Taint

[Din Tempre]

So I'm starting up a new campaign and haven't DM'd in a long time. One of the players wanted to play a total psychopath who has a life goal of summoning demons for the joy of wanton destruction. Instead of laughing it off as derailment, I asked him if that is truly what he wanted and if he'd play it straight. The whole group is on board with introducing the taint system and running a neutral/chaotic/evil party.

I want the campaign to revolve anarchists reaping what they sow and possibly even start to question if it's really a good idea to burn down the orphanage for laughs. Not because I want to punish the group for "derailment" mind you, but because we are all genuinely interested in exploring the psychological depth of evil characters. Only one of the characters is playing a true sociopath and the players are intrigued by that dynamic.

So I'm here looking for advice on how to handle the taint system, and make tips on memorable evil PC campaigns and encounters that are played straight instead of campy. There will be no cheese to negate the side-affects of taint either.

Rules are strictly sticking to the SRD, using weapon groups and elite array
The party, starting at level 3 -
NE Xeph Psiwarrior (Archer/Skirmisher)
TN Dwarf Wizard (Crossbow/Control)
CN Human Rouge (TWF/Skillmonkey)
CE Gnome Paladin of Slaughter (the 'Face')

[PurpleSocks]

Just be aware that at level 3 your PC's are going to have no way of reliably removing taint, and their low level saves are probably going to cause them to fail most of their taint saves.

So yay free feats for all, but the bad side is they're all going to be showing various signs, and possibly outright die depending on how much xp you give them per orphan before they can level up and increase their taint thresholds and saves.

This could however be a good thing for two reasons.

If the NPC's of the world recognise these signs as the marks of evil then your PC's are likely to find shopkeepers are outright hostile and the townguard may refuse them entry into every town they come accross. Which could add the nice touches of wilderness survival to the game, or if one of your PC's wants to sleep in a comfy bed then they either have to make disguise checks or literally slaughter everyone in the town first.

Once the PC's know that theyre close to going completely insane/dead due to too much taint may decide to pass up burning an orphanage down to the ground to put off aquiring another level of taint untill they see something better like a convent full of nuns.

You may also want to as a DM, change the saves for acquiring taint so that it scales with level and how much taint they already have eg burning down their first orphanage gives them 3 points, the second 2, the third 1, and all others fail to corrupt them at all.

[PurpleSocks]

And personally as your running an evil campaign I'd either ask them to give you a very specific goal that they are trying to achieve as a group before each session so you actually have something to plan, or start them off as evil bitch monkeys for some big bad who sends them off to do their bidding.

[Hyena]

Why would that party even NEED the face?

[Karnith]

Why would that party even NEED the face?
More importantly, why is a gnome paladin of slaughter the party's face?

[Din Tempre]

The "Face" isn't a normal party face that keeps everything calm and nonviolent. But when diplomacy comes to dice rolls, that's one of his main functions in the group.

For example, choosing to torture the barkeep for information after murdering everyone else in the inn would be the sadist gnome. And while the party might agree they (as far as they know) got more useful information through torture, they will start to notice the side effects of going beyond merely evil to wanton indifferent slaughter.

Both the players and myself WANT there to be that tug and pull in the intra-party dynamics.

[Crake]

is this taint from unearthed arcana or taint from heros of horror?

also torture is actually a really bad way to get reliable information from people, there's no way to verify if it's true, and people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Its a thing, look it up.

[Sith_Happens]

also torture is actually a really bad way to get reliable information from people, there's no way to verify if it's true, and people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Its a thing, look it up.

Zone of Truth says "hi."