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Cahokia
2010-10-10, 09:21 AM
Hey guys, remember the Death Delver from Heroes of Horror? The PrC with the BAMF picture and the cool flavor and the absolutely horrendous implementation?

I was writing up prestige classes for the link in my sig, and the Seeker comes on in my shuffle, and I listen to that first chorus, and I think of the Death Delver...

Anyway, this post is meant to be sort of a brainstorm--what kind of abilities should a character with the Death Delver concept have? Extra points if you give me ideas on how to mash it into 3 or 4 levels.

Cidolfas
2010-10-10, 10:58 AM
Given how easy it is to die in certain campaigns, I think you could get away with a capstone that simply allows the death delver to resurrect himself at the end of every combat. It's not really overpowered, since it would be done anyway one way or another and it saves your cleric a spell that they would otherwise need to prepare and everything. This is also much less stupid than the idea that falling into a pit of lava could rob the death delver of all nine of his lives.

My recollection of the death delver isn't the greatest, but just from a flavor perspective it sounds almost like a death-obsessed assassin to me. Sneak Attack (or the Tome Assassin's Death Attack) and similar death-oriented abilities would allow it to capitalize on the death theme and still work off of an effective premise.

Another discussion of the death delver can also be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141968).

Violet Octopus
2010-10-10, 11:49 AM
So, a contemplative character who straddles the boundary between life and death?

* Deathsense, Deadened Soul, Death Ward and Cheat Death all seem to fit the theme, the other class abilities not so much.
* Slow your metabolism to feign death, slow poison etc. Autohypnosis should definitely be a class skill.
* You are healed by positive and negative energy.
* Instead of auto-resurrecting or having 9 lives, having a mechanic that represents a contest with Death. So you can resurrect yourself, but only if you succeed at something more detailed than a single die roll, but less involved than a derailing sidequest to escape from Hell.

Cahokia
2010-10-10, 11:56 AM
So, a contemplative character who straddles the boundary between life and death?

* Deathsense, Deadened Soul, Death Ward and Cheat Death all seem to fit the theme, the other class abilities not so much.
* Slow your metabolism to feign death, slow poison etc. Autohypnosis should definitely be a class skill.
* You are healed by positive and negative energy.
* Instead of auto-resurrecting or having 9 lives, having a mechanic that represents a contest with Death. So you can resurrect yourself, but only if you succeed at something more detailed than a single die roll, but less involved than a derailing sidequest to escape from Hell.

Jeezy creezy, that's exactly what I needed. I'll be taking a number of those ideas, and crediting you as a major source of inspiration. Thanks!

Last Laugh
2010-10-10, 04:12 PM
So, a contemplative character who straddles the boundary between life and death?

* Deathsense, Deadened Soul, Death Ward and Cheat Death all seem to fit the theme, the other class abilities not so much.
* Slow your metabolism to feign death, slow poison etc. Autohypnosis should definitely be a class skill.
* You are healed by positive and negative energy.
* Instead of auto-resurrecting or having 9 lives, having a mechanic that represents a contest with Death. So you can resurrect yourself, but only if you succeed at something more detailed than a single die roll, but less involved than a derailing sidequest to escape from Hell.
I like the idea of fighting a outsider everytime you die. Whenever you win it grows in HD. (perhaps +2 hd/success)

I have no clue what sort of stats it would have... A full caster would be ridiculous. Some sort of gish might do the trick.

Cahokia
2010-10-10, 05:07 PM
I like the idea of fighting a outsider everytime you die. Whenever you win it grows in HD. (perhaps +2 hd/success)

I have no clue what sort of stats it would have... A full caster would be ridiculous. Some sort of gish might do the trick.

That's a really compelling idea, actually, but I'm concerned about the fight taking too long and interrupting combat. Any ideas how to streamline the process?

Realms of Chaos
2010-10-11, 08:54 AM
How about actual confrontations with death (as in the grim reaper). As in the old (and not-so-old) folklore, allow the death delver to engage the grim reaper in a challenge of their choice, facing off in a match of opposed skill checks (best 2 out of 3 wins) that takes 10 minutes to complete (1 minute if you take a -20 penalty and 1 Full-round action if you take a -40 penalty). It is assumed that Death possesses a modifier in all skills equal to your Character level + 5 and each time that you challenge Death to a match with a particular skill after the first, they gain an additional +5 bonus. If you beat out death, you are returned to life with no negative levels, all ability scores undamaged/undrained, and with half of your maximum hit points.

If you want to keep a bit of the original flavor, grant this benefit at 3rd level and grant a "9 lives" ability at 5th level (or grant the basic at 6th level and grant 9 lives at 10th level if you're trying to keep this at a 10-level class), allowing you to forego the battle with death 9 times and simply revive yourself freely at any time within 24 hours of your death (thus avoiding the matter of 9 lives lost through 1 pit of lava) so long as at least some of your body remains, returning at full hit points rather than only half (thus making these lives more valuable than the normal return).

Cidolfas
2010-10-11, 04:32 PM
Now that I remember it, the Boneblade Reaper from Frank & K's Tome of Necromancy operated under this premise. Every time you died, you fought the Reaper in an encounter and returned alive if you won. So the precedent is there for such a thing if you want to take that route. Upon second thought, I approve of it.

Violet Octopus
2010-10-12, 12:20 AM
Jeezy creezy, that's exactly what I needed. I'll be taking a number of those ideas, and crediting you as a major source of inspiration. Thanks!
Glad I could help :smallsmile:

On the topic of challenges with Death, I was leaning towards a skill challenge, as RoC suggested. A list or random encounter table of possibilities might be helpful for DMs, e.g.
{table=head][Roll]|Challenge|Associated Skills

1-20|Surmounting a physical obstacle, e.g. rugged terrain|Climb, Jump, Swim, Balance, Tumble

21-40|Game of strategy, e.g. chess|Bluff, Concentration, Knowledge (arcana), Sense Motive, Appraise

41-60|Stealing the secret of returning to life|Gather Information, Sleight of Hand, Open Lock, Disguise, Forgery

61-80|Turning your awareness inward, finding and healing your wounds|Autohypnosis, Heal, Knowledge skill related to your creature type, Spellcraft, Search

81-100|Simplified combat with an outsider or monster from the character's childhood nightmares|Any, given justification. However, the DCs are harder.[/table]
The entire experience would be dreamlike, where Death would manifest as personified foreboding terrain, the monster, your game opponent, etc. The player has some control over the storytelling, e.g. they imagine there's an underground river to swim through to bypass the mountains, and there suddenly is one. However, they cannot use the same skill twice. Best 2/3 wins.

However it'd be nice if there was a note saying the DM is free to substitute other challenges: full combat with a single outsider, the player answering a riddle, the player and DM actually pulling out a very short board game and playing it (provided the other players are cool with that), a game of Snap...

OK, maybe not Snap.

Cahokia
2010-10-12, 01:30 AM
I ended up using a rather strange mechanic that I've come to like. It's very dependent on having a mature group of players, but I'm trying to create a particular niche, and it's not intended for groups that are not able to blend fun and collaboration towards a good story/good time. Your idea is pretty radical, though. And by radical, I don't mean a political extremist.

Now, to shamelessly promote my work: check my signature to find out the mechanic I've settled with (for now)! It's post #13, under the heading of Seeker!

Pechvarry
2010-10-12, 10:03 PM
If you go the route of battling an outsider or challenging Death, I'd suggest a simple caveat: How long you're in the afterlife is ambiguous and varies widely. Resolve the challenges after the current encounter with the rest of the PCs is resolved. The DM may postpone dealing with your return for as long as the campaign needs.

In other words, handle this crap on your own time instead of taking up the party's time every 6 minutes because you insist on using shock trooper with power lunge in the rounds between funneling max CON into Greater Divine Surge in every single fight...

Kellus
2010-10-12, 11:33 PM
The biggest problem with the death delver prestige class is that nobody really knows how to enter it because it doesn't advance or add on to anything. Figure out what kind of character is going to enter it, and make thematic abilities that would interest that character instead of a hodge-podge of death-themed stuff that interests no one.

Realms of Chaos
2010-10-13, 12:41 AM
Hmm... so you require a speech, a dice roll from the entire table, and the passing out of cards? Seems more complicated than radical, if you ask me. Having everyone roll a dice just gets them involved for no real reason and having one card in a deck that dooms you while another saves you could be reduced down to a natural 1 and a natural 20 on a d20 roll (though using Tarot cards is flavorful, there just doesn't seem to be any need).

In fact, the entire process of giving a speech seems like it should be an optional thing much like how some DMs require players to act out their bluff and diplomacy checks. I'd say to resolve it as a diplomacy check if you're running it that way but state that at the DM's option, a person may be required to provide a speech. It seems a bit more fair that way.

Also, it seems kind of weird that two of the abilities just grant random +4 skill bonuses. Even if the bonuses are related to death in some odd way, it isn't exciting and it doesn't really appeal to the sensibilities of players.

As there's no real logical progression leading up to this class, one way to help out is to make its class features operate on your other class levels. For example, perhaps return the Rebuke Undead ability and use your character level as your effective character level and/or let this guy cast a conjuration (healing) spell of a level up to 1/2 your character level at will as a full-round action by sacrificing 5 hp/spell level (this health may not be healed for 24 hours).

Stuff like that.

Ziegander
2010-10-13, 01:25 AM
Requirements: Diehard feat, Must have died and been resurrected

HD: d12

Level 1 - Immune to Ability Damage/Drain, Healed by Negative and Positive Energy
Level 2 - Immune to Critical Hits and Negative Levels, +1 to effective class level
Level 3 - Immune to Death Effects, +1 to effective class level

Class Skills (4+Int): Autohypnosis, Concentration, Craft, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Listen, Move Silently, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival.

You give up a class level and have to take a marginally useful feat to gain some undead traits. It's simple, but it gets the job done, in my opinion. Expand to 5 levels if you want the auto-res stuff thrown in there.