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Among human kind an infection has started to spread, one that fills the recipient with an uncontrollable rage and a craving for meat. When the host of this terrible desease dies he becomes one of the undead, a ravenous creature thats only purpose is to find the next meal, to sature it's never ending hunger.
Beginning stats: same as human with 2 less intelligence.
Aptitudes: 120 in all magic (156 spellcasting) and 80 in unarmed combat.
Special abilities: Rage 2 and carnivore.
When the character dies (not by drowning or starvation) he transforms into an undead (with the same saturation level and keeps all mutations). if he worships a good god at the time the god abandons him without pennance.
His stats change to: 256 in spellcasting and 220 in all schools of magic. Unarmed combat in reduced to 60 while fighting is reduced to 90 His intelligence is reduced by 4 to a minimum of 1 while his strength increases by 8 he gets a bonus of 1 hp per charcter level
His special abilities are: Rage: 3, doesn't slow and has no cool down period after raging but the hunger stays the same (resist slow doesn't haste), carnivore: 3, can starve to death, claws:1 teeth: 1, immunity to toment and negative energy, mutation causes rotting.
A character that starts with the dreaded of all mutations rage, the inhuman rage leads to a reduced capacity to learn magic but because the character is still human and quite intelligent he is still capable of learning magic.
Once he dies the infection takes over and he becomes a creature of pure destruction, able to channel his rage at will, with just the memories of his previous life there to stop him from losing control entirely and becoming just another one of the creatures of the dungeon. (which happens once he dies for a third time.)
brendan: This seems like a strange and clumsy version of the ghoul. Getting a second shot at life is distinctly uncrawl-like (amulet of lifesaving, anyone?)
tromboneandrew: I actually don't think it's even necessary to change the aptitudes after death, but to simply add the mutations.
Although, the thematic mutations could be debated. I was under the impression that those raging zomies don't starve to death like living creatures, so it may make more sense to simply turn them into straight ghouls with the intelligence loss and strength gain mutations, plus the rage 3. It also makes it simpler to deal with how food affects the creature, instead of having it both satiate and cure rotting, it'll do one or the other depending on the creature's state.
All in all, I think that the creature's alive state should also include fast metabolism, for a reason why the creature craves meat, and for the undead state to include these mutations:
Plus the standard undead stuff and the ghoul rotting
This also makes it a bit easier for the characer to still spellcast — in fact, in some ways, it's easier due to the change in nature of hunger of the creature. On the other hand, the reduced intelligence definitely makes it more problematic for the more powerful spells. I also figure that the shouter mutation fits in with the uncontrollable rage issue.
The biggest problem for this idea to me is that it may encourage players to suicide, to get to the next stage. Perhaps it might also be a good idea to have the creature gain NO more stats after death, to discourage players from killing themselves right away.
Incomp: Um, aren't undead unable to go berserk? Furthermore, if you want to modify berserkitis as you say above, it has to be something different entirely– by definition, berserk exhausts you and slows you if you don't have res slow. Furthermore, there's a reason undead can't berserk: They don't have a normal food clock. So if you have an undead species which somehow resists the side effects of berserk and doesn't hunger, and has berserkitis 3, you essentially have a creature that, if it can get into melee, has 1.5x health, is mighted, and is hasted in almost every fight. And since it doesn't tire as you say, it'll go back to berserking after the first rage ends almost immediately. With no penalties attached. Sorry, but this concept seems flawed to me.