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JellyPooga
2007-06-29, 07:59 PM
I was just looking through Unapproachable East and stumbled across my old friend the Telflammar Shadowlord...perhaps my favourite PrC. Whilst perusing the rather nifty abilities I stopped to consider one in particular...Shadow Discorporation and for some reason I couldn't help but think of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where TMWNN (CLint) does the whole 'bring the bad-guy (Tuco) to justice, then springs him from being hanged at the last minute'.

It occured to me that T.Shadowlord is a perfect PrC for an Undead critter because of Shadow Discorporation and that if said Undead Shadowlord were to have an honest looking friend who also looks like he could handle himself in a fight (some kind of Knight-like chap...but with less morals), they could quite easily pull off the same kind of ruse as Blondie and Tuco...

1) Shadowlord pops into the vicinity of the town and starts terrorising the locals (shouldn't be too hard to avoid capture with all those DD and Darkness SLA's).
2) The brave "Knight" rides into town a few days after and "vows" to rid the townspeople of the undead menace.
3) After a couple of days of "searching", they come to a head in plain view of lots of witnesses, our Undead Shadowlord, hamming it up to look all Evil and that. After an "Epic Battle", the "Knight" strikes down the fiend (possibly with some kind of pre-arranged special effects). The Shadowlord quite happily Discorporates (the Knight making sure he pulls his blows to make the Reflex save easier), exploding into billions of flitting shadows and disappears.
4) Of course, as everyone knows, once you've destroyed an Undead, it's gone for good, right?
5) The town rejoices and lavishes gifts upon the "Brave Knight" who rides off into the sunset and meets his mate, the Undead Shadowlord a mile out of town as the sun dips below the horizon and he incarnates.
6) They divvy up the loot and go on their way. Jobs a good'un.

Has anyone else been looking at a PrC or Class and it just reminded you of a little scam or scene from a film like that, for no apparant reason?

Genome
2007-06-29, 11:46 PM
Ooooooh, I like it. Never thought of it as a money-making scheme, but it's a great plan.

Quietus
2007-06-30, 01:19 AM
I suddenly smell a couple new BBEG's coming on.

Green Bean
2007-06-30, 01:56 AM
Hmm. There's still a few kinks to work out, though. For one, unless the Shadowlord is pretty powerful, you'll have to strike a careful balance between rich enough to pay, but weak enough not to be able to protect itself. Also, problems may arise even in the smallest village; the local cleric will get a natural 20 on his Knowledge: Religion check at some point.

Of course, investigating them would be great as a short-term sidequest for a good aligned party, because as NPCs, all of their previous successes could be hand waved in.

JellyPooga
2007-06-30, 09:14 AM
Hmm. There's still a few kinks to work out, though. For one, unless the Shadowlord is pretty powerful, you'll have to strike a careful balance between rich enough to pay, but weak enough not to be able to protect itself. Also, problems may arise even in the smallest village; the local cleric will get a natural 20 on his Knowledge: Religion check at some point.

Of course, investigating them would be great as a short-term sidequest for a good aligned party, because as NPCs, all of their previous successes could be hand waved in.

Given that you have to be level 7 before even getting into the PrC and Discorporation it its 5th (?) level ability, that's, what, level 12?..by average standards tht's pretty powerful, I'd have thought. What's the problem with the local Cleric rolling a natural 20 on his Knowledge: Religion check? Half the scam revolves around the village knowing that the Shadowlord is Undead (unless you mean the Cleric identifying what specific Undead he is and what happens when they die of course...hmmm, hadn't thought of that...in that case, the "Knight" is going to have to have pretty high Bluff skill anyway; he's likely to be of comparable level to the Shadowlord, so he may be able to skirt that situation using Bluff).