SinTheMoon's page

I understand very much your urge to create that character, however unlikely it is to be used in-game. I love that part of being a GM - to instill your own order into the universe you craft.

First thing, I believe for the First Vampire I would simply not apply the vampire template. Making up a way this character acquired most vampirey powers seems more interesting to me, and it makes sense that only spawns from this unnatural transformation would be stereotypical vampires.

One way I imagine using your premise is the story of a young fighter, adventurer of sorts, who had the awful bad lock to encounter a threat way out of his league. After some time as a fighter he met a Hezrou demon, who lived from the soul of one of the boy's old girlfriends, whom he seduced and threw away without regard at the age of 19; she then killed herself with poison, and spent all her time as a demon trying to poison the whole world. Why they met is lost to time; but she succeded into possessing him - making him a devil-bound creature.
The blood he drawn when he deflored the young lady, she made him seek without end. To satisfy the bloodlust, he acquired hunter skills out of par - and become more and more of a savage animal.
Eventually, the creature he had became couldn't be differentiated from the demon inside itself. This half-fiend that we would call today a vampire became a creature obsessed by herself with drawing innocent blood and corrupting the pure. Even the Gods couldn't stop the venom spilled throughout the world by the revenge of a once pure damsel.

Summary of what I suggest:)

-12 fighter lvls, very generic longswordsman
-Demon-possed template, Hezrou (note: gaseous form power from here)
-20 ranger lvls - I suggest Shapeshifter archetype with sorm rewording ex: eagle=bat; others fit pretty well IMO
-after some ranger lvls, add Half-Fiend template and get amongst other abilities natural attacks for your shapeshifter natural weapon style
-Finally the vampire template could be added as a sort of deal with Asmodeus who against some kind of veto regarding his corrupting actions gives him the power to procreate.

So... yeah. Some stuff to think about. :)

As I noted, fleeing is a pretty decent option, especially via Readied Actions to Move, but anybody sticking around to slug it out may have a very tough time.

The only reason to get TPKed I see is the Videogame mentality that if you meet any hostile creature it means you should be able to kill it for the XP. Hiding in the ground is a very weak offensive strategy and at some point the elemental(s) will have to get out - but it sounds to me like a damn good way to scare your players before an otherwise easy fight - and to make them paranoid for the rest of the game about not only the sky, but the ground also. :P

He's definitely a fallen paladin. Still lawful and with the same dedication as ever to a code of conduct, but the actual code is now evil in nature.

In terms of character backgrounds, he should have lost his paladin powers at some point. He then thought: «Well, here's a challenge from my god, I always knew I'm not worthy anyway.» He then proceeds to be even more extreme in following his code of conduct (which is perverted in essence). Later, when say Asmodeus passes as his god and give him the equivalent powers he had as a paladin (only a little bit different, say: Smite Chaos and Detect Chaos; lay on hand only works on self... a non evil non good mount), he tells to himself «Finally, I've been worthy!» He then proceeds to gain levels in some other class as a lawful evil character (say Iconoclast Inquisitor with detect magic instead of detect alignment; say with the Persistence inquisition as a domain). He is eventually going to understand that he's on the wrong side of the fence; but way too late. By that time, he will have become a convinced disciple of lawful evil ideals.

Seriously, the whole idea is story-telling gold. It can also help a lot your players to understand what alignments are about around your table.

Actually, I checked the Game Mastery Guide, and there's a section on insanity. It actually has stats for various mental illnesses, including Mania, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder, Paranoia, etc. Each week you have to make a Will save, and if you succeed, the DC is reduced by your CHA modifier. When it drops to zero, you're cured. (If only it was so easy in real life)

Psychosis actually changes your alignment to Chaotic Evil, but no word on what that does to a paladin, except maybe force him to be an anti-paladin. Schizophrenia seems closer to what you're describing-- the patient loses connection with reality-- but it has no affect on alignment, it just penalizes your ability to make skill checks and causes you to become confused under stressful situations.

I've looked at those. As a mental health professional, there's a lot I would change about their definition of psychosis mostly. First off, the difference between schizophrenia and psychosis as mental ilnesses makes no sense as stated, since schizophrenia is a disease punctuated by psychotic episodes and often times by chronic psychotic thinking. What they mean is «psychopathy», not «psychosis». And psychopaths are certainly evil, but rarely chaotic in fact.

On a game perspective, I am personally a huge defender of alignments, even though they should be more consequences of roleplay than guidelines to a character's evolution. Here's my take on the two axis:

Good vs evil shows the importance of self vs the importance of others. A good character tends to believe (emotionaly at least) that it's worth sacrificing herself if at least one other benefits from it. A neutral character believes you need to weight your loss against others' benefits and make moral deals. An evil character believes the whole world is not worth her own self. There's a continuum between pure good and pure neutral, and between pure neutral and pure evil.
Just to make something clear, torture is not an aligned thing, it's a way to have fun. An evil sadistic person will get all fun possible from her hobby; a good sadistic person might be masochistic instead, directing the impulse against herself. A neutral sadist will weight her fun against the others' suffering.
On that axis, situating your character is very interesting, but tricky. I would say he started out as a benevolent person, but gradually started blending his conceptions of himself and God. So he became a defender of principles only coming from himself and doesn't care anymore about weighting his actions against a morality - he only does what he needs to feel good. Ergo, evil.

I'm less assertive regarding law vs chaos, but IMO it refers to how deeply a character feels the world can be predicted. A lawful character believes she can get benefits from following the world's order; a chaotic character believes she'd be very dumb to play by the rules when anyone can break them at any time. A neutral character believes circumstances is the key, some situations being rules-friendly and some others not.
To use the sadism example again, for extreme alignments: LE = torture inside legality; CE = torture as long as no one can stop you; LG = hurt yourself for principles; CG = hurt yourself as long as it keeps being fun. Etc.

Wrap-up: Mr lawful stupid here is in fact lawful evil. He believes in principles that are worth following and he alos believes that he earns some points following them (lawful), but has long stopped weighting his ptinciples against others' interests and only follows said principles them to feel good about himself (evil).

Hope it helps.