Goblin Squad Member
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As a disclaimer this is not suggested EE content. This is an idea I don't think should be entertained until we have all core races and classes implemented. However I do have some ideas on how to viably do it that I felt were worth putting down in writing before they're forgotten.
Dark fantasy is an extremely popular format. Vampires and werewolves are almost as beloved by patrons of the fantasy genre as elves and dwarves. They're a big deal, and a lot of people would love for their character in PFO to be cursed by one of these afflictions.
With the World of Darkness MMO canceled, there are really not many good MMO's for the lovers of dark fantasy to turn to. Filling that niche could win us some additional players who would like to play vampires, werewolves, a slayer of such creatures, or just inhabit a world where they have a meaningful presence.
With Ustalav directly to the west of the OE map, it really makes sense to do this to. We have star metal in our lands due to our proximity to Numeria and it's no closer to us the Ustalav so it makes sense that these kind of afflictions would be a bit more common here than they would in many other parts of Golarion.
As everyone knows, werewolves and vampires are powerful creatures who spread their affliction by biting or drinking the blood of their victims. In-game this translates to a powerful condition that is easily spread and in most MMO's can quickly lead from a few werewolves and vampires to a population absolutely filled with them.
While weaknesses can be implemented to offset their benefits it often ends up with these races feeling overly gimped, and if they are too potent or the limitations on becoming one feel to great it becomes a major piece of content aimed at a tiny minority of players. In the end, not something worth implementing.
So the aim would be to create something true to the lore and game enhancing, that would be used by a sizable minority of players. That is the intent of the ideas I shall propose here.
Werewolves and Vampires vary a lot from format to format. The more prevalent theme's found in almost all formats is that they often hunt humans (or other intelligent human like creatures such as dwarves and elves in formats where they exist). Werewolves for flesh or simply the thrill of the kill, vampires for blood.
For more details we really need to delve into what the Pathfinder lore says about each creature.
To summarize some highlights. Both are incredibly difficult to kill without using the proper weapons and techniques. Vampires are apparently restricted to the evil alignments while werewolves can be (but rarely are) good. Nowhere have I read werewolves are always chaotic but I find it interesting to note that the example werewolf is chaotic evil and the god of good aligned lycanthropes is chaotic good. The whole idea of werewolves rings as pretty chaotic to me anyway.
This and a few more choice bit's I've pulled from the lore are integrated into my ideas on how I think they should be implemented.
So how to put a limitation on the werewolves and vampires without making them feel like weaklings or having it so light everyone will play them.
I believe the solution lies in factions. Werewolves and vampires are hated and hunted creatures. So here is how I would propose to make them work:
A player bitten by a vampire or werewolf has 3 game days or about 24 hours to receive healing. Healing is a simple matter to acquire and during this time period the player will be consistently warned they are afflicted through messages describing the physical affects they are feeling as they change. To further avoid unwanted changes this is 3 game days spent online. While less realistic, you don't want someone getting bitten, logging off, and logging on again to discover they are now a monster.
A creature that catches lycanthropy becomes an afflicted lycanthrope, but shows no symptoms (and does not gain any of the template's adjustments or abilities) until the night of the next full moon, when the victim involuntarily assumes animal form and forgets his or her own identity. The character remains in animal form until the next dawn and remembers nothing about the entire episode (or subsequent episodes) unless he makes a DC 20 Will save, in which case he becomes aware of his condition.
A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within 3 days of the infecting lycanthrope's attack. Alternatively, consuming a dose of wolfsbane (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 560) gives an afflicted lycanthrope a new Fortitude save to recover from lycanthropy.
Andius's Personal Note: For the sake of simplicity any remove disease spell from any level player or NPC caster should remove the affect in PFO.
Once the change has occurred they are IMMEDIATELY entered into the werewolf or vampire faction and flagged "for the cause" opening them up to PvP attacks by rival factions. This flag cannot be disabled unless they can somehow lose their vampire/werewolf template.
This is one of the major downsides to being a vampire/werewolf. Once you become one you are ever after a target of the slayers.
Unlike vampires and werewolves the slayer faction functions normally with the ability to enable/disable your "for the cause" flag until you reach a high enough rank. This is for two reasons:
1. While werewolves and vampires are constantly what they are, a slayer isn't really identifiable as a slayer unless they are either out slaying or have gained some renown in their craft.
2. Slayers are intended to be one of the major downsides of playing a vampire/werewolf. We don't want to dissuade people from playing them as they will hopefully be the largest of the three factions.
There are two forms of werewolves. Natural (those born with lycanthropy) and afflicted (those born with it).
In the interest of balance I am only proposing we add afflicted lycanthropes to the game. Natural would be just too damn powerful. But one of the big elements of an afflicted lycanthrope is loss of control:
When a PC becomes a lycanthrope, you as the GM have a choice to make. In most cases, you should take control of the PC's actions whenever he is in hybrid or animal form...
However I really don't think most people would be very interested in doing something that causes them to lose control of their character. So here is my proposal.
I expect this to probably be the most controversial proposal of my idea but keep an open mind about it.
Full Moon Nights- Once per in-game month, there is a full moon. This is not an event that goes unannounced. There should be system messages it is approaching and when it actually comes the background noises should become more eerie, frequently broken by the howls of wolves and werewolves.
When the full moon happens all lycanthropes are forced into hybrid form, and they are given a bit of an interesting twist. Their hybrid form is a bit more powerful than usual and they can now kill anyone without reputation loss. Infact doing so will give them boosts to their standing werewolf faction, which they need to become a more powerful werewolf.
While this going to create a lot of random slaughter, it comes with plenty of warning and it only happens for a limited time frame every so often (If there were to be 4 in-game days per one real life day this would happen for about 2 hours about once a week). Those not desiring to participate can retreat to the relative safety of their settlements and just wait the night out.
Out in the world everyone else can enjoy a night haunted by intelligent, roaming, player controlled monsters in which there is sure to be some hella-fun fights.
The incentive to slaughter is meant to simulate the loss of control. If someone chooses to roleplay fighting that loss of control more power to them. With each passed up kill they lose out on faction standing which is how they develop their lycanthropic powers, and werewolves aren't that great until they get those powers.
Base Form
Base form is your normal form before contracting lycanthropy. Slayers can still hunt you in this form. New lycanthropes will stay in this form constantly outside Full Moon Nights. As they progress in the werewolf faction and train the abilities that unlocks they can learn to assume hybrid and animal form at other times.
Hybrid Form
Part humanoid part werewolf. This is the classic werewolf form.
In PFO assuming the form could work like switching weapons. This form should give access to powerful natural weapon attacks, increase the players health and damage resistance to non-silver weapons as well as giving some great speed boost and gap closing abilities.
While in hybrid form you can't use any abilities that would be penalized while raging, though there are some werewolf faction spells that can be unlocked for casters who assume this form. As with the physical abilities all werewolf abilities emphasize raw power while shunning more subtle things such as crowd control. So expect less subtle utility magic and more "your natural attacks deal an additional X fire damage for the duration of this ability."
**This is intended as a limitation of power that can be partially offset by investing training time into werewolf abilities**
As a feared and hated creature assuming this form can be dangerous. It gives you the heinous for the duration of it's use, which does not begin to wear off until you re-assume human form.
Wolf Form
This is not unlocked until higher tiers of the werewolf faction. This essentially works the same as the druid wildshape ability except it only grant's the wolf form.
Since wolves can occur naturally or through druid abilities this does not give the heinous flag.
**This helps powerful werewolves (as in a year + training time werewolves) overcome the fact that their natural weapon training is wasted while in their base forms.**
Full disclosure, as some of you may have already guess, I'm way more into werewolves than vampires so I've invested a lot less thought in this. That's fine. These ideas are here to be critiqued and improved upon and I would encourage you blood sucker fanatics to do so.
A vampire is a vampire is a vampire so unlike werewolves once you become one, you are constantly one.
Unlike a werewolf in hybrid form though, it's much easier to hide your true nature.
Vampires immediately gain some health regeneration, damage reduction overcome by silver and magic, and the ability to drink blood. The also gain a unique vampire disguise that will be described later on.
Like werewolves, vampires are constantly flagged against slayers, and like werewolves if their affliction is revealed they gain a heinous flag. This happens when their disguise is blown or they are witnessed using a vampire only ability such as drink blood by a non-incapacitated/non-vampire player or NPC-gaurd.
They are also considered undead meaning they are healed by negative energy, harmed by positive energy, and affected by any spell or ability which affects undead.
I might mention that their weakness to garlic, mirrors, and holy symbols should probably end up in game though most of these types of weaknesses will be exploited by slayer faction abilities.
The vampire disguise is a disguise that hides all exposed flesh (to avoid harm by sunlight) and makes them appear as a non-vampire creature of their original race with the same player name etc.
This disguise is harder to see through without special slayer training than your typical disguise. It also costs nothing but instead can't be re-assumed for a certain period of time after your cover is blown.
Vampires gain faction by drinking the blood of incapacitated players. Like werewolves, they don't become very powerful until they gain their faction abilities.
(Slayers may be based of an already existing group such as the "Knights of Ozem" or a new group made up for PFO with the purpose of protecting the River Kingdoms from monstrous invaders.
As previously described slayers function more like a normal faction than werewolves and vampires as the "for the cause" flag can be enabled and disabled until a certain rank.
Slayers gain powerful monster fighting abilities, particularly ones to be used against vampires and werewolves though they may find some of these abilities to be of great use in PvE as well.
One does not pick up a clove of garlic, a crossbow with silver bolts, and a wooden stake and immediately become the next Van Helsing or Buffy. A powerful werewolf or vampire will easily slaughter an unpracticed slayer, though they may find the newly turned to provide a pretty even match. However the most powerful slayers are the stuff of legends, and the fear of werwolves and vampires alike.
Slayer faction perks tend to grant new abilities and enhance existing abilities so that they can be used with incredibly effect against monstrous creatures and players. While they won't find their abilities as universally useful as a vampire or werewolf might against eachother powerful slayers > powerful werewolves and vampires.
Slayer faction is gained by hunting down and killing player vampires and werewolves.
While most tier 3 abilities come from settlements all tier 2 and tier 3 vampire, werewolf, and slayer abilities come from specialized points of interest.
This presents both an advantage and a weakness. The advantage being that they are easier to build, and the weakness being that they are easier to destroy.
That weakness is emphasized by the fact that slayers get big perks for raising werewolf and vampire POI's and vampires and werewolves get big perks for raising theirs.
Vampire Manors can only be built and maintained by evil companies. Werewolf Dens can only be built and maintained by chaotic companies. Slayer Fortresses can be built and maintained by any lawful OR good company.
This is a limitation that helps protect the "sizable minority" status of werewolves and vampires. In order to become a powerful one you need to find a company you are willing to join within one step of your alignment able to maintain a Vampire Manor or Werewolf Den.
It also creates a concrete objective in the constant war between slayers and monstrous players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A thing you should consider before posting your ideas is "what happens in a world where tens of thousands of people can react to the idea all at once"?Let me give you an example. If you said "it would be cool if you left your mount standing outside a dungeon while you went exploring - because I'd like to be a mount thief who specialized in finding abandoned mounts and taking them", this is what the emergent behavior would be on the server: Nobody would ever leave a mount standing outside a dungeon.
That is, the ABILITY to do the thing you think is cool will cause all the other players to modify their behavior to avoid letting you do that thing. So you never get the cool payoff inherent in your concept but every other player on the server has to suffer by not using mounts. Obviously, that's not good design. :)
MMOs have been around long enough for many of these problems to have manifested in actual games. Players are fiendishly good at figuring out how to take ideas that seem "rational" or "realistic" and twist them in ways that utterly destroys the quality of the experience for most of the other players.
I'll give you a couple of examples so you can see the kinds of emergent things that happen.
In Ultima Online, you could build a house virtually anywhere. Eventually, people figured out that the real value of houses was not to use them as dwellings, but to use them as walls, since if you built them close enough together they were impassable. The result were large areas of the map that were inaccessible to anyone who didn't have the ability to bypass the walls of houses. Once a single group did this, every other group went into a land grab mode trying to seal off as large a territory as they could before competition from other groups interfered. The result was a map that turned into a chaotic maze of house-walls.
n Darkfall, every item you carry can be looted if you die. Since killing a single, fully equipped character is a much better source of getting good gear than grinding your way through dungeons or doing the resource harvesting/crafting cycle, it quickly became the norm for small groups to prey on anyone who dared to leave the safe confines of a city wearing decent gear. The result was that players started to play naked characters with a concentration on spells instead of items to do damage and the whole player economy and PvE adventure content died.
In Warhammer Online, high level characters could become tagged for retribution if they attacked low level characters. So gangs of low level characters would swarm high level characters engaged in PvE, eventually forcing the player of the high level character to "accidentally" hit one of them (or die from whatever monster was attacking them). Instantly the mob of low level characters would gang up on the now "criminal" high level character and kill it, getting rewards for doing so. Being a gang of low level characters was effectively a free pass to violate the games balance against PvP, at the expense of people who had put in the time to create high level PCs.
So when you're suggesting an idea, do these things first:
1: How will this work if 50 people have to all do it in series or in parallel?
2: How would a smart player who wanted to abuse this rule exploit it to cause someone else pain?
3: What kind of behavior would naturally emerge in a world where your rule was implemented - what's the effect of your cause?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Mbando & Alexander
That's why I built in some serious weaknesses.
1. You are instantly flagged to a faction with broad access by the most popular alignments.
2. Those players can become more powerful vs. you than you are vs. them.
3. The use of your most powerful abilities such as hybrid form or vampire abilities gives you the heinous flag making you free game to everyone.
4. You have to maintain structures that they have incentive to destroy to keep your better powers.
5. Reaching the most powerful forums requires a time building up faction as well as an investment of XP into abilities related to your form.
6. These are limited to companies of the less popular alignments.
I think in the end it's clear how this would appeal to a sizeable minority, as I intended, and not the majority of players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The unfortunate side effect of that plan is that *every* PvP minded character would have zero reason to not be a vampire or a slayer.
Training time. Slayers are also intended to be popular. Just not good ones.
Someone who spends all their time training slayer abilities and slots some of the most powerful slayer unique abilities is going to be a bit gimped vs. non-monstrous targets.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ozem's Vigil already has the slayer part covered. So. If you can't play a blood sucker or a wolfie, you can still kill the PVE counterparts.
I knew someone from Ozem's Vigil would catch on to how cool this would be for their group. Their lore is tied with that or Ustalav's after all. ;)
For once I don't mind you using this non-related thread as a shameless opportunity to recruit.
A big problem with this is that there's a good chance it won't draw in the "goth" crowd at all.
First, we're going halfsies. You can't go "halfsies" on dark fantasy. Ravenloft is the Demiplane of Dread, not the Demiplane of Some Dread And Also Sunshine And Rainbows In Some Places. Just being able to play vampires and werewolves won't mean much if they have to play in Bright, Cheery, Bandit-Infested River Kingdoms.
Second, we have to ask ourselves, is there a demographic overlap? Maybe dark fantasy players are averse to PvP.
This isn't a bad idea. I'm curious as to your thoughts on the above two snags.
Oh, and from a setting perspective, I kind of really dislike this because vampires are undead. In Golarion, undead are essentially universally evil, but making it something accessible to players could kill that faster than you can say "Sparklesparklesparkle!"
The same goes for lycanthropes—once a character starts deliberately using her curse of lycanthropy, she switches to the general alignment. Werewolf, wererat—you pretty much have to be evil.
And if you make them have to be evil, you're introducing a bunch of features only evil characters can use (unless you're willing to make graphics and such for weretigers, wereboars and werebears, which could be cool because wereboars kick ass).
So that's my personal take on this. It may be a workable idea, but I don't really know that it fits Golarion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ozem's Vigil already has the slayer part covered. So. If you can't play a blood sucker or a wolfie, you can still kill the PVE counterparts.
I knew someone from Ozem's Vigil would catch on to how cool this would be for their group. Their lore is tied with that or Ustalav's after all. ;)
For once I don't mind you using this non-related thread as a shameless opportunity to recruit.
Well part of your first post is a little bit of a recruitment post for us anyways. I just pushed a bit further. :D
FWIW I love this angle of the gothic RPG. Always have. Ravenloft was also my favorite setting in second edition and featured one of my favorite modules I've ever had the pleasure to run.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sci-fi is also a popular genre. Should we also bring in laser weapons and space ships from Numeria? I mean, these things are supposed to be rare, but they exist in the setting, so, fair game, right?
Different regions of the Pathfinder setting fill different roles. Leave the dark fantasy in Ustalav and let the River Kingdoms be the wilderness frontier it's supposed to be.
To say nothing about the big eastern mythology following thanks to anime and manga. We could bring in kitsune, ninjas, and samurai! :P
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's a well thought idea Andius. Kudos for that. But I really hope it's something we don't see in PFO. Some of the systems behind your ideas seem overly complex, and not overly beneficial to gameplay. Werewolves in particular here. Werewolves are strictly CE, and their whole design in PF is for it to be an affliction, not a benefit. Loss of control is a check on the power gained from becoming a werewolf. Not to mention the fact that they're far more rare than any of the races/classes that are already slated for release. They make far better NPCs/monsters than anything else. Same goes for vampires, really.
I understand wanting to add dark fantasy into PFO. I love the lore behind weres/vampires, and the work white wolf did to create games for them. But I don't think they fit at all as player options in PFO. There will be enough people running around already who will be evil, chaotic and heinous. Along with the white knights hunting them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Mbando & Alexander
That's why I built in some serious weaknesses.
1. You are instantly flagged to a faction with broad access by the most popular alignments.
2. Those players can become more powerful vs. you than you are vs. them.
3. The use of your most powerful abilities such as hybrid form or vampire abilities gives you the heinous flag making you free game to everyone.
4. You have to maintain structures that they have incentive to destroy to keep your better powers.
5. Reaching the most powerful forums requires a time building up faction as well as an investment of XP into abilities related to your form.
6. These are limited to companies of the less popular alignments.I think in the end it's clear how this would appeal to a sizeable minority, as I intended, and not the majority of players.
The problem with these sort of "wouldn't it be cool if a few people (e.g. me)" things is that what sounds cool for you (you get to be more powerful) is that the clear mechanical advantage you want means everyone would do it.
Kind of like in ESO right now where the briskest trade market is in selling werewolf bites.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The drawbacks in ESO for becoming a werewolf are extremely minor. You can get bitten and then reset your skill points for a moderate free , and then have a very powerful werewolf build with a poison weakness being the only real drawback.
In this system you would have to join with a solid pack that had the resources to defend it's den / rebuild it when it gets destroyed and invest a significant ammount of training and faction building into becoming a powerful werewolf.
Along the way you will be constantly hunted by slayers and free game to everyone when you use the powerful abilities that make werewolf skills worth training.
It's still going to be worthwhile for a lot of people but should be more comparible in popularity to any specific race or class than seen as a must have.
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I like the thought that you can become infected once a month, and be "Cured" of Lycanthropy or Vampirism simply be being killed in the appropriate way.
Pharasma raises you after being staked as a Vamp, an you are human again, if you die normally, raise as a vampire. Same goes with the Lycanthropes, kill them with Silver and they lose the curse for the rest of the month time span they had remaining on their "cooldown" to be infected.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's still going to be worthwhile for a lot of people but should be more comparible in popularity to any specific race or class than seen as a must have.
This is one of the things that a lot of us are having a problem with. Werewolves and Vampires should not be as common as elves and dwarves. That is not in keeping with the setting of the game. Some people actually like the setting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Mbando & Alexander
That's why I built in some serious weaknesses.
1. You are instantly flagged to a faction with broad access by the most popular alignments.
2. Those players can become more powerful vs. you than you are vs. them.
3. The use of your most powerful abilities such as hybrid form or vampire abilities gives you the heinous flag making you free game to everyone.
4. You have to maintain structures that they have incentive to destroy to keep your better powers.
5. Reaching the most powerful forums requires a time building up faction as well as an investment of XP into abilities related to your form.
6. These are limited to companies of the less popular alignments.I think in the end it's clear how this would appeal to a sizeable minority, as I intended, and not the majority of players.
I hate to pull from a popular meme when being paranoid about things, but...
WereGoonSwarm & GoonpireSwarm
I'm pretty sure that if there was a mechanical advantage that they'd have high enough numbers that most of your downsides really wouldn't matter to them.
Golarion is the setting of the game. It is this interesting world where werewolves and undead are pretty much Evil.
Also there are space cats sometimes.
EDIT: Here is a quick summary.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's still going to be worthwhile for a lot of people but should be more comparible in popularity to any specific race or class than seen as a must have.This is one of the things that a lot of us are having a problem with. Werewolves and Vampires should not be as common as elves and dwarves. That is not in keeping with the setting of the game. Some people actually like the setting.
Will you be working for a few silver a day then? That is after all what the average person living in this world makes per the official lore. An untrained hireling makes 1 silver a day and a trained 3 silver a day and here is what the player's guide says about them:
Hireling, Trained: The amount given is the typical daily wage for mercenary warriors, masons, craftsmen, cooks, scribes, teamsters, and other trained hirelings. This value represents a minimum wage; many such hirelings require significantly higher pay.
Hireling, Untrained: The amount shown is the typical daily wage for laborers, maids, and other menial workers.
The player is an exceptional character within this world. Most people can't wield any form of magic. Most people earn a tiny fraction of what they make, most people are pretty crappy compared to them.
To have thousands of these powerful figures crammed into a relatively small geographical region requires some suspension of disbelief. This close to Ustalav I don't think the idea that so many of them might be werewolves and vampires requires you to stretch your imagination any further than the believe that so many are paladins and wizards.
I predict that major settlement assaults will be scheduled to coincide with the full moons; conveniently, mercenaries will be able to guarantee that werewolves will attack the target settlement then.
Sounds like a good reason to train slayers to me. Most people will probably slot their slayer skills during that time period if they have any.
The player is an exceptional character within this world. Most people can't wield any form of magic. Most people earn a tiny fraction of what they make, most people are pretty crappy compared to them.
I'm gonna repeat what I said on another thread: That logic doesn't work quite as well when everyone is a player.
The River Kingdoms are a land of violence, like the Wild West. Everyone has a weapon. Everyone knows how to use it. Everyone does not cause sunbeams to shatter on their skin.
PFO, unlike the tabletop, has a world populated by PCs. If a fifth of said population is a werewolf, it will stand out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Guide to the River Kingdoms, the Kingmaker AP, and the rest of the published information Paizo has put out about Golarion. Do vampires and werewolves exist in Golarion? Sure. But even in places like Geb and Ustalav, they don't reach nearly the proportionality you would see if you introduced something like this to PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The player is an exceptional character within this world. Most people can't wield any form of magic. Most people earn a tiny fraction of what they make, most people are pretty crappy compared to them.I'm gonna repeat what I said on another thread: That logic doesn't work quite as well when everyone is a player.
The River Kingdoms are a land of violence, like the Wild West. Everyone has a weapon. Everyone knows how to use it. Everyone does not cause sunbeams to shatter on their skin.
PFO, unlike the tabletop, has a world populated by PCs. If a fifth of said population is a werewolf, it will stand out.
Then I think we should drop caster classes from the list of playable classes. While suspension of disbelief might allow for a fairly large population of fighters, barbarians, and rouges if we are not accepting the premise that the players are exceptional than there is absolutely no justification for allowing so many wizards, sorcerers, paladins, clerics, druids, etc.
If we are going to use the premise that our characters are exceptional then the idea of a fair population of werewolves and vampires among us is pretty believable this close to Ustalav.
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I love the idea, and I sort of hope the two end up being in game Factions at war with one another, with a limited number of "Training" or reproductive opportunities in any given timespan. Make both of them very involved PvP Quest Factions that let them gain Influence to eventually work toward becoming a member etc etc
Slayers can be thrown in as a Wildcard Faction to oppose them both with some special Keyword Abilities that work on them both.
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Then I think we should drop caster classes from the list of playable classes. While suspension of disbelief might allow for a fairly large population of fighters, barbarians, and rouges if we are not accepting the premise that the players are exceptional than there is absolutely no justification for allowing so many wizards, sorcerers, paladins, clerics, druids, etc.
I'm assuming you're new to the setting. "Wizards, sorcerers, paladins, clerics, druids, etc.", are all pretty common. Of the list, paladins might be a bit less common, since you have to be chosen. But, proportions-wise, they're around elf levels of commonality.
Except rouges, you're right about that. Those things are everywhere. We kobolds gotta look pretty!
The Guide to the River Kingdoms, the Kingmaker AP, and the rest of the published information Paizo has put out about Golarion. Do vampires and werewolves exist in Golarion? Sure. But even in places like Geb and Ustalav, they don't reach nearly the proportionality you would see if you introduced something like this to PFO.
Honestly, it's not so much the disproportionate silliness of letting werewolves and vampires be dead common that bugs me. It's just the fact that either the races are very restrictive or very against what they're supposed to be (soulless undead, brutal monsters...). Either way, it doesn't work very well.
Also, I'm kinda annoyed because the OP totally snubbed wereboars. Outrageous!
EDIT
A big problem with this is that there's a good chance it won't draw in the "goth" crowd at all.
First, we're going halfsies. You can't go "halfsies" on dark fantasy. Ravenloft is the Demiplane of Dread, not the Demiplane of Some Dread And Also Sunshine And Rainbows In Some Places. Just being able to play vampires and werewolves won't mean much if they have to play in Bright, Cheery, Bandit-Infested River Kingdoms.
Second, we have to ask ourselves, is there a demographic overlap? Maybe dark fantasy players are averse to PvP.
This isn't a bad idea. I'm curious as to your thoughts on the above two snags.
Also, I'm still hoping for a response to these two concerns. :P
I love the idea, and I sort of hope the two end up being in game Factions at war with one another, with a limited number of "Training" or reproductive opportunities in any given timespan. Make both of them very involved PvP Quest Factions that let them gain Influence to eventually work toward becoming a member etc etc
Slayers can be thrown in as a Wildcard Faction to oppose them both with some special Keyword Abilities that work on them both.
Yesss. I can't wait for Werewolves Vs. Vampires Online.
#TeamJacob
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is this interesting world where werewolves and undead are pretty much Evil.
...god of good aligned werewolves...
It's just the fact that either the races are very restrictive or very against what they're supposed to be (soulless undead, brutal monsters...)
...god of good aligned werewolves...
I actually gave pretty appropriate alignment restrictions in this idea. Werewolves are restricted to chaotic companies while vampires are restricted to evil ones.
The format says vampires can be ANY evil alignment, including lawful evil. Vampires are supposed to be pretty intelligent and sophisticated so I see nothing wrong with then being the more subtle but still possibly intelligent creatures outlined here.
Werewolves are supposed to be chaotic rage machines but they can turn those tendencies toward good with a considerable amount of self control. Is that not what I've described here?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Okay, this is a game where people are going to be incarnated as Player Characters within the game. Everyone. Even the commoners, experts, and aristocrats. (But not the adepts. Classist game. Where are our adepts? j/k)
Lycanthropy is highly not recommended within Paizo's own products for players to take part in, but they can at GM discretion with some caveats.
Lycanthropic Player Characters
When a PC becomes a lycanthrope, you as the GM have a choice to make. In most cases, you should take control of the PC's actions whenever he is in hybrid or animal form—lycanthropy shouldn't be a method to increase a PC's power, after all, and what an afflicted lycanthrope does while in animal or hybrid form is often at odds with what the character would actually want. If a player wants to play a lycanthrope, he should play a natural lycanthrope and follow the guidelines for playing a character of a powerful race.
We don't have GMs. We have an MMORPG.
If you contract lycanthropy, then you give up control of your character when you change. Unlike natural lycanthropes, you don't have hardly any control over your character when in your non-human forms. You become an NPC during that time and go forth with whatever animalistic instincts that creature has.
Contracted lycanthropy is a curse. Natural lycanthropes are what you want and are also not recommended within the game except with very special rules that your GM would have to do a lot of things to work around... essentially creating a campaign based around the lycanthropy more than likely. You want World of Darkness, but this is Pathfinder. We have different styles of critters here.
I think the best option for what would be balanced and workable would be the eventual addition of the Skinwalker race. They've got some natural lycanthrope heritage, but are primarily human. They get a slight shifter ability that they can pull off.
However, they aren't really lycanthropes. They can't make someone contract lycanthropy.
Lycanthropes in Pathfinder RPG are designed to be monsters. They aren't designed to be players. I'm sorry, but that's the campaign setting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah........ This is awesome.
However, people are a+~+*~@s and if I was a griefer I would insta-werewolf and then griefy grief grief for free for that two hour window. Or, if the system works, I say I am a dedicated Slayer, and that is all I do... and then just constantly chase the few poor saps who are the afflicted and keep killing them. What can anyone do, they are low in number and I am a Slayer, it isn't my fault I keep running into the same three now is it? there are only fifteen in this region anyway.
In addition, what incentive is there for the Slayers? Killing Werewolves and Vampires. W's and V's have this sort of unique, faulty, different vibe to them, and most people want to be unique, special, etc. This means that the "small" factions won't be exactly small. And Werewolves and Vampires shouldn't be something given out like freebies.
Now if GW made this Pay-to-Play Vampire or Werewolf, or any other sort of thing, and everyone else is "Slayer" I could see this working, (except for the problem of few huntees and too many hunters, Pay-to-win mentality, and some people not caring about the money they spend to ruin other peoples' fun)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Now if GW made this Pay-to-Play Vampire or Werewolf, or any other sort of thing, and everyone else is "Slayer" I could see this working
That actually sounds smart to me. Make it a purchasable add-on, make the slayer add-on free. Start a bit high and drop the price if they end up underpopulated.
There is is also one other limitation suggested I could spring for:
I hope one day we have every single bit of it, even if it might be restricted to certain parts of the map.
This would be a perfect thing to add at the same time they open up a limited part of the Ustalav map.
The suggested POI structures could be limited to that section of the map. That would prevent every alliance from having it's own werewolf, vampire, and slayer PoIs and instead have a limited number of them competing over a limited section of the map. If this was the case though I would suggest having factions outside the Ustalav based slayer factions with their own slayer skills so werewolves and vampires don't absolutely dominate if they leave their limited section of the map.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One big comment I would like to make about the attitudes I'm perceiving in this topic is ideas that Dark Fantasy solely appeals to people who have chosen to exclude all color from their wardrobes, or Twilight fans, or people who prefer modern settings etc.
I would consider all of this false. I happen to love werewolves and I would attribute it mostly to how damn fun it was to take part in warg packs in the Ettenmoors and use the wolf form in Twilight Princess. Oh and lets not forget tossing bears in Skyrim. You have to love any ability that allows you to throw a bear and the werewolf's power attack did just that. And hell, who doesn't find this, and this, and this awesome? I have plenty of colors in my wardrobe and am not very big on any teenage romance titles. I just think they are cool.
Besides, werewolf and vampire lore goes back hundreds of years and none of the classics that I'm aware of mentioned anything about sparkling vampires or an aversion to wearing shirts.
Maybe some of you personally have no interest in these ideas but I see I sizeable minority expressing that they do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...god of good aligned werewolves...
Hmm, I find it interesting that there is an Empyreal Lord (technically a demigod, by the way) who's worshipped by good-aligned werewolves when their wiki page, found by following the link at your url, lists them as only chaotic evil. However, by going to the SRD page and reading their description, we can see that
Of all the various types of lycanthropes, it is the werewolf that is the most widespread and the most feared. Stories of werewolves haunting lonely forest roads, prowling misty moors on the outskirts of rural societies, or dwelling in the shadows of the largest cities are widespread as well. In most societies, werewolves are feared and despised—and with good reason, as the typical werewolf personifies all that is savage and bestial in a lycanthrope. This isn't to say that good-aligned werewolves are unknown, but they're certainly a minority among their kind, and most werewolves are evil murderers who delight in the hunt and the succulent taste of raw meat.
So it does seem like Good-aligned werewolves are possible, just a minority.