Player Character Carrionettes

[zenreaper]

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to an ECL for a Player Character who's "stuck" in a carrionette body. Thanks in advance!

[tec-goblin]

Mmm... there is a big problem with carrionettes: they give you fixed stats and not stat adjustments. That makes it very difficult to calculate the ECL. It is also a pain if a team has all changed to a carrionette body (the fighter can do nothing, while the mage rules - and all have the same physical ability scores).

So, I would suggest changing to -xxx to the physical ability scores and from then we can calculate the ECL

I suggest something in the lines of
+1 size
-2 stats
+1 special attack = +0 LA. But it depends wildlly on the class(es) of the character. And the region. (He would have a huuuuge OR in most domains, which could award a -1 LA. But negative LA are tricky)

[zenreaper]

Yeah, this is a fun problem

I'm kind of surprised that with carrionettes, not to mention artificial flesh golems (ala Adam) that there aren't some more guidelines for this sort of thing somewhere. In fact, it's odd how there really isn't much for this sort of "transplanting a mind into another body" thing in d&d period. Oh well.

For our first foray into Ravenloft, I ran an encountered based on the old 2e "The Created" adventure with Giuseppe and his puppet boy Figlio. I heavily adapted it though, making Giuseppe the evil toymaker who'd put his own conciousness in an artificial wooden body (glamored to make him appear like a harmless old man) then set about creating his own "family", namely Figlio.

Then the two ran an interesting racket by using carrionettes to "hijack" the conciousness of convicted killers, corrupt rulers about to be deposed, etc. Then they would use these carrionettes to obtain new bodies from innocent victims. The evil folks with new bodies went their merry way (after providing Giusseppe with compensation, whether it be cash or help in his endeavors) and the souls of the innocent victims would be sold off to a certain powerful undead necromancer...

Anyway, I made the Carrionette "hijacking" process a little quicker and streamlined. In addition to the method outlined in Denizens of Dread, the carrionettes receive an alternate attack using only one needle, to the base of the neck, but the victim receiving a saving throw. The attack must be made while the target is unaware of the attack.

In the encounter, the party was slowly replaced, one by one, by Giuseppe's murderous clientelle, and their souls ended up inside puppets, soon to be sold off in Darkon.

The great thing was that everyone - except for the party's wily and slightly paranoid witch (ie Druid) - ended up playing two characters. Their original characters in puppet form, and their bodies hijacked by murderers.

I let them run their bodies to help keep the confusion and uncertainty of the encounetr at it's maximum (helped obviously by the fact that these characters had just met and didn't know one another that well).

They did a great job of trying to murder themselves after the "good puppets" escaped, killed Giusseppe (ironically slain by two of the evil murderer/bodies - who wanted to take advantage of the chaos and kill off the only person who knew of their original identities) and Figlio (creative use of grappling rules and a campfire).

The lifted the "puppet curse" (as they refered to it amongst themselves) by laying Figlio's original human corpse to rest.

Unfortunately, the halfling thief (in puppet form) had been forced to slay his hijacked body in the melee.

The poor guy had just role-played the whole thing far too well, and honestly (really playing "both" puppet and body to the hilt, trying to kill himself, the other... you know what I mean) and creatively, so I couldn't send his soul on to the other side, so let him keep squatting in the carrionette body.

Whew! Didn't mean to turn this into a campaign log, but it was a great encounter, and still so vivid in my mind!