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Grifthin
2010-05-24, 08:02 AM
Well , the Cleric's got his 8th level spell slot now and is going to try and pull in a Solar with Summon Planar ally (greater). He is a Dwarf Cleric of heironous. What kind of quest/favour/item would a solar want from a party member.

Basically the Dwarf wants to turn into a dragon.

AslanCross
2010-05-24, 08:08 AM
Go after a cult? Retrieve an artifact? Slay a demon? Those are the stock answers.

A more interesting quest might be to find and redeem an aasimar descendant of his who has fallen from good.

Runestar
2010-05-24, 08:16 AM
A promise never to ever summon him again. :smallamused:

Greenish
2010-05-24, 08:34 AM
Well , the Cleric's got his 8th level spell slot now and is going to try and pull in a Solar with Summon Planar ally (greater). He is a Dwarf Cleric of heironous. What kind of quest/favour/item would a solar want from a party member.Their firstborn babies. Good doesn't mean nice, especially when written with a capital "G".

AstralFire
2010-05-24, 08:36 AM
Their firstborn babies. Good doesn't mean nice, especially when written with a capital "G".

I want to kill your baby isn't Good, either, unless you're suggesting that the Solar's going to raise the child as an apprentice.

Saph
2010-05-24, 08:38 AM
The Solar wants the Dwarf to accomplish whatever plot hook you want to give the PCs next. It's pretty much a gift-wrapped setup to your next adventure.

Boci
2010-05-24, 08:42 AM
Their firstborn babies. Good doesn't mean nice, especially when written with a capital "G".

Thats actually a really interesting idea. After all, surely a servant of a diety could ensure the child has a far superior and spiritually pure upbringing that any mere mortal could provide.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-24, 08:42 AM
Maybe I don't recall it correctly, but... is a Greater Planar Ally enough for the 22 HD of the Solar?

Isn't there a 18 HD limit? Do I miss something?

Boci
2010-05-24, 08:44 AM
Maybe I don't recall it correctly, but... is a Greater Planar Ally enough for the 22 HD of the Solar?

Isn't there a 18 HD limit? Do I miss something?

Not buy default, you're missing 4 hd. Maybe there's a feat that allows it.

Greenish
2010-05-24, 08:45 AM
I want to kill your baby isn't Good, either, unless you're suggesting that the Solar's going to raise the child as an apprentice.Better to be raised by solars than a wandering bunch of murderous thugs. Better to be raised by solars than by anyone else, from the solars' viewpoint.

Besides, what does it reveal about you that you first thought the child would be killed? :smallwink:

AstralFire
2010-05-24, 08:55 AM
Better to be raised by solars than a wandering bunch of murderous thugs. Better to be raised by solars than by anyone else, from the solars' viewpoint.

Besides, what does it reveal about you that you first thought the child would be killed? :smallwink:

Solars don't seem like the child-rearing, apprenticing type.

And it says that I see a lot of fiction that demands the blood of a firstborn child.

Greenish
2010-05-24, 08:59 AM
Solars don't seem like the child-rearing, apprenticing type.Oh, they're just big softies when no one's around.

Well, maybe they're not. That should set some backstory for a future character. Nobody has said those have to involve loving (or even caring) parents.

And it says that I see a lot of fiction that demands the blood of a firstborn child.It's rarely specified that said blood has to be outside the kid. :smallamused:

paddyfool
2010-05-24, 09:02 AM
I want to kill your baby isn't Good, either, unless you're suggesting that the Solar's going to raise the child as an apprentice.

There is some precedent for requesting the sacrifice of a first-born son as a means of testing loyalty, however... although, naturally, the Solar should intervene to prevent the sacrifice actually being carried out. However, any test of this kind should be kept very far from the original source material, to keep it from being too obvious.

Otherwise, yeah, what Saph said.

Mechanically, if the party's already got 8th-level spells, this might not be too game-breaking... although you may want to make sure the cleric pays some power-related cost in the process. A lot depends on the type of dragon. A lot more depends on how you manage the transformation - I see four main ways:


sticking his draconic racial hit die and ECL on top of his existing levels, in which case he'll be uber-powerful but never get any stronger other than in terms of accumulating wealth,
sticking them on the other side of a gestalt
trade in some levels in cleric for some draconic racial hit die and possibly LA.
give him some ability to wild shape or shapechange into a dragon (maybe give him a custom "limited shapechange" spell that fills an 8th-level slot and enables him to transform into one specific dragon as if using the Shapechange (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shapechange.htm) spell)
EDIT:
give him an item that enables 4.


Method 1 would be an obscene power-increase, but would also ensure that he never sees 9th-level spells. Best not do this.
Method 2 would be almost as obscene a power-increase, without any cost. Best not do this either.
Method 3 would involve him taking a significant hit to his power. Again, probably best not do this; if you are, however, probably best not use any LA, and have his dragon hit die count towards his effective cleric level for spell DCs etc.
Method 4 would depend on how exactly you do it, but seems overall to be the fairest option, especially if you can work out a more-or-less fair 8th-level version of Shapechange (either a very specific type of dragon, or a range of dragons that would be very limited in power, such as "any metallic true dragon of a hit die less than or equal to his class level x 1.whatever"). If you go the Wild Shape route, you'd probably best make it 1/day, of fairly limited duration, and forbid him from taking Natural Spell.
EDIT: Method 5 would basically be a riff on Method 4, but segues very nicely into a quest (the Solar can tell you where to find the macguffin of draconic transformation, and then leave you to do the rest; if you like being mean to your players, you could then stick a curse of some kind on it, but I'd recommend making it of limited utility rather than actually harmful). It also allows a different limit - a limited absolute quantity of transformations. So that, for instance "The pearl of metallic dragonkind allows you to transform, as if using the Shapechange spell with a caster level of 20, into any metallic dragon whose hit die are not greater than double your class level up to 3 times; once exhausted, the pearl crumbles to dust and is worthless". Or if he likes rolling dice, make it a slightly random limit instead along the lines of "Roll a D4 when using the Pearl. On a 1, the pearl crumbles into dust and may not be used again".

EDIT: I need to say "best not" less.

Runestar
2010-05-24, 09:03 AM
No quantity was specified, right? Simply give him a few drops of the blood in a vial and send him on his way. :smallbiggrin:

Gorbash
2010-05-24, 09:08 AM
Since you don't want your player to become ridiculously stronger than the rest of the party, just turn him into a Dragonborn.

Starbuck_II
2010-05-24, 09:29 AM
The Solar wants to "zigazig ah". That is what he wanna.

nedz
2010-05-24, 09:45 AM
Surely the Solar would want/expect to be summoned in order to fight some great evil. It might take umbridge at being summoned simply for someone's personal gain. Some education might be in order then!

Options:

Take the request as per Lawful/Assanine: Turn him into a cute fairy dragon. If he asked to be a gold dragon, make the fairy dragon gold coloured.

Take the request as a spiritual thing: Change one of his domains into the dragon domain. (whatever its called)

Take the request metaphorically: Keep sending him on quests against evil.

Take the request Literally, but give a minimal boon: Grant him a breath weapon: 2d6 fire 15' cone 1/day.

Make him an example:Turn him into a dragon shaped vase.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-05-24, 09:55 AM
The Solar wants to "zigazig ah". That is what he wanna.

*dies*
Also, you win the thread.

Fhaolan
2010-05-24, 09:58 AM
Being an adventurer and therefore a servant of Tiamat already whether you admit it or not, you are irredeemably corrupt. That means anything you ask of the Solar will also be corrupt by your very nature. Since by performing this deed, you are in effect requiring the Solar to lose it's Exhalted status and by it's definition be destroyed, it needs a replacement. Therefore the Solar wants an Innocent soul. A pure good soul with no taint that can be transformed into a Solar later once it has proper training in the higher planes.

Since suicide is tainting, it is necessary for such a pure, innocent soul to be released from it's corrupting mortal shell either by accident, natural causes, or by someone else.

From the Solar's point of view since you are already corrupt there is no downside if you break into a nursery and slaughter the children. Do this enough times, and odds are one of them will be truely innocent. The rest being tainted by the sins of their parents, of course.

Once you have found the innocent soul and given it to the Solar, it will send the soul on to the higher planes. It will then perform whatever base deed your distorted, inherently evil, disgusting mortal mind comes up with, secure in the knowledge that there will be a new Solar to replace it soon.

The other choice is for you to take a branch from a willow tree and drop it into a well on the edge of town. Because that's a Good thing, somehow.

:smallsmile: Yeah, planar creatures do *not* think like people. What a planar creature asks for will likely not make any blasted sense and will seem far, far out of proportion if not completely backwards to what you expect.

kamikasei
2010-05-24, 10:05 AM
Fhaolan: What the hell is that, a Malconvokee?


Surely the Solar would want/expect to be summoned in order to fight some great evil. It might take umbridge at being summoned simply for someone's personal gain. Some education might be in order then!

Eh. The cleric's a 15th-level servant of Heironeous. I think asking for more personal power is a reasonable request that contributes to his ability to fight great evils. It depends on the context in the game, of course, but assuming it's something within the Solar's power and assuming the character is being played as appropriately devout there's no call for the Solar to mess him around beyond the price spelt out in the spell or an equivalent.

Greenish
2010-05-24, 10:12 AM
There is some precedent for requesting the sacrifice of a first-born son as a means of testing loyalty, however... although, naturally, the Solar should intervene to prevent the sacrifice actually being carried out. However, any test of this kind should be kept very far from the original source material, to keep it from being too obvious.Well, I wouldn't use that material to represent Good creatures. :smallwink:

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-24, 10:22 AM
Eh. The cleric's a 15th-level servant of Heironeous. I think asking for more personal power is a reasonable request that contributes to his ability to fight great evils. It depends on the context in the game, of course, but assuming it's something within the Solar's power and assuming the character is being played as appropriately devout there's no call for the Solar to mess him around beyond the price spelt out in the spell or an equivalent.

This is reasonable but I would consider another aspect of the problem: Dragons could be p*** of the fact that a mere humanoid creature steals privileges of their race through methods like this (instead of, say, have a birthright like a true dragon or an half-dragon).

kamikasei
2010-05-24, 10:28 AM
True, but I'd file that under the headache of "player wants to become a dragon", which is separate from and a much larger headache than "how do I cost this spell".

Ganurath
2010-05-24, 12:28 PM
It varies from person to person, but generally one's Motivation should be properly epic for an Exalted of the Unconquered-

Hmm? Wrong Solar?

Right... D&D Solars are usually tied to a specific cosmic task, so a properly signifigant deed relating to that particular Solar's task would likely be most suitable.

...We talking 3.5 or 4e?

Greenish
2010-05-24, 12:32 PM
...We talking 3.5 or 4e?4e clerics don't go around summoning planar ally solars with 8th level spells, as far as I know.

lightningcat
2010-05-24, 12:40 PM
As for what a solar whould want in return for anything involving dragons: in the Draconomicon there is a prestige class for dragons call the Disciple of Ashardalon that turns them into half fiends. The solar could easily ask the character to go destroy one of them.

As for turning the dwarf into a dragon: other then turning him into a dragonborn or letting him have the draconic template, I have no other ideas that keep things balanced.

Gnaeus
2010-05-24, 12:43 PM
If you go the Wild Shape route, you'd probably best make it 1/day, of fairly limited duration, and forbid him from taking Natural Spell.

He doesn't WANT to take natural spell. Dragons are capable of speech and manipulation of objects (You see, dragons cast spells....) Natural spell would be a wasted feat.

PId6
2010-05-24, 01:05 PM
Just tell him to wait two levels, get Gate, and then call as many Solars as he wants for a down payment of 1000 xp.

For the dragon thing, the spell Dragonshape (PHB2) could be a good basis to do something like this. Letting him research a weaker version as an 8th level spell (upgrading to 9th once he can) seems reasonable.