Talk:Favored Soul

Wings Alternatives

I would love to personalize this by creating some sort of alt-ability that isn't fucking wings. -gm

What about a DM-chosen elemental/outsider companion of 12 HD? (I.e. somewhat like the creatures from Planar Ally.) For balance purposes, I think Druid animal companions are like 16-18 hit dice at this level, a Paladin mount would be ~12HD in this range, and a Leadership cohort could be level 16. -Mattie

That's a good idea. Another might be some sort of powerful and interesting aura. Like a permanent magic circle against chaos centered on the player or something. --Msallen

I was going to propose the Aura of Menace that archons get, but it had wording in there about removing the effect if they were hit by an attack. While good, I figured this wouldn't be as universally handy as Wings might be. Still some sort of circle/aura thing is a good idea, too. -Mattie

My idea was a sort of slotted-permanency spell mechanic, where you could swap out X spell levels worth of eligible spells on yourself that have a permanent duration, during some ritual that is time consuming but XP free. Where X is, perhaps, your unmodified CHR modifier. -gm

Alt: Deathless : The sunrise/sunset (depending on alignment) after you are killed, you rise again as if by a raise dead spell, suffering all related losses. You still age normally, and will still die when your maximum age is reached.

I have an issue with this one, but its... well... difficult to classify I guess. Player death generally only happens when a) the player is generally ok with it (ie. won't quit) and b) it seems like it will drive the story in a good way. At least with my experience in our games, players don't generally die in the middle of insignificant fights--they die in high risk situations where they can at least go out with some bang. If its a frivolous death, I suspect there are some fudged die rolls and second chances that usually prevent it. Not to say GM isn't mean and harsh--just that dieing because you failed a low DC save on a trap that was put in a hall to be a speedbump doesn't tell a good story, and that's really what its all about.

I have an issue with this line of thought and I don't agree with it and, if taken to the extreme, is going to end up getting someone killed. It's not *all* about the story, it's *all* about fun and the game. If *all* I cared about was the story, I'd go back to being a writer. I think this PoV ends up bringing with it essentially the same mindset as Freddie and Fannie - "Well, we've got an implicit guarantee of health, so lets undevalue risk!"

I think part of your feeling that was is because, frankly, we never get beyond 10th or 12th level very often in ANY of our games, which is right about the time THAT particular idea (death is rare and unlikely) goes out the window. LE is throwing PKs around like crazy, and soon you guys will start facing them on your own. By the time you hit level 18, things like Power Word Kill, Finger of Death, et al. are amazingly, amazingly prevalent.

Also, you'll notice I don't *believe* in "insignificant fights," in that every fight is potentially lethal. I don't subscribe to the WotC/D&D standard dungeon crawl model of fighting a bunch of weenies then going to rest.

At the end of the day, I don't believe that "it's all about the story" is a valid point of view, and I'm the storyteller. Like all collaborative activities, everyone defines "what it's about" a different way.

Also, as an aside, I think player death even in minor combats "moves the story forward" because the "story" is interactive and morphic and continues apace if no one dies or if everyone does. Also, the effect of a player death on the party automatically has storyline significance-gm

What this really tells me is that some people are expecting me to bail them out. If all we care about is interactive storytelling, let's break out the Once Upon a Time cards. -gm

Given that, this ability has pretty limited value. Chances are good that all that will really happen is the player will not get the second chances that they would normally have got, and they will come back to life. It could be a cool story moment, but chances are good that it will not be. In which case, this ability should read: at some point in the future, you will die for some silly reason that you probably would't have died from if you didn't have this ability, and your resurrection will be somewhat more flavorful. It'll sort of end up like Anise's death, which was fine for a 1st level item power, but seems weak for a 17th level class ability. --Msallen

As above. Flawed premises lead to highly flawed presumptions. You are cogs in the wheel, and while you are stars of your own stories, you are not the stars of THE story. You are characters like all the rest. Also, I don't care if people quit after they die, and I've never really cared if people got pissed at me. -gm

Divine Casters of the world

So, Mainland has Clerics, and Petara has Favored Souls as befitting their more decentralized religion. Druids and rangers are the sole divine casters among the Sidhe, and never become favored souls, although both Druids and Favored Souls are rare but not unheard of among the Halflings. -gm