Death Knights' Weaknesses and Room for Growth

[Redsire-argent-dawn]

So I am currently thinking of making a new character for roleplay and I’m bouncing around a few ideas.

One of the classes I really like in terms of fantasy is the Death Knight. I have always loved necromancers and undead, I like the whole semi-vampiric aspect to Blood DKs, I love the moral ambiguity of the Ebon Blade and their methods, and generally just think they are pretty fun.

However

What I am bumping up against in trying to write a DK character up is that I always want to make sure that my characters have weaknesses, flaws and room to grow.

Death Knights by their very nature are… well, dead heroes. Playing a DK does not give a lot of room to make bright-eyed rookies, or even less-experienced soldiers. They don’t have a lot of natural weaknesses given the fact that they’re undead and packed with unique magic. And your ability to form emotional, friendship or romantic bonds with other characters is naturally limited.

My question: How have others handled character flaws and growth on their death knights, and how would you suggest someone new to the class go about roleplaying it?

[Mahlificia-argent-dawn (Mahlificia)]

Whilst Death Knights are classified as a hero class and rightly so, they have a number of weaknesses.

Undead Death Knights might be immune to physical pain and have a much greater resistance to mundane weapons and harm, but they are far more vulnerable to holy magic and sacred metal such as Truesilver and Silver weapons that would likely deal a disproportionate amount of damage to them. Also, undead death knights with a lot of corpse bloat might be vulnerable to fire magic.

Lack of natural regeneration: One often forgotten advantage of living is that our bodies regenerate, albeit slowly. Undead do not. This means that over time, especially through strenuous activities such as fighting or physical work, your body is going to wear down, become weaker and generally crumble. This means you need to visit embalmers/necromancers/alchemists to essentially help rebuild and maintain your body to ensure your longevity. Any wound, scratch or dent you suffer will never heal on its own, and will add up over time.

But perhaps the biggest weakness I think is the fact that you run on shadow/necrotic magic which is inherently evil, and which might slowly corrupt even the most noble of person and intentions if given enough time. This means that a death knight’s biggest weakness might lie within, a constant mental battle to maintain their sanity and what virtue remains. Your care for the world, for others; as you walk on the edge of nihilism and surrender to final silence and decay.

Death Knights are very powerful, but because of what I mentioned above, I believe they are ultimately tragic characters that are doomed to fight an ultimately losing battle.

[Johnmore-the-shatar (Johnmore)]

Mahlifica made some very good points.
Also, remember, death knights are NOT invulnerable or invincible

In addition to what Mahlificia wrote, a death knight can’t possibly survive having his or her head severed/crushed, which means a skilled and strong melee fighter could kill a death knight.

Koranith’s guide How to Roleplay a Death Knight might be a good read.
(For some reason, there is a hyperlink option here, but when I tried posting, it said I’m not allowed to post links…)

The armor that Arthas’ (playable) death knights wear, is made from saronite ore,
which according to the quest Pure Evil (can be looked up on WoWpedia) is completely resistant to nature magic, and violently reflects Holy Light.

That is saronite ore, though, so one could (and I get the impression that most death knight roelplayers do) theorize that the metal’s properties change when it is refined and turned into plate armor. That is certainly the case with metals in real life (although in real life, the metal’s properties are strengthened by this process, not weakened - but then again, no metal in real life has magical properties, as far as I know).

Regardless of the armor’s magical properties, there are always gaps in armor, where a blade or projectile can find flesh if its wielder is skilled or lucky enough.

If a caster uses his or her spells indirectly, for example to bring something massive down on the death knight, magic resistance won’t do any good.

Besides, now that death knights have their own free will, maybe they don’t all wear saronite armor anymore…

Myself (this character), I do not think I am invulnerable. If Tirion Fordring and some brave heroes could kill Arthas, the Lich King, the most powerful death knight in history… surely I can be killed (again) as well.

[Redsire-argent-dawn]

Thank you both for your posts! You raise some good points.

I think I was a little clumsy in wording my original post. I did mention not having “natural weaknesses” and you are right to have corrected me on that, Death Knights certainly do have a lot of downsides mentally, physically an in terms of their equipment that stops them from being vulnerable.

I think what I was more interested in however and I didn’t quite bring out is more weaknesses in terms of building character flaws, motivations and growth in a more three-dimensional ways.

I would be very interested to see how different people handle personality and development within their Death Knight characters.

[Johnmore-the-shatar (Johnmore)]

Oh, that is a long story!
I suppose for most, if not all death knights, it’s not easy to accept what we are and what we did when Arthas controlled us. But the Battle for Light’s Hope Chapel was a long time ago, and much water has flowed under the bridge since then.

For me it boiled down to answering a few questions to myself:

Do I want to continue my existence?
Yes. I have a family, and I want more than anything to see them again, to make sure they are safe - and stay safe, in this dangerous world.

(That was a long struggle, but I got there eventually. Still is a struggle, though.)

Do I deserve to continue my existence?
No. But I will do everything I can, to… make a more positive impact on the world, than the crimes I committed under Arthas. I will make the good outweigh the bad.

I don’t think it’s possible to go back to what we were before… But we can use this opportunity to do something good. A lot of good. (Even if it is just killing bad things, because we are good ar that…) And hope we do enough of it that we may find peace with our past.

I will never stop regretting the things I did for the Scourge… But I can honestly say I have done more good than bad, even though it took years.