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Message: <blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 5737506" data-attributes="member: 12460">Time to address any special rules that apply to your characters. If any of these rules seem limiting or underpowering, that is because they are meant to be. This is a horror campaign. The odds are stacked against you. Evil is easy, and good is immeasurably more challenging.Powers Checks: At the beginning of the campaign, your characters are all assumed to have clean souls. However, any time you perform an evil act, I will make a powers check, which is a % roll with a chance of failure commensurate to the level of evil. A failed powers check brings you down the path of corruption, as the Dark Powers tempt you with greater power, but at a price. It is possible to redeem yourself by facing similar temptations to those that caused the failed powers check and making the righteous choice, but redemption is more difficult than corruption. I am not inclined to warn you that an act is evil before your character commits to it except in obvious cases such as casting evil or certain necromantic spells. You must use your own judgment.Floch: Barbarians enjoy an additional +4 bonus to Fear, Horror, and Madness checks while enraged. Caliban have a base Outcast Rating (OR) of 5, meaning Floch suffers a -5 penalty to Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Perform checks, but enjoys a +5 bonus to Intimidate checks.Barty: Spellcasters native to Ravenloft have learned most of the limitations of magic through generations of research. Some specific effects regarding your character are noted below.Necromancy spells disrupt the natural cycles of life and death. The only necromantic spells that do not require powers checks are those that are purely defensive, do not create or enhance undead creatures, and do not require the manipulation of your life force or that of another subject. (Example: the deathwatch spell.)Note: In Ravenloft, it is often easier to create undead creatures but harder to control them.Necromantic spells that require powers checks often feature enhanced effects. The few that do not require powers checks often carry risks not found when cast in other worlds.Summoning spells are significantly warped by the severe restrictions on planar travel in Ravenloft. Rather than summoning outsiders for assistance, you conjure creatures taken from the surrounding region. Thus, only creatures found in the domain in which this spell is cast can be summoned.Summoned creatures in Ravenloft do not use the outsider or extraplanar template. Thus, summon monster I would summon a dire rat, not a fiendish dire rat. Attempts to summon an outsider like a succubus or kyton automatically fail unless such a creature happens to be in the domain. Attempts to summon elementals automatically produce dread elementals (evil).Should you choose to summon a familiar, it falls to the Dark Powers to heed this call. Their response is a dread companion. Dread companions share their master's ethical alignment, but their moral alignment is always evil. Do not be mistaken; they are not mindlessly malicious, nor are they dedicated to their master's destruction. Indeed, they are utterly loyal to their masters - to a fault.Protection from evil affects only those subjects known to be evil - it cannot be used to "sniff out" evil that hasn't been previously been substantiated. Creatures with the evil subtype and those with the alignment entry "always evil" are known to be evil. Otherwise, you will need some means of verifying the evilness of a subject.Branth: Elves have a base OR of 3. Branth suffers a -3 penalty to Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Perform checks, but enjoys a +3 bonus to Intimidate checks.Animal companions may fall under the influence of powerful domain lords. A druid's animal companion does not forget their friendship, however, and will not attack the druid or her companions even if a darklord directly commands them to do so. Animal companions in this situations often flee to resolve their conflicting loyalties. These animals often shadow their druidic masters from a distance, fearfully spying on them. Druid companions are not dread companions.Branth is aware of the same limitations for summoning as is Barty.If you force a compelled creature (such as a charmed or dominated animal) to commit an act requiring a powers check, it is you who must make the powers check, not your unwilling minion.Some darklords have the ability to control certain creatures within their domains. If you attempt to control (either through charm or compulsion) the mind of a creature under the influence of a darklord, or try to free a creature from a darklord's influence, that creature stacks the lord's Charisma bonus with its own Will save bonus. No creature under the influence of a darklord can be directed to attack that darklord; if ordered to do so, the pitiful creature may resolve its confusion by fleeing the scene.Although light from a daylight spell is as bright as sunlight, it is not considered to be true sunlight. Therefore, creatures affected by true sunlight (such as vampires) suffer no ill effects from daylight beyond those in the spell description.Don: Gnomes have a base OR of 2. Don suffers a -2 penalty to Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Perform checks, but enjoys a +2 bonus to Intimidate checks.Don is aware of the same limitations on protection from evil that Barty is.Don is aware of the same limitations regarding familiars that Barty is.</blockquote>

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