Evil clerics sacrificing and getting killer bonuses

[Sir ThornCrest]

Question: do you allow sacrifices to count as the exp for making magicals(evil mages)

Our party evil cleric is being allowed by DM to sacrifice a few people and have this pay any exp points & coin for making his divine evil magic. He now has a magical war flail of Hextor that has cause moderate wounds on it.....this was entirely paid for by ceremoniously sacrificing a 3rd level cleric of heironiuos and a palidons warhorse 8hd....the palidon died in combat.....so we now have a cleric with wonderous items coming out of his ears and now a very nice +2 war flail, does vile damage + something else he wont tell the party?????

Tell me what you think of the sacrifice table and does it over power the clerics. All you need is a high religion skill, a high d20 roll , a int being to murder, 1 hour or so too kill (so to speak) and WALLA! you got some granted power by your god! ON a good roll you can get limited wish!!!!!!

To much? what your opinion on the Book of Vile darkness sacrifice skill spell........

 

[Sammael]

The sacrifice rules weren't created with PCs in mind.

 

[Nifft]

1) Yeah, those rules are mainly for Evil NPCs to gain a mechanical benefit from acting just how they'd probably act anyway.

2) PCs should face consequences for their actions. If you're making evil items via dark ritual sacrifice, you should have to face celestials or (heh, heh, heh) good NPCs with full PC equipment and stats and action points.

-- N

 

[Darkness]

Tell me what you think of the sacrifice table and does it over power the clerics.

Cheating is kind of the point of being evil. Go steal some magic items or kill some NPC for his gear and you'll be better equipped too.

Heck, if the cleric becomes too wealthy, kill him and take his stuff.

 

[Starglim]

It's not a bad idea. I don't agree with sacrifices replacing GP cost though. That should go into crafting the item and providing trappings for the required rituals.

 

[Stormrunner]

To gain xp/gp for item creation ("dark craft points"), the evil cleric must choose a DC, then make a Knowledge(sacrifice) roll. If he beats the DC he gets DCx3 dark craft xp or DCx5 dark craft gp. (Book of Vile Darkness page 27)

Let's give him every benefit of the doubt. We'll say he conducted the sacrifice in public(+1), in a ceremony lasting at least an hour(+1), on an altar(+2), in an unhallowed, desecrated area(+3), in front of more than 100 followers(+2), in the presence of an unholy servant of his deity(+2), torturing them for 1 day prior to death(+1), their limbs were eaten by a demon before death(+1), the cleric was of a race or character type hated by his deity(+1), and the warhorse was a virgin(+1) . +2 on the cleric for being a cleric of another god, and another +1 if the cleric is a virgin as well. +2 on the warhorse and +1 on the cleric for their respective hit dice. That's a total of +18 on the sacrifice of the cleric and +16 on the sacrifice of the horse. We'll also say he rolled a natural 20 both times (you can't take 10 or take 20 on a sacrifice check), and he knew beforehand that he would make the roll (augury?) so he chose the highest DC he could possibly make.

You didn't say what level the evil cleric is. Let's say he's 10th level and has maxed out his Knowledge(sacrifice) skill, including Skill Focus(sacrifice), and he has an 18 Int and a Headband of Intellect +6, for a total base modifier of +23 to his skill. Adding in the roll of 20 and the circumstance modifiers above, we get a sacrifice roll of 61 on the cleric and 59 on the horse. Since gold is easier to get than xp, we'll say he cashed in the cleric for dark xp and the horse for dark gold. That's 183 xp for the cleric and 295 gp for the horse +/- 3 xp and 5 gp for every level the EHP is above/below 10th level.

Seems awfully cheap price for a +2 dire war flail with vile damage and cause moderate wounds... :\

[Edit: if for some reason the warhorse was genuinely willing to be sacrificed to an evil god, that's another +15 gp or +9 xp. And if he trapped the souls of both the cleric and the warhorse and sold them to the night hags, that's another 10 xp or 200 gp per soul.]

 

[Zappo]

Like Stormrunner, I think that there's something more here. The sacrifice rules were meant for NPCs, true, but I got the impression from reading them that it would take a heck of a lot of sacrificing before you could get to the point of game-breaking.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Unless your campaign is far into epic levels, your cleric and your DM need to study the sacrifice rules more closely. He can't possibly get himself a free weapon like the one you described unless he's gone way past level 20.

I've been DMing an evil campaign for several years now and the PCs have been making extensive use of the sacrifice rules. We have a cleric and a blackguard who use them all the time. It doesn't let them come close to what the wizard or the rogue can pull off if they need cash or a particular magic item in a hurry, but it helps.

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

1) Clerics get killer bonuses when using the sacrifice table. confused, with a good roll on a d20 they can easily get excellent bonuses, evil outsiders in service, dive power even a limited wish, like in out latest game night.....How do you see this. Is it only allowed for NPC as some of you have stated? I didnt read that anywhere in the BoVD. The players love it even the wizard has sacrife skill spell now, just so he can join in the fun...

2) He was given a flail of hextor via a limited wish granted after a particuliarly successful
sacrifice !!! Unbelievable.....Our 2 Evil clerics of Hextor sacrificed a 9th level cleric of Tyr or heronious and a 9th level Palidons summoned warhorse (with a celestial template), and 3 templars of Tyr 5th level each. They did this in one night on the desecrated & unhollowed ruins of a temple of Heroniuois or Tyr I forget. Anyways he rolled a limited wish! One of the Clerics now has a +2 hextor holy symbol warflail that causes moderate wounds. I dont know how he worded his wish to the DM of if the PC even knew what he had rolled. Never the less this is what was rewarded. Its a pretty impactfull weapon handed down by his god. And he cant wait to do more.....

How do you guy rule on this? What would you as a DM do with a limited wish gained under this / or as a player what would you expect under the same circumstances.

Sir ThornCrest :\

 

[VirgilCaine]

What level are these evil clerics?

Way I see it, this kind of thing will make the rest of the good churches clerics want to LOCATE and KILL/CAPTURE these PCs. Thats not gonna be good for anyone.

As for the Uber-weapon...so what? He might not have it forever, perhaps just a week or a month or something.