Tempting characters to the darkside.

[Pyrex]

In a couple weeks I'm going to be starting up Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for my group.

Reading a couple posts today I came up with an interesting thought. While I'll be using the Taint rules from Heroes of Horror, I kind of miss some of the old flavor of the dark powers tempting characters with power.

The though occured to me that I've got at least one perfect scenario after reading a comment in another post about the Hellfire Warlock.

One of my players is playing a warlock. Coincidentally, he's also a fan of the Dresden Files books. So early in the campaign I plan on making Hellfire an available power-source for the character. When he calls upon Hellfire to add damage to his Eldritch Blast he'll add a point to (whichever is lower of) his corruption/depravity of each d6 he adds.

However, I'm not quite sure how to implement something similar for the other characters (a Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Cleric and a Druid).

Offering Metamagic might work for the Cleric, but I'm not coming up with much for the melee-focused characters...

(I don't know as it's necessary to offer similar temptation for each character, but I'd like to keep the option open)

 

[Nifft]

For the martial dudes, consider offering ToB:Bo9S maneuvers, each for the low, low cost of one Depravity point per use. Particularly the Shadow Hand and Stone Dragon ones -- anything that deals Con or Wis damage sounds like it's quite possibly Evil to me. (Make a list of which specific maneuvers you allow, and only allow those that would be available if the PC were a martial adept character of the appropriate level. So at 3rd level they'd get access to 1st and 2nd level maneuvers only.)

Also, consider allowing the effects of Counters: Diamond Mind and Iron Heart have some great defensive maneuvers, and this fantastic defensive power can be yours for the low, low cost of YOUR SOUL!!!

Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha, -- N

 

[BatGurl]

...I kind of miss some of the old flavor of the dark powers tempting characters with power.

The most fun I've had was one time when a group of us got together and I knew everyone but the game runner. I found a way to contact him outside of the group and we put together a plan to make my character "flawed", with his own sense of right and wrong that he was carrying out behind the scenes. Since everyone thought I didn't know the guy running the game, we had everyone fooled. It was so much fun and such a great reveal!

 

[Andor]

I'm not up on the Heros of Horror taint rules, but in Rokugan the Shadowlands taint can be used to give the tainted individual a bonus equal to his taint modifier (taint/10 rnd down) on any Str,Dex, or Con ability or skill check at a cost of gaining one aditional taint.

Or you could do something like the old WEG Dark Side Point rules where anybody could call on the dark side. For example "You call on the powers of Darkness to aid you in crisis. They gladly do so, for a price. On any d20 check before you find out the result you may call on the powers of darkness to aid you. Roll another d20 and choose the more favorable result. You gain one taint point."