Paths of Corruption

[sabbattack]

Greeting everyone

I've been trying to locate a thread here in the forum about ideas on paths of corruption. While I've read some interesting theories on powers checks and their use (or better their lack of), I still believe that making a good path to darkness requires a great deal of preparation and skill and it can become both a great tool for the dm and a great frustration to create.

In my case, one of the players of my party has a big problem of switching over to the "dark side". Out of game reasons (frustration from bad die rolls, phone calls over work etc) can lead to his character having fits of sadism, usually involving sadistic torture or plotting against some npc antagonist.
The problem is that while this player has an investigator/detective kind of character, these bouts of sadism when need for interrogation calls are difficult to string into a good path. Path of the Brute doesn't exactly fit, since their in game explanation is an amoral "the end justifies the means" approach to interrogating and human life in general.

I know that the best approach is talking with the player, which i've done, but his deeds didn't go unnoticed so far and I could use some help with figuring how to progress his 2 lost steps so far...

Also, i'm terribly sorry for using such bad english, but it seems my writing skills are deteriorating for some reason...

[sabbattack]

Some updates here, I think the problem comes with the player after all, finding good players for ravenloft can be difficult at times, since you cannot make (as they say) a player act scared if he does not want to cooperate...

Anyway, my final idea was creating something along these lines

1st stage: bonus to intimidate, penalty in social skills because everyone feels unconfortable around him

2nd stage: ability to place suggestions after applying sever torture (and of course attempted power checks), everyone he meets starts one step down towards "hostile" since they sense him "measuring them up"

3rd stage: the ability to keep someone alive indefinitely not taking into account the amount of harm he has received, but the "interrogated" start rising from their graves and hunt him down, a la Herbert West.

4th stage: he can dominate people, maybe once per day, but now everyone who meets him is snobbish and hostile twards him and his past victims start to gain intelligence and forming "revenge plots"

i'm afraid I can't seem to find any good/alternate progression other than this...

[Akeaka]

This is coming from the peanut gallery and my own limited knowledge of ravenloft, but in my personal opinion the second stage needs to be revamped. The bonus a powers check gives you shouldn't force you to make more power's checks every time you use it(if i'm reading it right), and from running games myself I can tell you that making EVERYONE more hostile towards him, while amusing, could lead to some very disruptive game play if not run correctly. People at bars picking fights with him every time, regular people not giving him quest information or supplies. It seems like that should be a stage three or four bane than a stage two. Maybe give him the ability to gain any piece of information he's seeking, but there will always be one piece within that information that is incorrect or misleading.

/soapbox

[High Priest Mikhal]

The Ravenloft core rule book (3e or 3.5) does an admirable job of explaining what a given powers check should bring in terms of benefit and curse. But there's also a lot of room for interpretation and that's where it gets confusing. This is just a quick write-up of the stages of corruption one of my BBEG's is undergoing (an elf cleric/wizard/true necromancer), a path that will turn her into a nosferatu as she desires, but at a cost.

Stage 1: +2 Charisma, finds the presence of roses uncomfortable

Stage 2: +2 Strength, +2 Charisma, now burned for 1d4 damage by holy water and symbols of good-aligned gods,

Stage 3: Darkvision 60 ft., +2 Dexterity and Wisdom, grows fangs and must consume raw blood or begin to starve (1 temporary Con point) and is repulsed by roses as vampires are garlic

Stage 4: +2 to Strength, Dexterity, Intellect and Regeneration 1 on nights of full moon, can be turned as an undead creature and is harmed by rose petals and thorns as if they were holy water (2d4 damage, the spell lifeward prevents this)

Stage 5: +2 to all Attributes except Con and Regeneration is now 3, harmed by sunlight as if she were a full vampire

Stage 6: Fledgling nosferatu with addition of being utterly destroyed if staked with a rose stem (a sufficiently old rosebush will have very hard, woody stems usable in staking)

The roses part ties into her story as "danger hidden behind beauty." A kind of mirror into her soul made manifest.

[philipsteele]

i am also participating with you to start against the corruption...!!!!!!