Good Stances/ Angry Gods

[Tyrosoldier]

So I made a thread earlier about replicating a Inquisitor of Solkan from Warhammer. I decided, with some help, to run Cleric 1/ Crusader 4/ Ruby Knight Vindicator 5. I read a bunch of guides about RKV and Crusader, and there were many suggestions about what Maneuvers to take, but no recommended stances. Do you guys have any favorites?

And the second part of the title, I'm looking for suggestions on angry, judgmental gods to worship, who's answer to sinners would be death, and lives to purge heretics and scum. (This is a replacement for the god Solkan in Warhammer.) Hoping toward lawful neutral/lawful good. Any good suggestions?

[Red Fel]

So I made a thread earlier about replicating a Inquisitor of Solkan from Warhammer. I decided, with some help, to run Cleric 1/ Crusader 4/ Ruby Knight Vindicator 5. I read a bunch of guides about RKV and Crusader, and there were many suggestions about what Maneuvers to take, but no recommended stances. Do you guys have any favorites?

Well, it depends on a lot of things. Let's first look at those stances native to Crusader.

In Devoted Spirit, most of your stances are going to be either tank-y or heal-y. The former is fine if you're protecting someone, but that doesn't strike me as your guy's ballgame. The latter is fine if you want to replicate a sort of battlefield stim-pack adrenal rush. Thicket of Blades is the classic - when combined with Stand Still and Combat Reflexes, it basically allows you to force a bunch of enemies to stand in melee with you. Any attempt to move triggers an AoO, which triggers Stand Still, which locks them in place while you wail on them. Given that the character is Lawful, Aura of Perfect Order is a nice option at higher levels, letting you take 11 on a roll once per round. (Note that it doesn't require you to be in combat. Think about that.) Oh, and Immortal Fortitude will make you mildly unkillable. So keep that in mind. Devoted Spirit is likely to be your bread and butter for stances.

Stone Dragon has the severe drawback that most of the stances require you to not move more than 5 feet in a round. If you can get that waived, they get better; if not, they kind of stink. Even if you can move, though, they're not all that impressive.

White Raven has great leadership-style stances, but if your guy is a solo combat brute instead of a team player, it's not thematically fitting. Bolstering Voice is so-so, Leading the Charge is nice if you have fellow melees, Wolf Pack Tactics same, Swarm Tactics same. Press the Advantage is pretty decent if you're built around maneuverability. Overall, not a lot here.

RKV adds one discipline to the list above: Shadow Hand. There's some sick stuff in Shadow Hand, specifically the Shadow Jaunt/Stride/Blink line, but let's focus on stances. Child of Shadow gives you concealment, which is incredibly valuable, but only if you move around a lot. If you use Barbarian, you can use Fast Movement to help with this, but not if you wear heavy armor. Assassin's Stance is a classic, as it gives you Sneak Attack; extra damage is nice, but that has all of the usual limitations of SA. Apart from that, there's not a lot stance-wise to recommend itself.

Frankly, you'd probably do best with Devoted Spirit stances.


And the second part of the title, I'm looking for suggestions on angry, judgmental gods to worship, who's answer to sinners would be death, and lives to purge heretics and scum. (This is a replacement for the god Solkan in Warhammer.) Hoping toward lawful neutral/lawful good. Any good suggestions?

This is tricky. Consider for example that while an Inquisition is fairly Lawful in execution (pun intended), it's not always very Good. I might suggest St. Cuthbert, the LN (with Good leanings) god of retribution, zeal, and discipline. He also represents wisdom and common sense, but it doesn't sound like your guy needs those. St. Cuthbert's followers are disciplined, rigorous, fit, and find your lack of faith disturbing. St. Cuthbert favors a mace, and his followers are pretty big fans too. According to Deities and Demigods, temples of St. Cuthbert often have quotations on the walls like "Chaos and evil prevail where good folk do nothing," and "Obstinacy brings lumps to the heads of the unfaithful."

As an aside, this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139711) (which is homebrew) proposes that an RKV of St. Cuthbert would be called an Eternal Retribution Vindicator, would take the "Quicksilver Aegis" discipline (since it's homebrewed, I'd suggest taking something more classical, like Iron Heart), and instead of receiving Armored Stealth, would receive the Karmic Strike feat (which is pretty darn sweet actually).

Hope that helped.

[Slipperychicken]

This is tricky. Consider for example that while an Inquisition is fairly Lawful in execution (pun intended), it's not always very Good.

A Cleric can be within one alignment step of the god who gives him powers, so you could totally be an LN Cleric of a LG god.

Also, the Heretic of the Faith feat (from Power of Faerun) was basically made to let you inquisition the ever-living f*** out of people. Maybe you can take it in exchange for a flaw (since its benefit is basically fluff anyway).

[LogosDragon]

A Cleric can be within one alignment step of the god who gives him powers, so you could totally be an LN Cleric of a LG god.

Also, the Heretic of the Faith feat (from Power of Faerun) was basically made to let you inquisition the ever-living f*** out of people. Maybe you can take it in exchange for a flaw (since its benefit is basically fluff anyway).

Unfortunately, St. Cuthbert is mostly exempt from having to think about this. Unlike other Lawful Neutral deities (and indeed, uncharacteristic of most deities) he does ban one alignment that normally works; St. Cuthbert can't have LE Clerics. And since a Cleric can't be TN unless his god is TN, Cuthbert Clerics can only be of a whopping two alignments.

That said, doesn't Ruby Knight Vindicator require your deity be Wee Jas anyway?

[Phelix-Mu]

Pelor as the Burning Hate is probably suitable for a god. A very interesting angle on Mr. Vanilla God, too.

[Tyrosoldier]

Thanks to all you guys for these great responses, especially Red Fel for your in-depth answers, and putting up with my stupid questions :smallbiggrin: <3 St. Cuthbert sounds perfect (especially the bump on the head bit XD)

(Im not quiet sure how to quote on my iPhone, but to Logosdragon on the RKV being restricted to Wee Jas, you are right, but on my earlier post i said my DM is fairly lenient about small changes for fluff reasons)

[Red Fel]

(Im not quiet sure how to quote on my iPhone, but to Logosdragon on the RKV being restricted to Wee Jas, you are right, but on my earlier post i said my DM is fairly lenient about small changes for fluff reasons)

And as I recall (I'm away from book right now) ToB suggested that the RKV could be adapted to other, similarly militant deities. Given that both Wee Jas and St. Cuthbert are LN deities with strict hierarchies, it's hardly a stretch.

[Slipperychicken]

(Im not quiet sure how to quote on my iPhone, but to Logosdragon on the RKV being restricted to Wee Jas, you are right, but on my earlier post i said my DM is fairly lenient about small changes for fluff reasons)

I post from my phone all the time, and it's pretty easy as long as you aren't trying to do anything fancy. You just need to tap the "quote" button which normally appears.

http://i.imgur.com/XeCikeD.png

This should bring you to the "new reply" page with the text already quoted for you, just like on a desktop. If the "Quote" button didn't appear, you probably need to enable images or javascript on your browser's settings.