Padan Slade's page

So one of my PCs for Age of Worms is playing a favored soul and wants to take the Contemplative prestige class, which gives him bonus domains. I ruled that he would get access to the power and simply know the spells on his domain list; however, he could only cast a domain spell once a day. My question is, what if he takes a domain like Glory, the power of which is "turn undead with a +2 bonus on the turning check and +1d6 on the turning damage roll"? Does he get no benefit from the power, since favored souls can't turn undead? Does he gain the ability to turn undead? If so, is it as a cleric of his level, or should it be less (say, as a paladin)?

Any insights are welcome.

I just picked up Fiendish Codex 2, which is a great, great book. My favorite thing about it was that it makes a start on adjudicating alignment with "Corrupt Acts", which are basically examples of acts that earn a certain number of "corrupt points" based on their severity. Once you have 9 corrupt points, off to Hell (or the Abyss, if you're chaotic, or whatever) you go, no redemption. I think it's a really good way to handle alignment through the rules without having to deal with the bickering when you say that because the paladin hacked the head off the evil henchman and showed it to his bound and helpless friend in order to get info out of him, he's taking an alignment hit. They've also got a section for lawful acts. It's good for what it does, but I wanted something a little more general-purpose that could handle any kind of alignment switching. Here are my results. Please, great Lords of the Boards, tell me how I can improve/refine it!

Good & Evil:
No character starts out with any corrupt points. (unless it's backstory appropriate, that is.) The scale goes from 0-9 points. When you've accumulated 4 points, you are officially neutral, but can still commit yourself back to the path of good. When you've acquired 9 points, if you die, you go immediately to the appropriate hell for your alignment, no matter how many orphans you rescue or minions of evil you vanquish.

Acts that earn corruption points (with their values):
Using an evil spell 1
Humiliating a companion or underling 1
Use of injury type poison 1
Stealing from the needy 2
Desecrating a good church or temple 2
Betraying a friend or ally for personal gain 2
Use of any non-injury type poison 2
Causing gratituitous injury to a creature 3
Perverting justice for personal gain 3
Use of any poison that deals CON damage 3
Inflicting painful torture for gain 4
Murder 5
Cold-blooded murder 6
Inflicting painful torture for pleasure 6
Murder for pleasure 7

Removing corruption points:
Characters can remove corruption points by undergoing a program of repentance under the guidance of a qualified spiritual advisor (a good-aligned divine spellcaster of some kind).
A character with a corruption rating of 3 or lower can reduce it to 0 through good acts alone.
A character with a corruption rating of 4 or higher must repent through good acts and also receive an atonement spell to ransom his soul back from the underworld.
To remove corruption points, the character must give up all benefits gained from the act of corruption (if possible), offer a sincere apology to those harmed and provide full restitution, and make a donation to either the church of the spiritual advisor or simply those more needy than the character equal to 10% of the number of corruption points the character possesses. In addition, the spiritual advisor must assign an active gesture of repentance such as helping another unrequited, fasting, a period of silent retreat, or a dangerous quest against the forces of evil, depending on the nature of the deity.

Law & Chaos:
This works on a slightly different system. Characters of any alignment will have a certain number of both law and chaos points from 0-9. Your starting alignment determines how many of each you have. If you start as lawful, you have 4 law points and 0 chaos points; as chaotic, you have 0 law points and 4 chaos points; and as neutral you will have both 0 law points and 0 chaos points. At any time, if you have at least 2 more points in one alignment than the other, your alignment changes appropriately. If you have a number of law and chaos points that are within 1 point of variance with each other, you become neutral. If you have 9 points in either alignment, they can only be removed through formal repentance aided by a cleric of the opposing alignment.

Acts that earn law points (with their values):
Swearing fealty to a leader you know 1
Swearing fealty to a leader you've never met 2
Resolving a dispute through lawful process 2
Quitely accepting a legal judgment against you 2
Executing a lawful sentence of corporal punishment 3
Following a rule you consider stupid 3
Aiding a superior, to your own detriment 3
Swearing fealty to a devil 4
Obeying a leader you do not respect 4
Performing a lawful execution 5

Acts that earn chaos points (with their values):
Refusing to swear fealty to a leader 1
Violating an established law 2
Resolving a dispute through personal means 2
Loudly protesting a legal judgment against you 2
Refusal to obey a reasonable rule 3
Disrupting a legal proceeding 3
Failing to aid a superior, to your own detriment 3
Bargaining with a demon 4
Failing to accept a legal restriction placed on you 4
Organizing a protest of an established law 5

Let the criticisms begin!

I asked this question on another thread back in the day (of course, I no longer remember which one) and never did get much of an answer- I mailed it in to the Sage and also got no answer, so I'll put it up again.

A drunken master's improvised weapon class feature says that it deals unarmed strike damage plus its own extra damage- does that also bypass damage reduction as an unarmed strike would? i.e. if you were to hit someone with a tree branch, would that be bludgeoning and magic if you were high enough level monk to bypass magic DR? I couldn't find anything in the FAQ or errata to say one way or the other.

(spoiler alert) My PCs are just about to finish the Test of the Smoking Eye- they just hit 10th level, and to start next chapter 12th level is recommended. So I want to throw some XP their way, and I really like And Madness Followed. So I've been working on the conversion.

Does anyone have suggestions for meshing these two? Right now I'm thinking of having Sophia tap into the dreams of Adimarchus instead of the Far Plane itself- however, the Carcosa/King in Yellow thing troubles me and I don't know if I want to leave it in unaltered or not. I changed the Carcosan Codex to be a journal penned by Adimarchus himself, and I've decided to make the Yellow Sign the Carcerian Sign, but that's as far as I've gotten. Thoughts would be appreciated.

Alright, so here's the deal. My PCs started chapter 5 2 sessions ago and we ended with the PCs facing down the half-fey green hags having just learned that they were, in fact, not trumpet archons. They arrive in that room (area 13 I think? The one with stairs going up to a throne) just in time to see Gaflon go running out of the room, down the hall to the Starry Mirror. So they tear through the hags in relatively short order, haul it down that hallway, and find Gaflon in his Alek Tercival disguise. A bunch of dead nerra later, all of them have jumped through the Starry Mirror to save the real Alek. They quickly discover that they're in the desert, and not long after Nabthatoron shows up. They ran straight through the complex so they didn't fight half the stuff in there, leaving them all at level 8, and they don't have Alakast because they ran straight past that room. They also have none of the loot from any of the other rooms- not even the stuff the nerra dropped. So Nabthatoron rips Alek apart for starters, and toys with the PCs for a few rounds, during which they manage to do a grand total of 30 damage to him. Finally he gets bored, laughs contemptuously at the PCs, and teleports off.

So, current situation is: PCs trapped in desert, no way to contact Cauldron to end the siege of Redgorge, not enough supplies, 2 levels under the recommnded level for Test of the Smoking Eye, and slightly under-equipped. What do I do with them now? I'm going to have Jenya contact them with a sending like the module suggests, but should Kaurophon show up as scheduled, or should I throw a few random encounters at them while they're still in the desert? Or should I have Kaurophon show up like normal and plane shift them further away from the Cathedral of Feathers and do some random encounters there? Or should I just do everything as written and have demons show up to laugh at their corpses when they die? Any suggestions?

K, so I have a question about the hideous blow invocation- does using it provoke attacks of opportunity? i.e., do you have to make a Concentration check to avoid this? I don't have my Complete Arcane with me so I don't recall exactly. Also, does it apply only to the first melee attack in a given round if you get more than one?

And if you don't mind, don't hijack this thread with how broken warlock is- I already know. Let's just say a half-orc barbarian/warlock 2 handing a great axe with a 20 in STR using hideous blow every round is equal to a DM at home putting on lipstick and crying.

My PCs are currently in Drakthar's Way, and since I'm going to be doing the hit-and-run thing I was planning to make extensive use of <i>gaseous form</i>, until I read it over and determined that it sucks. I mean, really, the only advantage for Drakthar there is that he can pass through nearly anything- he still has the same DR and he can only move 10 ft. in an action. I mean, does anyone else think it's odd that he can turn gaseous and still be hit with normal weapons, assuming you do enough damage? The barbarian in the party does 10 damage minimum with no magical enhancement. It would be smarter for Drakthar to just do a full retreat and turn gaseous only if he accidentally runs into something he can't climb over.

I personally think <i>gaseous form</i> should render you invulnerable to non-magical attacks, or at the very least give you the same benefit as being incorporeal. I dunno, maybe that's a game balance issue, but it raises a serious "this makes no sense" issue with me.