Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 1361347" data-attributes="member: 5890">The problem with this rule:1. If any of the PC's fall to the taint, they will become NPC's, effectively dying, right?2. If any of the NPC's fall to the taint, it will have precisely zero effect.The permanent loss of a point of constitution is a major penalty, and the save is likely to be failed because it grows harder the more powerful the caster is, and is a fortitude save, which screws wizards. Furthermore it grows harder to make the more times you fail it.It also seems likely that the PC's will never meet someone who is disadvantaged by this draining effect, making the effect, once again, anti-player and pro-NPC.The spells which will be nailed by this include some of the mainstays of an effective offensive wizard, such as enervation, energy drain, the new fatigue and exhaustion spells, and possibly other spells at your discretion, including the entire necromancy school.Which means that a lot of the wizard's most effective tools against the undead are lost.And it does punish one group far beyond all others - PC necromancer wizards.It COULD benefit them, however there are no firm mechanics.IOW - they WILL suffer the ill effects of the penalty rule if they play a necromancer (or even just a wizard), but they quite possibly won't reap the bonuses of the beneficial rule. Only a person with a serious gambling problem would see this as a balanced equation.Yeah, because it was just SOOO fun to have the cleric player sit on his ass for 10 game sessions.Of course the alternative was that everyone just waited for him to get back out of bed. Which has the same effect as the current rule.Maybe you don't realise this, but a difficult fort save to avoid permanent and irreversible damage to a character is not "a little pain", nor is it merely flavour. It's a harsh punitive rule.The GM gains more power with less rules. This leans towards a game in which the GM whim dominates, and his story is precisely what is played out.The players gain more power with more rules. This leans towards a game in which the players whim dominates. Because a situation in which the NPC's actions are wholly dictated by the rules, the story is still going to be largely what the GM wanted, however details of that story are more likely to be influenced by the players actions.I for one prefer a game of the second variety - in the first scenario I feel like I may as well leave the GM to write his book on his own - he doesn't really need me.Ideally I like a game in the middle ground.No - the penalties that you have instituted are basically "don't use this or I'll smack you down". You've basically said "your character will die if he uses negative energy".Maybe if you toned down or altered your rules so that there was some modicum of strategy and risk to them, then they'd be better accepted, but as-is, they kill the character using negative energy in the long term, and cripple him in the short term, almost no matter what measures he takes or abilities he has.One suggestion I might make would be to make the save a per-casting basis, make the amount of con loss 1d6 instead of just 1, and make it normal ability damage, or something otherwise cleansable.IOW - the wizard will think "gee - maybe I can risk using that spell, and then spend some time recovering". And then he suffers some penalties for a bit, as opposed to "Well, if I use that spell, I basically screw this character permanently. I'd much rather have him die".Feats which you don't seem to have specced out yet, leaving any potential player of a necromancer with the option toa) plunge into the unknown, full of some guaranteed horrendous effects and some unknown, but likely to be minor, positive effects.b) not bother because it's just not worth the risk on a character that you want to spend some time playing.</blockquote>

Verification