Word of faith changes

Aiquandol · Post by **Aiquandol** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:59 am

Currently there have been some changes to the way in which word of faith opperates.

When you log in you will now be assigned a secondary racial type. You can be either a Ysgardian, Celestial/Demon/Case 2, or Outsider.

Ysgardian: A character made on Hala, or a charcter that has become a hala resident. This status can only be granted by a DM using the Naturalization wand.

Celestial/Demon/Case 2: Celestials and Demons holding insignias will be granted this when they log on. Case 2s will be used at a later date for tagging other outer-planars.

Outsider: Anyone coming from an offworld prime such as Avlis or Mystara will be tagged an outsider.

The word of faith rolls and rules have also been changed to the following. Please note that these are still flexible if testing proves them to be completely off the wall.
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Ysgardian: Immune to word of faiths banishment effect.

Celestial/Demon/Case 2: Must make a will save vs. banishment with the following modifiers applied
Good/Evil scale: Good: +1, Neutral, 0, Evil -1
Lawful/Chaotic scale: Chaotic: +1, Neutral 0, Lawful -1.
Ex. lawful evil joe gets a -4 will save bonus
Chaotic Good Sally gets a +2 bonus to her will save vs. banishment.

Outsider: Must make a will save at a -2 penalty with the following modifiers applied on top of that.
Good/Evil scale: Good: +1, Neutral, 0, Evil -2
Lawful/Chaotic scale: Chaotic: +1, Neutral -1, Lawful -2.
Ex. Lawful Evil Jose makes a will save at a -6 penalty.
Chaotic Good Jill makes a will save with no penalty.
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The following modifiers will be applied to the DC of the spell:

Ysgardians/Case 2:
Good/Evil scale: Good: +1, Neutral, 0, Evil -1
Lawful/Chaotic scale: Chaotic: +1, Neutral 0, Lawful -1.

Outsiders
General -2 penalty with the following modifiers applied
Good/Evil scale: Good: +1, Neutral, 0, Evil -2
Lawful/Chaotic scale: Chaotic: +1, Neutral -1, Lawful -2.

Therefore, an outsider being banished by an outsider of the same alignment will get their full will save against it.
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Currently the live system could be *extremely* buggy. Please have faith *rimshot*, It will be fixed shortly.

Aiquandol · Post by **Aiquandol** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:41 am

I should also make note that even though the above saves seem absurdly high there will also be DC penalties for casting the spell similar to them.

Furthermore, they're open to discussion.

Psye Shaar · Post by **Psye Shaar** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:59 am

Outsider: Anyone coming from an offworld prime such as Rockhome or Mystara will be tagged an outsider

I hope this isn't a stupid question, but does this include Avlis?

Enverex · Post by **Enverex** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:18 am

Psye Shaar wrote:
Outsider: Anyone coming from an offworld prime such as Rockhome or Mystara will be tagged an outsider
I hope this isn't a stupid question, but does this include Avlis?

Yes, Avlis is a Prime.

silverdragonams · Post by **silverdragonams** » Thu May 12, 2005 1:24 pm

Is this/will this be implemented for the arcane spell Banishment too?

DarknessFallsLight · Post by **DarknessFallsLight** » Thu May 12, 2005 1:28 pm

*makes note to check his secondary racial type*

Aiquandol · Post by **Aiquandol** » Thu May 12, 2005 2:00 pm

Is this/will this be implemented for the arcane spell Banishment too?

This will be implemented for arcane banishment.

slave_of_emotions · Post by **slave_of_emotions** » Thu May 12, 2005 2:22 pm

Celestial/Demon/Case 2: Must make a will save vs. banishment with the following modifiers applied
Good/Evil scale: Good: 0, Neutral, -2, Evil -6
Lawful/Chaotic scale: Chaotic: 0, Neutral -1, Lawful -2.
Ex. lawful evil joe gets a -8 will save bonus

This is completly wrong, ysgard is a chaotic good-neutral plane, in pnp lawfull creatures get -2 on all charisma based checks while this does not happen to evil. so lawfull characters should have a higher modifer then evil characters, not as it is now.
This does not make any sense at all.

It shold be more like this:
Celestial/Demon/Case 2: Must make a will save vs. banishment with the following modifiers applied
Good/Evil scale: Good: 0, Neutral, 0, Evil -2
Lawful/Chaotic scale: Chaotic: 0, Neutral -2 , Lawful -4/6

Second, if you go after the spell word of chaos then a creature that has more HD then caster can not be bannished.

http://www.anchordeep.net/srd/spellsTto ... d-of-chaos

Edit: Meh this is really just silly... you should stay with -4 as per SRD, point me out just one non wisdom based character under lvl 20 that can make a will save with -12 without to roll a 20.

Aiquandol · Post by **Aiquandol** » Thu May 12, 2005 3:03 pm

I've actually been contemplating this problem for quite a while. According to PnP only lawful characters recieve a negative charisma save. However, we're dealing with will saves in this case.
Furthermore, there is the issue of dynamics. In order to maintain blance with other outsiders and primes being treated differently some other forms of checks needed to be added for case 2 and 3 other than just a -4 will save penalty.

Since we have quite a bit more high level characters here than we would at a PnP table, the saves are a bit beefed up.

The problem I face is the intuitive polarity between good/evil when compared to lawful/chaotic. The amount of disparity between good and evil is FAR greater then between lawful and chaotic, which is the reason the saves on the good/evil scale carry more weight.

slave_of_emotions · Post by **slave_of_emotions** » Thu May 12, 2005 3:49 pm

Aiquandol wrote: The problem I face is the intuitive polarity between good/evil when compared to lawful/chaotic. The amount of disparity between good and evil is FAR greater then between lawful and chaotic, which is the reason the saves on the good/evil scale carry more weight.

That might be the case in prime words like krynn, forgotten realms and others that are focused on the good vs. evil plots, but the polaritys as you call it are in planescape between all same strong, thats the special about planescape it is not the old boring good versus evil that people see evryday in movies like star wars or any other fantasy storys (FR, Krynn as mentioned above).

And that with -2 charisma checks was jsut a example, when a evil chars goes to arborea he gets -2 on saves. when a lawfull char goes there he gets -2 too, you can see on this that the polarity between law and chaos / good and evil in planescape are same strong. There are as many conflicts between law and chaos as evil and good, most factions conflicts even are more about this aspect then good and evil. Just look at the bloodwar, demons and baatzu are most of the time busy fighting eachother (chaos-law) and bother less about those good celestials, as you see it then the baatzu and demons should have joined long ago they powers and destroyed the celestials. It goes even further that lawful celestials hope that the lawfull baatzu will win the blood war if someone has ever to win it, "because they know how to fight them but not the chaotic and freedon loving demons" - from "on hallowed grounds"

other examples: clerics that travel between planes, magical items that lost its power.
Remember that you are on outer planes where chaos,law,good,evil are same strong.

slave_of_emotions · Post by **slave_of_emotions** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:00 pm

Since we have quite a bit more high level characters here than we would at a PnP table, the saves are a bit beefed up.

My character is lvl 24 and would he be lawfull evil then he would be never able to do this save, and i am lucky that i get from my outsider lvl +2 to all saves.

how many high level chars are there or not should be never a reason to calculate those saves, what will you tell all those low lvl chars anyways ? sorry guy... just powergame and catch up with the other high lvls.
Or perhaps adjust all saves, because all high level chars have at least a 70 % chance to save a mage spell.

Gairus · Post by **Gairus** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:04 pm

Word of faith is a high level spell.

Generally it hits you when you are high level.

slave_of_emotions · Post by **slave_of_emotions** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:05 pm

Gairus wrote:Word of faith is a high level spell.

Generally it hits you when you are high level.

yes and the high lvl of spell adds to the save spell DC.

And dont get oftopic from my posts

the point is that on ysgard lawful chars should have it harder to save it then a evil char. Thats the nature of this plane.

Aiquandol · Post by **Aiquandol** » Thu May 12, 2005 5:37 pm

"the point is that on ysgard lawful chars should have it harder to save it then a evil char. Thats the nature of this plane."

This is incorrect.

However, your points have been taken. The idea is to have a level 20 prime material CG character succede against another level 20 casting the spell, 50% of the time. It is not currently at the point and that is currently being adjusted accordingly. I'm sorry, but an evil character is not going to be able to gel into ysgard as easily as any aligned good character, which is the reason for the harder alignment hit on good/evil than law/chaos. An evil character does not fight for sport in ysgardian battles, but would be fighting against the other Ysgardians for intent to cause pain and suffering. A lawful character, on the other hand, would not cause as many detrimental effects to the plane other than create minor amounts of unwanted order.

If you want proof of this, compare Grimm and T'holoth and tell me which would fit in better.

Either
A.) Someone that kills/mutilates babies or
B.) Someone that tries to assist Nagritch in becoming more structured.

Evil would be more opposite of the plane that lawful good. Regardless of the 'stuggle' that may exist the elementals of the alignments still remain.

Word of faith is a high level spell.

Generally it hits you when you are high level.

Both you and I know perfectly well that level 15 is NOT high level anymore.

Also, what do we say to the low level planar travelers that are on Hala and piss of a native enough to get banished? Tough luck bud.
It's about as likely that a character of such level would easily be destroyed by weaker death magic though.

Zombie · Post by **Zombie** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:11 pm

outsider *sniff* I feel so unwanted

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » Thu May 12, 2005 11:50 pm

so uhhh is grimm a ysgard resident or a demon?

DarknessFallsLight · Post by **DarknessFallsLight** » Fri May 13, 2005 12:10 am

Zombie wrote:outsider *sniff* I feel so unwanted

You and me both Zombie

micah ormane · Post by **micah ormane** » Fri May 13, 2005 12:39 am

Wasn't Grimm native to Mystara? Or was he rolled up here?

apandapion · Post by **apandapion** » Fri May 13, 2005 1:32 am

DarknessFallsLight wrote:
Zombie wrote:outsider *sniff* I feel so unwanted
You and me both Zombie

I'm a LN outsider. Whatever this spell does, it's going to happen to me.

Fredegar · Post by **Fredegar** » Fri May 13, 2005 1:48 am

*cackles and twiddles fingers*

My halfling will be classified as 'native' I do believe. Fear the halflings, for our Day of Discovery is nigh!

-Love the change proposal.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » Fri May 13, 2005 1:58 am

Grimms a ghost elf so he was rolled up on Avlis, but according to the definition of "ysgardian" that i just read it was defined as being resident to hala, and being selected by the DM's. What Im asking really is, would grimm be considered a demon just because hes demon army?

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » Fri May 13, 2005 2:00 am

Ysgardian: A character made on Hala, or a charcter that has become a hala resident. This status can only be granted by a DM using the Naturalization wand.

Just to quote the definition that Coloures gave. Grimm has seldom left hala in the past 8 month or so. Only a handful of times.

VIpAcT · Post by **VIpAcT** » Fri May 13, 2005 3:12 am

I’ve been wondering what the alignment of petitioners is supposed to be on Ysgard. Is it not supposed to be CN with a slant toward good?

If this is the case, I think slave_of_emotions saves are more in tune with the plane. It is not Arborea after all. While I am not discounting your points, Aiq, you mention that it has to do with intuitive polarities noticed. This is showcased because the players have created this atmosphere against the norm by enacting extremes. The law/chaos axis many times is neglected, but, for the most part, it should be taken with the same weight as good/evil. In a planescape setting, like those sigil factions, you can see that law and chaos are more pronounced. For example, the mercy killers is actually the compilation of two smaller groups that banded together not to get pwned all together. One group was leaning more toward LG and the other more toward LE.

LG would conceivably be farther away than CE, but LE would be the furthest still. There are two reasons why Tholoth may seem to fit in better than Grimm. First of all, Grimm is playing suicidal antagonist. He goes out of his way to provoke other characters, perhaps even neutral ones and gives little thought to the situation. This is not the case for all chaotic evil characters, as being chaotic evil does not dictate you have to act like nexus of destruction. It more says that they would go after they want without regard of anyone else as long as it’s beneficial for them.

Tholoth on the on the other hand is forced to resort to more “chaotic” means. If he came to Ysgard and tried to act out some seriously LG things he would be at a disadvantage. Say if he was opposed against some chaotic evil character and he started trying to enforce his code of conduct on them. The evil character would think, what is all this crock? Then attack him out of the blue unguarded when he least expected it or, if he was too dangerous, he’d go and burn down Tholoth’s house and hide the tracks. It was outside of Nagritch so your screwed, hehe. “In celestia, you would have been doing degrading manual labor for years!” Whereas, a CG character may live light and would have not have a well known place of residence. A Ysgardian may even taunt the LG character for being a weakling in that situation and having to resort to their sissy laws for assurance.

It tends more toward good in terms of players because players tend to play good. It’s a slightly uncharacteristic affect, like Nagritch being a bastion of law. It just is not the case for the rest of the plane.

Aiquandol · Post by **Aiquandol** » Fri May 13, 2005 6:48 am

Grimm would be a demon.

All of your points have been taken into account and the matter will be discussed with the rest of the team.

Aiquandol · Post by **Aiquandol** » Fri May 13, 2005 8:30 am

Please make note of the rule changes. They may or may not be final.