Playing the 'Good' guys

[Blue_eyed_paladin]

This may have already been discussed, but what if you do have a paladin-type (in my campaign, we had a Knight of the Chalice) who just doesn't want to 'play nice' with Malcanthet, Iggwilv, et al.

What about the idea of resource-gathering from the good guys, going on some quest up Mount Celestia to get Pelor onboard or something? Or, my idea with my Knight of the Chalice, have him get the information revealed to the Lightning Lords (PHB2) and find out that the Chalice is in the Wells of Darkness or something?

Has anyone else tried this- being the "Good with a capital G" side, instead of the current (trendy) more 'edgy' good?

Just interested in asking...

[James Jacobs]

The problem there is that leading an army of angels and good guys into the Abyss is going to cause an uprising. You'll end up fighting ALL the demon lords and their armies, rather than just one of them. And the Abyss itself might just rise up in rebellion.

A relatively small army of eladrins, like the one Gwynharwyf leads into the Abyss in "Prince of Demons" is one thing. The eladrins have a long history of sending smaller raids like these into the Abyss, and few demon hordes are going to bat an eyelid at one more invasion like this. But add in armies of other celestials and suddenly you'll have an entire Abyss of angry demons on your hands.

That's actually one of the main reasons armies of good outsiders HAVEN'T been leading crusades and invasions of the lower planes, actually.

Another problem with going with all good guy allies is that many of them don't have the inside knowledge about things like the portal points Iggwilv uses to aid the attack, or don't have the advantage of being natives to the realm like Orcus's army (lots of demons can use blasphemy... a handy way to shunt entire armies of outsiders off the Abyss).

And in the end, the entire campaign is built to ease parties into the concept of allying with evil to stop a greater evil. Paladins should be ready for some hard choices by the time they reach Enemies of my Enemy, and DMs should be ready to cut them some slack when it comes to working with demons in order to stop an even greater evil.

[Burnout]

My party's Paladin/Kensai, who'd sworn his oath of service to the Vanderboren family, was particularly hard-pressed; He ended up praying a lot for guidance, and flat-out refused to enter Malachent's realm in 'Enemies of My Enemy', preferring to stay on the Sea Wyvern and guard the crew. The fact that the CN Bard who was a scurrilous, womanizing scoundrel (Who'd nailed Tyralandi, S'shara AND Iggwilv- I would definently call that abuse of Diplomacy ^_^) didn't help matters...

Of course, his way out was that he played gullible, and mostly laid low until it was time to leap out and kill things- The Death Giant didn't stand a chance, the poor thing.

The thing is, in the Savage Tide, 'Good' has to be very flexible- Some things like freeing a major succubus from her millenia-long imprisonment, making a deal with the lord of Shattered Night...That's hard to justify. Of course, 'Atonement' exists for that very reason...

[Kobold Lord]

One unmentioned reason for there not to be a section in the adventure about recruiting an army of goodness and light from one of the PC's patron deities is because that's a really easy task, and there's no point in spending magazine words on what amounts to an automatic success.

You: "Hey, Pelor. I've been looking into this issue with the Prince of Demons for you, and I've found our chance. In twelve days armies will be rolling into that layer of the Abyss from all over the cosmos; if your armies accompany me we will be far more likely to succeed at stopping the Savage Tide, conceivably ending the Prince forever."

Pelor: "Good work, my child and my right hand. We will assemble an army that will shake the depths of the Abyss."

And we're done collecting allies in that part of the planes.

As for how to work them in, I notice that there are two Portal Points not used by the armies of Orcus and Gwyhwyvar, so any other allies collected by the party can use one of them. The armies that are hard-coded are really there just for flavor anyway, so we need not do anything more than flavor for Pelor's host, either.

[Blue_eyed_paladin]

I just thought it might be more fun. I used to play the old 'Blood Wars' card game, and I remeber getting Faerinaal (Morwel's other consort) and his Eladrins together and splatting my brother's Yugoloths all over the place.

Hey, I might do it anyway. After all, my players won't have read Savage Tide. I can just swap out a few things... it won't be easy but it would be an interesting challenge changing everything from 'Into the Maw' onwards to be good-centric instead of morally flexible.

Then again, with what you guys mentioned earlier, there could still be challenges- accomplishing some mission so the Abyss doesn't smash the celestials, doing some quest to make things easier for Pelor so he can get his armies together, heck, even rescuing The Chalice from the Wells so that Heironeous' hands aren't tied ("if you even think about it, I squish 'er"). Even maybe making some minor deals with the bad guys so they don't just jump in and smush everyone involved.

[lin_fusan]

Kobold Lord wrote:

One unmentioned reason for there not to be a section in the adventure about recruiting an army of goodness and light from one of the PC's patron deities is because that's a really easy task, and there's no point in spending magazine words on what amounts to an automatic success.

I have always found two problems with players going to the multiplanar "Source" of good and light for help:

1) In-game reason: Logically, there has to be a story-reason why the "Source" of good and light hasn't found a solution for their war against evil already. There might feel like too much of a coincidence that the PCs have found the answers for the Source's problems, and makes the Source look incompetent.

Some DMs have the Source be preoccupied with other problems to stop the PCs' problems. Other DMs use the "this is a test for the side of Good. The PCs must find their own solutions."

2) Meta-game reason: I've noticed that some players get lazy when they think they can hand over their problems over to the Source of good and light. "Oh well, we've done our job. You go smite evil now."

It's akin to NPCs in the game. Some players whine that these NPCs keep asking them for help or are unable to solve their own problems, whereas those NPCs that are powerful enough to solve their own problems won't need the PCs.

At this high of level, players should realize that THEY are a Source of good and light and having them ask another Source for help is like Gilgamesh or Beowulf wandering around the countryside looking for a Hercules or Guan Di for assistance for their problems.