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Reading Ravenloft the setting
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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8240894" data-attributes="member: 5948"><p>Yeah, poison of any sort is such a hard thing to mechanically implement in an interesting way. I'm mostly only familiar with their 3e incarnation, which wasn't QUITE save-or-die, though it certainly could be depending on what base character you applied the template to. Ermordenung monk!</p><p></p><p>Most interesting poison plots require something horrible but slow-acting, so that there can be a time limit on some quest the PCs have to do to save the day. But in practice that just provides time to prepare a Protection from Poison spell. </p><p></p><p>I've never run a game with an ermordenung, but I suppose the only real way to go about it would be to have it a detective story, with any combat coming predominately from different sources before a short, sharp, lethal confrontation at the end. But even then, an intelligent ermordenung has all sorts of ways of killing PCs in their sleep etc with an eye on efficiency rather than drama.</p><p></p><p>One thing about them though - is it written anywhere that their loyalty to Ivana is part of their make-up? Could an ermordenung turn on its mistress? PCs trying to cure an ermordenung, or dealing with a loved one who has been turned into an ermordenung, or managing an ermordenung who wants to defect (to Ivan, or to somewhere outside Borca) could be interesting. Ermordenung are explicitly not immune to each others poison (otherwise the 'oh no i can never touch a loved one again!' tragedy aspect of them has a honking great loophole in it), could there be an internecine civil war among the ranks of the ermordenung? Everyone ELSE in Borca intrigues and backbites, why not these guys too?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8240894, member: 5948"] Yeah, poison of any sort is such a hard thing to mechanically implement in an interesting way. I'm mostly only familiar with their 3e incarnation, which wasn't QUITE save-or-die, though it certainly could be depending on what base character you applied the template to. Ermordenung monk! Most interesting poison plots require something horrible but slow-acting, so that there can be a time limit on some quest the PCs have to do to save the day. But in practice that just provides time to prepare a Protection from Poison spell. I've never run a game with an ermordenung, but I suppose the only real way to go about it would be to have it a detective story, with any combat coming predominately from different sources before a short, sharp, lethal confrontation at the end. But even then, an intelligent ermordenung has all sorts of ways of killing PCs in their sleep etc with an eye on efficiency rather than drama. One thing about them though - is it written anywhere that their loyalty to Ivana is part of their make-up? Could an ermordenung turn on its mistress? PCs trying to cure an ermordenung, or dealing with a loved one who has been turned into an ermordenung, or managing an ermordenung who wants to defect (to Ivan, or to somewhere outside Borca) could be interesting. Ermordenung are explicitly not immune to each others poison (otherwise the 'oh no i can never touch a loved one again!' tragedy aspect of them has a honking great loophole in it), could there be an internecine civil war among the ranks of the ermordenung? Everyone ELSE in Borca intrigues and backbites, why not these guys too? [/QUOTE]
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