| I had an idea for an undead template. Please look it over and tell me what you think. It works best for zombies, but with a little forethought, it could probably apply to any undead (EDIT: except incorporeal.)
Plant-based Undead (someone else suggested I call them Verdant Undead) Rather than being powered by negative energy, these undead are corpses that have been overrun by a plant organism that animates their body. -Type changes from Undead to Plant. -HD changes from d12 to d8 -Attack bonus changes from 1/2 to 3/4 (like a cleric) -Gains a Constitution score based on size. (I recommend Tiny 6, Small 10, Medium 12, Large 16, Huge 20, Gargantuan 24, Colossal 32) -Since they are not truly undead, they lose all universal Undead traits and gain all universal Plant traits (which are mostly the same anyway. I.e. immune to critical hits, sleep, paralysis, etc.) -Immune to turning and rebuking. Also not hurt, but rather healed by cure spells. They are susceptible to damage from inflict spells. -CR should increase a step (e.g. 1/3 to 1/2 or 3 to 4) to account for the immunity to turning and the increased attack bonus.
In all other ways they should be just like the original undead.
Possible adventure hooks in a game: -An evil druid develops an Animate Dead spell of her own and is terrorizing the people of the town. -Infestation of undead from a Far Realm that local clerics seem powerless to defeat.
Potentially, you could apply the template to all undead and make it make sense with a little modification. For example, a plant-based vampire that sleeps by night in an earth-filled coffin and seeks out blood by day. Might possibly be healed by sunlight spells, rather than harmed. In that case, you may want to increase the CR a little more. |
Of course, it excludes undead as potential woodlings, but that's easy to ignore. One big difference is that type doesn't change, so if we followed the template exactly, the creature would still be undead, just an undead creature with druid-like abilities.
I posted my template idea in a yahoo group and someone suggested that I'd probably actually need to lower the CR, rather than raise it. (Same person who suggest the name "Verdant," actually.) He pointed out that these creatures would suddenly become susceptible to ability drain, disease, poison, death from massive damage and death effects, which drastically weakens the undead much more than immunity to turning helps them. I'm not sure, turning is so easy IF you have a cleric on hand and doesn't allow a save, but it's a good point. At most, the CR shouldn't be raised, and should possibly be lowered.