Advice on Earning the saint template

[Yogibear41]

Hello all,

A game I play in is currently on hiatus for a few weeks while one of the major players is out of town for military/work related stuff, so I have sometime to do some thinking. Anyway what I currently have is a warlock5/enlightened spirit 2 soon to be training for enlightened spirit 3 hopefully (yay wings!) anyway my long term plans with this character are that I want to eventually get him the saint template as I have based the character on someone who was originally born with a fiendish taint yet has strove to redeem himself throughout his life.

Through my adventures he has come to be somewhat redeemed and become a follower of Phaeton(basically CG god of light sort of he is the sun of Apollo) and that allowed him to enter the enlightened spirit prestige class. I've briefly mentioned to my DM that I want to try and go for this and he says well you don't really hang out with very saintly people.

Basically the other 3 member of my party made contracts with a devil involving them bargaining their souls for incredible powers, with a time limit of a year to complete 1 difficult task given to each of them.

Now while they started with alignments of NG, LG, and LN and claim to still have said alignments because they made the deal for the greater good our DM basically told me yeah they aren't good anymore. The NPC paladin that first led me to find my new-found faith basically told me, I need to get away from them because they are "bad" people and I am risking my own morality by sticking around them. However, the tasks they were given were to actually eliminate evil targets themselves, a lich, a vampire, and to destroy a magical rod held by some gnoll priests. In my mind I justify actually staying with the group and helping them to be the "good" thing to do because in a way they are like me and I don't want to see them lose their souls should they fail in their tasks, however I suppose my character was born with a fiendish power while they willingly choose theirs.

So anyway to make a long story short, how should I best overcome the potential evil of my party members around me to elevate myself to saint hood in the eyes of my deity?

[Medic!]

Something that would tickle me pink as a DM in that situation is to see the party complete 2 of their tasks then barely run out of time on the third (or some other such situation where someone was going to Lose the Game.) Then see the Saint character offer his soul for theirs. It's a gamble depending on your DM, but to stack the deck I'd make him watch Constantine about 10 minutes before you do the deed :smallcool:

[Yogibear41]

Well if they die nothing comes up to collect they just die and wake up in a bad place, and more or less can't be resurrected by mortal means.(but we all know their is always a way around stuff like that)

One of the characters actually died, but the DM later recanted because he realized he made a mistake(the character got ripped to shreds in one round 100% health to dead) it was rather scary.

But before doing so he took the player aside, and I'm pretty sure he explained the horrors of hell to him lol.


As far as sacrificing my actual soul? for his soul? I've basically spent my whole life trying to redeem his soul, I'd consider sacrificing my life but I don't think I could ever offer his soul to a pit fiend. Especially considering the other party members treat the poor dwarf like crap most of the time and he has done nothing but try to save them lol. Maybe that makes me un-saint worthy but is giving up your soul to a pit fiend ever a good thing?

I'd be more likely to try to russel up some divine help and break in hell through the backdoor and pull his soul out.

[herrhauptmann]

I can't remember all the crunch, but I don't think that Saint is like Paladin where you lose your abilities by being near bad people.
Heck, look at Joan of Arc. She was burned as a witch, then later canonized. She spent all her time with medieval soldiers who are themselves no paragons of virtue.

So far, I'd say that you're playing a good person. But I don't think he's Good Enough to gain the template. (Heck, saint could be a title. There were a few people IRL revered as saints even while alive.) You might need to do something a bit more, both crunch and fluffwise.

Some more [Exalted] feats would help the crunch. Fluff? Perform a major sacrifice that advances your gods goals even if it causes you to suffer. Giving your characters life to save someone (someone good/innocent, not just your buddies the devil-bargainers), would be a good start.
Crunch: If you have a good reason to refuse the resurrection, make a new character. Maybe the DM will surprise you in a few sessions with a Saint version of your old char.



It's a gamble depending on your DM, but to stack the deck I'd make him watch Constantine about 10 minutes before you do the deed :smallcool:
I'd be afraid that the DM would just offer me Risen Martyr in place of Saint. I don't think it's a bad PrC, but being locked into it for 10 levels, then dying, sucks.

[Medic!]

Personally I LOVE the Risen Martyr in theory, especially the way it works with being locked in then removed from play...what I don't like about it is that it doesn't advance anything about your old class. It's 10 levels of being a Turtle and gaining defensive options. Granted if it advanced "+1 to previous class" it would get abused from here to Tarterus and back, but the premise is cool enough that I keep leaping at chances to try it out in actual play.

As far as being a saint, there just needs to be some sacrifice...I generally assume that it would be a sacrifice your character wouldn't expect a reward for, and would involve a blind leap of faith in one fashion or another based on the [Exalted] tag. As far as associating with baddies...that's not a condition I've seen anywhere, you just have to be Better than Good for the [Exalted]. It's a very RP/Player-to-DM heavy area, not something you can just mechanically extract.

[Yogibear41]

Indeed, Ive been trying to go above and beyond the normal call of duty where possible but honestly alot of the time we have been out of touch, I have used a healing wand to fix up a wounded harpy even though they are generally considered to bad, I tried to be a missionary type toward her and tell her the good word and all but she basically just laughed in my face. While we were traveling toward one of the places where the task was located we did stay at a farmers house along the way, unfortunately they were killed by ghouls in the night, we killed the ghouls but were to late to save the farmers. I did however go out of my way to return in the opposite direction to a nearby town to take what appeared to be a valuable heirloom to the family's next of kin.

That's more or less the only real opportunities for doing good other than just killing evil/neutral monsters that have attacked us along the way.

I'm basically looking for a way I can really get my god's attention, something that would impress him enough to say, "Ya know, I like that guy"

[Crake]

You realise to qualify for saint, you need to have been the perfect exemplar of good almost from birth right? There's a reason the template is so ridiculous, you need to be such an amazing beacon of good to be able to get it, which counters the fact that you cant abuse it for that very same reason. I get the feeling a warlock doesn't quite meet those pre-reqs. Risen martyr on the other hand is much more achievable, but sucks, since it's 10th level ability is that you just die.

[Yogibear41]

Well seeing as the wizard got the chosen of mystra template minus the spell fire ability, the psychic warrior got a +5 LA removed(half-giant half-troll), and the rogue got a permanent true strike, I think the saint template would fit in nicely toward party balance.

[Kesnit]

I've briefly mentioned to my DM that I want to try and go for this and he says well you don't really hang out with very saintly people.

What else did your DM say? From the one statement you mention above, it sounds like your DM is hesitant to allow the template, given the circumstances.

Before you go crazy coming up with ways to allow it, ask your DM straight out if there is ANY chance of you getting it. If so, ask what will be required. Then work with your DM to set up a scenario that will grant the template.

The Playground can come up with a lot of ideas, but if the DM puts his foot down and says "a Saint would never travel with your companions," there isn't anything we can do.

[Rebel7284]

Afb, but don't you also need to have something like 5 exalted feats to qualify for the template?

[Yogibear41]

You need 3 exalted feats, I currently have 2, as far as if the DM would allow the template I'm pretty sure it is not a definite no, but more like a you are really going to have to earn this.

For my 6th level feat I had planned to take sacred vow, swearing to server Phaeton and all that stuff(mostly just for fluff) but my DM said well no you can't just take sacred vow out of the blue, then he said though tell you what roll a 20 sider and if you get an 18 or better Phaeton will hear your plea and allow you to take a sacred vow, I did not roll an 18 or better :smallfrown:

[herrhauptmann]

You should be able to take sacred vow whenever you want. He might want you to travel to a major cathedral of your faith.

It sounds like he doesn't like this, and is going to fight you on it tooth and nail. It might be better to sit down and talk to him about it.
You should also talk to him (calmly) about the whole power balance thing. That was a huge amount of LA buyoff for the fighter, and the rogue got a pretty nice thing too. Wizard got an awesome template. In balance, you deserve something.

It's entirely possible he's not ever going to let you take the template.

[Yogibear41]

He's old school, you don't just get to make a sacred vow honored by a god without getting said god's attention or something. The half troll half giant is actually a psychic warrior but that is beside the point. Ironically as far as power level goes I'm more or less on equal footing with all of them, and next level when I get the ability to fly I would wager that I could take all of them in a one on one fight but that is beside the point. Now granted the half-troll can sit there and regenerate all day long, as far as damage dealing goes me and the rogue(he auto sneak attacks everything within 60 ft even if its not flanked, not sure if is somehow apart of his deal or he is just saying screw the d6 damage from his shortbow) are about the same and we usually kill things before they even get into melee range.(we face alot of low cr creatures because its an open campaign world and high level monsters generally are more rare than your average cr 5 or so monster.) I may have taken a crappy prc for RP reasons but I still think I have a fairly good idea of what I am doing most of the time, and have decent amount of optimization tossed in(mostly just mortal bane and the fact that I can roll a 2 and still hit things lol)

But from a balance stand point he really doesn't care, and I don't really either too much, they sold their souls there is a darn good chance they are all going to just die(its not a pull your punches type deal at all they made the deal and will have to live with the consequences)

On a comical note, the player who had been playing the wizard quit the group in our last game,(we were playing a little mini-game with new level 1 characters while we wait for the rogue to get back) he made an orc barbarian, the other guy made a half-fey bard, and I made a mineral warrior dwarf. So the DM sits back and thinks hmmm how am I going to get these guys all together, I know! Well to some things up quick the elf and the orc meet first(orcs are pretty much stereotypical orcs in this campaign) orc basically spends the first 5 minutes telling the elf he is not use to "dinner" talking. Anyway time goes by they are on a road headed to town and a wagon pulls up, they talk to the wagon drivers and they say they found a power dwarf out in the woods that they believe had been stoned by a medusa or something and were taking him back to town to see if someone could help him. So the two go to the back of the wagon and look down and see the "stoned" dwarf, me sleeping they begin talking in orcish and I wake up not knowing where I am with an elf and an orc standing over me, talking in a language I don't understand, so naturally orcs being the natural enemies of dwarves I jump up with my axe still in my hand (went to sleep holding it no armor though) and yell something to the lines of orc skum! and just ready myself not knowing what is going on. So the DM is like, roll initiative, I had planned on just taking a defensive but I lost the roll. So the orc attacks me to the best of his ability he hits and does about half my hit points(even through my DR) DM makes him roll an additional attack roll, and the player is like why? He responds to see if your weapon breaks, he says what? DM says you just hit a rock.... made him roll basically just to see if he got a natural 1. Anyway I not knowing what is going on and without metagaming naturally fight back, I swing happen to roll exactly his hit points(16) in damage and knock him unconscious. Well he basically gets all pout y and then more or less leaves, later he comes on our little yahoo groups page where we talk about the game and more or less complains that I can't play a normal character and have to use all these fancy templates and that maybe he will come up with some LA+20 monstrosity to play with, and more or less just quits via emails.

Ironically before this little mini-game happened, he the wizard with the chosen of mystra template and a DM who basically said well since you have all this magic powers I'll just let you roll a spellcraft and you can basically learn spells out of thin air as well as he basically didn't prepare his spells and cast them all spontaneously, spent the last several sessions complaining how useless he was and that he could do nothing and his level 4 spell phantasmal killer did almost nothing, and that it was a good thing at least one of the casters in the group(me the warlock) could do something.


Anyway, I suppose I sort or turned this post into a rant a bit, but me and my DM found it rather amusing how he complained about my template yet he had something even more ridiculous, and stated how worthless he was. He even said my warlock was overpowered because I never ran out of eldritch blasts.....

Maybe someone else will get a laugh out of this too. DM said he will probably npc him for the rest of the trials so maybe we will get something awesome out of him after all lol :smallsmile: