Why does basically every D&D edition (even 4e and 5e, for serious) make playing an undead PC such a pain in the ass?

Why does basically every D&D edition (even 4e and 5e, for serious) make playing an undead PC such a pain in the ass?

In basically every other form of media (books, TV shows, movies, comics, manga, anime, Western video games, Japanese video games), being undead is huge in terms of fluff and backstory, but not that big on the superpowers, short of being something like a ghost or a vampire. In fact, being undead is something lots of characters can hide relatively easily, and what powers undeath alone grants is secondary to other power sources. The whole "no living organs to poison/disease" thing comes up basically never because of some reason or another to make those things work against undead.

In D&D, there is so much baggage with undead. Resistances, immunities, "has to be evil," "muh negative energy," "you can be undead but only if you play this super special kinda-sorta-quasi-undead revenant race which might not be what you really want and eats up your race slot," etc.

What will it take to make playing undead PCs less of a pain in D&D?

>In basically every other form of media (books, TV shows, movies, comics, manga, anime, Western video games, Japanese video games), being undead is huge in terms of fluff and backstory, but not that big on the superpowers
That's complete nonsense, and even if it wasn't it'd also be irrelevant, because they are not TTRPGs.

Being undead means something specific in D&D, and D&D isn't supposed to be able to fully copy every possible bit of media.

That being said, what do you want out of actually being undead? Do you just want to be a human that's been brought back to life? A meme spewing skeleton moron? A friendly zombie?

how the fuck you gonna go adventuring if you aren't alive

>What will it take to make playing undead PCs less of a pain in D&D?

have a gm who doesn't have a stick up his ass

I'm absolutely sure this thread will remain civil and productive and that OP isn't just trying to start a shitstorm, no siree.

>What will it take to make playing undead PCs less of a pain in D&D?
A tiny amount of homebrewing. No need to thank me, I accept payment in dollaridoos.

The "brought back from death by an act of god/necromancy/magical phenomenon, and now a kinda unnatural abomination but not really" deal, handled in a less clunky way than revenant races.

>"Hey DM I want to play a human with this as a backstory. Is this cool?"

That's really it man.

>okay but you're not actually undead lol

But 4e has revenants, which are a PC race with minimal baggage that you can refluff into a lot of things really easily.

You're not actually sucking a dick either yet here you are, slobbing on a knob.

Because in those games, undead are the enemy, and they have a massive slew of immunities and powers that make them more powerful than other races.

This isn't fucking rocket science, you brainless retard of a shitposter.

It's also a Dex/Con/Cha race for death save min-max bullshit.

Not so good if you want to be, like, a Str/Int/Wis dude without the death save bullshit.

>massive slew of immunities and powers

Lots of the immunities make no sense.

Mindless skeletons and zombies immune to mind-affecting? Sure.

Intelligent undead immune to mind-affecting? Uhhh...

The spell can only affect living minds. You want it to affect unliving minds, go invent your own version of it that does that. Done.

>I want to be Undead
>but don't want any of the mechanics that come with being Undead
>but you can't just say I'm Undead without the mechanics, because then I'm not actually Undead
You're better than this, user.

Still, it's a solid option that's present in the system and should be acknowledged.

Maybe don't play D&D then?

Checking it, there's also the Vryloka, the vampire-esque ones, so that's two solid options that can cover a broad variety of concepts.

Vryloka aren't undead, they're those chuuni dual type living/undead.

Talk to your mother fucking game master, you fucking whiny cunt.

>Hey user. Can I be undead?

>"What for?"

>Backstory.

>"Sure."

Because being "technically and undead" is fucking lame and undermines the setting, either go for something interesting that differentiates you from simple mortals or stick to spooky classes like necromancer, I agree that

>"has to be evil," "muh negative energy,"

is fucking dumb tho

But "has to be evil" and "muh negative energy" is what defines undead in basically every edition but 4e.

this OP is a whiny cunt.
just play as a person who has died before, why do you have to be a zombie from a tumblr fan fic? what's wrong with revenant?
why do you continue to argue against playing as a race and having the undead aspect be fluff.

why are you such a humongous faggot?

Because undead are monsters. Playing them became a thing in the late 80s early is,long after d&d had its tropes established.

>In basically every other form of media (Sankarea, Kore Wa Zombie Desu Ka, Sunday Without God, Resurrection Princess, Dance In The Vampire Bund, Hellsing, Tokyo Ghoul), being undead is huge in terms of fluff and backstory, but not that big on the superpowers

This is like the edgelord male equivalent of wanting to play some fox demoness princess or something. "I don't want the game to revolve around me but here's my boatload of issues and specific demands". The problem is you if the myriad attempts in D&D to make different monsters playable ranging from undead monster classes to undead races don't work.

You should stop and consider why you want to play an undead character in the first place. Is it to look cool? Is it to avoid dying in the game? Is it to load up on free abilities? Is it to game the system? Is it due to some range of crippling qualities as an individual?

>Because undead are monsters. Playing them became a thing in the late 80s early is,long after d&d had its tropes established.
Vampire PCs predate cleric PCs, checkmate.

Vapirism is also an allegory for STDs and sex, skeletons are just spooky.

So?

>What will it take to make playing undead PCs less of a pain in D&D?

Surely more effort than play something different of D&D.

They dropped most immunities in 5E, so I have no idea what OP is talking about. In 5E, the only traits universal across all undead are the following:

>Undead Nature (needn't breathe, eat, drink, sleep)
>Darkvision 60 ft.
>Poison Immunity
>Immunity the following spells: Antilife Shell, Blight, Command, Cure Wounds, Heal, Healing Word, Hold Monster, Mass Cure Wounds, Mass Heal, Mass Healing Word, Phantasmal Force, Power Word Heal, Prayer of Healing, Raise Dead, Resurrection, Sleep, Spare the Dying, Speak with Dead

And they fixed that by introducing a dedicated Van Helsing class that saw infinitely more use than the OP homebrew vampire that it came in to kill.

Being non-humanoid in type is a hell of a drug in 5e.

>I want to be undead
>But without all the things that make undead undead

Because DnD isn't meant to emulate "every other form of media". DnD emulates specifically high-combat, high-magic dungeon crawls with all-humanoid PC parties.
Running anything else in DnD (in your case, non-humanoid PCs and/or mixed humanoid/non-humanoid PC parties) will leave you with a subpar experience that is best left for other systems.

What the fuck are you on about? It sounds like you’ve watched so many ”subversion of a myth” animoos that you think it’s the actual myth

As to more exactly why playing an undead PC in DnD is a pain in the ass, it stems precisely from the above reasons. More specifically:

- Undead are meant to be an NPC-only monster race;
- Due to the high-combat nature of DnD, each type of monster race tends to have unique advantages and weaknesses, to make combat feel more involved and tactical;
- That means that trying to convert a race from NPC-only monster type to PC type tends to bring a lot of unnecessary baggage in many cases.

The lesson you should learn from this is that DnD isn't a multitool that works for your every whim without heavy tweaking.

>Intelligent undead immune to mind-affecting? Uhhh...
An intelligent undead is not a normal dude who happens to have a living dead body. Their mind is animated by negative energy just like the body is, and is thus just as unaffected by spells targeting the remains of its subsystems as the body is. Trying to target an undead's will or emotions is just as useless as trying to target its kidneys, and for the same reason.

Also...
What, exactly speaking, is your spell supposed to do to the mind of a being that has already watched its own eyes rot away that could possibly have any real effect?

But mind-controlling literal demons made out of cosmic chaos and evil is A-Okay.

Yes, because they have Constitution scores; that is, a fiend in D&D has metabolism (or its mental equivalent) which can be affected. They're alive, not merely animated. Except, of course, for the ones who are undead.

Fiends are assholes, but an undead is just the hole. There's nothing to spank there.

Constitution has nothing to do with mind-affecting.

Nigga you ever tried something that ain't fuckin' D&D?
Alternatively, not being a snowflake li'l bitch who needs their character to be 'muh speshul'?

>you now count as undead for the purpose of magical effects
>enjoy!

Ghosts are neutral

True. Being a humanoid "undead", like how the warforged is a Living Construct, would just leave you with Undead Nature, Darkvision, and Poison Immunity. Throw in some stat bonuses, like +2 CON and +1 DEX (skeleton) or +1 STR (zombie), then a quirk, like immunity to exhaustion (skeleton) or Undead Fortitude (zombie), and you have a relatively balanced PC race.

But that's a shit way to handle it. It's no better than the revenant bullshit of 4e and 5e.