Good gets the gold mine & evil gets the shaft

[Rkhet]

Mechanically, BoED suck.

An item that reflects half the damage you take back at your opponent? Bah.

Far, far overpowered Saint? Bah.

Twinked-out Touch of Golden Ice? You get the point.

It is rather futile trying to balance poor mechanics by RP penalties. Personally I'd rather just not use the book.

BoVD isn't as bad mechanically (outside of fairly obscure exploits like Hive Mind or Cancer Mage/Festering Anger). It's bland, though, with the fluff. The evil it describes is so cut-and-dry. 'Nipple clamp of exquisite pain'? Masochism as an evil trait? Lame.

Evil is at its best in the grey areas. The book fails to deliver on that. If only they could get the White Wolf or Unknown Armies guys to write it up...

 

[Wish]

We played an evil Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign. Nobody, after all, wants Tharizdun to return, not even other evil folks. That campaign was example #1 for how evil has it easy. Oh, look, an evil artifact that drives good people crazy? Sign me up! A nasty fight that can be avoided if you just sacrifice an innocent? Excellent! Ritually kill a sentient creature to get cool loot? Right on! A stash of poison we can use? Cool!

We got our power boost by taking advantage of all the things the good characters would have been unwilling to do.

 

[Question]

I still fail to see why BOED is broken because of the saint template. Its hard enough trying to find a sane DM who will let you take that for +2 LA.

Blackguard......is meh. Seriously just.......meh. The spell selection totally sucks. You dont even get divine favor. And it is totally not worth it to be a fallen paladin for the extra abilities. The sneak attack is pants as well......generally you need high speed for flanking, and blackguards will most likely be using heavy armor, or med at best.

Lich and Vampires are insanely overpriced templates that no one in their right mind will use.

Creating undead tends to be fairly useless in a standard adventure. Unelss you want to go around sacking cities, appropriate CRed encounters will rip throad your undead "army" in no time, the effort involved is totally wasted.

Nearly all evil options seem to be specifically aimed for NPCs.

Even vile damage! Your aim is to KILL THE DAMN THING, not to injure it with unhealable damage and run off. Its for the DM to throw encounters at the PCs aimed at hurting them one bit at a time. So goes for "recurring" BBEGs like liches/vampires.

 

[Malum]

Sound Of azzure:
IMC our version of “playable evil” is lawful evil, with a common cause, is goal orientated and the end game usually involves world domination in some way shape or form. Our LE pc’s have honor, discipline, a form of integrity and have a cohesive code of ethics, albeit a twisted code nonetheless a code is still lethally enforced to the letter. Our experiences with evil campaigns over the years have lead to either PVP or out right campaign abandonment. It is only the LE campaigns that stand a chance to last. Our latest is a 5 man team of elites, serving in a small crack military force sworn to protect The Temple of Hextor. Some of the pc’s are A Paladin (LE variant) of Hextor, A fighter / fist of Hextor (converted to 3.5) a Ranger who is fanatical worship of Hextor, with his favored enemy “enemy of the kingdom of Hextor” with Clerics & Paladins of Heironious topping the list.

The reason I inform you of this is to illustrate to you that our evil guys don’t walk around aimlessly committing evil acts to the contraire they would arrest detain torture (if anything was to gain by it) and probably kill anyone who did commit such vile acts as they loathe C-Evil, vile creatures like undead, murderers, pedophiles, rapist (of citizens of their kingdom) are tortured to death, usually in a public ceremony. Thieves, burglars etc once caught are at the mercy of the rather ruthless court system & the testimony from whom they stole; hand removal and/or whipping post all in public might be typical punishment.

Now with the above “code version of evil” in mind I ask the question could their exist a Lawful Neutral or lawful evil Saint Template, a Redeemed Template or variation of? This Saint would be dedicated to a god, a cause or just a code; after all Saint Cuthbert’s is lawful neutral. Maybe have restrictions on the prerequisites such as must be a Cleric of Hextor or other LE Deity, must be a LE Paladin Unearthed Arcane Variant Paladin of Tyranny.

what might some of the template bonuses be?

Malum

 

[satori01]

A lot of the fun of the game, a lot of the "flavor" comes from presentation and perception. BOVD is intended for the DM, most games have PCs in the good/neutral band of alignment.

The Idea of Vile Damage blew my players mind, when I used it with a Monk of an Apocalypic Cult, his training in evil methods is what gave rise to near unhealable damage. If you have ever read Robert Jordan the wound in Rand's side is Vile Damage. Mucho flavor, and when you are taking little bits here, little bits there from different monsters when trying to take down the evil monastery it adds up quick.

Now if you play the game like a spread sheet, I can see the basis of your complaints, different people want different things out of their Roll or Role playing experience.

 

[green slime]

BoED is redicilous, as is BoVD on many levels. Firstly, you cannot balance feats/abilities/classes against RP requirements. This was a concept ardently held early in the process of creating 3e.

BoVD was never really intended as a player book. Sure, you can use it that way, but, well, it requires more work to really be suitable.

BoED introduces so many wierd oddities and tries to paste it all together in some kind of incoherent mish-mash. Ravages ("good" poisons), Saints (overpowered templates), RP-requiring feats.

And as others have stated: Evil has it easy. Evil doesn't fight fair. Good has to stand up for better principles.

 

[The Forsaken One]

Its as easy as Crothian put it. Its hard to be good.

 

[Pierced]

My thoughts exactly. Evil guys give up nothing except for the fact that they can't hide their evil. Good guys have to take on a whole bunch of restrictions to gain similar abilities. Evil guys don't have to prove that they're evil, but good guys have to prove that they're good.

undectable alignment

 

[Cartigan Mrryl]

Check out heroes of horror for flaws that would be the equivalent of exalted feats for evil folks.

Like Murderous, where you MUST kill anyone near you that is helpless, friend or foe.

Ummm.. there's a problem with your statement, Frank. The Flaws in HoH don't grant you any boons, really. Not anywhere near as powerful as those granted by Exalted feats or their equivalents. Hell, even Vile feats kick their arse.

Evil guys don't have to prove that they're evil, but good guys have to prove that they're good.

Of course! Would you want a guy with a big, nasty weapon to come up to you and say, "Want me to prove I'm evil?" ...I'd be running like hell.

 

[moritheil]

Let me point something out - the DM should make it hard to be good. It shouldn't be impossible to be good, but it should result in characters often doing things the long and hard way. (For example, a party with a paladin should not just leave incapacitated enemy goblins to bleed out after a fight.)