Fallen Saint [D&D 3.5]

[crystaleye]

Dear All,

What happens to a Saint who has turned Evil?

[inexorabletruth]

I'm pretty sure they would lose all abilities and powers inherent with the template until they've properly atoned.

I'm looking at BoED, pg. 184 to verify my claim and it's not too specific, but it does say your alignment requirement is Lawful Good. It's also stated on page 29 under "Sainthood."

[RustyArmor]

No such thing as evil saint, only players that just take the template cause how good it is, then do evil things!

All in all they probably just lose all powers and abilities and fade away.

[AuraTwilight]

They probably lose the template, since prerequisites for it include 3 Exalted Feats, which you lose if you fail to be a paragon of Goodness.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The saint template sits in a weird place in the rules. Unlike most templates, it has a set of prerequisites that aren't defined by immutable racial features. There's nothing in RAW that even suggests that the template can be lost once it's been applied.

RAI and RACSD tell us that it should, certainly, be taken away if the prerequisites are no longer met but letting it stand could also make for an interesting plot-hook.

Think about this: for his entire life a given character has been a paragon of virtue; so much so that when he began adventuring he was invested with celestial power (exalted feats) and, after proving himself a force of good in the world, was permanently changed into a mortal expression of celestial might (saint template). After a time, some event or series of events transpired to not just shake his faith in the power of the celestial realms but outright shatter it. After a tragic downward spiral (a few "ends justify the means" evil acts) he became the very thing which he once fought against but the celestial transformation at the height of his virtue could not be undone (saint template remains. Change references to exalted, celestial, and sacred to vile, fiendish, and profane [or not]) . A creature of darkest evil driven to destroy that which made him then failed him is born.

[Malacoda]

Evil saints? Do you mean evil in the "game" or in theology?

[icefractal]

I think they would keep it.
Reasoning: Celestials can fall (very rarely, but it does happen), and they don't lose their inherent abilities for doing so. Nor does a fiend that becomes good, for that matter.

[Malacoda]

{{scrubbed}}

[AuraTwilight]

I think they would keep it.
Reasoning: Celestials can fall (very rarely, but it does happen), and they don't lose their inherent abilities for doing so. Nor does a fiend that becomes good, for that matter.

No, but they could warp and change. Fluff, atleast, gives us demons and devils that claim to be former Celestials.

Also, Sanctified template.

[Kelb_Panthera]

No, but they could warp and change. Fluff, atleast, gives us demons and devils that claim to be former Celestials.

Also, Sanctified template.

Sanctified template can't be applied to outsiders with the evil subtype.

[AuraTwilight]

Ah, my bad. Still, that seems sort of wrong, to me.

Either way, though, Saints and Celestials aren't exactly equivalent.

[gorilla-turtle]

I do not see at all why the Saint Template should remain on a Saint that turns Evil. A requirement for the Exalted Feats is that the character must be the most just of good. Not only that, but the character must never have lost the benefit of those feats through evil. The character must indeed additionally be a good alignment, and consistently behave in a way that the DM considers as exemplary (at least of his or her interpretation of what is exemplary based on the book in question).

Turning Evil spits in the face of all of this; you would lose your exalted feats, having lost them through evil, have turned your alignment, and most likely in doing so spurned the ways of the exalted. How is it even remotely possible that the character could continue to reap the benefits of the Saint status any more that a paladin should after breaking his code of conduct? It says in the description of Sainthood that in order to qualify for sainthood, one must meet the (in this post, preceeding) qualifications. If you do not meet them (by turning evil and thus shattering most of them), you do not qualify for Sainthood.

Though, a fallen saint sounds like something worth homebrewing... after having fallen from grace, the character could be tempted by the forces they once dedicated their lives to fighting, and in a moment of weakness, become an exemplar of the very same evil they strove to combat...

[Slipperychicken]

I know that characters lose the benefits of feats and PrCs which they don't qualify for, so I could see the same logic applied to this template.

Also, much like the Risen Martyr PrC, it seems like a template which is implicitly NPC-only because of how brutal its roleplaying requirements are.

[Ravens_cry]

So, like a Saint Equivalent of what the Blackguard is to a Paladin?
Not a bad idea.:smallamused:

[Kelb_Panthera]

I do not see at all why the Saint Template should remain on a Saint that turns Evil. A requirement for the Exalted Feats is that the character must be the most just of good. Not only that, but the character must never have lost the benefit of those feats through evil. The character must indeed additionally be a good alignment, and consistently behave in a way that the DM considers as exemplary (at least of his or her interpretation of what is exemplary based on the book in question).

Turning Evil spits in the face of all of this; you would lose your exalted feats, having lost them through evil, have turned your alignment, and most likely in doing so spurned the ways of the exalted. How is it even remotely possible that the character could continue to reap the benefits of the Saint status any more that a paladin should after breaking his code of conduct? It says in the description of Sainthood that in order to qualify for sainthood, one must meet the (in this post, preceeding) qualifications. If you do not meet them (by turning evil and thus shattering most of them), you do not qualify for Sainthood.

Though, a fallen saint sounds like something worth homebrewing... after having fallen from grace, the character could be tempted by the forces they once dedicated their lives to fighting, and in a moment of weakness, become an exemplar of the very same evil they strove to combat...

It's as simple as this: there are rules for what happens if a paladin breaks his code of conduct, there are rules for what happens if you no longer meet a PrC's requirements (sometimes), and there are rules for what happens to your exalted feats when you no longer qualify for them. There are -no- rules for when a saint stops being saintly or even if he should turn evil.

What -should- happen is a call for individual DM's to make. What happens by the rules is nothing at all since there are no code of conduct or ex saint rules to follow and there are no general rules for losing a template that you no longer qualify for. In fact, given the rules for how templates are applied you rather explicitly -keep- templates that you already have if some change to the character would otherwise invalidate them after they've already been applied.

[crystaleye]

So there is no specific rule in RAW which says that a saint which has already achieved sainthood will lose his saintly abilities if he turn evil?

thanks!