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So, I'm working on a campaign and in the world I have people who by hook or by crook get possessed by demons. Fair enough it happens, and if the possession isn't necessarily a mutual exchange the normal rules for possession in Hordes of the Abyss work great.
What I'm looking at is something more, symbiotic. I'm not looking for a prestige class that deals in demonic possession, but perhaps feats that you can choose to take. The idea is that some kind of deal could be worked out, where the demon and the possessed work out an agreement. The demon begins to gift some of its powers to the mortal, and the mortal does things occasionally for the demon. High role play opportunity, with the gift of a feat chain they can take.
This is where you guys come in. I've been doing 3.5 for over five years but my grasp of overpowered/underpowered isn't quite there yet.
I'm looking for a chain of feats that allow you to slowly take certain features from the demon. The idea being not unlike that of the exalted feats (without going as crazy as vow of poverty, nor as underwhelming as the abyssal heritor feats), with an introductory feat, and feats you can grab every so often.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32
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There is an article about demon possession in Pathfinder #28. Including feats for demons that allow them to possess the individual, object, or area. Not quite what you wanted... but close.
You could also look at some of the feats offered in other materials and just say that you can't get them unless you have been possessed and bargained with a demon. Look at the Tome of Magic and its Binder class.
Its an intriguing idea -- but one that will require quite a bit of work i suspect.
Seems like you could use the Summoner as a jumping off point, replacing the eidolon with a personal demon.
http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8bka
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Chapter 1 of the Fiendish Codex 1 has several pages on the "benefits" of Demon Possession (I believe they're the same rules as the ones in the Book of Vile Darkness but expanded on for 3.5.)
If you prefer feats, it has a number of feats normally reserved for characters that have a demon heritage. No reason you can't bend the rules for a possessed character.
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There's a PrC called the Demonican, that binds demons and uses their powers, that could be tweaked to suit this sort of concept.
I think I saw it originally in the Green Ronin supplement Dezzavold: Fortress of the Drow, but it looks like you can get just the PrC (and some other stuff) pretty cheap in The Conjuror: Core Specialist Wizard.
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Chapter 1 of the Fiendish Codex 1 has several pages on the "benefits" of Demon Possession (I believe they're the same rules as the ones in the Book of Vile Darkness but expanded on for 3.5.)
If you prefer feats, it has a number of feats normally reserved for characters that have a demon heritage. No reason you can't bend the rules for a possessed character.
The abyssal heritor feats aren't exactly the route I'm going.
Talking more like perhaps gaining an EX or SU ability from the demon, maybe bonuses to saves as the demon shields you, perhaps a once per day prevention of dropping into negatives as the demon takes a hit...ect.
And Drizzt unfortunately I'm not looking for something so complicated as a class. I want this to be people of all walks of life. Just something that they could or could not decide to go with if they wished to.
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The first step would probably be to come up with some form of disadvantage, a mild flaw that would cause not all characters to want to take the feats (something beyond simply consorting with demons. Perhaps the demons have some mild influence/control over the PC or some such.)
Beyond that, just look to the demons in question for viable options, here's my example (Yes it's technically a devil, but its the first idea that came to mind, and I imagine devils would probably do this sort of thing more than demons, given their natures.)
One idea would be your aura is overlaid by that of your patron. So by accepting to work alongside evil, you register as evil, even if for the greater good. (tm) As I said also there's the roleplay potential of having to do the demon favors, in order to keep the feats working.
And really when you do a demon a favor, you're only hurting yourself.
Bond of the Kyton:
Requires- Must have bonded with a Kyton, must be non-good.
Benefit: A character that has taken this feat gains a natural, invisible aura around himself. By offering a spiked chain of his own size to this aura as a swift action, the weapon will levitate around him, striking the nearest target in range at the end of each of his turns at his full base attack bonus, using all his combat modifiers as normal.By expending his swift action in a given turn, the character specifically choose the chains target that round.
The chain can make a single attack of opportunity of it's own each round, and will take the first opportunity it is presented.
On any attack, the Bonded can issue a command (as a non-action) to the chain to trip or disarm, otherwise it strikes normally.
Let me know what you think Dissinger.
This is more in keeping with what I had envisioned. I would loved to make them a bit more generalist, so that they aren't specific to any one demon, but ideas like, the demon uses telekinesis to use a weapon for you, things like that. Perhaps I should just bite the bullet and get to work on some idea feats...I'll see what I can cook up before game tomorrow.
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Heh, I personally love the idea of independent feats based on the Fiend in question, but that doesn't mean you can't have both in the game at once.
Generic feats that can be granted by any Demon (or devil if you chose to let devils do so as well, though it might be good to have separate generic lists if you do so) and specific ones that can only be granted by specific fiends.
In that way, there are some feats that can be mixed and matched in various builds, but there are going to be some hard restrictions, and reasons people will specifically seek out, for example, a succubus instead of a glabrezu or whatnot (and for the record, I can think of alot of pretty... interesting ;) stuff for the succubus bond :D)
As I said, I'd prefer as many generalist feats as possible, but popular demon types, like balors, succubi ect. I could see some specific ones for them...
And really when you do a demon a favor, you're only hurting yourself.
You could have that occasional favor be the *prereq* for taking the next demon feat. If they do the favor, and don't take the feat for their next available, then they lose the opportunity and "doing the favor" is wasted for them.
Encourage them down the seductive road of demonic power.
If your looking for reasons why some one might want to relent to a demonic possession you might want to take a look at the Order of the Blackened Denarius from Jim Butcher's Dresdin Files. Essentially they are Fallen Angels that inhabit one of 30 pieces of silver. You pick up the coin and they start going to work. Some simply enslave those with weak wills while some seek out those to use as partners, depending on the personality of the Fallen. They don't need to offer grand secrets or turn you into a killing machine, they can offer small helpful insights and perceptions. Devils and Demons are immortal, have thousands of years of experience, and they're more then happy to share. They've got all the time in the world to corrupt you.
Use that as an angle and you won't need to deal with feats and such. One thing you could do is have the more an outsider corrupts a willing target the stronger it gets. You could have feats that allow a character to access the special abilities of the demon and each feat they take could bump the outsiders CR up by one.
I like Skaorn's idea a lot. And it reminds me to some degree of the corruption and insanity points in the Dark Heresy rules. That might be something to look at.
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On the d20 SRD site (from 3.5) there's optional rules for "Bloodlines", including demonic and devilish, that give powers tied to the heritage that scale with level. However, that's a lot of powers to introduce to a character without either the rules they set (where you have to take a level of the "bloodline" to advance to the uppper echelons of power, basically an empty level), or some sort of home-brewed offsetting penalties.
Also, if you have a sorcerer in the group, this infringes on what makes them special.