Taint [Archive] - Wizards Community - Pages Merged by Solauren

Taint [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
bholdr_mage
12-12-06, 06:01 PM I plan to use the UA version or a similar version of this rule set. Anyone use it before?

I think the 1d3 is a good amount. I plan to have all arcane spellcasters roll a will save for taint, or take the wis damage. This refers to any activated arcane magic item or potion, etc.

Of course high will saves, lessor restoration, and sparingly using arcane magic will negate the undead cause, but I want a gritty flavor; a magic knowledge corrupts flavor.

Comments?
TroubleWolf
12-12-06, 08:35 PM I once played in a campaign with this Taint ruleset. I'm not sure how strict the DM was as compared to the rules, but we quickly adapted and learned to get around it. I would advise against giving your players a way to detect the taint, and against items that make one immune to the taint.

We had an Artificer in our party, and as soon as those items showed up, he produced enough of them for the whole party to have, and we really didn't worry about it from there on out.
bholdr_mage
12-12-06, 09:50 PM A way to detect it? Well, there's the visual side effect of one becoming more undead.

Magic items? Nah, here's why:

Setting: Forgotten Realms
Time frame: Some time in the near future.

Now I know there's a supplement coming out called Cormyr: Tearing of the weave; and I swear there are mind probes in my apartment, but currently Cyric is teaming with Shar and Gruumsh to take down Bane. What does Shar get? The destruction of the weave, or Mystra. What does Gruumsh get? Portfolios from Bane (namely the ones Cyric already has, so his followers just see them as cannon fodder.) Gruumsh doesn't know anything about the detruction of the weave, and Cyric doesn't care. Cyric followers already cast things from the shadow realm, so this wouldn't be too big of change; and besides he's already got a pact that cyric followers can tap the shadow weave without penalties from the Shadow Adept feat or whatever it's called.

Anyway, by the time my current campaign gets to April, My wife and I are moving too far away to continue this current campaign. So I'm moving things into the future where Cyric and Shar have already succeeded in the destruction of the weave.

That was several years ago (game time). Now, dieties create their own "weaves" for the ones that revere them. For greater control, they can take the divine magic away as they see fit if the follower doesn't do what they wish. This allows all divine magic to function normally. Psionics (which I'm trying to push on to my players that say they want to try it) functions independently of the weave. So the players will have access to those "spellcasters." Plus, as long as the prereq's for the magic item is psionic or divine, they won't have to worry about taint.

Meanwhile, Shar is loving the attention...for a while. Suddenly everyone wants to use her powers and...she...can't...take...it; and she snaps, turning into complete madness. The shadow magic casters use with her weave feel the maddening embrace, and must use their minds to break control; or else fall under the influence of madness themselves....
Dumat
12-20-06, 03:31 PM I use the taint mechanic in my setting (see the link in my sig) and i love it. The best way to handle the protective items problem mentioned above is to just limit them to one or two kinds of items that are only available in a certain part of the campaign world. For example, the only protection in my campaign is the wood from a huge tree sacred to the halfling tribes in a nasty swamp (it's actually a high-level druid...fun times). The halflings will sell a cutting to a PC deemed worthy for 100 gp, but they are very picky about who gets one. Usually you have to do something for the tribe that proves your mettle and your goodness, etc.

I'm also considering replacing negative levels in my game with taint points entirely...i.e., a vampire's slam would give you a number of taint points equal to 2x the number of negative levels he'd usually bestow, etc.
bholdr_mage
12-21-06, 08:09 PM Geez...your campaign world is strikingly similar to the next campaign I intend to run. That's bizzare.

I really like the "taint for negative levels" thing like vampire slams and such. Vampires are always cool. :cool:

While the gem meteorite thing would be cool; me thinks it would be better if no one knew where it ended up...kind of like the demons of Kyber in the Eberron setting. I don't like that taint can replace alignment; nor necessarily places (I suppose a few would erk my future players though), but I absolutely love the corruption of the arts. I think I'll start calling arcane magic "black magic." :D

If you would, give me some examples of problems you've had, and let me know how easy it is for a player to turn to the undead. Would you think a will save after a certain level of taint would be in order after reaching those certain levels to prevent oneself from using taint oriented spells (and etc.)? Treating it like an addiction to drugs after the high area of the middle level of taint.
Edea
12-23-06, 01:38 AM I notice Heroes of Horror (a non-campaign specific D&D supplement) has not been mentioned yet.

If you're using taint, be careful about this supplement. The Pure Soul feat in there makes you permanently immune to all forms of taint, it makes taking on an undead template quite appealing (either through a PrC, through a base class, or as an LA adjustment), and the Tainted Scholar PrC will make you wish you'd never even dreamed of including the system (one word: borked). I don't know about the UA variant, but they sound similar.

Be prepared to have a party whose non-physical side is made up of psions, wilders, clerics and druids. I would play a psion over most arcanists anyway (they're not in the core three, so many campaigns don't allow them, which makes me normally gravitate towards druids and sorcerers), much less in a taint system that penalizes arcane spellcasting.
bholdr_mage
12-23-06, 10:00 PM Thanks for bringing up HoH!

I think I bought the supplement for the dreamscape encounters...I really haven't used it much. I believe HoH goes off of the UA variant, It's in the SRD anyway, FYI.

In my games, characters must have training to learn feats, spells, levels, and whatever. This isn't really fleshed out as far as RPed, but it's more of a time factor, and believability factor. One wouldn't be able to learn much about Profession: Sailing in the middle of the Anaurach desert; unless it was sand sailing! With all the supplements out there, I generally make the races, complete, core, psionic, setting stuff, and things like the SC and the like readily available for character creation and selection. I personally believe that is enough; but if players want things from other supplements, they may present it to me and if it's not detrimental to the campaign (such as immunity to taint) I normally OK it. It's not really an issue with if it's balanced; rather it's normally an issue with how it fits flavor wise, campaign background, and crazy alternate rulings. I have all my players print out relevant info (as in copying spells, feats and the like in a word document for easy access during the game...it helps speed things up tremendously), so we know the rulings will be simple and direct.

I have a variant druid; one that cuts the power down to not make it so significantly overpowered than the...anything else but the cleric. I also have a variant cleric. These don't nerf them horribly...it's more like the kits from second edition without giving them the godly power they can wield RAW; especially at later levels. If you'd like to see the renditions, PM me your email addy and I'll attach the word doc and send it back.

Psions are the obvious choice for damage dealing. Not every encounter can be dealt with by dealing damage though. While they have Time Hop and a few similar "obscurity spells," they really have nothing that can compete with enchantment, necromancy, and illusion...namely the three favorites of the shadow weave; imagine that.

This upcoming campaign is to introduce psionics to die-hard gamers that don't have them in the games they currently are in. They're either afraid of earlier editions of the system, or just don't like that flavor. Most of these guys use magic as their answer to everything...example...how do we do blank? Is there a potion that can help us??? And I just want to challenge a bunch of friends that are used to thinking inside the box. I wanted a shake up too. After 10 years of DMing, doing something different is fresh and exciting.
Dumat
12-25-06, 10:33 AM I bought Heroes of Horror, and I have mixed feelings about it. I think they basically took the insanity points variant and the taint variant from UA and smushed them together. I don't use it at the moment, but I *love* taint elementals.

Re: the will save to avoid using taint spells like a drug addiction, it's sort of in there....the idea being that the only way to avoid killing yourself with taint if you're using tainted arcane power or the like is to take the tainted sorcerer or tainted warrior prestige class (and I'm working on an open game version of tainted psion). These classes mitigate the penalty you take from taint to your ability scores and let you utilize your taint score as something of an asset, but you have to make a will save every time you try to progress in another class; if you fail you take another level in the tainted class against your will.

As far as turning undead, I also hate the turn undead rules, mostly as I see them as a uselessly complicated thing that stops combat while the cleric consults his turn undead table in the Player's Handbook. We use the variant system that, instead of turning them normally, damages undead instead. I *think* the variant is either in UA, Complete Divine, or Book of Exalted Deeds [I'm away from home; when I get back I'll check my books :) ]

Honestly, I really can't think of a problem we've had with using taint in the game. It meshes *really* well with the core mechanic of the game. And, my players have done really well avoiding its effects....but they're scared to death of it, which is the point anyway. :)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
bholdr_mage 12-12-06, 06:01 PM	I plan to use the UA version or a similar version of this rule set. Anyone use it before? I think the 1d3 is a good amount. I plan to have all arcane spellcasters roll a will save for taint, or take the wis damage. This refers to any activated arcane magic item or potion, etc. Of course high will saves, lessor restoration, and sparingly using arcane magic will negate the undead cause, but I want a gritty flavor; a magic knowledge corrupts flavor. Comments?
TroubleWolf 12-12-06, 08:35 PM	I once played in a campaign with this Taint ruleset. I'm not sure how strict the DM was as compared to the rules, but we quickly adapted and learned to get around it. I would advise against giving your players a way to detect the taint, and against items that make one immune to the taint. We had an Artificer in our party, and as soon as those items showed up, he produced enough of them for the whole party to have, and we really didn't worry about it from there on out.
bholdr_mage 12-12-06, 09:50 PM	A way to detect it? Well, there's the visual side effect of one becoming more undead. Magic items? Nah, here's why: Setting: Forgotten Realms Time frame: Some time in the near future. Now I know there's a supplement coming out called Cormyr: Tearing of the weave; and I swear there are mind probes in my apartment, but currently Cyric is teaming with Shar and Gruumsh to take down Bane. What does Shar get? The destruction of the weave, or Mystra. What does Gruumsh get? Portfolios from Bane (namely the ones Cyric already has, so his followers just see them as cannon fodder.) Gruumsh doesn't know anything about the detruction of the weave, and Cyric doesn't care. Cyric followers already cast things from the shadow realm, so this wouldn't be too big of change; and besides he's already got a pact that cyric followers can tap the shadow weave without penalties from the Shadow Adept feat or whatever it's called. Anyway, by the time my current campaign gets to April, My wife and I are moving too far away to continue this current campaign. So I'm moving things into the future where Cyric and Shar have already succeeded in the destruction of the weave. That was several years ago (game time). Now, dieties create their own "weaves" for the ones that revere them. For greater control, they can take the divine magic away as they see fit if the follower doesn't do what they wish. This allows all divine magic to function normally. Psionics (which I'm trying to push on to my players that say they want to try it) functions independently of the weave. So the players will have access to those "spellcasters." Plus, as long as the prereq's for the magic item is psionic or divine, they won't have to worry about taint. Meanwhile, Shar is loving the attention...for a while. Suddenly everyone wants to use her powers and...she...can't...take...it; and she snaps, turning into complete madness. The shadow magic casters use with her weave feel the maddening embrace, and must use their minds to break control; or else fall under the influence of madness themselves....
Dumat 12-20-06, 03:31 PM	I use the taint mechanic in my setting (see the link in my sig) and i love it. The best way to handle the protective items problem mentioned above is to just limit them to one or two kinds of items that are only available in a certain part of the campaign world. For example, the only protection in my campaign is the wood from a huge tree sacred to the halfling tribes in a nasty swamp (it's actually a high-level druid...fun times). The halflings will sell a cutting to a PC deemed worthy for 100 gp, but they are very picky about who gets one. Usually you have to do something for the tribe that proves your mettle and your goodness, etc. I'm also considering replacing negative levels in my game with taint points entirely...i.e., a vampire's slam would give you a number of taint points equal to 2x the number of negative levels he'd usually bestow, etc.
bholdr_mage 12-21-06, 08:09 PM	Geez...your campaign world is strikingly similar to the next campaign I intend to run. That's bizzare. I really like the "taint for negative levels" thing like vampire slams and such. Vampires are always cool. :cool: While the gem meteorite thing would be cool; me thinks it would be better if no one knew where it ended up...kind of like the demons of Kyber in the Eberron setting. I don't like that taint can replace alignment; nor necessarily places (I suppose a few would erk my future players though), but I absolutely love the corruption of the arts. I think I'll start calling arcane magic "black magic." :D If you would, give me some examples of problems you've had, and let me know how easy it is for a player to turn to the undead. Would you think a will save after a certain level of taint would be in order after reaching those certain levels to prevent oneself from using taint oriented spells (and etc.)? Treating it like an addiction to drugs after the high area of the middle level of taint.
Edea 12-23-06, 01:38 AM	I notice Heroes of Horror (a non-campaign specific D&D supplement) has not been mentioned yet. If you're using taint, be careful about this supplement. The Pure Soul feat in there makes you permanently immune to all forms of taint, it makes taking on an undead template quite appealing (either through a PrC, through a base class, or as an LA adjustment), and the Tainted Scholar PrC will make you wish you'd never even dreamed of including the system (one word: borked). I don't know about the UA variant, but they sound similar. Be prepared to have a party whose non-physical side is made up of psions, wilders, clerics and druids. I would play a psion over most arcanists anyway (they're not in the core three, so many campaigns don't allow them, which makes me normally gravitate towards druids and sorcerers), much less in a taint system that penalizes arcane spellcasting.
bholdr_mage 12-23-06, 10:00 PM	Thanks for bringing up HoH! I think I bought the supplement for the dreamscape encounters...I really haven't used it much. I believe HoH goes off of the UA variant, It's in the SRD anyway, FYI. In my games, characters must have training to learn feats, spells, levels, and whatever. This isn't really fleshed out as far as RPed, but it's more of a time factor, and believability factor. One wouldn't be able to learn much about Profession: Sailing in the middle of the Anaurach desert; unless it was sand sailing! With all the supplements out there, I generally make the races, complete, core, psionic, setting stuff, and things like the SC and the like readily available for character creation and selection. I personally believe that is enough; but if players want things from other supplements, they may present it to me and if it's not detrimental to the campaign (such as immunity to taint) I normally OK it. It's not really an issue with if it's balanced; rather it's normally an issue with how it fits flavor wise, campaign background, and crazy alternate rulings. I have all my players print out relevant info (as in copying spells, feats and the like in a word document for easy access during the game...it helps speed things up tremendously), so we know the rulings will be simple and direct. I have a variant druid; one that cuts the power down to not make it so significantly overpowered than the...anything else but the cleric. I also have a variant cleric. These don't nerf them horribly...it's more like the kits from second edition without giving them the godly power they can wield RAW; especially at later levels. If you'd like to see the renditions, PM me your email addy and I'll attach the word doc and send it back. Psions are the obvious choice for damage dealing. Not every encounter can be dealt with by dealing damage though. While they have Time Hop and a few similar "obscurity spells," they really have nothing that can compete with enchantment, necromancy, and illusion...namely the three favorites of the shadow weave; imagine that. This upcoming campaign is to introduce psionics to die-hard gamers that don't have them in the games they currently are in. They're either afraid of earlier editions of the system, or just don't like that flavor. Most of these guys use magic as their answer to everything...example...how do we do blank? Is there a potion that can help us??? And I just want to challenge a bunch of friends that are used to thinking inside the box. I wanted a shake up too. After 10 years of DMing, doing something different is fresh and exciting.
Dumat 12-25-06, 10:33 AM	I bought Heroes of Horror, and I have mixed feelings about it. I think they basically took the insanity points variant and the taint variant from UA and smushed them together. I don't use it at the moment, but I love taint elementals. Re: the will save to avoid using taint spells like a drug addiction, it's sort of in there....the idea being that the only way to avoid killing yourself with taint if you're using tainted arcane power or the like is to take the tainted sorcerer or tainted warrior prestige class (and I'm working on an open game version of tainted psion). These classes mitigate the penalty you take from taint to your ability scores and let you utilize your taint score as something of an asset, but you have to make a will save every time you try to progress in another class; if you fail you take another level in the tainted class against your will. As far as turning undead, I also hate the turn undead rules, mostly as I see them as a uselessly complicated thing that stops combat while the cleric consults his turn undead table in the Player's Handbook. We use the variant system that, instead of turning them normally, damages undead instead. I think the variant is either in UA, Complete Divine, or Book of Exalted Deeds [I'm away from home; when I get back I'll check my books :) ] Honestly, I really can't think of a problem we've had with using taint in the game. It meshes really well with the core mechanic of the game. And, my players have done really well avoiding its effects....but they're scared to death of it, which is the point anyway. :)