Cormyr and the Dalelands

So since Pale Master doesn't gut your progression here I'm thinking it'd be interesting to try and roll one. I also noticed that the law thread doesn't actually have any provisions against undead. I'd imagine though that that falls under the whole 'common sense' thing, as in don't wander around Arabel with your pet mummy, but would it be a death sentence to use undead ever, around anyone, even outside of city limits? I'm not a fan of class features that boil down to 'use me and perish', so knowing if using about half my kit (All the non-passives) would mark me as kill on sight would help decide if I want to try out this character.

Now that said, as PM doesn't go past 10 here, the actual, uh, use of the non-passive features is quite limited (Fear my sub-20 dead arm DCs and rather disappointing summons that pale in comparison to the base summoning line here), so I could live well enough without using them but it's still a clarification I'd like to talk about.

Yeah, pretty sure Undead are illegal in/around Cormyr even if you aren't in the city. Kimbell keeps any raising strictly to when I'm off solo-ing, and even then she prefers to use her Slaadi. (Mind, she isn't a PM, either.)

As far as I've been able to tell otherwise, most people don't care about it as long as you don't go around spouting "I'm a necromancer, come get me!" . . . .Kimbell does, mind, but she keeps her public activities to undead-eradication more than anything else.

The class features are pretty useless considering it's a standard summon, DCs, etc, but you could have some fun RP in the right circles.

~BR

I think that Some PCs don't care so much.....and Some do....That's why its called RP.  I know that some PCs would prolly smite you dead right then.  You will just have to figure out which ones don't mind the dead being raised and which ones do.  

I think the class was suppose to have an upgrade on its summons but that is for Vincent to answer.  

I agree for the most part with Nokteronoth.

However, the class features of Stun, Hold, Paralyze, Critical and Sneak Immunity are still incredibly valuable. There is also the bonus HP which comes in very useful as a mage.

The summons are standard NWN ones and based off the PM Level, not your total Levels, meaning they suck. All of them. Vincent has mentioned possibly redoing them at some point however but I don't think it is high on the priority list so don't expect it soon if you decide to go PM.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. The passive class features are excellent and the RP from just those/the general undead interest is reasonably enticing. That the active features, the ones that would put you on a death list if used more than likely, are -really really bad- doesn't hurt things too much. Much easier to just hide your spooky skeltal arm instead of having to hide your summons and not poke things to death.

What about the physical side of being a PM. One does not delve into the deathless arts without some obvious tell tale signs? The bone arm for one *even if it's mechanically inferior*. Also, how does one justify the crit immunity through RP. I understand that it has to do with some sort of necromantic applications to the body or something?

I mean....really, how easily is something like that concealed, or even to what extent? 1 lvl of PM..ok, sure maybe easy enough....but 10 lvls? where is the line? Dragon kin for example. Early on, the signs are slight....later on....wings or the like. Eventually, it becomes /really/ easy to tell. The game engine is far to limited, and 'what you see is what you get' is just poor RP, imo.

Raising undead is a crime in Cormyr.

Secondarily, if you are seen with the undead arm thing visible, you will be treated as a monster by the Guards and slain.

As to the class itself, its passives (ac bonus, crit immunity) are the most useful parts.  Its summons may get revised at some point, but given you'll have access to the standard mage summons, it isn't very high on my list at present.

The crit immunity is (I believe) through organ rearrangement/mummification/something or another. Basically you either put your organs places where the foes wouldn't think to poke you for maximum damage, or you make them essentially redundant/useless so that even if your lung gets ran through you can still function. That's how I've always seen it RPed at least.

Bone Skin would be the other telltale trait, in its own ways. Your skin gets somewhat tough, hardened, dead-person like. Porcelain is how I've seen some PMs describe it, or more macabre ways for other ones. It would be obvious if you were close to one and stared at them for awhile, or touched them, that something is 'weird' about their skin. But couldn't we say the same thing for anyone that's under a Stoneskin spell, or many other spells? It's a possible RP tell route, but it's not immediately obvious either.

Vigor is meant to represent some form of toughness that's innate to undead, so again you just seem sturdier, more implacable.

The way I've always interpreted it and seen it played out is that so long as you're not in close contact, being touched, peered at forever, Detect Undead'd on, and so forth, a hooded/robed mage can basically pass off as normal.

Detect Undead wouldn't even work, since a Pale Master isn't actually undead - just has a lot of undead-like traits.

So how does it compete/compare against a character that has invested in their detection skills vs the PM that is simply using the game animations to 'cover' up?

Disguise skill, alter self, etc. are highly valuable in those situations.

Alter Self doesn't work on the arm visually btw. Would be good to have a ruling on it from an RP perspective?

I would think a smart PM is gonna study a bit of Illusion magic to create the illusion of having skin over their bone arm, or always keep it covered.

Also, it becomes a bit metagamey, and cumbersome when people have TS up. There is no animation, so nothing to justify a question. And I can't see the player of a character that had something to hide sending everyone in the area a tell saying 'do you have TS up, btw?"

I will admit to being a bit wary of the idea that an entire character could be destroyed on basis of failing a skill check one had no way of passing (Level 10 vs a level 25, for example). So I'd hope that there'd need to be some suspicion/interest garnered beforehand and not just 'I look really intently at anyone I ever meet ever'.

How the arm has been RPed by some in the past has mostly been to wear an excess of clothing over the limb itself, and just remain heavily garbed. I've not interacted with many pale masters, but the ones I have also employed illusions as a secondary layer of protection, as well as getting creative with salvaged flesh to "coat" the arm in stolen muscle/skin/tissue and simply roll a disguise check should the need arise (This check would be  pretty high generally as you're trying to pass off dead rotting flesh as living tissue).

My suggestion, if I were to take this class I would have multiple forms against detection. The coating of the arm in flesh would be the last defense, as it is the most difficult to work with. Secondly, wrap the arm in bandages that have been soaked in potent perfumes and even wrap some fragrant herbs about the arm as well. Illusions would have to be fully distributed about the body as any individual with True Sight can determine "Hey, only their arm is covered in illusions...wait a minute". All else fails, your PC can just lie. Make up some story about a withering touch used against them that left the arm a mangled husk. Kind of like what happens whenever Lord Soth touches someone!

That's half the point though. One simply does not enter an arena, and assume that they are automatically granted a level of sanctuary. If someone is going to exist out of their element, then they should prepare to be discovered and dealt with. It's just as fair for the defender as the aggressor. To turn your words a bit, I'd be wary of the idea that an entire character could be destroyed on the basis of not being allowed a fair skill check, or some sort of counter or defense.

That's fair, though one doesn't need to assume that all PMs are going to be cackling CE maniacs that want all the things dead.

At any rate, this thread has been enlightening to the degree that I at least think it'd be more hassle than it's worth to play a PM here given the setting and enforced level stratification. Unless I want to chill in the UD or Stonehaven all day. And yes I toyed with making a Wizard/PM/Skymage because I want to play the 'make the least playable CD character' game I guess.

TS causes a character's eyes to glow blue when active.

You should at least have a good solid reason to request or even make a roll for that said skill check for either people involved.  You can't just go around saying well something is funny here I will just use my super uber spot skill here to see whats going on.  No you need more than just something smells funny.  Gather more information on why you think a character might be such.  Have more of a cause to make a roll.  

Guys, first off, i played one for a longtime.  Second, accepting a bone arm and not using complicated magic to permanent fix it to something else?  This has been done, and a lot of other small cosmetic things to make you look more yourself, than some undead hybrid thing.  Mind you, it should mean that your character has to take precautions to ensure you aren't given away.  But, the idea isn't far off to use something more flesh like, rather than bone like.  As for the other things, immunities, that can be done in various ways, mind you... with these immunities comes a price, and Pale Masters do not get off easy.  What if your arm takes over sometimes?  What if it gains a conscious awareness of itself and you?  Mind you, I've quit the PRC because it no longer fit my character's Rp, but the time was fairly fun.  

Any more thoughts, Pm me.    

We generally haven't allowed Truesight to pierce the veil of anything concealing a player's appearance, so long as it's reasonably concealed. Otherwise any number of races would be entirely unplayable, through no real fault of their own, mostly because past experience has indicated to us that trying to properly police that is a fool's errand.

The same goes for the alignment detection spells, and paladin detect evil. We had to limit them to NPC and hostile targets only, because we had far too many "accidental" uses that were pretty much deliberate/metagamey.

As I noted above, we're not keen on random spells/skills being used to "out" and destroy an otherwise reasonable played, subtle, but magically or otherwise concealed, character. There are some that have been around for several years - you just don't know it, because they're the quiet ones who play their hidden role well.

We are especially against mechanics like that being used indiscriminately, such as the "Evil Detection Radar" that we had problems with early on. It's one thing to be suspicious of Fred, who wears all black, decorates his armor with skulls and blood red trim, and talks about how much he loves slaughtering things, and another to see a random normal-seeming character like Bob walk up, go "ah ha, he's an evil undead demon necromancer blackguard!" and proceed to start lobbing detections at him. (But even in Fred's case, we still rule that using Detect Evil on him is a PVP/hostile act)

Incidentally, we also decided that true/actual undead PCs, like full vampires, were just not workable, because there's no way we could prevent them from being outed at higher levels by the fact that mass heal spells will damage them.

Bottom line though - outing characters is not something to be done lightly, or that we take lightly. It's a big deal, especially because some of them will become unplayable as a result, or at the very least not be playable in the way they were. We're not keen on it getting metagamed, or being pushed by someone who merely wants to "win" and tries to turn this into a Good vs Evil/Red vs Blue/Black vs White/etc competition where they feel compelled to destroy other peoples' characters just because.

Hope that helps

Just wear a hood, and you will be fine.


All joking aside (and it was a joke so dont get butthurt my little drow friends) on CD there is a house rule / unwritten rule of live and let live.  Its why evil races such as drow can if they disguise them selves hang around the square next to Paladins, and why half fiends and Tieflings can chit chat about Paladins boobies and such.

Basically aslong as the player makes some effort to cover it up so there is IC plausible deniability for those who would otherwise have to face RP consequences people tend to OOCly turn a blind eye and act ICly as if they dont know.

Likewise those playing ebull types are also expected to make an effort to pass them selves off as a civilized member of society in the days before the political media existed to convince people that evil should be elected to govern them.

Basically, make a bit of effort to cover it up, dont be all muhahaha I r Kefka in the square and you should be fine, most people I have met on this server are very cool that way as long as you give them a way to be.

That really, and unfairly, facilitates the evils though, as they can rub shoulders with all the people they want to do evil against, with no chance of discovery. Don't get me wrong here either, I'm all about the 'live and let live thing', but we're talking about an equality that favors one side more than the other ,which is then not equal at all. 'Live and let live', until the evil guy has all the information s/he needs and turns their evil plans loose on the good guys....who've had /all/ this time to figure it out,and protect themselves, and others.

Again, don't get me wrong here. I want everyone to be able to have fun and play together, so don't read /too/ much into my post. I just think there is more room for 'fair for all' in this scenario.

Honestly, if you get caught, prepare to be turned in....in all fairness if you ARE suspected...it SHOULD be acted on. I already see this IG where someone is reported as a Necromancer....but no one will do anything....so yeah...its really IC for the paladins and such to ignore the ideals of a Necromancer growing in power??

Has said reported person been reported to Arabel authorities?  That, I would suspect, get the ball rolling to some sort of consequence IG.

They have been reported to paladins, a noble, a number of players...I dont know any players in the guards...

Players aren't members of the guard faction.  All guards are controlled by DMs/Admins.

Having played a large number of Paladins....I find it very strange OOCly to tell them that there is a Necromancer growing in power...and being told that until there is substantial proof of such...there is not even gonna be an investigation, that their hands are tied...that comes across as a bit of an OOC thing...

You're probably thinking of Kimbell, (Punky/Nok's char) who publicly handles undead eradication. Technically, that's necromancy.

The reason the evil people, provided they're hiding their motives well, are allowed to let their plans come to fruition (typically with large amounts of DM assistance, and if goodies are being led on they should have no clue another PC is behind it) is because it's zero fun for the evil person to be shut down before they get started every single time. That's why there needs to be DM facilitation, so it's not a metagaming clusterfuck that we've seen in the past.

If this was for me then no. It wasn't punky. It was someone else.

Yes, don't do this. That's my job.

Its a NWN server.

Evil talks about doing evil things to other players, and then tortures an NPC for their jollies.

Good players talk about fighting evil, but dont immediatly drop everything everytime some one in the square mentions cleaning out a dungeon (A dungeon which if they acted ICly they would know had been cleared out 10000000 times)

NWN is about allowing everyone the illusion of being the special snowflake, for your illusion to remain intact you have to believe that there are still ogres in the mountains and orcs in the forest, despite the amount of them being killed being enough to represent the genocide of the race.   

"Well in terms of the plot, only the ones killed in the time line count" is as much a RP shield as "If some one makes effort to disguise them dont take it upon your self to ruin their character" is.   They are both sheilds against having special snowflake status revoked and the smoke and mirrors of a game not actually being a world laid bear for everyone to see.


If Milicent McEvilpants is open about what she is, is that shield gone, yes of course it is.  But, and heres the ugly truth of it, the reason most people will say "Oh well that needs to be investigated" is they dont want to deal with the ooc drama and whines that come when some ones special snowflake status is revoked.   Likewise its why there are Paladins who take daytrips out to the Ogre lords with evil characters and pretend their detect evil skill doesnt notice them or that those characters have some kind of magical protection.   Its why people in the square can call out players playing religious characters on their beliefs without any consequence, consequence which would be there in a lot of the lore, its why you can walk around with enough crap in your bags to fill a house but still be able to jump up and "hug your friend" and its why ANYONE and I mean anyone can sit, run or move faster than a sloth with a hangover, while they are in full plate.

Fact number 2, its much easier to exist in a co-operative world as a good character than an evil one, players who play evil characters in my opinion should expect that character to be killed off if not redeemed at some point, after all, DnD is high fantasy not George R R Martins boner led world of rocks fall everyone dies.     Players who play evil characters are taking on a different role, within the wheel of the world, some of them can handle it and some cant, tell you what a lot of people cant handle on either side of this debate though "LOSING".  

Its why there is always drama going on behind the RP on a NWN server, Person A bitching about Person B, or Person C whining that Person A is restricting their RP.   Its why DMs have to moderate player lead plots because otherwise it turns into an emoting Arms race or the laughable state of being decided by NWNs combat engine (dont even get me started on that cluster of brown stuff).

Basically the whole reason the rules are there, is because at some point in the past they were not, and then some one was a dick caused aggro for multiple people and generally ruined perfectly good storytelling with their own self interest.

Mainly its because NWN is not the real world, it is an act of co-operative storytelling, where pretty much everyone is the star, and no one is in the "Also appearing in" section.


TL:DR

People are dicks, give them a way to ruin some one elses day and there are those who will take it just because they can.

Trust me, it doesn't facilitate playing evil, playing an active evil on CD is hard, I tried and failed at it, and some small concessions to try and help them out a little, is needed. The thing is, D+D was never written with what happens on NWN in mind. Sometimes the rules have to be fudged a little to let everyone have fun. This isn't 'You have to ignore the evil as they plot and plan' just more 'Actually let them get some plotting and planning in before you rip the veil away' 

The setting is such that concessions need to be made, otherwise those characters would be completely unplayable.

Do note, though, that there's something of a spectrum, and we block anything we think is outright too much (like minotaurs or goblins or the like). These characters might be playable if we had a strong underdark contingent that regularly spends time there, sufficient to parallel the Arabel stuff, but at present we don't.

We aren't looking to have an atmosphere where you create a character, and other players are actively hunting for you and your kind the moment you step out of the creation area. That's not cool, and furthermore, it denies the possibility of greater stories. The unmasking and defeat of a villain, or the betrayal and fall of a hero, should be grand tales, not a skill check or spell cast followed by a massive PVP beatdown.

Keep in mind though, this stuff goes both ways. We don't want people walking around flipping up hoods, or demanding submission to detect evil/know alignment checks, detect lie spells, etc, but at the same time, we don't want people playing hidden characters rubbing that in the faces of others. In short, we expect everyone to be mature, and respectful on an OOC level, and remember that the game is about fun and stories, not "winning".

Honestly....I think a lot of it boils down to this ^

Oh man that is hilarious, well played.

As a player of hideously good characters in general I have little to add to this that's important.

Aside from: People can run, sit, jump ect. in full plate. It hurts, and I couldn't feel my balls for a week, but its possible. I don't recommend it.

I do agree with all of the points above. Another reason that's probably a factor in the culture and stance here is the progression systems and general stance towards PvP, as well as server congregation culture. Being barred from Arabel is essentially being told 'you can't play your PC unless you like long long stretches of idle loneliness in a game whose entire redeeming quality is social interaction'. PvP is a mess on NWN in general and this server seems to largely have the stance of try and avoid it when possible. Which is good because the XP/progression system here is not tuned for a PvP experience that'd be enjoyable or even fair in the vague sense that NWN uses fair. A PC that's been played for a longer number of days will as an unavoidable rule be stronger than a PC that hasn't been played as long, there's no catchup or surpassing. So an evil character that's created can never expect to 'fight' out of a situation. I imagine, as a reasonable newcomer but someone that's had a lot of experience with PWs and enjoys mulling on game design thoughts on the side, that these things also contribute to a culture where 'evil' PCs are generally tolerated and not investigated if they make an effort at being hidden, blending in, acting normal, and basically not drawing excessive attention to themselves or their evil traits. Although the blunt take on snowflake preservation was also partially true and rather amusing.

Bluntly put, Trent has a personal beef with the player in question.  Everyone knows it's a personal beef, so they're not automatically taking his word for it.

Also, I don't know of a single good or paladin character that jumps to smite someone at the first report of something necromancy or evil.  If that was the case, they are on a quick road to an alignment shift...

I do Bella, because of personal experience.  However, that's in the past and since I've had nothing but good experiences when I play my chars in regards to paladins, Sophia is naturally excluded for obvious reasons ((This is ironic for other reasons.))

Bet you were not carrying multiple changes of clothes and armor at the same time though!

If you were... remind me never to piss you off in person.

No, mercifully I wasn't.

A harness of plate, full helmet, claymore, crossbow, twenty bolts, a shortsword and a pencil. No I don't recall why I had the pencil.

To take names after kicking ass?

I never once asked anyone to go smite happy Bella, never ever ever ever, my char asked for an investigation on the matters. That's a far cry from go smite them.

Well I know that a paladin PC did investigate the said pc your referring too.....I also know an NPC noble checked into it as well....so things were done.

The pencil was against the really tough enemies. Because, you know... the pen(cil) is mightier than the sword.

Another thing to bear in mind if you do ask NPC's to investigate someone, they might well have found something out, and what appears to you to be them doing nothing... is a long standing tactic of Cormyr's at play, of letting some folks run free and watching who they interact with so they can swoop down on a conspiracy rather than a long guy who's partners all then crawl back into hiding.

Cormyr likes to snatch up entire groups rather than single guys. On the flip side it might be nice in such situations to have a small interaction where a character is told 'Interesting, we are watching the situation for now, but we will contact you if it develops further' or something so the character and player feel something is happening, even if on the surface it appears it isn't.