Power Check Questions

[Shadow]

Okay...As a Ravenloft DM I have a few questions about power checks that have been bugging me for some time.

1. Any Ravenloft player or DM knows that failed power checks lead to corruption, usually some type of physical deformity that is both a blessing and a curse. With that in mind, why don't the majority of major Ravenloft villains have some obvious distinguishing physical features. Are they able to hide them? Have they made power checks, but luckily succeeded? (Perhaps, I'm employing too much metagame thinking.)

2. How would you handle power checks that involve more than one category? For example, a betrayal that involves a murder. Would this be considered betrayal or murder? A power check for murder modified? A power check for betrayal modified?

3. What sort of power check would you recommend for an assassin who kills an innocent kid who witnessed an assassination (so as to leave no witnesses)? (Premediated murder? Should there be any modifiers?) What are some good "paths of corruption" for the said character?

[Dark Whisper]

1. why don't the majority of major Ravenloft villains have some obvious distinguishing physical features. Are they able to hide them? Have they made power checks, but luckily succeeded? (Perhaps, I'm employing too much metagame thinking.)

A NPC fails or succeeds a Power Check as the DM wants (and furthers/improves the story). Additionally, not all failed Power Checks need to have visual consequences.

If you would make a power check for each atrocity a villain commits, you'd have to come up with new domains all the time, as they become Darklords in rather a short time.

2. How would you handle power checks that involve more than one category? For example, a betrayal that involves a murder. Would this be considered betrayal or murder? A power check for murder modified? A power check for betrayal modified?

Which of the two is the defining action ? Is one dependant on the other, i.e. is the betrayal a consequence of the murder ?

If they are dependant on one another, I'd take the higher percentile chance and make that check.

If they do not depend on each other, either make two checks, using the standart chances, or make a combined check, using the higher chance as base and adding half of the other.

3. What sort of power check would you recommend for an assassin who kills an innocent kid who witnessed an assassination (so as to leave no witnesses)? (Premediated murder? Should there be any modifiers?)

IMC (and without more detailed background), Act of Ultimate Darkness, i.e. automatic failure.

Alternatively, take premeditated murder and - depending on background - raise the chance a bit.

What are some good "paths of corruption" for the said character?

Give as a bit more backstory of the character; race, gender, alignment, what are his goals, why did he kill the child / the victim in the first place, ...

[Troile]

If you would make a power check for each atrocity a villain commits, you'd have to come up with new domains all the time, as they become Darklords in rather a short time.

This is why I don't like powers checks.

3e is so great at streamlining everything. Monsters play by the same rules as players. Its great.

Powers checks are there to make players fall in line with ravenloft. I have no use for them in their current form.

I still use something similar...but they have to be great deeds that would make sense to have this happen in the story.

Simply casting shocking grasp is dumb.

[Dark Whisper]

Powers checks are there to make players fall in line with ravenloft. I have no use for them in their current form.

Could you elaborate, what you mean ? I don't really get it.

Additionally, you can roll Power Checks for NPCs / Villains, as you like and see fit. Or you can just rule that the succeed/fail, as whichever profits the story. Or you can say that the Dark Powers preferr to corrupt good beings (say : PCs) instead of already evil one (say : Villain).

Monsters play by the same rules as players

Ah, this must be, why NPC get only a fraction of the wealth/equipment of a PC of the same level...

[Jennifer]

Hi shadow,
If a powers check would involve more than one category, you could consider making it an act of ultimate darkness. I had that with one of my players, the infamous priest samael.

As he counseled a distraught young unhappily married woman, she suggested that she'd rather be a widow. To which the priest replied: "oh yeah, well, me and my friends (the unsuspecting other player characters) can take care of that for you."

I decided that it was an act of ultimate darkness. he betrayed his beliefs, he betrayed his fellow partymembers, he wanted to perform a premediated murder, all to posses the young wife. And did it all with a very shallow attitude.

if you want some good paths for coruption, read the netbook book of shadows, the article terrible transformations by stuart turner

jennifer

[Hell_Born]

Yeah, the Terrible Transformations article is pretty extensive, but you'll need to convert/update it to 3rd Ed (they're all 2nd Ed).

[Troile]

Additionally, you can roll Power Checks for NPCs / Villains, as you like and see fit. Or you can just rule that the succeed/fail, as whichever profits the story. Or you can say that the Dark Powers preferr to corrupt good beings (say : PCs) instead of already evil one (say : Villain).

The fact of the matter is...every evil being or necromancer in ravenloft should be darklords. Its completely ridiculous.

The system is in place to punish evil acts by players.

Ah, this must be, why NPC get only a fraction of the wealth/equipment of a PC of the same level...

Wink

Please don't turn this into an internet arguement.

Monsters do indeed get a lot of equipment. I tone everything down in my game...

So for the sake of internet arguement (picking at details) I'll reword my statement.

Wait screw that...just insert the word *most* in there.

What is different from 2e? Lets see...monsters now have levels, they have stats, they don't all use d8...and there are a plethora of other things that were changed to make npcs and pcs play by the same rules.

If you want to nitpick go to the wizards board or something.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

First off people, remember to keep it nice here

Secondly, the majority of failed powers checks do not lead the person into becoming a Darklord, just some evil creature. Otherwise we would have thousands of Darklord running about

1. Any Ravenloft player or DM knows that failed power checks lead to corruption, usually some type of physical deformity that is both a blessing and a curse. With that in mind, why don't the majority of major Ravenloft villains have some obvious distinguishing physical features. Are they able to hide them? Have they made power checks, but luckily succeeded? (Perhaps, I'm employing too much metagame thinking.)

As already said, many effects do not manifest physical alterations, though later on such things are all but unavoidable. However, having said that, who says that some of the villainous creatures out there aren't the result of following some path of corruption?

2. How would you handle power checks that involve more than one category? For example, a betrayal that involves a murder. Would this be considered betrayal or murder? A power check for murder modified? A power check for betrayal modified?

If the betrayal was planned to lead to the murder then I would go for the murder, if the murder is an unforeseen effect of the betrayal, then I would opt for betrayal.

3. What sort of power check would you recommend for an assassin who kills an innocent kid who witnessed an assassination (so as to leave no witnesses)? (Premediated murder? Should there be any modifiers?) What are some good "paths of corruption" for the said character?

To me, this would be another Act of Ultimate Darkness.

if you want some good paths for coruption, read the netbook book of shadows, the article terrible transformations by stuart turner

The article is a collection of competition entries for the annual Kargatane contest they held for each of the BoS books. I forget what the winner used to get though, I think it was some voucher for Amazon.com or something like that.

Some issues of QtR and possibly the USS also contain paths of corruption. I know the Upir Lichy article in one QtR contains one coz I wrote the thing, lol.

[Shadow]

Well about the situation in #3...

The character was employed to do an assassination on the rival of the character's patron (an evil act in itself, requiring a power check even though the target wasn't exactly good alignment...) Although the character's patron didn't magically or supernaturally force the party, he subtly warned there would be severe "consequences" for not following his orders. Surprisingly the characters agreed to perform the mission without hesitation.

As part of the orders, there were to be no witnesses, so no one could trace the act back to him. The party did a stakeout where their mark was staying. A plan was drawn up, and one of the party members went in an killed the mark and his cronies.

On the way out, in a random encounter, the character encountered a kid who worked at the inn where the assassination took place. The character had known the kid before from a previous encounter. Seeing the blood and the character's pistol, the kid was scared and confused. Remembering there were to be no witnesses, the character calmy said to him, "I'm sorry I have to do this," and proceeded to kill the kid. I was completely shocked!

I decided that the character failed his power check...Now I have to think of a path of corruption. The character (as well as the rest of the party) willingly agreed to an assassination mission. The character then calmly killed a kid, justifying it as "just following orders". The character has been played as a person who will do anything his patron orders (Very Lawful Neutral) and will do anything to get the job done. What would be an appropriate corruption...? (Perhaps it will be a lesson to those who decide to play assassin type characters in Ravenloft.)

[Gemathustra]

Perhaps as a result of his failed powers check, the character develops urges to kill children whenever he's on a mission?

[Brandi]

I may need someone to back me up here... but I found myself thinking of the World of Darkness 2.0 Humanity scale system. I don't own the game, so I may be totally wrong here, but I was under the impression that it worked so that the lower your humanity was, the more heinous an act it would take to lower it further, ie a vampire with high Humanity might lose some if they killed a person while feeding off them, but by Humanity 2 or less they'd pretty much have to rape, kill, and eat a child-- not necessarily in that order.

Anyway, some kind of sliding scale like that for powers checks might be a good idea. It only takes a Fright Check, failed or otherwise, to lose your Innocence, and it may be that there are quite a few people who have failed their first powers check (or maybe even a second) and now have some fairly easy-to-hide physical or mental deformity (Lord Balfour comes to mind), but to make Darklord you pretty much have to commit an AoUD.

[Brandi]

Oh, and for the powers check failure in the case above? How about something like a +2 circumstantial bonus to skill rolls made in the course of performing a mission-- and a -2 to resist orders from the person who paid him off?

Yeah, I know that doesn't have the usual Outcast Rating effect shown in most corruption paths, but it seems fitting-- he gets better at his job, but less and less likely to consider the consequences of following bad orders. Adolf Eichmann comes to mind, if you'll forgive a borderline Godwin.

[Dark Whisper]

The fact of the matter is...every evil being or necromancer in ravenloft should be darklords. Its completely ridiculous.

If you play it so, that every person needs to make a power check in every possible situation, maybe.

But I don't enforce Power Checks too much (neither NPC nor PC); I don't force a Power Check each time a wizard casts fear but I'll force the check for spells manipulation "death" directly (e.g. finger of death).

Additionally, I tend to be more generous in not forcing Power Checks for evil (N)PCs than for neutral (N)PCs than for good (N)PCs (than for Paladins); an (lawful) evil being, that betrays a friend commits - in my point of view - a less evil act than a neutral or good being betraying a friend.

It's not RAW, I know, but it follows less or more the rules and is - for me and my players - playable.

And even following RAW, most percentile chances are very small; (IIRC, casting a 9th level Necromantic spell is a chance of 9%) so a necromancer may be lucky and avoid stepping on the path of corruption for a very long time.

But it is your game and you play it so as you and your players have fun; it's not up to me (or anyone else) to force my playing style on you.

The system is in place to punish evil acts by players.

As most players tend to play good or neutral aligned characters, that's not so bad. Good aligned characters should not (with the exeption of casting necromantic spells) commit actions, that force Power Checks.

Please don't turn this into an internet arguement.

I did not intend to; I was just teasing a bit.

And therefore I won't answer any of your other statements concerning this topic (except this : I don't fully agree with you).

[Manofevil]

Isn't there some kind of mindless thug path of corruption in which the character gradually loses the ability to do, or not do, anything that is not ordered by his employer? They'd effectively become a non-thinking robotic entity. A perfect NPC.

[Hrtofdrkns]

I can't remeber exactly, but it says somewhere that a failed powers check should at least in theory make it easier to commit the crime but harder to concel it.


It depends on the type of assasin the pc was. Was it a stalk from the shadows supprise hit? If so, you could make a path of the... the... I'm sorry, but I don't remember what it's called. Akage or something. It's a ghostly assasin.

Or the pc could only manifest mental signs of corruption. Or just give people a bad feeling when they are around him.

I also agree that darklordship should only be granted if you do something for a particulary vile reason.

Take Strahd, for example. He murdered his brother so he could become a vampire and have his brothers fiancee. It wasn't like the pc who killed the child for fear of getting caught, an evil act, but at least somewhat understandable.