STARP_JVP
First Post
I'm doing what American TV does when it sees a popular British show - ripping it off and making it less good. To whit, this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=157447 becomes this thread. And this thread is actually about clones. How do you use clones in your game? Do you even allow the spell, seeing as hows its cheating death and all?
Personally, I normally allow the spell, given that my players never get high enough to cast it. In my old campaign, I had a special rule. The Mages Guild united all wizards (well, most of them) in a common guild, and it had strict rules regarding clones. You were allowed to have one clone if you were a high-ranking department head (whether or not you could cast the spell), two clones if you were a regional Guildmaster, and three clones if you were the Archwizard, the head of all magic. The clones were all stored in a special extra-dimensional vault, until activated. If you got promoted you got extra clones to make up the difference, but once they were used up they were gone. Basically, it meant the Archwizard got three extra lives, though by the time he got to that position he'd usually been killed once or twice to balance it out a bit.
In the final adventure of the campaign, the Guild was taken over by someone claiming to be the first Archwizard, a demigod of great power, who thought cloning was 'un-natural', and had all the clones destroyed. Why? Because it made the lead PC, who had two clones, mortal again, meaning if he died, he died for good. It meant the same for the overthrown Archwizard, who, of course, died at the end of the story.
I feel unless you have some control over clones they can unbalance the game. A 15th-level wizard can create one clone every day. The only real penalty for using them is the level loss, which is fairly quickly offset, in my experience. I feel the same about the various clerical death-cheating methods.
Personally, I normally allow the spell, given that my players never get high enough to cast it. In my old campaign, I had a special rule. The Mages Guild united all wizards (well, most of them) in a common guild, and it had strict rules regarding clones. You were allowed to have one clone if you were a high-ranking department head (whether or not you could cast the spell), two clones if you were a regional Guildmaster, and three clones if you were the Archwizard, the head of all magic. The clones were all stored in a special extra-dimensional vault, until activated. If you got promoted you got extra clones to make up the difference, but once they were used up they were gone. Basically, it meant the Archwizard got three extra lives, though by the time he got to that position he'd usually been killed once or twice to balance it out a bit.
In the final adventure of the campaign, the Guild was taken over by someone claiming to be the first Archwizard, a demigod of great power, who thought cloning was 'un-natural', and had all the clones destroyed. Why? Because it made the lead PC, who had two clones, mortal again, meaning if he died, he died for good. It meant the same for the overthrown Archwizard, who, of course, died at the end of the story.
I feel unless you have some control over clones they can unbalance the game. A 15th-level wizard can create one clone every day. The only real penalty for using them is the level loss, which is fairly quickly offset, in my experience. I feel the same about the various clerical death-cheating methods.
