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View Full Version : Interesting character or story concepts that might be difficult to implement.



BeerMug Paladin
2014-09-15, 03:21 AM
Reading another recent thread has just given me an idea for a D&D character who is questing in order to research an epic spell to instantly slay (and banish) all evil-aligned creatures within the setting. They'd only get to cast it once, so it has to go juuuuust right. (Saving throw vs narrative power. IE, no save.)

The goal would be to get rid of all those beings who are responsible for setting-wide destructive magical events that periodically threaten to happen in such settings and slay many innocents. Get rid of cultists, their god's influence and their plans. And destroy liches, undead, evil monsters, murderous tyrants, etc...

The character thinks of themselves as lawful good, and tries to maintain such an alignment in their daily life. They probably rely a little too much on spells such as detect evil to do their thinking for them. I'm picturing a friendly paladin type of presentation; they are fairly outraged at injustice and fights evil whenever they can feasibly do so, but are generally fairly nice to strangers.

I'm not sure whether this should be a historical character and event for a setting I run as a DM (probably as a fairly recent and unexplained event where this well-known NPC has vanished), or a character goal I tell a DM about and hope they would want to integrate into a campaign's storyline.

It's possible this could be used as an active villain for a campaign as well, attempting to gather the magical reagents, rare tomes and power needed to cast the epic spell. And over time the player party learns the nature of the plan. And what some of its immediate consequences would be.

I really like this idea, I'm just not sure how to really best use it in a game world, so if you'd like to, give comments. If you have an interesting character idea you've considered, but don't know how best to use it in a game world, feel free to add it here.

TheFamilarRaven
2014-09-16, 03:04 AM
Using this idea for a villain's motivation is probably going to be the easiest and most interesting implementation of your idea. Because

1) If such a spell could be achieved, than every scholar and epic wizard and/or cleric that calls themselves good aligned would already be researching this spell. Now, unless there aren't too many of those, it seems like it would be pretty common goal among good aligned casters, so the character may not really be all that special. Hell, they'd all probably collaborate since it really seems to have no bad side-effects, creating an entire guild dedicated to casting this one spell.

2)If it's a historical event, then unless there is some disastrous side-effect, it just relieves the world of some of the conflict that could make it interesting. Sort of like a "I win DnD" spell.

3) Villains that have good intentions but the means are questionable are more interesting than your standard black cloaked scary guy who wants to rule/destroy the world. Sure, the spell can be done, but you need to commit genocide to do it.

LokiRagnarok
2014-09-16, 04:38 AM
Hell, they'd all probably collaborate since it really seems to have no bad side-effects, creating an entire guild dedicated to casting this one spell.

An entire group of wizards dedicated to one cause which could change the World As We Know It?
Such a group would probably have to congregate in secrecy, since the bad guys will likely be not amused.
The members of the group might wear dark hooded cloaks to conceal their identities without wasting spells better used elsewhere. And if one were to observe their meetings, they would probably congregate in a circle around some point of magical power and chant obscure words of power.

Does this description of your goodaligned group of wizards remind you of something? :smallamused:

BeerMug Paladin
2014-09-16, 04:41 AM
1) Really? This strikes me as a spell so evil that the act of casting it alone would instantly transition a character's alignment into some variety of evil. Hence my statement about the spellcaster only getting one chance. I imagine it would also be quite rarely performed for that reason alone.

I'm thinking that paladins would also find the completed spell and/or artifacts associated with its casting and try to eradicate knowledge of it and its associated research in order to prevent future castings. Possibly even get rid of the means the caster used in order to research such a dangerous spell.

Differences in opinion about what a spell like this would even result in could potentially be problematic for alignment-arguments in games. Which is why I thought it would be difficult to implement in an actual game. Doubly-so if I'm playing this as a character (lawful evil) and the DM tells me this character is actually non-evil.

2) The disastrous side effects are genocide, major civil unrest and panic associated with the common folk not knowing what just happened. A sizable portion of the city (every city, and nation) dropped dead with no apparent explanation, including important leaders and beloved family members.

Those are pretty serious problems, and even if the correct explanation surfaced immediately, I would expect a lot of people to blame the caster and the caster's allies for lots of aftereffects and demand some sort of response for the crimes of those associated with the caster.

3) I agree fully. There's a place to be had for the mustache-twirling sort of villain from time to time, but it's fundamentally less interesting than a villain who's motivations are more complex.
I once ran a game where the player party eventually found out what their sponsoring noble was up to with the artifact they were questing for. They were going to reform the kingdom to be better for the common citizen to the detriment of the noble class's privileged position.

Since the majority of the current nobles were going to stand in the way of the crown losing power, step one of this plan involved killing several nobles (and all their families) who might legitimately have a strong claim to the throne (or oppose the agenda) with the questing artifact creating an undead strike force in an overnight massacre. (I can't recall for sure if there was already a question of succession for the throne at the time or if the plan also required slaying the current ruler.)

I was prepared to have the player party oppose this, but they went along with it instead, each leading a different team of undead, and raiding mansions with undead support to make sure no witnesses (including innocent bystanders) escaped to contradict what was going to be the official story. That one or more of the dead nobles caused the undead ruckus and they were killed that night by some heroic guards.

The game ended with the succession to the throne being filled by the party's employer due to the success of that night, and each party member being granted a title of noble as a reward for their work. With an implication that there would be future activities for the characters to do.
I find complex motivations for villains are often more compelling to the players as well as to me, so that's a bonus too.

Arbane
2014-09-16, 05:07 AM
1) Really? This strikes me as a spell so evil that the act of casting it alone would instantly transition a character's alignment into some variety of evil. Hence my statement about the spellcaster only getting one chance. I imagine it would also be quite rarely performed for that reason alone.

Don't be silly. It's just a Holy Word with an ultra-high caster level and multiple Widen metamagics. It's [good], it says so right in the description!

hamishspence
2014-09-16, 05:57 AM
Holy Word can kill Neutral beings as well as Evil ones:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/holyWord.htm

Segev
2014-09-16, 02:20 PM
I've mentioned it before, but an elf adopted by humans (and thus grew up mentally while still being a physical kid in his efforts to "keep up" with those who started at his apparent age) and became a wizard. Adventured, achieved 17th+level, and in a climactic battle with a BBEG, he disjoined an artifact. Lost his spellcasting. There's fuzziness on what that entails; for my purposes, I'm assuming it means he no longer has nor can obtain again a class spell list.

Tried retiring, so as not to be a burden on his friends. But enemies made over an adventuring career now want revenge, so he needs the protection of a party. Preferably one that's able to benefit from his +8-+10 BAB and his really good skills. Sold a lot of his old adventuring stuff to help facilitate disappearing. Now he's posing as an elf rogue. May even have gained a level in said class. So he's level 18-21, one of those levels being rogue and the rest wizard (and maybe PrC) that can't cast spells.

Trying to figure out what level party this would fit in has stymied me every time I've considered it.