Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana and Necrotic Undead hunting.

[Mouseferatu]

The deliverer of un-named damage:View attachment 78829

And when he's been through the desert on a horse, it gets really confusing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And most Druids hunt the undead anyway. Without that being specifically mentioned in the Twilight Druid's flavour text though, people could get the impression that these druids didn't.

SNIP

Even the base assumptions of the Druid class as a whole are pretty vehemently against undead. A subclass with a different focus wouldn't need flavour text to tell them that they should destroy undead.

Is that actually a problem though? I don't see any need to specify that they hate undead more than other druids. They could be ambivalent about them, they could even like them.

So, we could have had a creepy death and decay druid (Like we have the creepy necromancer) and then left it up to the player how exactly they feel about the undead. Instead we're told our death druid really hates undead... because we can't actually like them that wouldn't do for a PC class would it?

 

[pemerton]

Why does your DM not know whether there are undead within 1 mile? Its not like they are a common occurrence in the world normally, and a mile is not a huge area unless you're in building-scale operation - at which point the DM should have a pretty good idea whether there are undead in the city or not.
Its only every short rest, so it can't be used repeatedly, and the default is going to be none unless you're close enough to an area plot-relevant enough for the DM to know whether there are undead there or not.

This is not making the case for the ability!

I personally don't like these large scale, long range divinations for the reasons otehrs have stated - they force me to make stuff up that I would rather not.

But if the answer is that the ability becomes "detect plot-relevant area where the GM has decided to place undead" then why is this a class feature at all? Is the GM otherwise going to keep "plot-relevant areas" secret from the players?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

This is not making the case for the ability!

I personally don't like these large scale, long range divinations for the reasons otehrs have stated - they force me to make stuff up that I would rather not.

But if the answer is that the ability becomes "detect plot-relevant area where the GM has decided to place undead" then why is this a class feature at all? Is the GM otherwise going to keep "plot-relevant areas" secret from the players?

I know, but I was genuinely curious.

Undead do not generally occur naturally and their creation usually requires specific deliberate actions by relatively powerful beings. These beings and their undead often only exist where the DM has specifically decided that they exist: they aren't the sort of thing you're likely to run into as a random encounter unless you're in an area that the DM has decided that there are undead. That is what I meant by plot-relevant.

It works for helping you to seek out areas containing undead: "Zombies. Fahsands of 'em. About half a mile that way and below the line of the land." Or whether the village might have a Ghoul problem in their nearby graveyard.
Or in more tactical situations: "All around you. Closing to 30 yards. . . 25. . . 15. . . "
etc.

 

[pemerton]

Undead do not generally occur naturally and their creation usually requires specific deliberate actions by relatively powerful beings. These beings and their undead often only exist where the DM has specifically decided that they exist: they aren't the sort of thing you're likely to run into as a random encounter

I haven't used random encounters for probably around 20 years, but when I did my random encounter tables (both D&D ones and Rolemaster ones) often had undead on them.

When random encounters are being used, they can be used to establish significant events/phenomena within the gameworld ("I rolled a skeleton encounter - this must be an ancient, haunted battleground!"), but also to track more-or-less random phenomena ("I rolled a shadow encounter - OK everyone, a random portal to the Shadowfell opens, and angry spirits come through it!").

My reason for not liking that ability is that it would oblige me to make up this sort of stuff in advance, or when the ability is used, to the potential detriment of pacing etc. That sort of divination ability is not a good fit for the "scene-framing" style of GMing I prefer.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Possibly. But a mile isn't that far: its less than half-an-hour of travel by the party or of wandering by most wandering monsters for example.
The ability isn't usable repeatedly, so the chances of it being used within a half-hour before those random-encounter undead showing up is pretty minimal.

And if something that level of coincidence happens, there are still ways of running with it: They're coming through a portal/long lost teleportation circle/rift to the shadowfell. Those aren't technically skeletons and zombies: someone used an Animate Object effect on dead bodies. Are they still around? If not, how did the effect last so long . . .
etc.