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I do agree with all of the points above. Another reason that's probably a factor in the culture and stance here is the progression systems and general stance towards PvP, as well as server congregation culture. Being barred from Arabel is essentially being told 'you can't play your PC unless you like long long stretches of idle loneliness in a game whose entire redeeming quality is social interaction'. PvP is a mess on NWN in general and this server seems to largely have the stance of try and avoid it when possible. Which is good because the XP/progression system here is not tuned for a PvP experience that'd be enjoyable or even fair in the vague sense that NWN uses fair. A PC that's been played for a longer number of days will as an unavoidable rule be stronger than a PC that hasn't been played as long, there's no catchup or surpassing. So an evil character that's created can never expect to 'fight' out of a situation. I imagine, as a reasonable newcomer but someone that's had a lot of experience with PWs and enjoys mulling on game design thoughts on the side, that these things also contribute to a culture where 'evil' PCs are generally tolerated and not investigated if they make an effort at being hidden, blending in, acting normal, and basically not drawing excessive attention to themselves or their evil traits. Although the blunt take on snowflake preservation was also partially true and rather amusing.

That's fair, though one doesn't need to assume that all PMs are going to be cackling CE maniacs that want all the things dead.

At any rate, this thread has been enlightening to the degree that I at least think it'd be more hassle than it's worth to play a PM here given the setting and enforced level stratification. Unless I want to chill in the UD or Stonehaven all day. And yes I toyed with making a Wizard/PM/Skymage because I want to play the 'make the least playable CD character' game I guess.

I will admit to being a bit wary of the idea that an entire character could be destroyed on basis of failing a skill check one had no way of passing (Level 10 vs a level 25, for example). So I'd hope that there'd need to be some suspicion/interest garnered beforehand and not just 'I look really intently at anyone I ever meet ever'.

The crit immunity is (I believe) through organ rearrangement/mummification/something or another. Basically you either put your organs places where the foes wouldn't think to poke you for maximum damage, or you make them essentially redundant/useless so that even if your lung gets ran through you can still function. That's how I've always seen it RPed at least.

Bone Skin would be the other telltale trait, in its own ways. Your skin gets somewhat tough, hardened, dead-person like. Porcelain is how I've seen some PMs describe it, or more macabre ways for other ones. It would be obvious if you were close to one and stared at them for awhile, or touched them, that something is 'weird' about their skin. But couldn't we say the same thing for anyone that's under a Stoneskin spell, or many other spells? It's a possible RP tell route, but it's not immediately obvious either.

Vigor is meant to represent some form of toughness that's innate to undead, so again you just seem sturdier, more implacable.

The way I've always interpreted it and seen it played out is that so long as you're not in close contact, being touched, peered at forever, Detect Undead'd on, and so forth, a hooded/robed mage can basically pass off as normal.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. The passive class features are excellent and the RP from just those/the general undead interest is reasonably enticing. That the active features, the ones that would put you on a death list if used more than likely, are -really really bad- doesn't hurt things too much. Much easier to just hide your spooky skeltal arm instead of having to hide your summons and not poke things to death.

So since Pale Master doesn't gut your progression here I'm thinking it'd be interesting to try and roll one. I also noticed that the law thread doesn't actually have any provisions against undead. I'd imagine though that that falls under the whole 'common sense' thing, as in don't wander around Arabel with your pet mummy, but would it be a death sentence to use undead ever, around anyone, even outside of city limits? I'm not a fan of class features that boil down to 'use me and perish', so knowing if using about half my kit (All the non-passives) would mark me as kill on sight would help decide if I want to try out this character.

Now that said, as PM doesn't go past 10 here, the actual, uh, use of the non-passive features is quite limited (Fear my sub-20 dead arm DCs and rather disappointing summons that pale in comparison to the base summoning line here), so I could live well enough without using them but it's still a clarification I'd like to talk about.