i miss ONE WEEK (playing on valentines day) and in that time 2 party members died and one got turned into a vampire WILLINGLY!!!
Now the next week i return and find this out (playing a lawful good paladin and our parties only healer) when she rises from the grave, walks into the town tavern with a juju zombie guard where our party is and attempts to rejoin the group. My initial idea was "take scroll from handy haversack as she approaches party, when she gets there roll init, get surprise round, cast heal off scroll destroying her save or not she would be destroyed because she only has 50ish hp and the dm for some reason the dm always gives 15th lv scrolls of heal. but i thought this would cause to many out of character problems.
so i wait for an explanation, she refuses to speak to me (being a chaotic evil vampire thief) and decides to speak to the caviler she says how she wants to change to chaotic neutral "so she can stay with her friends) which is complete B***S*** because the same dm ruled in an earlier game (much earlier) that after my character's alignment was changed i couldn't wish to change his alignment back because in his mind he was okay with losing all of his paladin powers, eventually through intervention of the other party paladin (now dead and replaced with the alchemist DR. Jack Hill) i was able to turn back. but this happens and i am supposed to accept the chaotic neutral vampire thief back immediately.
We had a party meeting and the caviler said how the vampire has changed her alignment with magic and was just curious about the power that comes from being a vampire.
My counter argument was that she volunteered willingly and that if i had been curious about the powers of a demon and decided to summon one right then that'd be A BAD IDEA, also that i was the only one who truly cared about the character and that the thing walking around there was not her it was a soulless abomination against life and that the right thing to do would be to destroy her and use True resurrection to bring her back. And i said my terms were non-negotiable. in the end the party vote turned against me and the character left.
what i want to know is, did i cross the line form playing the character to being a jerk who whines i he doesn't get his way?
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It sounds like you played your paladin as a paladin.
Kind of. I do have to say, your GM is being a door-mat by letting a player play a vampire (which is entirely outside the rules as written), it is just bad game-mastering to allow one player to gain a huge amount of power instead of the normal result of being turned to a vampire - having your character taken from you and having to create a new character, who most like will have to fight and destroy their first character. It is especially bad game mastery to allow such a thing without consulting that all the players are ok with the situation. Even more so when one of the characters is a paladin. Even more so when the player whose character that is is away from the table. Even more so when the reason he is away from the table is because it is FREAKING VALENTINE'S DAY - if it's Valentine's day, and you have a girlfriend/wife, and you play role-playing games instead of celebrating it with her, you no longer have a girlfriend/wife.
So, yes, you were a bit of a jerk. But the vampire player is bullying the GM to get powers outside the normal rules of the game. And the GM is not doing his duty to not make one player especially happy at the expense of the happiness of another player.
But GM's are human, and some players always try to "cheat" the game by trying to over-power their characters, and you will always have to learn to take such personality quirks with equanimity, or you will soon have no one to play with.
If the GM is fine with the situation, then you just go ahead and role-play the paladin who doesn't mind having a vampire friend, and hey, if your GM is that much of a door-mat, go ahead and do what you have to to become an uber-powerful angel-paladin.
Now, if you decide to be alright with the player being a vampire, but then the GM says that violates your vows as a paladin, and takes away your class abilities, then he is a jerk, and you should find a different group to play with.
It just seems your fellow players are less RP motivated than you are. Why didn't the vampire responsible for turning your buddy try to keep him/her, instead of letting the character leave freely.
Urban dictionary reckons: Jerks are selfish, manipulative bastards
Are you a selfish, manip...?
We had a similar circumstance occur with lycanthropy - a party of good characters with a CN character getting lycanthropy. My paladin wouldn't stand for it in character, and it gave a character a significant power advantage so we convinced the GM it was a very bad idea and he retconned it. The player didn't like it, but frankly it was that or one day a smite evil on a werewolf and next morning we can't find the rogue anywhere. Worse for me, a coup de grace while my paladin slept. Once those factors were shown, she was happy enough to let it go iirc.
However, I KNOW I'm a jerk so take that as you will.
I would say they are the jerk for becoming a vampire. If I got turned I would just start stating out a new character. I think it is a bit odd that only one of your party is a vamp and the other is a paladin...
I think you were simply RPing your character correctly. It sucks when you proper RP disrupts a party but sometimes you just got to do it. I was playing a paladin whole brother-in-law true neutral necromancer (this was 3.5) turned from neutral to neutral evil and I had to smite him after he killed a helpless victim. I looked at my DM, used detect evil, DM said he be evil and I smited and killed him in one hit. It sucked and I felt horrible both as a player and a character but it had to be done.
You were not a jerk, he willingly submitted to evil and now has to live feeding of innocent victims. Changing his aligment through magic is bull...you GM took a wrong desition, you have every right to smite the crap out of him.
This kind of considerations have to be asked to the whole party before hand. Not to be taken lightly.
So, slightly off topic, how does Smite Evil work with non evil undead? It looks like it triggers for any undead.
Smite Evil (Su): Once per day, a paladin can call out to the powers of good to aid her in her struggle against evil. As a swift action, the paladin chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is evil, the paladin adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack rolls and adds her paladin level to all damage rolls made against the target of her smite. If the target of smite evil is an outsider with the evil subtype, an evil-aligned dragon, or an undead creature, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the paladin possesses. Regardless of the target, smite evil attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.
In addition, while smite evil is in effect, the paladin gains a deflection bonus equal to her Charisma modifier (if any) to her AC against attacks made by the target of the smite. If the paladin targets a creature that is not evil, the smite is wasted with no effect.
So, slightly off topic, how does Smite Evil work with non evil undead? It looks like it triggers for any undead.
Smite Evil (Su): Once per day, a paladin can call out to the powers of good to aid her in her struggle against evil. As a swift action, the paladin chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is evil, the paladin adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack rolls and adds her paladin level to all damage rolls made against the target of her smite. If the target of smite evil is an outsider with the evil subtype, an evil-aligned dragon, or an undead creature, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the paladin possesses. Regardless of the target, smite evil attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.
In addition, while smite evil is in effect, the paladin gains a deflection bonus equal to her Charisma modifier (if any) to her AC against attacks made by the target of the smite. If the paladin targets a creature that is not evil, the smite is wasted with no effect.
honestly not sure, that's why i would have used a heal scroll if necessary.
The Dude willingly embraced evil, there's no turning back from that just out of the blue. It took Darth Vader 20 years and the suffering of his son at the hands of his master to do it, and I'm better Anakin had a lot stronger strength of will than your soon-to-be-dead Vampire. Personally, smite/Heal the Vampire, bless the corpse, Speak With Dead to see if he is willing to return, and have him resurrected if he is.
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Rapthorn--
Presuming you want to keep playing in this group at all... I'd suggest not playing a Paladin with that GM and that group of players. Just not the sort of thing when you have the kind of BS floating around the game that you've described. I don't think you were being a jerk-- I don't think you can play a Paladin who would tolerate that s*** and remain a Paladin. Also, sounds like the GM is applying "double standards" about alignment, being undead, the rest o' that-- while pulling your alignment and paladin-hood, and putting you through the wringer to get that back.
'Course, I dunno... from the sound of things so far-- unless the group has a lot of really good points (and fun times) to playing with them-- I'd be seriously tempted to find another game.
So, yes, you were a bit of a jerk. <more stuff, cut for space>
Mabven--
Nope, gotta say I disagree with you on most of your assessment of the situation. Sounds like it's a group that you shouldn't bother trying to play a Paladin in, because the entire rest of the group (including the GM) appear to have no consideration whatsoever for how they're hosing his character with their actions... not to mention that in the earlier games of the campaign, the GM evidently played with the OP's alignment and Paladin-hood.Sounds to me more like the GM and the player who wanted to have a vampire were a bit over the top; the OP was playing a Paladin's reaction more or less properly-- except for the point that maybe he really should have 'smoked' the Vampire with that 'heal' spell whatever the consequences. If that's the kind of game he's in and he wants to continue with that group-- he should go ahead and play some selfish, evil "magnificent bastard" who'll fit in just fine with their evident play-style.
This group seems like it will fall apart.
I will toss in my 2 coppers here too. I believe you played your character very well. A true paladin who follows a good god would not stand for that kind of an abomination to be part of their party. If it were me playing the paladin, I would have done what your first reaction was to do. I would have destroyed the vampire without any kind of qualms whatsoever. I would have mourned the death of the character in character and moved along.
If the other player cried about it OOC, I'd say that I was role-playing my character the way that I wanted and the way that it is supposed to be done. That is not being a jerk, that's good role-playing. If the DM and other characters won't allow you to do this, I'd probably retire the paladin and roll up a new character to join the party if I wanted to continue to play with the group.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice RP/story fluff to keep the game and group playable. The DM failed to recognize this, so the responsibility for any trouble that this causes falls on his/her head.
Sounds like pretty much everyone else in the group is immature. The DM had no business letting someone play a vampire, esp in a game with a Paladin. In any case, vampires are just about impossible to play in a normal party- every encounter which would challenge the party the vampire will either walk over or be completely stymied. In other words, there’s no challenge to playing a vampire.
Very bad DM call.
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The fact that you listened and had an in-character argument vs. going all "Smitely Do-Rite" on the vampire seems to indicate that you were trying to RP your paladin rather than being a jerk.
My suggestions:
1) Talk to DM and player together. Ask if you can work out an RP arrangement where your Paladin stays with the group, and doesn't jeopardize his alignment, but he will be constantly trying to find ways to "cure" his friend, or convince his friend to take a cure, and that this will be a constant source of inter-party drama but everyone's keeping it In-character and everyone's okay with that.
2) I would also point out to the DM that the Vampire template adds +2 CR, so maybe the Vamp character should have to earn a couple of levels worth of "Vampire" XP before she can advance another level of thief/rogue/whatever. Basically, her class levels should be the party level -2. (Which is how I would handle it as a DM)
The Dude willingly embraced evil, there's no turning back from that just out of the blue. It took Darth Vader 20 years and the suffering of his son at the hands of his master to do it, and I'm better Anakin had a lot stronger strength of will than your soon-to-be-dead Vampire.Anakin Skywalker is probably the worst demonstration you could make for mental fortitude. "Stubborn, short-sighteed, pretentious self-centered idiot" would be more appropriate. He fell easily for a Sith's bluffs because they fed his ego and his sense of entitlement.
Yes, but he wanted to do good. The Vampire didn't. He willingly jumped full forced into Evil, and then after he realized the Paladin would have to kill him, he tried to toe back across the line. You can't have your cake and eat it to. Either he's a Vampire, and undead and needs to be destroyed, or he's not a Vampire and doesn't need to be destroyed.
One thing tho. our OP should have also discussed this OOC.
“Hey guys, this is all very fun for her PC and all, but it makes my PC nigh unplayable. This is also a huge power boost for that PC, now the rest of us are going to have problems- anything that will challenge her will kill us, and good challenges for us she will walk over.How are we going to handle this?”
In order to her to fully experience what it means to be a vampire, you needed to have hit her with the Heal spell immediately. Don't hesitate, just act.
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Depending on who you worship (paladins can worsip Pharasma), you're pretty much obligated to nuke the vampiric abomination that was your friend. Your GM was pretty much asking for some pvp when he allowed this to happen.
If it had been me, I wouldn't have hesitated. But, like someone else said, I already know I'm a jerk.
Is it possible the now vampire PC and GM were hoping for some awesome RPing? Two of my GMs I play with would have pulled these type of shenanigans with our groups. But mostly for the awesome and fun RPing that would have ensued. There would have been some fun RPing posturing from our Pallys against said Vamp PCs, but then there would have been the "How do we save a friend's PC from this Vamp curse?" Then there would have been lotsa adventuring/RPing around said curse. The GMs wouldn't have made it easy for us, and the Pally most likely would have suffered some sort of crisis of faith, but it we would have at least tried to save our friend.
Maybe it's just that our group is different. I guess we trust our GMs to not totally screw us over unless we do something obviously dumb.
Just my 2cps.
Sure, there can be some awesome RPing here, but all the parties have to buy into it. You can’t just spring this on a LG pally out of the blue like that. The PC reacted properly and the player feels betrayed. They needed to sit down and discuss this with everyone involved like adults (which I don’t think they are) before trying it.
What? Non evil undead? ok........
No you weren't a jerk.
In order to her to fully experience what it means to be a vampire, you needed to have hit her with the Heal spell immediately. Don't hesitate, just act.
As I am prone to sudden outbursts of holy justice, I would do exactly this.
Undead exist due to drawing power from the Negative Material Plane. Non-evil undead, nope, not happening.
My response to that situation would of been smite/sword to the face. You were much more patient than I would of been. In my mind, not alot of negotiation rom between paladins and vampires.
If you really feel like being a nice guy, make a suggestion to the DM that a Dhampir has some of the vampire flavor, without being evil and overpowered.
If the player who wanted to be a vampire can compromise on being a "cured vampire" using the Dhampir stats, I could see it working and leading to some interesting RP.
If they just wanted the vampire powers, that's another story.
Yeah I would say for a paladin you acted extremely tolerant even. I both as a GM and player would fully expect a paladin in such a situation to immediately go "So you're a vampire now? Here, have some death.", and I certainly wouldn't begrudge the player for it.
Undead exist due to drawing power from the Negative Material Plane. Non-evil undead, nope, not happening.
My response to that situation would of been smite/sword to the face. You were much more patient than I would of been. In my mind, not alot of negotiation rom between paladins and vampires.
All considerations about the OP's problems aside, negative material energy =\=evil. And nonevil undead ALREADY exist, so it's happened. Get over it already.
PS: Sorry 'bout the threadjacking, but am so very tired of fallacious assertion of negative energy=evil.
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{Bows to mighty Wraithstrike}
Not a huge point but the Heal spell acts like harm spell gainst undeads... You get a Will S.T. and - If the creature successfully saves, harm deals half this amount. Harm cannot reduce the target's hit points to less than 1.
That being said... your a ! If her alignment did change to C-N here is what i would want to know as a Paladin.
1. What is this vampire going to be feeding on?
2. So she will only be adventuring in the Night?
3. Someone mentioned above... she has been turned. The "BBEG Vampire" has full control of her and why would he release such a powerful PC?
I am sure their are more question then i have thought of but they sprang out immediately and its late here... lol
I think your Paly handled it well.
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I would have the character pray to their god for guidance. Ask your god what is the proper action to take against a soul devouring, innocent murdering, flesh eating, forsaker of life, person who willingly decided to become a vampire. Then I would ask the god if it matters if the character is "repentant" and wanted to change from their evil ways. Ask if it would be better to allow this abomination against all life to exist and travel with you in a party or if it would be best to release the foul being from this mortal coil thus allowing your friend to be resurrected.
Remember, your friend no longer exists. The corpse of your friend has been animated by foul undead negative energy. His soul is not intact. A true ressurection spell would still bring your friend back regardless of what is currently going on with the walking corpse. True ressurection creates a new body. It would be interesting to see what the original character thought of this obvious imposter posing as an undead version of himself.
Most importantly, praying to one's god is the equivalent of making the DM answer for his out of character actions in character. This might help to shed some light on the issues he has caused not only for your party but specifically for your character.
Also, did everyone else miss that he stated there is another paladin in the party? And this paladin is ok with adventuring with an undead?! I would speak to a superior within the paladin order that you belong to and ask them what they think is right. What actions would they take given similar circumstances. This is similar to talking to one's god. It forces the DM into the seat of justifying your actions.
I think the correct answer either from your god or from the paladin order is going to be a death sentence for the undead abomination that is inhabiting the corpse of what used to be your friend.
Alitan: I think you realize your in the minority here. Undead are overwhelmingly evil. If you do happen to find undead that are not evil then you would be arguing your point based on the exception, not the rule. Either way it does not matter here. Vampires are evil by nature. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. The DM is clearly breaking the rules to allow it.
Also, if you are going to complain about "fallacious assertion of negative energy=evil" then perhaps you should come with some evidence to the contrary. Personally, I doubt that it exists. I challenge you to prove me wrong especially as you seem so convinced.
The other paladin is dead according to the OP. I think he died before the vampire change.
Ah, your right. I was getting the paladin mixed up with the cavalier. I wonder what alignment the cavalier is.
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Hey it seemed like the Cavalier was really on her side... (wonder what order he is?) but wouldn't a Vampire/Cavalier be pretty cool. heck she could turn the whole group and change the game entirely... A coven of Vampires PC's now that's a game I could get into.
If Our favorite dual weilding Drow (evil race) can become a hero, why can't the Paly become a Vampire Paly that fights for good? (said tongue in cheek).
In all seriousness... Richard lee Byers did an awesome series of books (highly recommend) called Haunted lands (FR based series) Unclean / Undead / Unholy. He had a ghost Paladin character called Mirror. Not the main character but he was pretty awesome... actually hurt himself when he channeled positive energy.
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I would have the character pray to their god for guidance. Ask your god what is the proper action to take against a soul devouring, innocent murdering, flesh eating, forsaker of life, person who willingly decided to become a vampire. Then I would ask the god if it matters if the character is "repentant" and wanted to change from their evil ways. Ask if it would be better to allow this abomination against all life to exist and travel with you in a party or if it would be best to release the foul being from this mortal coil thus allowing your friend to be resurrected.
Remember, your friend no longer exists. The corpse of your friend has been animated by foul undead negative energy. His soul is not intact. A true ressurection spell would still bring your friend back regardless of what is currently going on with the walking corpse. True ressurection creates a new body. It would be interesting to see what the original character thought of this obvious imposter posing as an undead version of himself.
Most importantly, praying to one's god is the equivalent of making the DM answer for his out of character actions in character. This might help to shed some light on the issues he has caused not only for your party but specifically for your character.
Also, did everyone else miss that he stated there is another paladin in the party? And this paladin is ok with adventuring with an undead?! I would speak to a superior within the paladin order that you belong to and ask them what they think is right. What actions would they take given similar circumstances. This is similar to talking to one's god. It forces the DM into the seat of justifying your actions.
I think the correct answer either from your god or from the paladin order is going to be a death sentence for the undead abomination that is inhabiting the corpse of what used to be your friend.
Alitan: I think you realize your in the minority here. Undead are overwhelmingly evil. If you do happen to find undead that are not evil then...
Strictly speaking on what's written, you seem to be the one making some assumptions here.
Vampires and most other intelligent undead are in fact inhabited by their original souls, albiet often borked up by their unnatural condition.
Negative energy is not evil. Good clerics can cast inflict for starters. Negative energy effects pop up all over the place without alignment descriptors, from Spirit Totems to the Negative Energy Plane itself.(which is not evil itself)
Nor is positive energy good. Positive energy and negative energy have no moral weight. For that, you want stuff from the Outer Planes, not the Inner. It's been that way for a long time, at least as early as the Planescape days.
tl;dr, Alitan has the right of it.
As for OP, personally I'd have brought up the issues OOC beforehand if possible. There could have been a cool "we need to find a cure/Mina Harker-ish" plot hook there, maybe, maybe not. A change of race to dhampir before or after this is one balanced and cool possibility, as mentioned upthread.
Without knowing your group I won't speculate on the internal dynamics of it.
You were NOT a jerk, not even close. Most of the gaming world would have thought it natural if you'd gone straight to DefCon4 and erased the vampire's unholy existence.
Your story does show some major weaknesses of GMing.
Vampire SPAWN are under the control of the converting Vampire. While the thief willingly converted to vampirism that's no guarantee of freewill. What's the deal with the original Vampire?
It would seem that the alignment rules in your game are not being handled in a balanced fashion. Far to often Paladin players are punished by alignment while CN players are allowed to do anything they want. That's not how the alignment system was meant to function. Also as soon as the VampRogue attacks an innocent sentient creature to feed the Good/Evil axis of alignment kicks in. They may want to be CN but that's not really likely. You said yourself a prior ruling takes willing alignment jumps off the table. If a double standard is in place I'd go out in a blaze of glory, roll up a new character who can Dominate Undead and continue to screw with the status quo.
The advice to pray to your deity is a good call.
Now it's on the GM to put you back into balance, if he fails at this he is lackluster and incompetent. Don't let it slide. Call him on it. This is his mess and he should be partly responsible for cleaning it up. If he is unwilling your left with 2 choices. A new character or a new group. If you go with a the character choose something with a +3 or 4 CR adjustment. The precedent has already been set.
From your post I gather that the group has been together for awhile. Finding a new group may not be practical. If thats the case and the DM is unwilling to address the various issues at hand it may be time for someone else to run the game.
That all of this happened on Valentine's Day makes it even more off putting. Effectively you have been punished for having a significant other and putting your personal relationship ahead of a RPG. That deffinately means there is a JERK at your game table, it just isn't you.
Mikaze: Pardon me, but did I ever claim that negative energy was evil? I certainly do not recall doing so. Perhaps you are the one making some assumptions here?
Where are you getting that a vampire retains it's soul? Either from in game fluff or otherwise? Original conciousness, I'll grant you (albeit "borked up"). But soul? No.
Regardless of whether or not the negative energy made them that way or not Vampires are:
AL: Any evil.
For the record, I can not find anything anywhere from the original Beastiary that states that "other intelligent undead are in fact inhabited by their original souls" as you said.
An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul.
One of two exceptions seems to be the Mummy:
Although most mummies are created merely as guardians and remain loyal to their charge until their destruction, certain powerful mummies have much more free will. The majority are at least 10th-level clerics, and are often kings or pharaohs who have called upon dark gods or sinister necromancers to bind their souls to their bodies after death—usually as a means to extend their rule beyond the grave, but at times simply to escape what they fear will be an eternity of torment in their own afterlife.
Mummies are also presented as evil. They are made with the Create Undead spell which has the "[evil]" descriptor. As are evil Ghouls, Ghasts and Mohrgs. Animate dead is also evil and creates evil Skeletons and Zombies. Create Greater Undead is also evil and creates evil shadows, wraiths, spectres, or devourers.
The other is the Ghost:
When a soul is not allowed to rest due to some great injustice, either real or perceived, it sometimes comes back as a ghost. Such beings are in eternal anguish, lacking in substance and unable to set things right. Although ghosts can be any alignment, the majority cling to the living world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a result are chaotic evil—even the ghost of a good or lawful creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife.
So even amoung the exception anything but evil is exceptional. Even then the soul no longer inhabits the body of the ghost. The soul is seperated from the body.
In most fluff content mortals on the prime material plane are refered to as having a duality. Their souls are not bound to their bodies but simply exist together in this duality. Outsides (like Celestials) do not have a soul that is seperate from their body.
I also would like to point out that the topic at hand is that the party Rogue willingly committed the evil act of becoming an evil vampire. Any Paladin is not only within his rights to destroy the evil undead vampire but is OBLIGATED to.
Further I wanted to point out this:
You can resurrect someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed.
You can ressurect anything that has become undead. True Resurrection can even bring back undead whose bodies have been destroyed. So even a ghost whose original body has long since decayed can still be resurrected.
Heck, I would have had my paladin instantly go a-smiting while sobbing about the desecration of my friend. Sometimes you gotta stick to your guns.
Seconded.
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Somebody has been watching a little too much Twilight. The Pathfinder vampires seem to have more in common with bram stoker's Dracula. Existing on the death of sentient beings is unquestionably evil act. Draining the lifeforce of innocents is an act of raping the soul. A champion of light and goodness exists to quell such evil. As such, your paladin exist to kill the vampire. Being a former loved one or friend is meaningless.
Somebody has been watching a little too much Twilight. The Pathfinder vampires seem to have more in common with bram stoker's Dracula. Existing on the death of sentient beings is unquestionably evil act. Draining the lifeforce of innocents is an act of raping the soul. A champion of light and goodness exists to quell such evil. As such, your paladin exist to kill the vampire. Being a former loved one or friend is meaningless.
Actually, if anything, being a former loved one or friend should increase the paladin's rage. The thing in front of him is not his friend or loved one, it is a soulless undead, presumably in the control of it's creator. Destroying it is the only way to honor the dead.
I recommend you continue playing as a member of the party, but choose not to use your paladin abilities. When your party asks why, explain how adventuring alongside a unrepentant predatory undead violates your paladin code, and as such your abilities have been stripped from you. It's apparent that the rest of your group has no interest in even attempting to RP their characters appropriately, but that shouldn't stop you from doing so.
My first impulse would have been to smite the vampire on sight as well. That said, since inter-party conflict is generally a bad idea this may be your best option, if you're willing to explore such a story.