Hello,
I am currently crafting a small scenario for my friends and one of them asked me to play an undead (Underborne Undead Sorcerer).
He described his character as a human soul that was forcefully dragued out of his eternal slumber to be enslaved, but who managed to escape. He now roams the world, trying to make the most out of this new “life” and trying to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
We agreed to not change the “death move” rules, as he can still be destroy. My question is about his ancestry.
I created a special ancestry for him : ills omens - Whenever you should make an action roll with disavantage, you may negates this disavantage, but you must use a d20 instead of a d12 as your Fear die.
I’m not good at balancing game mechanics, so i would like other peoples opinions or suggestions on this matter.
Should i just use his “before death” ancestry (Human) ? What kind of bug might this ancestry creates ?
What would you have done ?
Thank you
(I apologize if i made any translation mistakes, as I am a French player)
Far from an expert myself on balance I do have an easy suggestion. A reskinned Daemon with its dead visage and fearless abilities would seem an simple choice.
Agree with this as a simple solution, reskinning something existing is always likely to be best for balance.
When homebrewing, I’d recommend not messing with the core rules. Swapping the Fear die to a d20 increases the likelihood the roll resolves with Fear, but also allows a roll that was previously with disadvantage to potentially succeed with 32 + modifiers.
Something like “Whenever you should make an action roll with disadvantage, you may spend a Hope to negate this disadvantage” or “Whenever you should make an action roll with disadvantage, you may mark a Stress to negate this disadvantage” seems more fitting if you do want to use homebrew, but I’m not yet familiar enough to know which is ‘correct’ or balanced. The Ancestry features range from no cost (Clank) to 3 Hope (Dwarf) - I guess how powerful the ability is depends on how frequently you’re imposing disadvantage!
Sudden odd idea for a racial ability that is possibly broken but fun would be. “I’m way scarier than them!” which allows the undead to mark a stress to remove 1 fear token from the GM.
I like the idea of being more scary than the monster in front of you
We went for the safe option and chose to use the “Clank” ancestry to represent the reason he was raised for.
Shoot that thought through the feedback on the character sheet too to keep the ideas in the game makers hands as well. I’d love to see some form of undead or “Revived/Resurrected” ancestry myself. A possible rp flavor that changes your ancestry card if they die and are brought back to life or something.
Which come to think of it, I’m gonna go add that feedback myself.
For some reason your answer just sparked in me the idea of undead factions of the reborne and the neverborne that are in conflict with each other for (insert reason here)!
Neverborne. (Necrotic vibe. I feel like Shakespeare saying it)
Versus
Reborne (Radiant Vibe)
Neverborne were brought into this world with a key piece missing, their original soul and the body and soul are in conflict, causing them constant pain and agony, even to the point where flesh may decay at times. This constant pain causing them to loathe/be jealous of the Reborne. This pain and jealousy taints the soul and makes them more aggressive.
Reborne were brought back to life in the safety and comfort of their own body, accepting it and have found a newfound love of life. They pity the Neverborne, but part of them finds them disgusting in a way. While they wished all who were brought back had been so in their own bodies, they hold themselves as superior without realizing it. This superiority gives them a ‘Holier than thou’ complex as their soul and body reconnect, kind of like how a teenager feels invincible all the time.
