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Unscrewed
2007-12-12, 09:25 PM
Four Way Taint

All right, I've got an idea for a variant four way taint system that has works with "taint" from all four alignments. This version of taint is based off the Heroes of Horror version of taint, just a warning.

Evil taint symptoms works the same as it did in HoH. Good, lawful, and chaotic "Taint" symptoms work in much the same way. You gain too much taint, you manifest a symptom. What really changes is how you gain and lose taint.

Gaining and losing taint

What's the same:
Saves against taint
Becoming tainted by staying in a tainted area
Tainted objects

What's different:
Who gains taint
Taint reducing deeds/springs.

In this variant, You can't gain taint that matches your alignment If you are neutral, your Con and Wis is treated as four points higher for purposes of gaining and holding taint. For example, the paladin can't gain Good and Lawful "Taint", and the CE character cannot gain Chaotic and Evil "Taint". A NG with 10 Wis and 10 Con Character cannot gain good taint, gains evil taint as normal, and is treated as having 14 Con and 14 Wis when calculating Law/Chaos taint.

Reducing Taint
Reducing taint is slightly simpler in this variant than in normal taint rules. Here, corruption is counteracted by its opposite corruption. You can erase good "corruption" by camping in an evil tainted area and vice-versa. This replaces the "Sacred Springs" rule of HoH. Reducing Depravity still requires good deeds (or evil deeds, or lawful deeds, or chaotic deeds) and works the same as in HoH.

Alternate Taint symptoms
Here's where I need some help. Suggestions are welcomed and encouraged.

Good Taint

Mild

Corruption
Kind eyes: Your eyes have a kindly look you can't get rid of. You take a -2 penalty on Intimidate Checks.

Depravity

Moderate

Corruption

Depravity

Severe

Corruption

Depravity

Chaotic Taint

Mild

Corruption
Changing fingers: Your fingers constantly change subtly, making gripping things hard. You take a -2 penalty on Climb checks and a -1 penalty on attack rolls

Depravity

Moderate

Corruption

Depravity

Severe

Corruption

Depravity

Lawful Taint

Mild

Corruption

Depravity
Emotional dampening: Your emotions are less powerful. You take a -1 penalty to will saves. If you are the target of an Emotion based spell, you gain a +2 bonus of save against it (instead of the normal penalty)
Moderate

Corruption

Depravity

Severe

Corruption

Depravity

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2007-12-12, 09:44 PM
woops. Double thread post. :)


I have to say that, though i am not impartial, not liking the taint system in the first place, but i just don't think that you should make one for the other alignments. It just feels... wrong... to me.

magic8BALL
2007-12-12, 09:52 PM
...yeah...

...you know what taint means, right?

..to currupt, make less pure, unwholesome... not good... more 'evil' if you were...

Tainted Love: love that is not of the regular type.

Tained water: the water you would not drink for fear of dirt and desease and death and dying.

...that sort of thing...?

Doesn't sit well with 'becoming more good for you good deeds', does it?

A name fix will fix this, but I don't think why this sort of thing is needed in the first place.

Chibiqueso
2007-12-12, 10:00 PM
He specifically mentions you won't gain "taint" of your own alignment.

In this it looks like he's using taint as more of a descriptor. Kind of how "energy" covers several different types of damage.

purple gelatinous cube o' Doom
2007-12-12, 10:09 PM
It seems to me that, too much of a taint should also lead to an alignment change. I also think that taint might only be applicable if used in the evil sense. Example, you could call "good taint" good deeds instead. It would make more sense since taint by definition means contamination, spoilage, or corruption.

Demented
2007-12-12, 10:11 PM
Lawful taint would be inherent in libraries.
Chaotic taint would be inherent in the bedrooms of teenagers.
=P

Mewtarthio
2007-12-13, 01:51 AM
A few Good symptoms should be:

Your voice acquires a supernatural reverb effect.
You are surrounded by a glowing halo of light (just enough to give away your cover).
You continually speak in an exagerratedly joyful manner.
You cannot suppress the urge to chant constantly (preferably in Latin or the world's equivalent thereof).

Lizardfolk Lich
2007-12-13, 06:16 AM
Taint: Why should evil have all the fun?

The only problem with that is that evil doesn't have fun with Taint. Taint affects everyone badly. I'm not sure that even an evil person wants their nose to fall off, and it takes quite a bit of evil for Taint to even generate.

Khanderas
2007-12-14, 09:13 AM
I thought that you, the OP, ment taint as in "good guy gets evil demon spirit, who corrupts from within" deal and wanted to expand that into evil and chaos/lawful.
Those things I could be intrested in, the examples provided in OP was too few, not fleshed out and generally something that would be just put into flaw traits instead.