Are these extra goodies (somewhat) balanced?

[Genth]

Hi crew!

I'm doing some backburner planning for a secondary game; inspired (a little) by Darksiders (and 2), the basic idea is that the players would take the roles of the Four Horsemen - War, Death, and the two-forcing-it-to-fit ones, Decay (Famine and Pestilence) and Ruin (The destructive force of time itself).

Now I've made up four character sheets, up to level 8 that the players can step into, and since it'll be a somewhat harsh campaign (with some generous rezzing) I've given each a few wee special abilities, and was hoping if people thought they were too powerful or what alternatives could be arranged;

First off is War; War is an 8th level fighter, and has a couple of goodies; he had Weapon Focus (All) and gets the Weapon Training bonuses to all weapon groups. He also has a special feat which is Thunder and Fang only with a Greatsword instead of a Earthbreaker. He has mostly TWF feats and a couple of ranged feats. His special ability is that whenever he kills an enemy as a result of a critical hit, (potentially change that to when he confirms a critical) he gains a 'Glory Point'. As a swift action on a successful melee attack, he can release as many glory points as he wants, up to the number he's got, for 1d6 extra damage per point.

Death is a Warpriest with the Death (obviously) Blessing. She has only a special ability which is; she can attempt a coup-de-gras on a helpless or unconsious (just making it explicit that down-but-not-dead enemies are fair game) enemy, and instead of a fortitude save, the enemy makes a will save. If they fail, Death gains a 2d6 profane bonus to any ability score, and bony wings with 60ft fly speed for 1d10 rounds

Decay is a Blight Druid. It has wildshape as a level 10 druid, but can only take the form of vermin, magical creatures that are thematically appropriate (spiders, purple worms etc) or some oozes. Its special ability is that once per day, it can become a cloudkill that can move at 30 ft per round, and expand to fill a 40ft radius, for 1d10 rounds.

Ruin is a Dual Cursed Oracle with the Time mystery. Their special ability is that once per day, they can summon any enemy that the horsemen have previously defeated, who fights for the horsemen until the encounter is over.

Outside of combat, Death and Ruin also have quite wide-ranging 'special' knowledge skills. Death has 'Knowledge-Mortals', which allows her to make a knowledge roll to know anything specific or secret about a mortal, and Ruin has 'Knowledge-Time', which is 'easier' history and very hard predictive knowledge rolls.

Thoughts?

[Jeff the Green]

I'm going to ignore War, since I don't know enough about PF fighters to say how they stack up against casters.

For the casters, uh, no, they're not even remotely balanced. Ruin can summon any enemy they've defeated. Consider that SNA summons creatures with a CR of around half your level, while a party of four is likely to have defeated at least one creature with a CR 3 above their level. Plus he can potentially summon full-casters, things with maneuvers, or other abilities much more powerful than the things you can summon.

[Baroknik]

Throwing out the caveat that I am no master of PF, War seems to be lacking compared to the others. He can smack things better. That's it. And really he can only smack things better if he expends his resources (glory points) which only refresh about one every 10-20 swings.

One of the problems is that all three others are casters while War is a pure mundane. If you want to keep this disparity I would consider giving war a super-boost, something like treating all weapons as light for purposes of dual-wielding, treating all weapons as two-handed for purposes of STR bonus and Power Attack, and granting him more ways to gain/use glory points (give him one every hit, but they disappear at the end of an encounter, let him spend them on temporary movement speed, flight 50' (poor) for one round, etc).

[Genth]

Ruin is Near-blind and can't hold or equip anything without it rusting to dust, if that helps.

I'm not terribly attached to Ruin's special ability, but I was at a bit of a loss. Any ideas?

As for War, he has some forging ability; what if he was treated as having all casting feats, and could emulate any spell for the purposes of crafting magic weapons, armor, and warlike magic items? So he just needs the Gold and raw materials to make magic stuff?

[Jeff the Green]

The problem with Ruin is that you're trying to balance it like Paladin: it's awesome abilities are countered by equal suck (ignoring the fact that Paladin doesn't actually have awesome abilities). Either the blindness and inability to equip items will be crippling regardless of their summoning ability or they'll overcome the weakness and have the awesome without the suck.

[Baroknik]

The only problem I see with that is he gets a lot of power based on downtime and he becomes an artificer, so boosts the entire party more than himself.

Now I'm not saying that's a bad idea -- in fact I like the concept of War being a creature who's machinations increase Death, Ruin, and Decay -- it's an interesting take, give him free UMD or allow him to be able to use any items he personally crafts and he's upping his tier a LOT -- probably on par with the casters.

For Ruin, what about making him charm/charisma based? Let him talk others into their own demise, so to speak. Maybe charm person at will and dominate monster 1/day. Give him access to Infernal Contracts so he can make Pacts that act as contingent Geas on both parties (but both must be willing).

[The Viscount]

I would recommend that Death and Decay both have flat durations on their abilities instead of rolling, because both seem like useful things in a fight, and the randomness doesn't really add much.

Perhaps Ruin could have something to make otherwise permanent effects run out, like a limited dispel magic or remove curse?

[Genth]

Hmm, keep coming with ideas; Ruin seems to be the hard one...

I like the war-as-forger idea quite a bit, so might develop that. Perhaps involve the 'glory points' thing so that he can use them to reduce the cost of the things he makes.

As for the rolling time thing, I just like getting people to roll dice :) But maybe for decay, since it's a 1/day ability I'll have a flat duration.

I'm against Ruin as charm based - It's good at diplomacy and talking things out, but I don't see the 'ravages of time' fellow being particularly charming. Perhaps go with the dispel/make effects run quicker thing, sacrifice a spell slot to end permanent effects? Or expand the anti-items curse to be sometimes useful by letting him dust-to-dust material objects? Flavour is quite important here, what would you expect the embodiment of entropy to do...