The Black Rose

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Just for fun, I tried statting out the Black Rose the way he could have been during his tenure. Please let me know if I should remove this from the forum or not, and what you think of the design... All qualities listed in red are traits that he acquired, but which are invalidated by his status as an evil being.

The Black Rose; Former Darklord
NE Medium DeathKnight Fighter 3/Cleric 1/Crown Knight 3/ Sword Knight 3/Rose Knight 5/ Blackguard 5:
Hit dice: 20d12 (143 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 20 ft.
Armor class: 29 (+1 Dex, +5 natural, +13 full plate), Touch 11, Flat-Footed 26 (Note that the Black Rose's full plate only allows an effective Dex bonus to AC of +1)
Base attack/grapple: 16/16
Attack: Death touch +24 touch, +5 Greatsword +30
Damage: Death touch 1d8+8 + 1 Con, Greatsword 2d6+13 (critical 17-20 x2)
Special attack: Abyssal blast 1/day 20d6 Ref23 half, Power Word as 20th-lev. Wizard 1/day (Blind, Stun or Kill), Smite good 2/day, Sneak attack +1d6, Symbol as 20th-lev. Wizard 1/day (Fear or Pain), Turn undead, spell-like abilities as 20th-lev. Wizard 1/day (Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, Wall of Ice), spells (Blackguard, Cleric)
Special qualities: Aura of courage, Aura of despair, Aura of evil, Aura of good, Command undead, Create skeletal warrior, Damage Reduction 10/magic, Dark blessing, Detect evil, Darkvision 60 ft., Detect good, Fear aura, Fiendish servant, Fight to the death, Heroic initiative +1, Immunities: Cold, Electricity, Polymorph effects, Inspire courage (+3, 3/day), Inspire greatness, Knightly courage, Leadership bonus +1, Poison use, Rallying cry 3/day, Rebuke/Bolster Undead, See Invisibility (continuous), Shadow Walk (the Black Rose can travel from one shadow in Sithicus to any other at will, and bring others with him), Spell Resistance 20, Summon Mount 1/day, Turn Immunity (Can not be turned; can be temporarily banished with Holy Word), Strength of Honor 1/day, Turn Undead, Undead Followers, Undead traits
Saves: Fort +23, Ref +12, Will +18
Abilities: Str 27, Dex 16, Con --, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 19
Skills: Climb +8, Concentration +10, Diplomacy +13, Handle animal +11, Hide +9, Intimidate +22, Jump +8, Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +21, Knowledge (religion) +12, Ride +26, Spellcraft +5, Swim +2 (Note that the armour check penalty of -6 to Climb, Hide and Jump, and the -12 modifier to Swim have already been factored into this list)
Feats: Cleave, Diehard, Endurance, Honor-Bound, Improved critical (Greatsword), Improved Sunder, Leadership, Mounted Combat, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (Greatsword)
Challenge Rating: 25

Spells:
Blackguard: 2/2
Cleric: 6/5+1/5+1/3+1/2+1/1+1 Domains: Death, Evil

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

no need to remove it from the forum... this is fine to have here, as long as you made it up yourself.

I don't have much experience statting up high level guys, so I can't comment too much on balance and whatnot. but that's an awful lot of multiclassing. I'm not too familiar with Soth's Krynn days or Krynn in general, but I'm surprised to see Fighter and Cleric rather than paladin, and I'd thought that the crown, sword, and rose branches of the Knights of Solamnia were mutually exclusive. Did he really switch between the orders like that? or was it an attempt to model something specific by picking and choosing from the powers of the different orders?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

According to the 3.5 sourcebook for Dragonlance, the Paladin class does not exist there; its niche is filled by the Knights of Solamnia. ^^ The orders are not mutually exclusive; rather, one can only become a Knight of the Sword after having been a Knight of the Crown, and one can only become a Knight of the Rose (the most prestigious of the three Solamnic orders) after having been a Knight of the Sword.
Soth used to be a Knight of the Rose; he spent a considerable amount of effort working towards that lofty goal. In order to get there, he needed to pass through the two lower orders. (Despite them being 'lower', a full Knight Council still needs ranking members of all three orders. Nice, isn't it?)
Fighter is a necessary step to get the base attack bonus to get to Knight of the Crown, and at least one level of Cleric is necessary to get the spellcasting capacity to 'graduate' from the Knights of the Crown into the Knights of the Sword, which has spellcasting progression, which is one of the things needed to get into the Knights of the Rose.
The only feats that weren't strictly necessary for this progression are Cleave, Improved Critical, Improved Sunder, Power Attack and Weapon Focus; the rest is all necessary for the progression in Knighthoods. And of course dear ole Black Rose needed Cleave, Improved Sunder and Power Attack to become a Blackguard when he threw away all he had achieved because he couldn't trust his wife...

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Ah... makes sense.. Like I said, I don't know much about his Krynn life, or Krynn in general...

Still a little weird since I can't see him as a cleric. Maybe there's some other divine spellcasting class that could be used... What do the other Knight of Solamnia NPC's look like?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Seeing as the Knights of Solamnia were meant to worship Paladine and the other gods of Good, I'm thinking all the ones that were aiming for Sword and/or Rose Knight would have been at least part-time Clerics, prior to the theft of Krynn.
(Long story short, the top evil goddess stole the world and pretended the gods had to leave so she could take it all once she was recovered from the theft. The mortals discovered alternative divine magic called mysticism based on an individual religious experience and faith, and the Dragonlance book provides a Mystic class.)
After the theft, even after the gods came back, Mysticism could be used to provide the necessary divine spellcasting power (only Rose Knight NPC I can recall had Mystic ranks). Potentially so could Druidism, but that doesn't mesh with the concept of the armoured knight on a horse, or the strict legal code the Knights applied to most of their lives. Rangers could form the necessary bridge between combat skills and divine spellcasting that Paladins would otherwise provide, but again, concept issues.

As for Soth not being very Cleric-y, I agree. If the Cleric spellcasting doesn't mesh with your vision of him, just assume he lost all Cleric spellcasting and Turning ability when he fell from grace, and use his Deathknight spell-like abilities and Blackguard spellcasting.

On the other hand, he was very aware of the Krynnish gods of evil, and he had more abilities than can be explained by his being a Deathknight, I think. If you like to keep the door open to Soth having spellcasting power (he could have transferred his religious 'devotion', such as it was, to Chemosh, lord of the undead), just assume he doesn't use his spells most of the time because of the by-laws of the Solamnian Oath and Measure: those rules do not allow him to use magic spells first; his opponent has to be the one to initiate that kind of combat. Besides, he's strong enough not to need a lot of magic. Most foes die from his sword or his touch, so what need has he to cast Inflict spells?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Most foes die from his sword or his touch, so what need has he to cast Inflict spells?

To cure himself or his undead minions, maybe?

[Manofevil]

The clerical order of the Solamnic Knights, strangely, is that of the sword. It seems strange that the sword would the insignia of a clerical order but it is. The head of the order is teh High Clerist. No character begins as a Knight of the sword. He (and more recently, she) must first join the Knights of the Crown and gain two levels there, then petition a formal council to join the Order of the Sword. Once the Knight gains two levels of the Order of the sword. He/she may then follow the very similar procedure to join the Order of the Rose. The Order of the Rose does NOT allow for the gaining of clerical spells as does the Order of the Sword, but it DOES carry a great deal more authority, which is why most ambitious knights and legacies like Soth, seek to join this order. Which isn't to say that once they get up in the ranks, they can get away with anything. Scrutiny on high ranking knights can be brutal and if a knight of ANY rank gets caught, the penalties are HARSH, which is pretty much what happened to Soth.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

@ Rotipher: Soth. Care about the state of his minions. Or even about his own condition, once his dander is up? o_o Soth. I suppose it could happen if he had a minion he cared about as much about keeping as he used to want Kitiara, I guess. And maybe, after battle was done, he might perform the necessary maintenance to his skeletal warriors.

@ Manofevil: The 3.5 Dragonlance handbook states that Knights of the Rose have full spell progression. *shrug* I also found it's easier to progress in the Orders by taking three of Crown to get into Sword, then three of Sword to get into Rose, just to meet the prerequisites. It's probably possible to do it by skipping back to Fighter and/or Cleric, but that just seemed like an unnecessary amount of hassle while I was statting Soth out at the time.

[alhoon]

He was from Dragonlance so I say that these rules are fine since that's the way things are in Dragonlance.

[Sareau]

My own retrocon of Soth had him as 4th cleric, 3rd Crown, 3rd Sword, 6 Rose. The issue with the whole paladin/fighter/cleric levels stems from most players believing the cleric is a priest. The cleric class was based on the warrior orders of the Crusades (The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon were a monastic order primarily) and not on the priesthoods of the Middle Ages. I had no difficulty with Soth's clerical levels.

On the other hand, I gave him no blackguard levels, as he did't meet the qualifications of the class, specifically, peaceful contact with an evil outsider. Also, I felt that blackguard would make him consciously evil as opposed to a man who did evil things because he was driven by his passions. However, that would be easily enough rectified, and he's only going to appear in homebrew campaigns anyway-I know he never left my campaign's Sithicus, but we largely never felt the need to make the Dragonlance setting interesting...

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I figured that after Soth was condemned to become a Deathknight for his crimes by the gods of Good and his wife's curse, the gods of Evil would probably have put out some feelers to see whether they could draw him into their fold. After the curse took effect, Soth certainly did many evil things of his own free will, if only because he felt betrayed and ill-done by.

[Sareau]

I figured that after Soth was condemned to become a Deathknight for his crimes by the gods of Good and his wife's curse, the gods of Evil would probably have put out some feelers to see whether they could draw him into their fold. After the curse took effect, Soth certainly did many evil things of his own free will, if only because he felt betrayed and ill-done by.

True, but in the Dragonlance series, one never got the feeling Soth cared that much for Takhsis or Chemosh. In fact, his attitude towards them is more as more powerful beings than him he would ally with, but not serve. I think Soth is more of a self-servign evil than a team player, though the three Dark Orders might be viable classes, especially since Knight of the Black Rose has him kicking out Bigby's Hand spells left and right.
However, the blackguard certainly holds true, even if the Knight of the Thorns is a better fit with his origins.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Hmm, it might be worth considering giving him the Magic Domain, now that you mention it.
Anyway, regardless whether the gods of Evil got Soth to be an occasional contractor or a lackey, peaceful contact is peaceful contact.
Thorn Knight might have been a good fit for what Soth became, but they didn't even exist when he was still earning his spurs, and by the time they rolled around he'd already been a Deathknight for an unpleasantly long time. I doubt he had a high opinion of them when they first appeared: "Hmph. Buncha wannabe newbies, getting everything given to them by Takhisis. Hmph."

[Sareau]

Again, very true, but Soth has always stuck by the Measure-I could see him encouraging the three evil Orders just to have staff to bully down all the empty centuries...

[Rock of the Fraternity]

A friend of mine had an interesting view on Soth and the Measure: "The only reason he holds to the very letter of the rule of the Measure is to show that he can, that it does not take goodness to be able to uphold the rules of the Knighthood".

And then there was the view voiced by Astinus in the Twins' Trilogy, i.e. that Soth is bound to the Measure in death as he was in life, which might imply that adherence to the Measure is part of his curse. Personally, I don't like that option so much.

My own view on Soth and the Measure is that he upholds it because he feels it would be beneath him not to; becoming a Knight was all that he wanted out of life, once upon a time, and though he has fallen, he refuses to completely abandon that which once gave him purpose.

In any of these cases, Soth holds to the Measure of the Solamnic Knights, not to Takhisis' Vision and Oath. As you correctly pointed out, Soth did not exhibit much worship of Takhisis, and the Knights of Takhisis were all about conquering the world in her name. The idea of doing that much kowtowing to Takhisis and letting her decide every moment of his life, letting her decide the way to act that is correct, rather than making his own decisions, would probably have driven Soth into a signature rage.