Atonement ideas

[Hairy Minotaur]

a goodly act would be to use his share of the treasure to feed and clothe a community... perhaps the community the dragon cared for...
and become their protector and convince the party to do likewise...

a hook for further adventures.

yet still (the chaotic side) needs to have free will. so give the PC a choice. do this or do some other deed on the dragon's behalf.

perhaps the god knows that this dragon was one day meant to be a mount for a paladin or king or whatever...

Originally I was thinking of having the character erect a monument of some sort from earthen materials that would stand the test time. But, then I thought that would effectively end the PC's adventuring days for a long while, so I scraped that to try and come up with something that would allow him to strive for a goal during play.

Protecting the community the dragon bonded with might work, as the community (elves) is extremely leery of the party at this point and hostilities are rising. This would be the Rat Bastard thing to do, "protect those that hate you" as his character looks down upon elves currently.

 

[diaglo]

another possibility is not taking any of the spells away directly.

but make the alignment of the cleric step 1.

from CG to CN. as a CN cleric can still worship the CG deity. just make sure when the player asks/prepares/prays for spells with the Good descriptor you deny them. and when the player asks tell him the ways of the gods are unknown unless you commune with them. after commune tell him directly to gain those spells he needs to atone.

 

[LostSoul]

Protecting the community the dragon bonded with might work, as the community (elves) is extremely leery of the party at this point and hostilities are rising. This would be the Rat Bastard thing to do, "protect those that hate you" as his character looks down upon elves currently.

I would warn against that, because if the players don't want to protect them, they won't. And if you force them into it, they'll just be upset with you.

You could just have him switch alignment to CN and be done with it. No atonement necessary, since gods have 3 different alignments worshipping them now. (I think.)

I think talking with the player is the best option.

 

[Gold Roger]

Um, how did the players as persons feel about some dragon swooping in and kill their opponent (taking away their xp or at least accomplishment)? The way you present it it sounds like a deus ex machina. Maybe the players just thought to themselfs, well if it's a party shouldn't die/metagamy session, lets just kill that dragon for xp and loot. And as was elaborated already, the cleric-player a) propably didn't want to be punished in xp and gold for appropiate roleplaying and b) it sounds like he didn't know it's a holy creature to his god.

 

[Corsair]

1) The party was fighting a lich and were losing, the dragon showed up as the fighting was occuring near it's lair. The dragon arrived and killed the lich, as thanks, the party (well half of it) turned on the dragon killing it and now seek the bulk of it's hoard.

Methinks you should double check dragon traits.

• Immunity to magic sleep effects and paralysis effects.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Methinks you should double check dragon traits.

• Immunity to magic sleep effects and paralysis effects.

It wasn't that, it was a magic item similar to a rod of rulership that the player used a hero point to affect the dragon.

 

[Nightfall]

This whole encounter seems pretty darn clunky to me. Even so, I don't see ANY reasonable party who was fighting a lich, turning around and killing their ally. That's just not a good action, meta-gamey or not. The cleric MIGHT have been justified in healing the PCs AFTER the fight with the lich, but not to help the others fight the dragon.

 

[LostSoul]

I am more and more convinced that devotion to an alignment is necessary for the use of certain class abilities is just bad design.

If you don't balance a benefit with a role-playing hinderance... why have certain classes dependant on role-playing to get their powers? :\

 

[Truth Seeker]

Hmm, a SR save was not mentioned in this piece either. So, does that mean, the Rod Of Rulership, cut through the SR, like swiss cheese, and the saving throws of the Dragon *depending on what age level* were weak?

 

[Nightfall]

Truth,

Apparently so.