PHB 2 for Ravenloft - thoughts?

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Irving the Meek
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PHB 2 for Ravenloft - thoughts?

Post by Irving the Meek »

Anyone looked at the PHB 2 with an eye towards Ravenloft?

I'm attracted to it for one real reason - the knight class. Paladins in Ravenloft have never sat quite right with me somehow; even on the best of days it's a slightly uneven fit. The knight looks like a great alternative, and the abilities lend themseves extremely well to the Ravenloft style of play. A knight's challenge dealt out to permit the rest of the party to run to safety against the Horrible Feind... ooer, tasty. The knight grants rerolls to fear checks, but not immunity - also a good thing.

Plus, we can have evil knights! (A lich's best friend, no doubt. Azalin just ordered himself a dozen.) I'm dying to redo Soth using this class.

That's only a few pages of the book, though. (And the whole class can be downloaded for free.) Anyone read the whole thing and have other ideas?
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Spiteful Crow
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Post by Spiteful Crow »

The Beguiler class looks like it might come in handy for something, but I don't quite understand what it's supposed to do.
Wait... basically Beguiler is just a fancier way of saying Liar? What's he gonna do, tell the enemy they're dead until they believe him?
If a Dragon Shaman appeared anywhere within the vincinity of Ravenloft, the whole demiplane would implode. The theme doesn't look like it could fit in at all. Then again, I kinda dislike this class too.

The Duskblade is a nice alternative to the Hexblade, for people who don't want to play a neutral or evil character in order to be a magical fighter. The flavor text might need some tweaking, though.
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Le Noir Faineant
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Post by Le Noir Faineant »

Yeah, the knight class was a useful addition for my game. :) But then again, since it was posted as a preview, there's no need to buy the whole book for me... :wink:
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Jester of the FoS
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Post by Jester of the FoS »

Spiteful Crow wrote:If a Dragon Shaman appeared anywhere within the vincinity of Ravenloft, the whole demiplane would implode. The theme doesn't look like it could fit in at all. Then again, I kinda dislike this class too.
Like the dragon-born from Races of the Dragon, the half-dragon template or even that dragon prestige class from the DMG what these need is a concept to work in the 'Loft. A select set of circumstances where they can be made gothic or horrific.

In this case imagine a wyrm cult, a group of humans who worship the great slumbering wyrm that sleeps under the earth. Late nitghts the gather atop the hill that is its resting place and pledge their loyalty to him, selling their souls and bodies for a fraction of its power.
They are no longer quite human but they are something more. Do they enjoy this newfound power or do they wish to regain their lost selves?
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Lord Cyclohexane
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Post by Lord Cyclohexane »

And that could be an interesting modification of the rules, to apply the changes granted by the Dragon Disciple PrC but by method of the transposition rules for fiends, making the change from human into half-dragon as a Dark Path.

After all, perhaps the wyrm cult was created when the dragon learned that her eggs couldn't hatch due to the odd effect of the Mists. Why not tempt the foolish mortals, giving them a small taste of power in return for unknowingly sacrificing their mortal shells to the dragon's children? And what of the lone cultist who realizes that her colleague's change of personality is due not to evolving into a new creature, but rather because his soul is now trapped in the egg for all eternity while the hatchling revels in stolen flesh? Isolated from the brother and sister cultists due to her knowledge, isolated from the common people due to the changes already imbued, and constantly tempted and taunted from inside her head as the youngling hatches into her consciousness...
My name is lost to me
I know not who I am
And I await the crimson fires
That'll wash this world away!
- Wolfbait, "In My Lonely Time Of Dying"
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Post by Mangrum »

On the dragon topic, I wrote this Dread Possibility for Hroth (Sithicus, Gaz IV). It was cut (for space, I assume), and seeing as Arthaus's take on Ravenloft officially turns back into a pumpkin in three days, I don't see any problem with posting it now:
Dread Possibility: Remembrance of the Wyrm
Not all Sithicans have forgotten the god-wyrms of their blasted shrines. Thaumiol (male elf Sor5/Dragon Disciple7, LE) an outcast from the arcane caste, pieced together the ancient legends and became a devoted disciple of the Many-Headed Devourer, seeking to draw her attention back to Sithicus and reap the power she bestowed. So intense was his fervor that his body slowly began to change, taking on aspects of a green dragon. The deformities forced Thaumiol to retreat to the marshland south of Hroth, where he eventually discovered what he considers a literal godsend: The preserved corpse of a massive, five-headed lernaean cryohydra, sunken in a bog. Thaumiol believes this body to be an emissary of the Many-Headed Devourer, and now seeks the means to animate it as his servant. That done, he intends to hunt down the rangers who protect Hroth, then teach its faithless citizens what comes to those who forget their gods.
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Re: PHB 2 for Ravenloft - thoughts?

Post by Skyrock »

The best adaption for the Dragon Shaman may be to strip all the dragon stuff away and turn him into a fiend cultist, who has learned of power rituals and how to draw power from a particular domain.
Replace the dragon chart with a domain chart (with three class skills, a gimmick and a particular breath weapon), and you are good to go.

The Dragon Shaman is actually mechanically very useful, especially as a DM tool to add to monsters. If you prepare an encounter with lots of low-level grunts, granting a couple of them a level in Dragon Shaman can make the remaining grunts actually useful and actually able to hit anything without adding any bookkeeping.
Nun gut, es sei dir überlassen!
Zieh diesen Geist von seinem Urquell ab
Und führ ihn, kannst du ihn erfassen
Auf deinem Wege mit herab.
- Faust I
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