(Proposal) The Green Eyed Lady

[Kahuna Burger]

So I was thinking about the idea of a Lady Luck diety as mentioned on Jareth's proposal thread. The more I thought about this diety, however, and how I would envision it, the more I realized there was one problem - I just don't see her having clerics, at least the traditional PHB class of them. The Lady is capricious, perhaps even flighty and the best way to lose her favor is to actually call on it. Luck cannot be presumed upon, it cannot be channeled or invoked or ordered, it must only be trusted. A class that sits down and makes an organized effort to prepare the spells of the Lady just doesn't work for me.

So, I'd like to consider having the diety exist, but without any clerics or organized church. Instead, there would be a PrC (Pawns of the Lady) for those whom the Lady has choosen to gift. It would have a limited spell progression spontaneously casting from the Lady's domains (Starting with one and adding domains as it went along) and various luck related abilities. before I go to the bother of fully stating and balancing such a class, I'd like to know how people would feel about this unorthodox worship setup.

What I have so far on the Green Eyed Lady's stats is below, I haven't decided on a home plane (though chaos sounds good) or a favorite weapon - I want something with a feel of unpredicatability and art as much as skill to weilding it....

The Green Eyed Lady
(Lady Luck, The Lady)

Enworldian Lesser Deity
Symbol: A pair of dice
Home Plane:
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Portfolio: Luck, trickery, games of chance, trust in fate.
Worshipers: Rogues, bards, gamblers, thrill seekers.
Cleric Alignments: N/A(pawns of the lady are C/G or C/N in allignment)
Domains: Chaos, Luck, Protection, Trickery
Favored Weapon:

Kahuna Burger

[Kahuna Burger]

the beginning of the PrC. Having trouble deciding on prereqs, because I want it to be pretty open. this is far from done, still playing with soem abilities, but I figured I'd get what I had out and solicit advice.

Pawn of the Lady
Hit Die: d6.
Requirements
To qualify to become a pawn of the Lady, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Alignment: Chaotic good or chaotic neutral
Saves: Reflex +3
Feats: Dodge
Special: A potenial pawn of the lady must have trusted his life to blind chance in an attempt to aid another.

Class Skills
The pawn’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Table: The Pawn of the Lady
	 	 	 	 	 	—— Spells per Day ——
Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	          		   1st	2nd	3rd	4th
1st	+0	+0	+2	+0	Evasion, 1st domain		0	—	—	—
2nd	+1	+0	+3	+0	beginner's luck 		1	—	—	—
3rd	+2	+1	+3	+1	2nd domain   			2	0	—	—
4th	+3	+1	+4	+1	uncanny dodge 			3	1	—	—
5th	+3	+1	+4	+1	Blind luck	     		3	2	0	—
6th	+4	+2	+5	+2	3rd domain   			3	3	1	—
7th	+5	+2	+5	+2	Improved uncanny dodge 		3	3	2	0
8th	+6	+2	+6	+2	Mistaken identity  		3	3	3	1
9th	+6	+3	+6	+3	4th domain, lucky roll  	3	3	3	2
10th	+7	+3	+7	+3	Impulsive action 		3	3	3	3

Spells - the Pawn of the Lady can spontaneously cast a small number of divine spells from the Domains of the Lady. He chooses his first domain at level one and an additional domain at third, sixth and ninth levels. He has access only the spells of these domains and gains the domain power allong with each one. Spells are based on Charisma.

Beginner's luck - gives a +10 bonus to a single check with a skill which the Pawn has no ranks in once per day per two Pawn levels. (usable on skills which usually cannot be used untrained)

Blind Luck - I'm thinking something along the lines of the pawn makes a signle attack as a full round action literally with his eyes closed. If the attack hits, he scores an automatic critical with max damage.

Mistaken Identity - once per day (on the first encounter of its type of the day) an NPC who would normally behave as hostile or unfriendly to the Pawn is instead indifferent or friendly based on a mistaken impression of who he is or why he is there.

Lucky roll - same as defensive roll rogue special ability.

Impulsive Action - once per day per point of cha bonus, the Pawn can take an action outside of his initiative order in combat. The move or standard action is resolved as though it was readied in response to the declared action of another combatant. The Pawn is flatfooted until the end of the following round, when he takes the last initiative order. (uncanny dodge does not remove this flatfooted status and the pawn is susceptible to sneak attacks durring this period.) The impulsive action can be taken after the pawn has already gone in the round, but he provokes an attack of opertunity and forfiets his action on the following round.

Kahuna Burger

[orsal]

Regarding the deity: why CG? She seems more CN to me. And if there is a reason to make her good, should she also get the Good domain, since generally deities get all appropriate alignment domains? I'd prefer making her CN (and allowing CE pawns).

I don't see why a clericless deity should be problematic. And I do really like the idea of this one.

Regarding the PrC: I'll have to think a little more about the details. One thing that surprised me: since I had been expecting a sort of ersatz-cleric, it had seemed natural to make it more wisdom based -- Wis-based spellcasting, good Will saves. That doesn't mean it should be that way, just something I thought I'd mention.

[Goldhawk]

Blind luck ability is wayyyy.... too powerful.
This is because of the min/maxers in us may take advantage of this to use high crit weapons. Even if this can only be use once per day, it's just too overpowered. BBEGs can easily be taken down by this.

Mistaken identity is the good class skill in my opinion. However, this ability need a will save and a spell school at least, or it become too powerful in the mid and high lvls.

I agree with orsal regarding the goddess alignment. Should be CN as luck favor anyone without caring about who they are. There should also be a code of conduct implanted for this PrC, rules that if anyone who take the PrC breaks will lost his/hers PrC abilities until atonement is cast.

Impulsive action if I get it right, you can make two attacks per round (first and last in the initiative).Therefore, it is wayyy... tooo overpowered. Imagining a wizard using this ability (Brrr,. Remember, what you can use can also be used upon thee. . Some DMs might get peeved at this ability and might arranged for your cha. to get SA if this ability is used.

For more class flavor, I want to suggest you dropped the uncanny dodge and imp. uncanny dodge. Rather, how about abilities like slippery mind and look up on some of the rogue's high lvl. feats for ideas?

[Kahuna Burger]

Thanks for the responses. The diety is chaotic good for two reasons. One, she is the other end of the scale from an aproved rules centered ?lawful? evil diety of gaming. Second, she is based thematicly in part on the Lady from the discworld novels (shown early on as a sponsor of rincewind), and the feel I have for her is capricious but definitivly benevolent. I disagree that in fiction luck favors all equally, perhaps you could think of it as a chaotic and unpredicatable form of karma. There will be no evil pawns of the lady.

In terms of the prc, neither wis not int really worked for me, and cha seemed like the best stat for a caster who really has no idea what he's doing. This PrC isn't about channeling or harnessing the power of the Lady, after all but more trusting her and pulling through against the odds. (the somatic and verbal components of the Pawn's spells are all covering your eyes with one hand while pointing the other and yelling in fear... )

I want the abilities to be ballanced, and I'd be happy to get some input. The idea behind Blind luck was basicly knowing you had no chance on skill alone and striking at random - to score a debilitating hit. Closing your eyes seemed like a good way of simulating that, or making an attack roll with only your Cha as a modifier (no bab, etc). I wouldn't want to to work every time, but when it does work it should be way cool and impressive.

with impulisve action, the idea is not the two actions per round (and that could be avoided by saying you can only use the ability when you have taken the last initiative order already) but to have an "interupt" ability as it were. The character can respond to something as though they were readying for it. I'm not convinced that it's way overpowered as the tenth level ability of a prc, especially if I rewrite it slightly to avoid double actions.

I'm curious why you think the mistaken identiity is so powerful? would it be less so if it explicitly only covered the Pawn (and thus would be wasted when his association with others not under the effect was realized?)

anyway, I will dwell on this...

Kahuna Burger

[orsal]

Originally Posted by Kahuna Burger

Thanks for the responses. The diety is chaotic good for two reasons.

Then why doesn't she have the Good domain? Are there any other good gods and goddesses that don't have the Good domain?

I still think this idea would work better as CN, but I'll accept that a goddess of benevolent dumb luck is coherent.

[GnomeWorks]

Hmm...

Well, if you were going for an opposite to Jareth, I think you found it.

I like.

[Knight Otu]

There are a number of deities in "official" sources that do not have all alignment domains corresponding to their alignment.
For example:
Odur and Bast, from Deities and Demigods, are CG, but have only the Chaos domain.
Apollo, from the same book, is also CG, but has only the Good domain.

[GnomeWorks]

Well, I Approve the deity, that much is certain. I think that having two deities dealing with gaming that directly oppose each other is interesting.

However, the PrC... is something else entirely. I think we need to rework it for it to be approved. As it is, the mechanics are iffy, and several abilities don't even have mechanics worked out. As such, I give the PrC a No, with the understanding that I will approve it if it is redone to be mechanically sound.

[Knight Otu]

Originally Posted by GnomeWorks

...with the understanding that I will approve it if it is redone to be mechanically sound.

Of course, it's rather unlikely that this will happen.

That said, Yes to the deity, No to the class.

[nimisgod]

Hmmm... I want to see it complete and written up before I give it a "Yes". Does anyone have a suggestion for a favored weapon?

Spiked Chain or whip sort of fits what KB wanted (unpredictable and artful).

[GnomeWorks]

Well, Taka uses a spiked chain... I think the whip would work well for the Lady.

[Creamsteak]

I'm giving this a NO, both because the creator is gone (and I don't like working with that), and because the PRC seems ill conceived. The deity itself could probably be salvaged, but I'm thinking that a new unique creation would be better for an opposite to jareth.

[orsal]

This goddess seems to have gotten abandoned, shy of approval, when KB quite LEW. Since she's back... do you want to revive the Lady? The proposal is almost complete, needing a favoured weapon, and I'll be ready to approve her, sans PrC, once completed.

[Kahuna Burger]

Originally Posted by orsal

This goddess seems to have gotten abandoned, shy of approval, when KB quite LEW. Since she's back... do you want to revive the Lady? The proposal is almost complete, needing a favoured weapon, and I'll be ready to approve her, sans PrC, once completed.

I'd been thinking about this, myself. The PrC was never meant as a ready proposal but as a starting point, and the feedback I got was, no offense, pretty light on constructive suggestions and heavy on extra a's, so it looks like it won't be improved any time soon. There also seem to be some underlying flavor issues that I won't go into now, because it would come out all weird.

As for the diety, I like the suggestion of whip as a favored weapon, and I think Chaos is the obvious home plane. For the moment, Pawn of the Lady will simply be a term used to refer to those who seem to get by on good will and blind luck. It is traditionally believed that the Lady favors those who trust Her but abandon those who count on Her. This fine line is one that many high rolling gamblers have lost their life fortunes in misjudging. So,

The Green Eyed Lady
(Lady Luck, The Lady)

Enworldian Lesser Deity
Symbol: A pair of dice
Home Plane: Chaos
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Portfolio: Luck, trickery, games of chance, trust in fate.
Worshipers: Rogues, bards, gamblers, thrill seekers.
Cleric Alignments: N/A (pawns of the lady are C/G or C/N in allignment)
Domains: Chaos, Luck, Protection, Trickery
Favored Weapon: Whip