The Dead Template

Dead

Dead creatures are formed when any living creature lacking regeneration is reduced to -10 hit points. Consequently, they come in every possible shape and form. They are unique creatures to encounter; impervious to nearly all damage, yet utterly unable to communicate or carry out any action. Eventually, they will rot and waste away, but until that point they are best regarded as objects to loot.

Creating a dead

"Dead" is a template that can be added to any living creature (referred to hereafter as the "base creature"). The creature's type does not change, and it uses all of the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Hit Dice: Hit dice remain as normal, but hit point total is reduced to, and will remain at -10 hp.

Speed: Dead creatures are incapable of movement, reducing their speed to 0 ft.

AC: As base creature immobilized (loss of all dex bonus, replaced by a -5 dex penalty - additionally the dead creature is usually prone, resulting in a +4 to hit for melee attacks).

Attacks: None. (Other creatures may use a dead creature as a weapon. Treat the dead creature as an exotic bludgeoning weapon with a range of 10 feet, and subdual damage of 1d4 +1 for every size category above fine. Furthermore, they are one size category larger weapon. For example, a small dead creature is a medium-sized weapon. Creatures larger than mediumsized are considered a reach weapon with reach commensurate with height.)

Damage: None

Special Attacks: None

Special Qualities: The dead creature retains all the special qualities of the base creature, and gains the following special qualities:

• Damage Immunity (Ex): Dead creatures are totally impervious to harm either through physical or magical attacks. The dead creature's hit points remain at -10 and cannot drop any lower.
• Spell Immunity (Ex): Dead creatures are immune to sleep, charm, and any form of mind-affecting attack
• Healing Resistance (Ex): Dead creatures cannot be healed by mundane or magical means short of extreme divine magic such as raise dead or resurrection.
• Saves: Dead creatures automatically fail all reflex saves, but automatically pass all will saves. They make Fortitude saves as an object, and are thus immune to attacks that require fortitude saves unless the attack can affect an object (such as disintegrate).
• Abilities: All abilities are reduced to 0, leaving the character utterly helpless.
• Skills: Dead creatures lose the ability to make most any skill checks. However, under certain circumstances (on DM's discretion) dead creatures gain a +10 bonus to bluff, hide, and tumble checks.
• Feats: As base creature, though most feats are unusable.
• Climate/Terrain: As base creature.
• Organization: As base creature.
• Challenge Rating: 0
• Treasure: As base creature, less whatever passing creatures have taken a fancy to.
• Alignment: Neutral.
• Advancement: None.

Dead Characters

Dead player characters, also called "scrap paper," present a unique role-playing challenge. Virtually all class abilities are useless to dead characters, and the utter lack of any communication or mobility is something of a handicap. However, properly played, dead characters can be a rewarding experience and present players with many tales to share.

Dead characters nearly always have a character class, and will be evenly distributed among the various classes (with classes possessing low hit die being somewhat more common).