GLOG Class: Wraith

Incorporeal undead, wraiths are the spirits of cursed mortals refused a place in the afterlife. A cursed person slowly becomes transparent and immaterial, the connection between their spirit and body straining, possessing mortals and creating undead revenants.



Wraith levels can be gained in one of two ways:

Race as Class: You are a wraith, and may only take classes as a wraith.

Curse: Wraithdom is gained from a major curse. If you have control of how the curse advances, you can choose to take levels, and if you level beyond 4 can choose to replace another template with Wraith. If you don’t have control, you will gain a wraith template at every level, even replacing other templates.

Wraith
A: Dominate, Incorporeal
B: Chill Touch
C: Possession
D: Gravewalker

Dominate: You touch a sentient creature, and they must make an HP check. If they roll under their current HP, they resist you. If they fail, they come under your influence for 1d6 (wraith template increment). While under your influence, they cannot harm you or your allies, and must fulfill simple commands. Being harmed by you or your allies or other severe treatment allows them to Save to break control. You can always see exactly how much HP a creature has.
Wraith template increment: 1. Rounds 2. Minutes 3. Hours 4. Days

Incorporeal: For each Wraith template, you gain +2 Defense against non magical physical attacks (normal weapons, claws etc.) Magical weapons, spells, fire, acid and attacks by elementals affect you normally. With four templates, you become immune to non magical physical attacks and become fully incorporeal.

Chill Touch: You touch a living creature and deal 1d6 cold damage.

Possession: You may jump from your body into one of your Dominated creatures for the duration of your Domination. Their equipment and physical attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, HD, HP and Speed) are used, while you keep your mental attributes (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Save). At the end of the Domination, if you are still inside, you can attempt to  re-Dominate them. If you succeed, they lose a Hit Dice and 1d8 hit points. If you fail, you are ejected, and may not re-Dominate them. While possessing another body, you may order around your old one like a mindless undead.

Gravewalker: You are (un)dead. The link between spirit and body is broken. You can now exist as an incorporeal spirit independent of a body, but cannot interact with the physical world and have no equipment. You can stay in your old body, but it will wither and lose 1d8 hit points a day until it becomes unusable. You can spend one day rending the mind of a Dominated creature into a form that suits you, and create a Revenant. This undead is permanently Dominated by you, and you can Possess it at will. It takes 1d8 points of damage at the end of each day it was possessed, which it cannot regain. You may have as many Revenants as your total level. As a spirit, you can pass through matter, but not through magical barriers or thresholds. Holy magic and spells affecting spirits also affect you.

You want to follow this blooooog...

Is the wraith powerful? Yes. Does it have limitations? Yep. Does it need play testing? Absolutely.

For the first two levels, you basically have a situational dodge, the ability to create minions and a touch attack. At third level, you start body-hopping, lending you to a more reckless play style. At fourth level, everything changes. You no longer have equipment. Your revenants do. You’re constantly trying to maintain a population of undead hirelings, taking direct control in dire situations, knowing it will weaken you in the long term. I never want a Wraith to feel secure. They should constantly be on the prowl, itching for new bodies.

Am I worried about a level 4 Wraith having up to four utterly loyal hirelings that don’t need to eat or be paid? Nah. High level characters should have a large number of hirelings anyway, and they can only follow simple commands.

What does the Wraith look like? I’d leave it up to the player. Like regular person but a bit see-through? Sure. A pale, wispy ghost? Alright. Like a noonwraith from the Witcher? Aight. I’m leaning towards allowing the wraith to change their appearance on a long rest. Now that’s leaving the door open to shenanigans.

The Wraith lends itself to a variety of gameplay experiences, from playing Sims with your revenants to infiltrating the enemy with possession.

Muah hahaha, bahahahaha!

All that said, the Wraith isn’t a core class and should be offered on a campaign by campaign basis. Expect a player who starts turning into a wraith to become evil regardless of their previous alignment.  In fact, they fit best in wholly evil parties, playing evil campaigns, which I may or may not be working on right now....