New Guy with a TWISTED class idea...

[nahaloth]

Hi there. I'm an old school D&D player (I'm talking 1st edition, non advanced, box set that wasn't allowed in bible belt schools) who has been on hiatus from pen and paper RPGs for about ten years. Last time I played was on 2nd Ed rule set; I quit shortly before 3rd became more than a rumor. I still have a shirt that says "What's your THAC0?" on the front. Keep this in mind when reading the post below; I have been out of the loop for a long time and I am still catching up to the new rule system. If you see anything messed up, let me know so I can correct it

A friend of mine invited me to a session this coming weekend, but he asked that I bring something new to the table. I turned up the thermostat on the old noodle a bit and came up with one nasty class. Keep in mind, this idea actually comes from a novel I am writing and it IS COPYRIGHTED, right down to the name. The text below is a (lame) attempt to turn a truly vile creature into a playable class.


****************BEWARE! There is some REALLY sick stuff below. If you are easily offended by the thought of human sacrifice or torture, please do not read this.*********************

Class overview: Baaliathan

Baaliathans are born into a life of untold agony and Hellsish misery. Their mothers are tortured to enduce (often premature) labor in order to attract the attention of a demon. In order to keep the demon's attention, she is tortured throughout the birthing process (as if the agony of childbirth isn't enough).

Once the child is born, the mother is slain. Her blood is used to wash the child as a brand is applied to the newborn's chest. This binds the demon to the child's heart until death, which will come swiftly from disease or infection if the child is lucky. If thechild is unfortunate enough to survive (only 1 in 4 actually live through this), he is forever forward driven by rage and masochism.

All Baaliathans are members of the Crimson Chalice, a twisted cult that worships pain in its many forms. The pain they feel feeds the demon to which they are bound, who in turn grants them unbelievable physical strength (+3 base modifier), regenerative powers (still working out the new system, no numbers yet), and near limitless stamina in a fight (bonus healing surges?).

On the downside, they are physically disfigured, as the primary means of pain worship is to experience it. Chalice followers routinely mutilate themselves with blades, brands, broken glass, acid, bludgeoning instruments, anything that can cause bodily harm and scarring. They often implant bits of broken glass and slivers of metal in various parts of their bodies to experience endless pain while doing simple things, like breathing.

Baaliathans are easy to spot for this reason; they look like they pulled a faceplant into an open tackle box and then rolled into a fire. Thus, their Charisma can NEVER exceed 6, and when they Rage it can drop into the negative. A Baaliathan must grow very wise if he can ever hope to conquer his demon and bend its will to his own...

Due to their twisted nature, Baaliathans are restricted to Evil alignments (NE, LE, CE). The demons to which they are bound exercise an iron grip on their souls; the only way to overcome the evil within them is to lose the very thing that gives them strength.

The pinnacle of a Baaliathan's power is his ability to Rage. Upon choosing to do so, they will use a ceremonial knife (often dull, serrated and pitted with rust) to hack off one of their own limbs. The agony caused by this act is such that the demon within them unleashes all of its power. The Baaliathan will immediately regenerate his lost limb and grow to twice his normal size, gaining a +6 modifier to strength. Regeneration increases by half the Baaliathan's level, rounded down at odd numbers (+1 at level 1). He will then take up his own severed limb, which will change form to that of the Baaliathan's favored weapon while in his "normal" state, save that it looks like it is forged of bloody bone and sinew. This weapon will act as a Vicious Weapon, with certain modifications (see below). Upon raging, the Baaliathan must perform a Will save every round in order to maintain control. If he fails, he will begin attacking everything in sight (friends, enemies, little kids, the Spice Girls, nothing is safe) until he is killed or the rage ends. See tables below for Rage durations at different levels.

Temp HP gained during a Rage are treated like any other temp HP, with the exception that a Baaliathan's demon will slowly regenerate him up to 1 HP at the rate of 1 HP per round, unless HP falls below -10, at which point the Baaliathan will die. Once dead, he cannot be resurrected. Honestly, who would want to? Things are freakish...

Due to its extremely dangerous side effects (and not to mention its insane killing power), the Rage can only be called upon once a day, and only after a full on Ritual of Torment (a very unpleasant method of worship involving blood borrowed from someone other than the Baaliathan, gathered in a rather unsanitary and painful fashion).

The disfigurement of their bodies combined with the Rage ability means that a Baaliathan cannot wear armor of any type. Most of them wear simple clothing that can be easily discarded, like loincloths or basic robes. Pulling off a Rage in Mithril full plate could have very messy consequences for the Baaliathan or anyone within the splatter zone.

In normal form, Baaliathans can wield weapons in the same manner as any fighter. They prefer to use weapons that will cause the greatest amount of damage in the shortest possible time, like greatswords and double axes. Some have been seen using oddly tipped flails and scourge-like implements to flay flesh from their enemies (or their friends, upon request).

Another drawback to being a Baaliathan is the demand for sacrifice. The demon within demands the ritual sacrifice of one pure soul every full moon. If this demand is not met, the demon will begin wasting the Baaliathan's flesh from within, causing an excrutiating death before dragging the Baaliathan's corrupted soul to the very depths of... well, pick your undesirable destination for the afterlife.


**EDIT: Removed tables due to stupid formatting mistakes and unwillingness to correct them at this time. I will post them later after I've had some sleep **

Pretty much sums it up. I know it may need serious balancing; that's why I am bringing this here. If it's too powerful, or just too freakin sick, let me know. These guys are great tanks (obviously), but VERY hard to role play due to their demonic nature. I plan on springing this on an unsuspecting party this weekend. Can't wait to see how they react when my char starts chopping off his own body parts and beating people to death with them XD

Thanks for reading

-N

[shift244]

Whoo... it's 10 days since your post. You would've sat through one of the sessions already (hope it ran well, but honestly doing something like this while still learning the ropes is really asking for a lot of trouble); if you're still checking this out, here goes:

First off, you have not pointed out which version of the D&D Rules set you have in mind for this. You mentioned "Healing Surges" which is a 4E mechanical concept that does not exist in 3.xE.

#1. "Baaliathans are born..." - Straight off you mentioned class. This would be best represented as a Race instead of a class, since they are born. Further descriptions also point to abilities as innate/birth granted and not because of any class they have taken up. I suggest revising this to a class.

#2. "All Baaliathans are members of the Crimson Chalice" - Now, a member of the Crimson Chalice might take up various roles in the order. It might be worthwhile to consider classes for these various positions, or in 4E, Paragon Paths for a few of the base classes or Prestige Classes for 3.xE.

#3. Attribute bonus/penalty - The system generally adhere to even numbered numbers when granting racial bonuses to any attribute score. Reason being that attribute bonuses raise/drop at every even total. So the Strength bonus would be better revised to a +4.

Charisma has also been revised from appearance (as I understand is what it is in earlier editions) to "force of character" since early 3.0E and has persisted as such a representation from what I gather so far. So the Charisma limitation might not work exactly as you wanted to. I also personally do not favor limiting an attribute score to any set maximum. A heft penalty would work, something like -4. It would also fit the back story about the mangled flesh and all that, but without limiting the score to set maximum. If there are few Charisma powered abilities, there is also little reason push the score high considering the amount of resources needed to push it up to begin with.

#4. Alignment limitation is common enough, and fair enough.

#5. Rage - reads to be a fairly powerful class ability, but we can work it out to be something along the lines of the 3.xE Enlage spell. This would give a mechanical representation and it would seem like a fair Racial ability. The one step up size change, additional Strength... all match.

#6. The Vicious weapon - it's too varied, although it might be a safe assumption that players would pick the weapon with the statistically greatest numerical benefit. However, I would suggest fixing the weapon damage die to say, 1d10, crit rage to 19-20 and standard crit damage. Description, as mentioned can be anything you like.

#7. Hit Points - Not entirely clear about his part from your post. Pretty much, the creature automatically stabilizes itself and takes a number of rounds to reach 1HP.

4E does things differently as there is no -10 anymore. The value, would have a tendency to be greater than this value from level 2 onwards. This should be no problem in any event, although regen might be an issue. I suppose it could be a special ruling on this however...

#8. Armor - I'm not sure about race restrictions to armor. If this is coupled with class yeah, it works, as what you've posted fits a monster better. A simple restriction on the rage ability to fail when in any form of armor might work though.

#9. Sacrifice - This is more role play than actual mechanic, but something like a -2/-4 Constitution penalty at every failed required sacrifice enforces this element and will eventually kill the character. Or you can place a maximum of 2 missed sacrifices and you automatically die on the third as well.