Forsaken, so I guess they're the human one as well.

As for the "deathless" stuff, I guess that their essence is that they are sentient undead, undead that have regained their consciousness but are still non-living, putrid corpses. Changing that can alter the idea of the character.

What is the concept of the Ghosthwalk's ghost?

[Tim Baker]

While I've yet to run a game with PC undead, Kobold Press released a sourcebook called Darakhul Ghouls, which was the first time I could really see such a thing working on a long-term basis without resorting to some sort of weird, all-undead party composition. If anyone wants to play a Forsaken or similar undead, I recommend checking it out.

[Arrius Nideal]

The issues arise mostly from healing and resurrection concerns.
If the Forsaken is in a non-undead party, they're the odd one out when it comes to healing: cure wounds that would heal the orc would hurt the undead.
If the Forsaken dies in the story, they cannot be resurrected (since phoenix dawn kills undead).
There is also the plethora of effects undead are immune to, such as charm, domination, stunning, all mind effects, etc.

The first case can be addressed by giving undead a regenerative ability (such as cannibalism) or with potions. The second case can be addressed by altering Raise Dead or even allowing Animate Dead for cheaper resurrections.
The last case is the pickle--undead are difficult to balance vs. non-undead, and usually fall apart against certain classes such as healers (WoW's clerics) and paladins.

[Bonetti]

Just as an interesting side note: During the closed beta, when they first had all the races in, Forsaken were still classed as undead in the MMO. This led to some interesting mechanics issues: they were completely immune to fear and had complete underwater breathing, for instance, but any anti undead ability (such as shackle undead, or at least one of the paladin's attacks) could be used to completely lock them down. In PVP, this led to hard counters, and it was removed after only a couple weeks because of it.

I don't think this would be an issue in table-top games, but it's something to think about.

[Havard]

Interesting!

The World of Warcraft MMO allows players to play as forsaken PCs, but D&D has mostly treated undead as something "unplayable".

Rules for playing Undead in D&D first appeared in Grim Harvest for Ravenloft (discussed here), using the AD&D 2nd Edition Rules. BECMI D&D (aka Basic) may also have had an Undead PC Book for Mystara in the planning stages following PC4 Night Howlers which focused on PC Lycanthropes.

It might be worth checking how these older editions handled these things when coming up with similar rules for a Warcraft tabletop game?

Eberron's Warforged aren't undead, but an other example of a non-living PC and how they might be different from living ones.

While I've yet to run a game with PC undead, Kobold Press released a sourcebook called Darakhul Ghouls, which was the first time I could really see such a thing working on a long-term basis without resorting to some sort of weird, all-undead party composition. If anyone wants to play a Forsaken or similar undead, I recommend checking it out.

I had not heard of this book before. I decided to start a new thread about it here. Maybe you could give some more details in that thread?


-Havard