So I want to run, and some players want to play, a campaign based in Hell... with Devils (or the like) as player characters.
Yes, this is insanity. But bear with me,
Does it have even a snowball's chance to work, mechanically? Will the "races" (monsters) be sufficiently balanced, so's to get away with it? Once some class levels are added on top, I mean.
And if not, using Pathfinder core, what might I need, third party or official, to make it happen? Or, indeed, am I looking at the wrong system altogether - and if so, what do you recommend in PF's place?
I would consider an alternate tack. You are already stepping outside the base races and looking to get creative.
I would suggest letting everyone pick a normal base race and then apply the Fiendish template to it. Afterward allow them to gain evolution points an let them spend them on Eidolan abilities. Even allow them to change their "base" form at 1st level.
You can even split the evolution point awards from normal levels and use them as rewards for "climbing the hellish ranks"
Core Race + fiendish template + Eidolan base.
I would consider an alternate tack. You are already stepping outside the base races and looking to get creative.
I would suggest letting everyone pick a normal base race and then apply the Fiendish template to it. Afterward allow them to gain evolution points an let them spend them on Eidolan abilities. Even allow them to change their "base" form at 1st level.
You can even split the evolution point awards from normal levels and use them as rewards for "climbing the hellish ranks"
Core Race + fiendish template + Eidolan base.
You are more sane than I. ;) I appreciate the advice, though we're quite sold on running with fairly powerful demon-like beings to begin with.
Luckily, there is a method of using "monster races", in the core books. I just... don't know if it works, in practise.
Fast Foward put out a Devil Player's Handbook years ago and is exactly what you are looking for, except it's for 3.5.
The key is to start them all off at the same level of power. Take individual devil types, strip and add abilities until each match up across the board, and let them level up as a normal race. This means you have to scale encounters to match their ability, but they can progress naturally.
The easiest way to handle this is to have the players pick a planar race (tiefling, ifrit, fetchling, etc.) that would fit in the Hells. Nothing is keeping you from running an infernal city like any other adventurer's starting point. Just keep things even amongst the players, scale their encounters to match any abilities they have, and you'll be fine.
I would suggest letting everyone pick a normal base race and then apply the Fiendish template to it. Afterward allow them to gain evolution points an let them spend them on Eidolon abilities. Even allow them to change their "base" form at 1st level.
You can even split the evolution point awards from normal levels and use them as rewards for "climbing the hellish ranks"
Core Race + fiendish template + Eidolon base.
> than my advice
I'm sorry moppom, I gotta steal off this idea from you and try running myself.
Another idea is to use the 3.5 Gestalt rules with a twist. One "class" is the chosen devil type and the other is your standard PC class.
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> than my adviceI would suggest letting everyone pick a normal base race and then apply the Fiendish template to it. Afterward allow them to gain evolution points an let them spend them on Eidolon abilities. Even allow them to change their "base" form at 1st level.
You can even split the evolution point awards from normal levels and use them as rewards for "climbing the hellish ranks"
Core Race + fiendish template + Eidolon base.
thats not bad.
basically just gestalt them with a synthesist summoner, and possibly give them the fiendish template.
You don't have to have them play full-fledged Devils. Look up the variant Tieflings from the Bastards of Erebus (one of the books in the Council of Thieves AP). They give rules for tieflings based on specific fiendish ancestors, from kytons to rakshasa to oni, as well as giving ideas for how to tweak them for other devilish ancestors. Just give them the option to essentially take the Fiendish Heritage feat for free, possibly homebrewing some other options and tweaking stats and SLA's along the same lines.
That way, they stay roughly balanced along the same power level of other player races, letting you keep the CR's of encounters simpler.
You don't have to have them play full-fledged Devils.
But that is the whole idea! :D
Actual full-blown Devils, with plenty of political meanderings and tangles, and maybe the occasional fistycuffs and stuff. Unusual usage of mid- to high-level SLAs and Supernatural abilities might prove interesting (and key), too.
Slapping on class levels will be the... intriguing part. We'll see how the maths works then! ;)
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I don't really see a problem with it.
Here's an interesting concept for the game. Start your players out as the lowest of the low devils, lemures. Then, as they gain experience, let them *evolve* into more powerful devils. Once a player gets to the form they want to keep, then they can start adding class levels.
The big thing with this campaign is that you'll need to make sure that the party characters are roughly equal in power with one another. Once that's done, you're set. You can adjust bestiary monsters as needed to compensate for their more... unusual... abilities. Remember, you can ALWAYS revise an existing creature from the bestiary to make it an effective challenge.
Then if you want them to play devils without getting too powerful, handle the inevitable LA's as actual levels. Like, say, you have X devil ability at 1st level, then as you progress you take levels of, say, Erinyes, unlocking the various racial devil abilities as you go. Only after you've worked through your racial hit dice can you start taking class levels.
It's also a good way to keep the party relatively balanced with each other, so you don't, say, have the Pit Fiend player massively outclassing the Imp player.
If you're willing to make enough of an effort at homebrewing, you can attempt to balance the races with that method. Break down every race into 5 or 10 levels. Dumb down the abilities for some, while buffing some abilities for others, to make sure that at any given hit dice, the players are equal.
Much the similar thoughts.
I'd go a step further, all PCs have to be the same type of devil (Erinyes make the most sense for this). The PCs were all recently promoted by some power or another in Hell, that is just under an Arch Duke.
To make them more pliable their immediate commander might have withheld some of their demonic powers. Using those powers as bait/rewards for many of their missions.
I would suggest letting everyone pick a normal base race and then apply the Fiendish template to it. Afterward allow them to gain evolution points an let them spend them on Eidolan abilities. Even allow them to change their "base" form at 1st level.
You can even split the evolution point awards from normal levels and use them as rewards for "climbing the hellish ranks"
Core Race + fiendish template + Eidolan base.
I absolutely love this idea. It can work for many things even beyond the fiendish/planar slant.
Alien creatures campaign. Aboleth slaves escaped. Creatures from another planet (perhaps you were in stasis in the crashed ship in Numeria).
Mutation campaign. Oriental campaign: you've all been horribly altered by taint, and changing into Oni. A mad alchemist's experiment goes awry and the ensuing blast has changed those nearby.
This one the player might not even have control over the evolutions.
Dark Gifts campaign. This is a common trope: some "entity" offers power to someone in desperate need, and it changes them as it gives them the strength to overcome their foes.
The players might even be the "good" force in this one, gaining their power from an opposing entity of light.
The nice thing is that you can basically treat it as a minor Gestalt build for determining power, since the Synthesist gets this kind of thing already for most of the class abilities.
Thank you Name Violation and Kaisoku. I had complexly forgotten about the Synthesist. I went and looked over it and find this quite workable in my experience with playing 'rush to epic' monster games back in 3.5.
I see several ways to spin such a thing.
1) Use the Synthesist as is following 3.5 Gestalt rules.
2) Modify the Synthesist to make it a "gestalt class"
3) Just give players evolutions and evolution points.
I'm currently doing #2 and mashing the Celestial/Fiendish templates into the Synthesist, while also merging it with the eidolon stuff. Some of the evolutions become redundant, but meh. The interesting thing is if you change the Synthesist Spell's per day into spell-like abilities it becomes remarkably similar to most major outsiders near the end. Allow the Summon Monster/Gate power, spells as spell-likes, plus the evolutions and it feels very much like how an outsider should.
I've started calling the class the parvenu as a joke but I think it will stick. XD
Thought add link to my rush job "gestalt class" the parvenu.
I honestly have no idea how using this gestalt style will destroy CR calculation.
one thing that had occured to me was to take the Half-Fiend Template, and as a character gains levels, they get the SLAs from Half fiend, which can be tailored to the individual, potentially.
The biggest problem with running this kind fo campaign, assuming your players will be ale to play inately treacherous and manipulative devils without being jerks to eachother (i'm surprised to hear about so many on these boards *sigh*) is honestly, You need to write some seriously twisted plots. Both with lots of twists and turns, and pretty messed up. we are dining with spartians here.
Having the devils that they interact with be pretty set-up and working their own schemes will take some work, and having PC modivation to be part of the infernal system would be tricky. Doable but tricky.
you sure you'd rather not take the game to the abyss? JK
There are ways to deal with that in a hell based game. The most obvious way to more or less declare that the player characters a kind of devil collective. Like the Borg (although with more autonomy and variation) or the villain in the Crossover Kill web comic.
Another big difference between PCs and NPCs is the inherent enlightened self-interest. If you allow the players to accept the meta that as a group they get farther then there's less infighting.
Instead of being equals you have an internal hierarchy that gets established. One PC will be the final "boss" in the eyes of hell and the other PCs his court. An example of this in a non-hell game is the Kingmaker AP.
Evil can have friends. Creatures that won't shive you in the back for minor transitory gain.
Even in the Abyss among demons there is a pecking order. It goes, "you, the dirt, the worms inside of the dirt, Popo's s****, Kami, then Popo." All joking aside the same kind of "this group is acts like a single entity" can apply.
Instead of being equals you have an internal hierarchy that gets established. One PC will be the final "boss" in the eyes of hell and the other PCs his court. An example of this in a non-hell game is the Kingmaker AP.
Evil can have friends. Creatures that won't shive you in the back for minor transitory gain.
Even in the Abyss among demons there is a pecking order. It goes, "you, the dirt, the worms inside of the dirt, Popo's s****, Kami, then Popo." All joking aside the same kind of "this group is acts like a single entity" can apply.
I was just acknowledging the fact that some players are jerks as players, so they jerk each other's characters around or try to exploit things to do so because it's "In Character"
(sometimes it works with the characters and stories, but PVP needs the players involved to be OK with it, and it can be a LOT of fun).Hopefully that's not an issue.
If your players can agree on a "Leader" and this Leader really gets that the game isn't at all about what he or his character wants, but what all the players (not characters) having fun, then it sounds like a great way to hake it work.
Characters can even have a Mephistopheles/Asmodeus helping you take power so i can take it when you actually have something worth taking vibe.