This seems really unbalanced at least for a pc.
I have a hard time believing it's double your original hitdice. I know it's easy enough to house rule but by RAW it seems as follows:
So at say 14th level you could easily be a CR20 evil outsider?
How would you rule this by RAW and also how would you house rule it if you were the DM.
Thanks. :)
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You need to learn all four rituals, get the skill to cast them (most items and taking 10 don't work when casting them), and then make at least half of the skill check.
The target becomes a fined of a type decided by the GM and gets a lot of benefits, but it is questionable if at that point he is still a PC. It is mostly a device for the GM.
If the GM decides to allow it for the PC, I suppose s/he will adjust the campaign accordingly.
Consider that you need someone capable to perform 3 different skill checks at DC 31 with an acceptable chance of success to cast the ritual.
If the PCs can do that they are, probably, at a higher level than the 14th, or they have several feats on the skills.
If an NPC perform it for them, I suppose he will require adequate compensation, probably in the form of a long-lasting servitude.
As diego said, this is mostly a GM tool for npc.
consider that even if every ritual of the 4 (you need the first 3 before trying this 4th one you mentioned) is successful a very long time, game wise, passes.
1st ritual take at least 1 year to perform (and if he fail it is 1 more for each failure until success) . then a few months before the 2nd ritual can be made, then the 3rd ritual ask for a quest that is supposed to be above the caster's power level, meaning he have to level up a bit before trying to do it (how long that take and then how long the quest itself take depend on GM and play style). and then the 4tf ritual take at least 1 more year. that is a minimum of 2 years, a few months and how ever long leveling and the quest take to finish. all this IF he never fail the rituals. (consider that a lot of campaigns that run from levels 1 to 20 are over way before 2 years in game time pass)
there are also all these side drawbacks, such as part of trying the 1st ritual "The caster consigns her soul to Abaddon, the Abyss, or Hell even if she never finishes the subsequent rituals" and this is from the 'book of the damned' where there is a definition to 'consigns souls' to one of the lower plains -mostly if the person die his souls goes straight there and it is harder (sometimes impossible) to rise the dead back to life.
Add the fact that every attempt on the 2nd ritual demand a sacrifice of a relative of the caster who has " shared a positive emotional connection such as love or pride" (so if he's background is the typical emo kid of orphaned by trolls and no friends\loved one he is in a tight spot) with each failure requiring a new sacrifice. he might run out of offering. more so if his vile cats are known.
then consider that the graft, and final fiend are at the GM mercy and you get a not very sweet deal at all.
And with all the vile evil acts one perform for the rituals it can get kinda public very fast. so you can rest assured that a request to subjugate the 'vilian' would be made a few times during that long period.
This seems really unbalanced at least for a pc.
Have you actually read the whole chain of apotheosises?
The first one requires you to be evil and align with a demonic patron, and "the caster must undertake acts of a vile and destructive nature over the course of a year." It takes another year for the thign to actually complete. The second one "requires many more months of debased acts and vile plots", and requires you of the ritual to sacrifice "someone who is related to [you] by blood or family (such as a spouse or an adopted parent or child) and [you] and the offering must once have shared a positive emotional connection such as love or pride". The third apotheosis can be done somewhat simultaneously with the second, but requires you to perform a task "of significance to the fiend, and in many cases it is one that [you have] no hope of completing until [you grow] more powerful". Also, you "must perform weekly devotions to [your] fiendish patron in the intervening time in the form of regular worship and continued atrocities in the fiend’s name. Additional burned offerings to the demon, assaults on innocents, and betrayals of allies are popular choices." The fourth apotheosis requires waiting another year (and more living sacrifice).
If you campaign has your PCs spend years commiting untold atrocities, betraying allies and killing their own familiy members, the balance of the macanical effects of the fourth apotheosis is not the issue!
I have a hard time believing it's double your original hitdice.
I think the resutl has to be no more than double the original HD. Still crazy powerful, obviously, but
as a GM tool however, this is a setup for a nice long campaign on it's own.
starting with a small town heroes trying to find out who is doing unnamed vile things in an abounded ruin.
following a rush to prevent the sacrifice of the daughter of the 'BBEG".
then to find out her twin brother was kept as a backup they now need to prevent him from gathering the forces needed to make a power move that would change the balance of haven and earth.
And ending in a climaxed timed event where they have 1 year to stop him once and for all before his grand scheme comes to fulfillment and he becomes too terrible to ever imagine (double hd beside class level BBEG).
...and once that is done with, there is still his fiendish master who was just finishing his chess move all along...
(this is where FF and such goes from dealing with the demon lord to fighting the demon god)
Yes I have read the whole set of rituals.
I only had a question about part 4.
This is sort of one of my pet peeves in that this is written as if for a player. It talks about GM discretion and if it was just for npcs then why would you need to say that? That being said it does make more sense to use this for an npc. Anyways I'm not interested in arguing about its story use in game. I only really care about the hitdice mechanics.
Ironically I think Diego's last post gives me a reasonable way to handle the mechanics of this ritual.
Thanks all.
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Not in any way rules-related, but thank you for showing me these rituals... I have several characters with the Damnation feats, and these four rituals seem like they would be a great match for those four feats.
Start with the Soulless Gaze feat for the bous to Intimidate checks, which will help with the skill checks required by the rituals. The first ritual changes your alignment to Evil, which is fine, since taking Damnation feats will do that anyways. Do the first ritual and follow it with the Mask of Virtue feat to help hide your alignment. By the time you get ready to do the second ritual, you already have two Damnation feats... you're already on a first-name basis with your patron fiend... me, again, buddy. Second ritual should go down without a hitch, so jump right into the third ritual as soon as possible. The template gained from the third ritual provides some decent defenses, so pick a patron that offers different defenses than the ones gained from the template. Why? Because your third Damnation feat, Fiendskin, allows you to pick defenses from your patron, fill in the ones you don't get from the template... or choose defenses your target fiend lacks, the fiend your fourth ritual is going to turn you into. Study the defenses of your goal fiend, and choose a patron fiend with differing defenses to choose from with your Damnation feat. Anyways, the fourth ritual and the fourth Damnation feat can happen at your convenience... Maleficium only applies to spells with the Evil descriptor, which are few and far between. All the good Evil spells are high level, anyways, so waiting until the end isn't going to hurt anything. The best thing about rushing to pick up the fourth Damnation feat is the benefits from the others go up.
Bringing this back up... figured it was more polite to resurrect someone else's thread, rather than my own.
Now, about this: "Once the second apotheosis is successful, part of the caster’s body transforms into something fiendish as proof of her patron’s favor. Use the various fleshcraft grafts to model these partial transformations; the specific transformation granted is up to the GM, but typical results include claw gauntlet or wings of darkness."
Are we just "modeling" this partial transformation to be similar to fleshcraft grafts... like a demonic claw hand or bat wings?
Or, are these actual fleshcrafts that take magic item slots and come with permenant penalties?
It seems like a lot of work to get tagged with a permenant penalty and denied a magic item slot "as proof of her patron’s favor"... I am under the impression that fleshcraft grafts are simply examples of possible partial tranformation manifestations, and one does not suffer the fleshcraft graft penalty or give up a magic item slot for the partial transformation upon completing the Second Apotheosis ritual.
Anyone else have opinions on this matter?
Not that it is likely to ever come up, or even matter... but I am curious how you would play it. Or if there are rules clarifying if it is an actual fleshcraft graft given by the ritual [well, given by the GM after the ritual is successfully completed].
Bringing this back up...If it's modeled on flesh grafts, I would expect the penalties and benefits to apply.
As a DM.
This should not be an easy process and it should include sacrifices along the way. And potential for failure and horrendous consequences.
I do not see this as usual PC rules.
Sacrifices have definitely been made... in my opinion, the price has been paid.
Do all the other demons that were once mortal live with permenant fleshcraft penalties? Probably not.
In fact, I will argue that the Apotheosis rituals simply came out before Demonic Implants existed in full capacity... otherwise, the Second Apotheosis would have had your partial transformation modeled off of those, instead of fleshcraft grafts. And I can back this up with the Apotheosis rituals being in the Book of the Damned first volume, and the majority of Demonic Implants appearing in Book of the Damned second volume. If the Second Apotheosis ritual's partial transformation was modeled off Demonic Implants you would basically have access to the exact same sorts of changes, and they would not take magic item slots or have penalties associated with them.
Publication order is why the Second Apotheosis models its partial tranaformation off of fleshcraft grafts... it would actually be much more thematic, sensible, and mechanically beneficial to model the partial transformation off of Demonic Implants... given that the whole purpose of the Apotheosis rituals is to become a freaking demon. Lol.