[D&D 3.5 high-level evil campaign] Project Blackguard

[Zaer Darkwail]

Well, as said I want to play as rogue 5/chameleon 7 changeling, so perhaps a vampire changeling? Or vampire lord even so he can walk in daylight?

Anyways my own idea is that we find our candidate eversince from infant stage. We find a good family (detect good) and check all the kids. Then we spy the family and watch which kid fills our criteria (as after all the said kid must be part of the very organization he betrays so she/he must be a paladin material).

Then we make the appearance of BBB guy showing up and coming to slay the family while one of us (or just inform organization and have false prophecy about a hero who vanquishes evil). The prophecy what we made should function so that only the kid which we choose can do it (specific circumstance of his birth, birthmark or specific looks or special ability etc). Then do-gooder comes rescue the kid but is unable rescue the family in question (we choose the paladin carefully so he does not own us nor see through our ploy).

Better if one of us can blend inside organization or doppelganger the original paladin and be mentor figure for the kid and pressure on prophecy deal on the kid in discreet manner. Then prophecy would start to happening (prophecy in short being our script how tale for kid would go literally speaking but leave it cryptic enough it is not too obvious).

Then we would lead through varied prophecy stages until in final moment and final triumph we reveal the prophecy was originally created by the order which he served (we place original script on temple as 'proof' for this) and that the order manipulated the kid eversince his childhood to take role of a martyred hero to destroy something which was not evil (we target prophecy against a good aligned dragon or nymph or something else which is genuinely not evil) and instead was threat to the order somehow which they needed destroy out of the way.

So, seeing prophecy being just means to create 'perfect puppet' to do a questionable deed the paladin would fall and loose faith. Then feel anger/vengenful for organization which ignored plea of his family for sake ensure he/she is devoted to the cause and not get distracted by his own family.

[PaleEnchantress]

Ever hear of the tome of necromancy? It's a very well done independent project on the D&D wiki. Here is a link to the tome itself. It corrects a lot of problems D&D necromancy has due to conflicting rules and flavor.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Tome_of_Necromancy_%28DnD_Other%29

The one thing I REALLY want though is this prestige class, called The Widow Queen.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Widow_Queen_%283.5e_Prestige_Class%29

[TheGlyphstone]

If that's Frank&K's Tome of Necromancy, they make good stuff, but I'd be leery about wanting to use it in a 'typical' game - they're notorious for having an extremely high-power view of how D&D ought to be played in a mechanical sense, with their various 'balance' rewrites being aimed at elevating melee classes to the power of wizards, rather than nerfing wizards to the power of melee classes. The fluff is excellent and well-thought out, but can end up causing mechanical issues if you're not careful - though that Widow Queen doesn't look too bad if you patch her 9th level ability to prevent the as-written infinite Constitution boosts.

If that's not F+K's material...well, Friends Don't Let Friends Use D&DWiki. :D

[ExisD]

Posting from my phone so I can't particularly verbose. But I like the temple Pham and I do want too play a succubus. I'd probably take rogue or some caster and be able to set up trials for the hero.

[PaleEnchantress]

If that's Frank&K's Tome of Necromancy, they make good stuff, but I'd be leery about wanting to use it in a 'typical' game - they're notorious for having an extremely high-power view of how D&D ought to be played in a mechanical sense, with their various 'balance' rewrites being aimed at elevating melee classes to the power of wizards, rather than nerfing wizards to the power of melee classes. The fluff is excellent and well-thought out, but can end up causing mechanical issues if you're not careful - though that Widow Queen doesn't look too bad if you patch her 9th level ability to prevent the as-written infinite Constitution boosts.

If that's not F+K's material...well, Friends Don't Let Friends Use D&DWiki. :D

It is F+K's Tome of Necromancy. I would assume that the con bonus would not stack with itself. I may pull some high powered trickery occasionally but infinite loop abuse is beneath even me.  Really the widow queen can't do anything a wizard of equivalent level can't do. She just does it with a bit more expertise in her chosen field.

[TheGlyphstone]

It is F+K's Tome of Necromancy. I would assume that the con bonus would not stack with itself. I may pull some high powered trickery occasionally but infinite loop abuse is beneath even me.  Really the widow queen can't do anything a wizard of equivalent level can't do. She just does it with a bit more expertise in her chosen field.

Like I said, that particular class looked okay except for the Con loophole, which is very easily patched. Wizards can't get much more broken than they already are, after all.

Some of the Necromancy spells added in the other section are crazy OP, though.

[Videospirit]

Most of the infinite loop shenanigans don't actually work since bonuses from the same source don't stack unless they explicitly say otherwise.

[PaleEnchantress]

Like I said, that particular class looked okay except for the Con loophole, which is very easily patched. Wizards can't get much more broken than they already are, after all.

Some of the Necromancy spells added in the other section are crazy OP, though.

I'm not asking for the necromancy spells to be added. I agree some of them are pretty insane.

[PaleEnchantress]

Most of the infinite loop shenanigans don't actually work since bonuses from the same source don't stack unless they explicitly say otherwise.

Things like that were always more in the realm of "Theoretically you could do this" anyway. I don't think anyone who has played the game (or any PnP RPG) would believe bringing something like that into play would be a good idea.

[TheGlyphstone]

Most of the infinite loop shenanigans don't actually work since bonuses from the same source don't stack unless they explicitly say otherwise.

This one would as-written, though, because it says 'gains +4 Con as if through level gain', and level gain bonuses to stats are specifically given to stack with themselves and other bonuses. And knowing Frank+K, I wouldn't be entirely against the possibility that this sort of thing was intentional.

Most infinite loop shenanigans work because they find workarounds for the 'same source doesn't stack', either by using something that gives an exception or not trying to stack 'bonuses', which are explicitly defined in the rules. But that's why they're shenanigans, and the subgroup of people both smart enough to figure them out and unscrupulous enough to try and use them are vanishingly small.

Things like that were always more in the realm of "Theoretically you could do this" anyway. I don't think anyone who has played the game (or any PnP RPG) would believe bringing something like that into play would be a good idea.

Basically this. It's why stuff like Pun-Pun (the original version) was both legal and firmly flagged as Theoretical Optimization, the intent was never to create something that would see the light of actual play.

[PaleEnchantress]

This one would as-written, though, because it says 'gains +4 Con as if through level gain', and level gain bonuses to stats are specifically given to stack with themselves and other bonuses. And knowing Frank+K, I wouldn't be entirely against the possibility that this sort of thing was intentional.

Ad I assumed the basic intention was making it an untyped bonus so it stacks with things like enhancement bonuses. Thats how I'd expect it to be treated, a one time con boost that stacks with whatever con boosts the Widow Queen is using. Though I wouldn't even complain if it was made an inherent bonus as if I just wished myself +4 con.

[Kunoichi]

Wow, I wish I'd noticed this game sooner. ><; Are sign-ups still open?  I've got a concept in mind for a Fiend of Possession that I think would work well in a game like this.

[PaleEnchantress]

Wow, I wish I'd noticed this game sooner. ><; Are sign-ups still open?  I've got a concept in mind for a Fiend of Possession that I think would work well in a game like this.

I havnt heard about them being closed. My cohort will be a FoP as well.

[Haztur]

great idea... but I suppose there is no way to play one of the paladins-to-be-corrupted, right? :p

[TheGlyphstone]

I can't imagine that'd be any fun, since we'd be railroading the crap out of you at every turn...

[Kunoichi]

I havnt heard about them being closed. My cohort will be a FoP as well.

Ah, nice. ^^ My basic thought is that I'd wind up pretending to be some sort of super-awesome sentient magical artifact, and do what I could to increase our would-be hero's pride when it's time to orchestrate his downfall.  Perhaps I could work two levels of Fiend of Corruption into my build, get some nice shape-changing and immunity to alignment detection going...

[ExisD]

I'm not sure which class progression I'd want to go for, but I'd want to work in Fiend of Corruption and I'm thinking a rather sneaky type either way.

I also realized that there might be a flaw with the plan so far. We need to make sure the forces of good don't spill the beans/realize what we're doing so making a front organization for him to join would be difficult at best.

[TheGlyphstone]

I'm not sure which class progression I'd want to go for, but I'd want to work in Fiend of Corruption and I'm thinking a rather sneaky type either way.

I also realized that there might be a flaw with the plan so far. We need to make sure the forces of good don't spill the beans/realize what we're doing so making a front organization for him to join would be difficult at best.

Whyzat? All we'd have to do is not dedicate our organization specifically to any of the good gods, so they don't have reason to look closely at us. If our front group actually does do (minor, but consistent) good deeds to keep their rep up, it'll look legit from the outside, and we can keep our 'evil' cults/organization carefully separated, with ourselves as the only direct links between them.

[ExisD]

The biggest issue I can see is that if we draw no power, clerics and such, from good deities then someone might come investigate us and most of our members won't stand up to detect evil spells.

[TheGlyphstone]

The biggest issue I can see is that if we draw no power, clerics and such, from good deities then someone might come investigate us and most of our members won't stand up to detect evil spells.

How can anyone tell? If we don't actively claim to be following a specific good god, there's no reason for any of them not to assume we're simply getting our juice from one of the others, or simply from 'a cause', a valid option if we're not in the Forgotten Realms. The ability to be a cleric without a patron deity is a legitimate choice, if one people rarely take advantage of...but hey, we have sanctioned metagame knowledge, and as long as we don't cast spells with the [Evil] descriptor where people can see and get away to tell, our non-evil spells won't give us away.

[ExisD]

We'd still have a significant number of member who read as Evil on a detect evil spell which, assuming usual objective morality of dnd, would be a giant red flag. Especially since our Paladin charge can do this for free whenever he wants.

[TheGlyphstone]

That just takes time and money. An unobtrusive magic item that makes its owner register as Good to any alignment scan - or at worst, Undetectable Alignment - would be really cheap (which reminds me, someone's cohort needs to be a tricked-out Artificer to get us all magic items at absurdly reduced cost), which we hand out to our legitimately Evil followers.

[Zaer Darkwail]

Note; paladin's detect evil is supernatural ability. It bypasses most anti-divination spells (example nondetection which wards against divination spells, not supernatural divination abilities). So far as I can see Undetectable Alignment wards very well (it's bard/cleric spell and it would be cheap to make ring from it). Ring of Mind Shielding which is 8K each would be perfect as it conceals alignment, wards minds from mind reading and also makes lies undetected by magic.

Another way to trick about alignment is misdirect (illussion spell), summon a celestial creature with a spell, target with misidrect and enjoy being registered as good aligned entity (even a good aligned outsider).

[TheGlyphstone]

Note; paladin's detect evil is supernatural ability. It bypasses most anti-divination spells (example nondetection which wards against divination spells, not supernatural divination abilities). So far as I can see Undetectable Alignment wards very well (it's bard/cleric spell and it would be cheap to make ring from it). Ring of Mind Shielding which is 8K each would be perfect as it conceals alignment, wards minds from mind reading and also makes lies undetected by magic.

Another way to trick about alignment is misdirect (illussion spell), summon a celestial creature with a spell, target with misidrect and enjoy being registered as good aligned entity (even a good aligned outsider).

Check again. Paladin's Detect Evil is a Spell-Like Ability, not a Supernatural Ability.

[Zaer Darkwail]

*checks wiki*

What the hell.....over 10 years gaming and it had always been supernatural to our group!