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Sofaking
2008-02-11, 03:36 PM
and she is a CG cleric. But she survived, then she went insane. Then she went evil. So the Party got the insanity removed, and she atoned and got her alignment back. But the bad thing is she also lost all her experience and is at 1st level. Rest of the party is at ~8th. She is looking for a way to get all her levels back and I want to help her as best I can as this is her first PnP game and I'm generally a nice DM. So they have looked into Wish and Miracle, and I just discovered "Psychic Chirurguy and that may work. Does anybody else know something that would work? I'll take pretty much any rule book for this, though I usually limit them to what we have on hand. Thanks!

Irreverent Fool
2008-02-11, 03:46 PM
You're not a nice DM. You put a BoVD where an 8th-level good-aligned cleric could find it without any sign that she shouldn't. You're a sadistic DM.

Not that there's any other kind.

How did she drop to level 1 from level 8? You only lose 20,000 xp -1,000 for each point of wisdom you have. Even if she only has a wisdom of 15, that's only a 5k experience loss.

Zincorium
2008-02-11, 03:50 PM
Nothing I know of, rules wise, will do that, the experience loss is one of the most devastating things that can happen.

However, as you are the DM, it would be entirely possible to just rule that one of the above spells would work fine. You're the DM, you can do that.

I would like to know exactly what caused you to think putting the book of vile darkness into the game was a good idea.

crimson77
2008-02-11, 03:50 PM
I might suggest a side individual quest before the next session where she has to meet 8 challenges by herself which allows her to gain a level for each challenge. These could be monsters she has to defeat in single combat, puzzles, riddles, having to defeat herself (NPC with same stats and equipment). Let her gain a level for each challenge she completes. Have each challenge scalable so that if she fails challenge 3, challenge 4, 5, etc will not destroy her.

As for as getting away with this, have this occur in a dream where her "god" allows her to atone for her mistakes. "You awake in your dream, an angel stands there reading from a scroll, 'For each challenge you defeat, you will be rewarded so you can attain your rightful rank...." Etc.

Ascension
2008-02-11, 03:51 PM
Wouldn't a BoVD be fairly... obvious? It doesn't exactly look like a child's picture book... Did she intentionally read it despite knowing that it was terribly horribly evil?

mabriss lethe
2008-02-11, 03:57 PM
Time for a Quest for a Mcguffin. (for when nothing in the DMG seems like a good fit.)

Some of the knowledge from the book of vile darkness still gives her nightmares even if she can't quite remember the details. In those dark twisted dreams she sometimes sees a place, devastated by evil magic, but at its heart is a wellspring of purity, (whatever shape you want the mcguffin to take.) It has the power to restore her, just as it had the power to stave off the evil magic all those centuries ago... if only she can find it. It'll require delving into other tomes of assorted wierdness to get the complete story and a location. Make it a challenge to get there, but not likely to be lethal if the rest of the party is willing to protect her along the way.

Mad Maudlin
2008-02-11, 03:59 PM
I might suggest a side individual quest before the next session where she has to meet 8 challenges by herself which allows her to gain a level for each challenge. These could be monsters she has to defeat in single combat, puzzles, riddles, having to defeat herself (NPC with same stats and equipment). Let her gain a level for each challenge she completes. Have each challenge scalable so that if she fails challenge 3, challenge 4, 5, etc will not destroy her.

As for as getting away with this, have this occur in a dream where her "god" allows her to atone for her mistakes. "You awake in your dream, an angel stands there reading from a scroll, 'For each challenge you defeat, you will be rewarded so you can attain your rightful rank...." Etc.

This is a cute idea - maybe the other characters could be involved as well, since it's a dream. Like, have some of the challenges designed around the cleric's relationship with this PC, or fighting to protect that PC, or just have such-and-such a PC turn up to help her fight through the challenge.

That is, if the players wouldn't mind foregoing XP in the dream world while the cleric is catching up...

Irreverent Fool
2008-02-11, 04:01 PM
I still don't understand how she dropped to level 1. Maybe someone could explain it to me?

If you want to deal with it as it is, have her continue adventuring as-is and at some point have the party discover a scroll of Miracle that they can use to undo some horrible Bad Thing that happened or restore her cleric levels. If she uses it to restore her cleric levels, the Bad Thing's consequences must be dealt with. If she uses it to undo the Bad Thing, her deity rewards her for her selflessness and restores her lost cleric levels.

Farmer42
2008-02-11, 04:14 PM
Yeah, even if she took the Maximum hit, she'd still be lvl 4. BoVD hit is 20000 max, and she needs at least 28000 to be ll 8, so she'd still have at least 8000 XP remaining, meaning she'd be lvl 4 halfway to lvl 5.

crimson77
2008-02-11, 04:15 PM
This is a cute idea

Thanks



.

Irreverent Fool
2008-02-11, 04:18 PM
Yeah, even if she took the Maximum hit, she'd still be lvl 4. BoVD hit is 20000 max, and she needs at least 28000 to be ll 8, so she'd still have at least 8000 XP remaining, meaning she'd be lvl 4 halfway to lvl 5.

Technically it'd be 19,000 max, since a creature with 0 Wisdom would be comatose. :smallbiggrin:

Telonius
2008-02-11, 04:31 PM
Wouldn't a BoVD be fairly... obvious? It doesn't exactly look like a child's picture book...

You have now given my warped mind something awful to play with.

:thog: Will you cut her with a knife?
:sabine: Yes I will, you bet your life!
:xykon: Necromancy can be fun!
:belkar: Stabbity death for everyone!

lord_khaine
2008-02-11, 04:46 PM
even though the BoVD doesnt exatly look nice, then there is nothing on its cover that says looking inside will cost you 3-4 levels if you are a good cleric.

actualy i think the experience loss from those things are pretty stupid.

Solo
2008-02-11, 04:47 PM
even though the BoVD doesnt exatly look nice, then there is nothing on its cover that says looking inside will cost you 3-4 levels if you are a good cleric.

The fact that it is made of human skin and bone?

Craig1f
2008-02-11, 04:50 PM
and she is a CG cleric. But she survived, then she went insane. Then she went evil. So the Party got the insanity removed, and she atoned and got her alignment back. But the bad thing is she also lost all her experience and is at 1st level. Rest of the party is at ~8th. She is looking for a way to get all her levels back and I want to help her as best I can as this is her first PnP game and I'm generally a nice DM. So they have looked into Wish and Miracle, and I just discovered "Psychic Chirurguy and that may work. Does anybody else know something that would work? I'll take pretty much any rule book for this, though I usually limit them to what we have on hand. Thanks!

Don't you think that the experience of reading the BoVD, turning evil, going insane, having it cured, and atoning would be a rather tremendous experience, and would actually give her experience points?

In our current campaign, we were flying a magic carpet when everything went dark. We woke up attacking a caravan, as a mage was hitting us with a staff, saying "Oh my god it worked. You have to help, your friends have been enchanted."

Turns out he'd hit us with an amnesia spell (home brew).

So when we figured it out, and dispelled the spell (difficult, because there was another homebrewed spell cast on each of us, that masked the aura, and raised the DC to dispel by 4), we all instantly raised 2 levels, since we had apparently flown home on the carpet, leveled, went on another adventure, leveled again, and then attempted to attack this guy that cast amnesia on us. The experience of learning all this gave us enough experience to level AGAIN, provided we could spend a week training on the ship we were on, chasing after this guy.

Before you criticize, the DM actually asked us if we minded effectively going from level 6 to 9 so quickly. But what had happened was so awesome, and we were so proud of ourselves for figuring it out, that everyone basically said "no, we're fine with level 9." Heh.

So yeah, a person who reads BoVD, turns evil, goes insane, gets to level 8, and has it cured, has had an experience of a lifetime, and should get more than a few levels for it. Screw the whole "you can't have enough XP to level more than once" rule.

Indon
2008-02-11, 04:50 PM
The fact that it is made of human skin and bone?

And radiates a strong evil aura, if I recall.

sikyon
2008-02-11, 04:53 PM
So yeah, a person who reads BoVD, turns evil, goes insane, gets to level 8, and has it cured, has had an experience of a lifetime, and should get more than a few levels for it. Screw the whole "you can't have enough XP to level more than once" rule.

Or the mental trauma breaks down whatever you've learned?

Person_Man
2008-02-11, 04:57 PM
Give her an atonement side quest that she goes on alone. Award xp to her for it. Problem solved.

Mojo_Rat
2008-02-11, 07:06 PM
Im a bit confused how she could loose so much Xp. In our current Campaign were doing expedition to the demonweb pits and found he book of exalted deeds with our evil party. The Wizard who found it who has a high wisdom only lost 2 thousand xp and was the same level as the cleric in this example. It hurt a little goig a bit behind the party because he wasnt paying attention to what h was looking at but nothing like loosing 7 levels.

Parvum
2008-02-11, 07:20 PM
The fact that it is made of human skin and bone?

"Ooh! I call the flesh golem manual!"
"Wait! That's the-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

Severus
2008-02-11, 07:32 PM
even though the BoVD doesnt exatly look nice, then there is nothing on its cover that says looking inside will cost you 3-4 levels if you are a good cleric.

actualy i think the experience loss from those things are pretty stupid.

I agree. I don't like all the old-school cursed items. There are plenty of more clever ways that GM can screw with their players.

I think the GM that inflicted this on the player was either being not nice, or was letting the dice dictate too much of the generated treasure.

The right answer is I think is to find a quick and painless way to give the player back her levels.

Miles Invictus
2008-02-11, 08:31 PM
I agree. I don't like all the old-school cursed items. There are plenty of more clever ways that GM can screw with their players.

It's possible that the book was a plot item of some sort. Since the DM is asking for advice, I don't think he was deliberately screwing with the player.



I think the GM that inflicted this on the player was either being not nice, or was letting the dice dictate too much of the generated treasure.

The Book of Vile Darkness is a minor artifact. I don't think it shows up on random loot tables.



The right answer is I think is to find a quick and painless way to give the player back her levels.

Well, the player shouldn't have lost that much experience in the first place. At worst, she should have lost one level.

Eldaran
2008-02-11, 11:41 PM
and she is a CG cleric. But she survived, then she went insane. Then she went evil. So the Party got the insanity removed, and she atoned and got her alignment back. But the bad thing is she also lost all her experience and is at 1st level. Rest of the party is at ~8th. She is looking for a way to get all her levels back and I want to help her as best I can as this is her first PnP game and I'm generally a nice DM. So they have looked into Wish and Miracle, and I just discovered "Psychic Chirurguy and that may work. Does anybody else know something that would work? I'll take pretty much any rule book for this, though I usually limit them to what we have on hand. Thanks!

Hah, you totally messed up, you added her wisdom to the amount of exp lost. I thought 38,000 seemed especially harsh, she really should have just lost 2,000. Would have made her a lot more challenging evil opponent.

Sofaking
2008-02-12, 12:09 AM
Hah, you totally messed up, you added her wisdom to the amount of exp lost. I thought 38,000 seemed especially harsh, she really should have just lost 2,000. Would have made her a lot more challenging evil opponent.

Ha yeah. I was so surprised she read it I had to quickly look up what it did. I read "Minus 1000 for every point of wisdom." as a sentence all its own. Damn commas. Well she still had to atone, and she wouldn't have had access to any of her spells so nothing really needs to change. I've already messaged her with the good news. And with your crazy charm crap and the ranger's ranged pin she wouldn't have been that much harder to handle while crazy.

Eldaran
2008-02-12, 12:13 AM
True, but she could have pretended to be charmed and plotted against us. Would have been fun.

Sofaking
2008-02-12, 12:21 AM
I think the GM that inflicted this on the player was either being not nice, or was letting the dice dictate too much of the generated treasure.


Well, they'll need it for something later. And I expected them to try and figure out what it was once it did 5d6 damage to her for just touching it. And at the least I would have ruled it was in a language she couldn't read but she had cast comprehend languages on herself prior to opening it... Ah well everybody learned a lesson.

Raroy
2008-02-12, 12:43 AM
Wouldn't you have thought it would have been absurd the way you first interpreted it? I just think that's bad dming.

DarknessLord
2008-02-12, 12:43 AM
Heh, that situation reminds me of a certain Angel's visit to the Netherworld in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

“This page! All these pages!”
I love that game.

Anyways, I’m all for solo-dream quest thing!

Sofaking
2008-02-12, 12:55 AM
Wouldn't you have thought it would have been absurd the way you first interpreted it? I just think that's bad dming.

I dunno about that, shouldn't a person with high wisdom who should know better be punished more for reading a tome of evil as opposed to a character who may be a little less bright? Anyway I had though the three deterrents of description, damage, and language would have stopped her (Not to mention Eldaran shouting "Is it the Book of Vile Darkness?" when I described it.)

Starsinger
2008-02-12, 02:04 AM
I dunno about that, shouldn't a person with high wisdom who should know better be punished more for reading a tome of evil as opposed to a character who may be a little less bright?

Not necessarily because they would know better, but the wiser a person is, the deeper they can understand just how truly atrocious the material in the book is.

Paragon Badger
2008-02-12, 02:30 AM
Is it just me, or does this 'Book of Vile Darkness' sound like one of those mysteriously vague URLs you should never click in a 4chan topic?

Yakk
2008-02-12, 03:19 AM
It is still a good plot point.

Give her her full BaB and HP for her level.

But she casts as a level 1 cleric/level 7 battle-sorcerer (you pick the spells). The battle-sorcerer spells go off sometimes without her being able to control it. They are left over taint from the BoVD.

When she casts a spell from the sorcerer list, it tears at her very soul.

Solving this problem becomes an adventure in itself. Each step removes a level of battle-sorcerer, and adds a level of cleric casting. (Xp also adds to her cleric casting)

mabriss lethe
2008-02-12, 02:52 PM
It is still a good plot point.

Give her her full BaB and HP for her level.

But she casts as a level 1 cleric/level 7 battle-sorcerer (you pick the spells). The battle-sorcerer spells go off sometimes without her being able to control it. They are left over taint from the BoVD.

When she casts a spell from the sorcerer list, it tears at her very soul.

Solving this problem becomes an adventure in itself. Each step removes a level of battle-sorcerer, and adds a level of cleric casting. (Xp also adds to her cleric casting)

This is a very interesting idea. Flavor-wise, if I did that to a player I'd probably sub out warlock, dread necromancer, or binder for battle sorcerer. Each one has a far creepier vibe than sorcerer.