Vrylakos
First Post
Ok... here's the scoopage - a bit of a long post, but it'll set the stage. A player's character just died, and I am not a fan of Raise Dead being common, after reading all of Piratecat's cool storyhours and the prices exacted upon those who would raise the dead.
Last night, we had the second half of a huge fight in my 3.0 campaign. The long-time Most Hated Bad Guy was there, he had minions, the party was rescuing one of their own, only to find that he had been mind controlled to fight them.
The end of the first half featured Keska Mekis, psychic warrior 12, race forward, hoping to put a smackdown on the Most Hated Big Bad. They are fighting in an ice cavern, the floor of which is made up of 4 hot springs, very very hot bubbling springs.
There are several reasons this was a bad idea: the mind controlled PC was in the way, and though he's not the best fighter, his Prestige Class specializes in killing lightly armored foes (Vezanti Death Spiral duellist - on my website), he was zooming ahead of the party (cleric and bard, the only healing around), and right up on the MHBG (an evil cleric doppleganger) + 9th level fighter minion, and worst of all, despite the fact he had a psychoactive skin of the troll, he had no biofeedback or any other buff-type powers active. Did I mention he relies on inertial armor to make his armor class and has a dex of 10?
In short order, Keska is criticalled for 42 points of damage by his mind-controlled comrade, and goes down. He's in the negative.
Game ends for the week.
We start again with the party desperate to save their friend.
The cleric chugs a potion of flight, hits the mind controlled comrade with a Dispel Evil which rids him of the "Milk of the Black Goddess" which was making him E-vil, and then flies off after Keska, who is quickly draining of blood. The MHBG is holding an action. While flying, the cleric gets hit with the MHBG's Dispel Magic...
He loses the Haste he had gained from a potion, but luckily the fly spell keeps going.
The cleric gets to Keska, casts a Cure Critical Wounds as Keska hits -9 hp.
PHew... Keska's alive!
Unfortunately, with 13 hp to his name, Keska decides to help the cleric face the MHBG. Everyone hates this npc...
The bard converges, the swordsman converges... they take care of the minions...
And the Divine Power the MHBG has cast goes down after a few more rounds, he's take half his hp in damage, so he decides to jet.
So he lays down the 3.0 edition Blade Barrier. In its disk form, 3 feet off the ground.
No one makes the save.
Keska is sashimied.
Raven, the bard, goes negative due to prior subdual damage. She falls to the ground.
Only the duellist guy is left up, as he's invisible and outside the area of effect. He's also able to run on the water thanks to his Infallible Boots (magic item).
MHBG uses his last big spell to go ethereal, and the party is left there, very sad...
Now, admittedly, the player of Keska has yet to master the subtle art of the Psychic Warrior, but the character was cool. I struggled for a way to bring him back from the dead...
And then I remembered Adamante, the duellist, and his Suspicious Necklace.
The necklace was found by Adamante. It's almost certainly some sort of container for the psychic essences of some very powerful psions. It might even be a prison. In a bad situation, a cave-in, Adamante was trapped and put this necklace, which whispered to him, on - it promptly fused to his neck.
It freed him, but no one is really sure of the necklace's motives. It's really powerful, but only seems to offer that power at odd times, and is silent when the party could really use a hand.
The necklace offers to take Keska's body into the Astral, where it can "operate" on the body more easily. Using Keska's psychically-bonded skyship, it can reinvest his body with an approximation of Keska's soul.
In return, Adamante will be giving up his body when he sleeps. The necklace will take control of his body to "take care of its own business". He'll disappear, quite often, and return 8 hours later, after doing who-knows-what. (Fun fun fun for the evil DM!)
Adamante feels guilty over Keska's death, as Keska came to rescue Adamante... so he goes for this deal.
However, I want Keska to also pay a price, to be marked by this story-event.
Does anyone have any ideas? I was considering giving him an interesting ability with some drawback... perhaps making parts of his body be composed of silvery ectoplasm, perhaps one of his eyes (see invisible?) - maybe a whole Corum thing... I'm in talks with the player on this... he's cool with something happening.
Heck, I could apply the Rune Child template to him from AU, right?
Anyhow, if anyone has any COOL ideas on what a resurrected psychic warrior might be like, I'm all ears.
Vrylakos
Last night, we had the second half of a huge fight in my 3.0 campaign. The long-time Most Hated Bad Guy was there, he had minions, the party was rescuing one of their own, only to find that he had been mind controlled to fight them.
The end of the first half featured Keska Mekis, psychic warrior 12, race forward, hoping to put a smackdown on the Most Hated Big Bad. They are fighting in an ice cavern, the floor of which is made up of 4 hot springs, very very hot bubbling springs.
There are several reasons this was a bad idea: the mind controlled PC was in the way, and though he's not the best fighter, his Prestige Class specializes in killing lightly armored foes (Vezanti Death Spiral duellist - on my website), he was zooming ahead of the party (cleric and bard, the only healing around), and right up on the MHBG (an evil cleric doppleganger) + 9th level fighter minion, and worst of all, despite the fact he had a psychoactive skin of the troll, he had no biofeedback or any other buff-type powers active. Did I mention he relies on inertial armor to make his armor class and has a dex of 10?
In short order, Keska is criticalled for 42 points of damage by his mind-controlled comrade, and goes down. He's in the negative.
Game ends for the week.
We start again with the party desperate to save their friend.
The cleric chugs a potion of flight, hits the mind controlled comrade with a Dispel Evil which rids him of the "Milk of the Black Goddess" which was making him E-vil, and then flies off after Keska, who is quickly draining of blood. The MHBG is holding an action. While flying, the cleric gets hit with the MHBG's Dispel Magic...
He loses the Haste he had gained from a potion, but luckily the fly spell keeps going.
The cleric gets to Keska, casts a Cure Critical Wounds as Keska hits -9 hp.
PHew... Keska's alive!
Unfortunately, with 13 hp to his name, Keska decides to help the cleric face the MHBG. Everyone hates this npc...
The bard converges, the swordsman converges... they take care of the minions...
And the Divine Power the MHBG has cast goes down after a few more rounds, he's take half his hp in damage, so he decides to jet.
So he lays down the 3.0 edition Blade Barrier. In its disk form, 3 feet off the ground.
No one makes the save.
Keska is sashimied.
Raven, the bard, goes negative due to prior subdual damage. She falls to the ground.
Only the duellist guy is left up, as he's invisible and outside the area of effect. He's also able to run on the water thanks to his Infallible Boots (magic item).
MHBG uses his last big spell to go ethereal, and the party is left there, very sad...
Now, admittedly, the player of Keska has yet to master the subtle art of the Psychic Warrior, but the character was cool. I struggled for a way to bring him back from the dead...
And then I remembered Adamante, the duellist, and his Suspicious Necklace.
The necklace was found by Adamante. It's almost certainly some sort of container for the psychic essences of some very powerful psions. It might even be a prison. In a bad situation, a cave-in, Adamante was trapped and put this necklace, which whispered to him, on - it promptly fused to his neck.
It freed him, but no one is really sure of the necklace's motives. It's really powerful, but only seems to offer that power at odd times, and is silent when the party could really use a hand.
The necklace offers to take Keska's body into the Astral, where it can "operate" on the body more easily. Using Keska's psychically-bonded skyship, it can reinvest his body with an approximation of Keska's soul.
In return, Adamante will be giving up his body when he sleeps. The necklace will take control of his body to "take care of its own business". He'll disappear, quite often, and return 8 hours later, after doing who-knows-what. (Fun fun fun for the evil DM!)
Adamante feels guilty over Keska's death, as Keska came to rescue Adamante... so he goes for this deal.
However, I want Keska to also pay a price, to be marked by this story-event.
Does anyone have any ideas? I was considering giving him an interesting ability with some drawback... perhaps making parts of his body be composed of silvery ectoplasm, perhaps one of his eyes (see invisible?) - maybe a whole Corum thing... I'm in talks with the player on this... he's cool with something happening.
Heck, I could apply the Rune Child template to him from AU, right?
Anyhow, if anyone has any COOL ideas on what a resurrected psychic warrior might be like, I'm all ears.
Vrylakos
