have you used Taint (UA)?

[Bob]

Does anyone have any experience with the taint variant rule outlined in Unearthed Arcana (also on the SRD), either as a dm, or a player? I like the idea of an intangible adversary to introduce to my players, but at the same time I worry that the mechanic might be distracting or just plain tedious. Any thoughts?

I am not very good with shortcuts, but it should be here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm).

[Gildedragon]

Yeah I have. it's not bad, Heroes of Horror elaborates a bit more on it, making it a bit eerier.
It is excellent for mixed alignment parties. The evil guys on the team don't want the taint to spread any more than the good guys do, so voila team cohesion.
It makes for heavy scenarios where the PCs struggle to keep their taint scores down. There's some real stress going around once the last few jade objects rot away.
It perhaps didn't quite help my players sanity of mind that I introduced it slowly and without them noticing. Their silk clothes began to rot away, and their stone jewelry grew flaky and brittle and pseudonatural animals became the standard encounters.

I personally added some wild magic to heavy taint areas, it made things weird for the casters, but it was a fun mini campaign.

[Darwin]

I used it as a component of a horror campaign set on an island. It worked great. The players were extremely creeped out when they started getting more or less permanent mutations and ailments.

[Bob]

Thanks for the replies; I should probably look into heroes of horror.
I am not so much interested in taint as a horror component, but a way to make alignment have more presence in the game; not as a punishment or anything, but to just make evil feel more concrete.
I would love to hear some more specific details about taint influencing pcs or causing action, if you guys can recall any/feel like sharing. How did it effect alignment choices? Did any characters die, or come close to dieing from exposure?

[Gildedragon]

Not in my case.
Having it affect character's actions isn't quite the way I went about it. Slow creeping madness and horrifying sensations, nausea, a betrayal of the body.
Affecting the PC's actions is problematic as it takes agency away from the players, which is bad.

[Bob]

Well, my goal would not be to influence their actions, but to create rewards for doing certain things that they expect to do anyway. It is sort of like the idea that if a thief is not given opportunities to thieve, he will begin to make choices that will cause his character to lose friends, and maybe limbs.
I was just hoping to hear some ways that players react to this mechanic, and if any dms had creative ways of implementing it.

*quick edit because I thought of a good question: You mentioned that you were dealing with characters with conflicting alignments, Gui, does that your use of taint was not based on excessive evil as described in the text? What was its source?

[Vaz]

We tried. We really did, but it took about 3.723 seconds before someone burst out laughing after asking if we could "Detect Taint".

[A_S]

Bear in mind also that using it more-or-less requires some additional houserules, since some of the taint rules can lead to ludicrously broken characters, even by 3.5 standards.

Just...just ban Tainted Scholar, okay?

*edit* Actually, looking at the SRD taint rules, it looks like they'd be fine. Tainted Sorcerer is good, but not hilariously borked. And the bonus feats from HoH are gone. Not too bad.

[Gildedragon]

*quick edit because I thought of a good question: You mentioned that you were dealing with characters with conflicting alignments, Gui, does that your use of taint was not based on excessive evil as described in the text? What was its source?

Something undefined, primordial and antithetical to existence. Sure evil is closer to it, in the notion of destruction and senseless decay, but the only evil that even compares is [vile] evil, and that is paltry in comparison.

For humans to taint an area in my games it requires an extended period of unspeakable acts etching away at reality in that area. Problem is, once the taint has set it it grows and pollutes the areas around it, inciting to greater darker deeds of evil, and tempting with a corrupting power that makes fiends' blood run cold.

That's also why I've paired it with pseudonatural creatures and other far-spawn type creatures/phenomena. it gives a sense of a world that should not be.