| Logan 997 |
Drake_Ranger wrote:Shaun, a fellow classmate, asked if he may play in the small (test) group for D&D at school. I agreed, but he wished to ONLY play as an evil character. He wanted to become a Drow Blackguard, but alas, lackguards are prestige classes. So my question is this:
What class should evil players be?!? I mean, what can they be??? O.o"First off, don't let your players boss you around. If you don't want to have evil characters in your game, that's your call. He can either play by your rules or find another sandbox.
So, assuming you are okay with having evil in your group, the next issue is this: if you are running a 1st level adventure, a drow character is too powerful to have as a PC. In 3.5, drow have a level adjustment (LA) of +2, so a 1st level character has an effective character level (ECL) of 3. Level adjustments are "phantom levels" that the character does not get hit dice, skills, or other class abilities for to represent that he/she is just a more powerful race.
That all being said, (assuming you aren't too confused here, it took me a while to understand LA myself) you still have options. He can choose to be a standard elf from the PH, or perhaps try a level progression (see below).
Classwise... if he wants this character to become a blackguard, the blackguard has a few prerequisites: the character must be evil, have a base attack bonus of +6 or greater, have 5 or more ranks in Bluff, 2 or more in Knowledge (religion), the feats Cleave, Improved Sunder, and Power Attack, and have made peaceful contact with a summoned evil outsider.
Assuming male drow or either gender of standard elf (both favored class wizard), the fastest way to becoming a blackguard is: 3 levels in a class with Bluff as a class skill and average base attack bonus (Bard, Cleric with the Trickery domain, Rogue) alternating with 4 levels in a class with a good Base Attack Bonus (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin*, and Ranger).
The reason for needing 3 levels in a Bluff class is 1) having a skill be...
Ok here's how I deal with this.
I start with a good adventure party which builds group integrity.
After the group has experience I will allow one player, who wishes, to be evil. A rogue is a good choice for this, at present I have a Bargast PC (the party is not aware of his true nature, due to magical protections and illusions which make him appear otherwise.)
Later, if my group gets too large(# of players) I encourage some players to desighn and run monster characters who activly stalk the party. This makes my game VERY dangerous to the PCs and forces them to be attentive even more. It also provides an excellent villan who they all soon love to hate. Usually the monster character is a bit higher in level than the party and I give him a group of low level followers (for the pc's to fight)
If the number of players gets really cumbersome, I then have anyone interested create a monster character of the appropriate level. I then increase the difficulty of the campaighn again (and the body count) by introducing some of my favorite villans (who the party will never kill if I can help it.) One example is a Medusa Sorcerer. She allows me to remove "extra" or boring characters> I then "spawn" the intresting monster characters (that the players have created as backup characters and run themselves) while putting there favored PC's into limbo...I allow them to revive any character turned to stone by the Medusas gaze IF they can gain the means to do so...As a rule I try to make monster characters a "guest appearance" feature and encourage players to try to regain their good PC's ASAP. If a player wishes to runa an evil character in a good campaighn then I take him under my wing and insert his character into the dungeon in a private game before the party plays. I them run the games in tandem.
There are also some other ways to handle this...
An evil party is only added (to my game) when I want to flesh out the base of operations of good. This can be a castle that the players have taken and call thir own or a village or city. An evil party provides the DM with a reason to flesh out normally friendly territory (to good PC's)
Note. Some spots will require protection.
For instance, the magic shop where players can get all that cool stuff...well, evil players kill and steal it.
I will not go into all the variations that this creates I will only say that it is important to remember that there are means of scrying that good has at its disposal and evil suffers in a "good controled" territory whern the bounty hunters are sent after them. Lawful societys also benifit from the numbers of resources they can bring to bear on a problem...(think of law enforcement here)