Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I have always wanted to roll up a Pale Master.
And surprisingly enough the skills the Pale Master gets really supports a build I am working on. It has Heal and Diplomacy of all skills- which I need.

Now I was experimenting with what my Pale Master will look like, playing around with various races, hair and head styles. Not a single one of them screams Pale Master. They are all just way too pretty looking. Very un-undead.

I also would like to have this character to have a bit of a social life. Which means keeping the undead experiments on herself a secret to most. I would like to see if its possible to befriend others while being a closet undead.

But, after reading over the abilities, there is going to be issues with how my character will appear mechanically (very un-undead looking), and how he/she should look being a Pale Master (very undead looking). Naturally (or supernaturally), this will absolutely affect how my character will be able to disguise her appearance and fit in with others.

Looking at the NWN2 Wiki:
Bone Skin- the pale master's tough, cadaverous flesh...
Tough as Bone- the pale master becomes more and more like one of the implacable undead.
Deathless Mastery- the pale masters are practically undead creatures themselves.
Deathless Vigor- There is no description- but I have to ask what is happening to your body to get a +4 fort save?!

I hope you see my conundrum by now.

How undead am I going to look?
Can I be a sexy but pale looking vampire. Or am I a rotting smelly half-skeleton?
Will heavy make-up and the disguise skill conceal my self mutilation?
Will I be able to hook up with paladin. Or is necrophilia my only option?

How undead do you want him to look?


On a serious note, I'm pretty sure that if you make it obvious that your Pale Master basically looks like a walking corpse, he's going to be hunted down and killed in short order.

Yeah, well I do not want the pitch fork mob after my Pale Master. Thats what I am trying to avoid.
Do I really have a lot of control over how my Pale Master will look like?

Undead Graft aside:

Realistically speaking if I have +6 to AC for Bone Skin. My skin is going to look pretty F'd up isnt it? No amount of concealer is going to make a difference.

Tough as Bone, Deathless Vigor....what does that do to ones appearance...it can not be good.

Maybe with Deathless mastery which makes me immune to crits, one can say that its just simply your vital organ no longer function normally.

The question is, how much control should I have over how un-undead I can look?

Disguise Self is a spell, and lasts 9 hrs from level 1. Just sayin...

https://www.bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=53206

old topic I've been using alot of.

Tekill wrote: How undead am I going to look?

It largely depends on you. It's a choice every Pale Master makes.

Can I be a sexy but pale looking vampire. Or am I a rotting smelly half-skeleton?

Your skin can look more or less like porcelain, or ivory. That's a baseline.

With make-up, you can look like anything...just watch those guys and girls on TV .

Will heavy make-up and the disguise skill conceal my self mutilation?

If the arm is a well-preserved, mummified limb, simply long sleeves and gloves will conceal it. The oils and balms you use for the smell need to match what you use for the rest of your body, of course, otherwise it's going to give you away.

Will I be able to hook up with paladin. Or is necrophilia my only option?

It's not just the paladin. I don't recommend undressing, in general...

I've got a feeling there are some decent... ugly... head models coming along in the near future that may suit your needs.

Invoker wrote:

Will I be able to hook up with paladin. Or is necrophilia my only option?

It's not just the paladin. I don't recommend undressing, in general...

I mean, or only undress when under the effects of "Disguise Self".


Honestly, that brings up another point. You might want to craft, if you will, a public look, Tekill. Maybe your Pale Master would always wear masks in public? Maybe he's always using "Disguise Self" (and always cognizant of when he needs to recast it)? Maybe he wears fancy, long robes and gloves? My point is, one option is to turn these things he uses to hide his state into a sort of character thing. Nothing says you can't do so...

electric mayhem wrote:I've got a feeling there are some decent... ugly... head models coming along in the near future that may suit your needs.

I'm really looking forward to this, as a sidenote.

This is how the Pale Master is described in PnP:

"Deathless Vigor (Ex): Beginning at 5th level, a pale master’s body becomes more akin to the undying flesh of his undead associates."

"Undead Graft (Su): At 6th level, a pale master gives in to terrible necrophiliac urges. He cuts off his arm and replaces it with an undead prosthetic, which may be skeletal in form or preserved flesh stitched in place like that of a flesh golem."

"Deathless Mastery (Ex): On reaching 10th level, a pale master gains the virtues of his deathless arts. His body becomes partly mummified (though he is not truly undead) ..."

There's no other mention of appearance change to the Pale Master's lore and the rest is up to interpretation.

The arm could be a well-preserved zombie arm that was stitched in place, it doesn't need to be skeletal or rotting.
And his skin would be partly mummified but that's pretty vague. And that might well be referring to the internal organs.

It doesn't force you to look like a corpse or mummy or whatever, on purpose.

On the contrary, the spell Living Undeath, does go into a lot of detail about what happens to your appearance.

"You invoke the will of your gods and your skin sags and becomes sallow, your eyes hollow, and your flesh foul and rotted."

I'd imagine that if Pale Master was supposed to look really awful, they'd go into detail about it.

You can also look like two fine gentlemen Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise like in the movie "interview with the vampire"

izzul wrote:

You can also look like two fine gentlemen Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise like in the movie "interview with the vampire"

This is exactly the kind of thing I was getting at.

All great information and tips!
I think I may just have a good concept.
What I can do is always have the disguise spell up to justify why mechanically my pc looks normal or even good looking.
Kind of like the elf king from the hobbit.
Then maybe have a more cadavorous bio description for people who can see past it. Hopefully meta will be minimal but should create some interesting rp either way.
Does he regular disguise skill work against those with true vision?

What about the undead arm? According to feat description, the pale master replaces one arm with an artificial one. But as we know, it doesn't change character's model and the arm looks the same. How to roleplay it? Should we ignore the feat description?

KOPOJIbPAKOB wrote:What about the undead arm? According to feat description, the pale master replaces one arm with an artificial one. But as we know, it doesn't change character's model and the arm looks the same. How to roleplay it? Should we ignore the feat description?

Why would we?... I mean, no one can force you to roleplay it. But that's pretty much ignoring the "Play your sheet" rule, imho. You should at least have gloves and long sleeves, if nothing else. Preferably, a bit more.