AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

No, undeath is central. And Undead-like vision is just as consistent. If Palemaster was -the- graft class (which it isn't, see Acolyte of the Skin, and the fact that PMs do plenty of undeady things) then maybe I'd agree with you. But bodily transformation doesn't necessitate grafting.

I have a question, that I have brought up before and I don't think was ruled upon:

Are we going to look into the ability of PMs to use their grafts when shifted? I've seen a PM use Shapeshift to become a Death Slaad (or whatever one it is) and they used one of the bone arm abilities. I believe it was noted before that shouldn't work, since they are not touching them with their actual bone arm, or something.

the current systen allows proud outspoken pms to exist alongside their secretive brothers. I do support more abiities perhaps make them exclusive electives that cannot be hidden. All patties win. Also a note on concealment are we forgwtting that all pms are wizards? With magic where there os a will there is a way.

The thread title alone represents certain disrespect for the prestige class. I think the problem is in your opinions of how a palemaster should be played. I say play your PM the way you like and allow others to do the same. I understand your want to stereotype a type of character that is inherently stereotypical, but really I find it a turn off. Assassins hide their true nature in the light of day.
Why is it "good rp" for devout of secretive dieties such as Shar or Mask, to hide their true affiliation? But the PM moderately disguising his graft, sparing himself mocking stares and worse making a supply run "bad rp"?
Tome and Blood says "Often it is difficult to tell a pale master from the undead that he surrounds himself with." Also, pertaining to darkvision "the dark begins to lose its mysteries to the pale master" and the undead graft "may be completely skeletal or preserved flesh stitched in place like that of a flesh golem."
The point of these references is that if the player is playing the PM properly, thoughtfully, then is that not all we should ask for?
In short my two cents is that a bone arm and proper RP approach is plenty to distinguish the PM from other types of classes.

eighteenzero2 wrote:

Tome and Blood says "Often it is difficult to tell a pale master from the undead that he surrounds himself with."

This is exactly why this thread exists. Because an undead can't hide in plain sight, or easily be disguised to appear "normal".

Becoming a PM is a huge feat and as such wouldnt a PM take pride in what they've succeeded in doing? Other then that, I can see why the intelligent PM would want to hide their PMish features in some if not most situations to avoid the touch-mob effect.

There are functions to check if an arm is covered with scripts, thus its possible to apply penalties if the bone arm is covered. Its even possible to make PMs unable to use their PM abilities when their arm is covered.

Terra_777 wrote:

Becoming a PM is a huge feat and as such wouldnt a PM take pride in what they've succeeded in doing? Other then that, I can see why the intelligent PM would want to hide their PMish features in some if not most situations to avoid the touch-mob effect.

There are functions to check if an arm is covered with scripts, thus its possible to apply penalties if the bone arm is covered. Its even possible to make PMs unable to use their PM abilities when their arm is covered.

Do this.

Seems to make sense. Can't make physical contact through a glove. You'd just end up with palemasters that are covered in town and have uncovered battle armor though.

Yeah, that's what I was aiming for (though I was more concerned with the shapeshifting aspect). After all, it -does- make lore sense. If the arm is covered, you can't touch someone with it. I can see one issue being you can't just easily remove your gloves/wrappings before combat. But, then, that's not really an issues because when you think about it if you have a glove on your PC's bone arm (which, remember, it's the whole arm including the hand) you can't just instantly remove it. You would need to take the time to uncover it. If you have just a glove on that fits the bone hand ... that kind of defeats the point of using the glove in the first place, heh.

And NC, since you ninja'ed, I don't see the issue with that. It makes sense, so that sounds good. A PM will go into battle with it uncovered, but in public they might want to hide it. With this one couldn't just go *poke* 'U DED' with the arm covered.

Naivatkal wrote:

I can see one issue being you can't just easily remove your gloves/wrappings before combat.

We don't make people take 10min (or whatever it would be) to switch into their plate armor before combat either, so that really isn't an issue IMO.

If what Terra has suggested is possible (which, on thinking about it, I think I know how it would be done) that would seem to be the best route to take IMO.

I do also like the glowing eyes idea. Really doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine that the magic used to get visual data out of a dead eyeball would impart a malevolent glow.

It's nice for a wow factor, but what's the reasoning behind needing the glow to be there? Nothing says they grafted those eyes in or anything. I'm just curious on how it meshes with lore.

Nothing meshes with lore. Or rather, anything would mesh with lore, as soon as lore gets nailed down. Right now, all we have is a bunch of conflicting opinions and extrapolations, not really any "lore" at all. If it's decided that PMs get darkvision because their grafted wight eyes gleam with malevolence, then hey, bingo. Lore.

Glim wrote:

If what Terra has suggested is possible (which, on thinking about it, I think I know how it would be done) that would seem to be the best route to take IMO.

Was bored so something like this:

Code:

int GetIsArmUncovered( object oPC ){

    //Not a PC model
    if( GetAppearanceType( oPC ) > 6 )
        return FALSE;

    //Grab armor
    object oArmor = GetItemInSlot( INVENTORY_SLOT_CHEST, oPC );

    //No armor, assume uncovered
    if( !GetIsObjectValid( oArmor ) )
        return TRUE;

    //Grab part numbers
    int nBicep      = GetItemAppearance( oArmor, ITEM_APPR_TYPE_ARMOR_MODEL, ITEM_APPR_ARMOR_MODEL_LBICEP );
    int nForearm    = GetItemAppearance( oArmor, ITEM_APPR_TYPE_ARMOR_MODEL, ITEM_APPR_ARMOR_MODEL_LFOREARM );
    int nHand       = GetItemAppearance( oArmor, ITEM_APPR_TYPE_ARMOR_MODEL, ITEM_APPR_ARMOR_MODEL_LHAND );

    //Needs filling in with parts that count as uncovered
    if( ( nBicep == 0 || nBicep == 1 ) &&
        ( nForearm == 0 || nForearm == 1 ) &&
        ( nHand == 0 || nHand == 1 ) )
        return TRUE;

    //At this point we assume you're not uncovered
    return FALSE;
}

Apply to the spellhook to restrict the PM summons and x2_s2_undgraft1, x2_s2_dthmsttch for the graft attacks and that should do. The if-case needs filling out with parts that count as uncovered as I don't know which ones does.

The idea is to stop Palemasters from walking around like normal people as long as they have their arm covered - to that end, I'm okay with whatever process causing glowy eyes at 3rd level because that's a reasonable time for the effects to kick in. It doesn't totally make sense, but neither is it so outlandish and impossible that it couldn't make sense.

What I'm not okay with is stating that the darkvision can only come from eye grafts and nothing else, but that's not really the central issue here.

It's interesting to note, as I mentioned before, that it's not always just PMs hiding it but people not reading the bios which fully express it. Yeah, my PM had a bony skin tone and all. So something has to be done to the model. An option of buzzing flies/some other VFX would be okay too, if a little obtrusive.

Going back to Yoss's original post, I think a good way to get palemasters out and proud, in addition to glowing darkvision and the arm-clothing script, would be to create a few abilities to add to the palemaster's bonus feat list. They get three, at levels 13, 16 and 19. Were it my ball game, I'd script up 3-4 very enticing bonus feats, that have the drawback of some sort of very obvious, permanent visual.

Some ideas:

Lucius' Lord of the Flies: People attacking the palemaster take xdx damage on a successful hit, due to the cloud of stinging and biting insects that surround the palemaster. This comes with a permanent flies visual.

Stench of the Grave: Hostiles within x yards of the palemaster are nauseated unless they made a DC x fort save. Comes with a permanent green cloud.

Lillith's Lifting Wings: The palemaster gains flight by grafting on a set of bone and leather wings.

Troll Blood: The palemaster embalms them self with magically infused troll blood, granting x regeneration. Their skin turns a sickly green.

NinjaClarinet wrote:

They get three, at levels 13, 16 and 19.

Does anybody take PM past level 10? I've never contemplated a PM build; how useful is more than 10 levels of it?

Dragon Disciples can don a cloak and not mention their funky skin in the description at all, if they choose so. Blackguards can leave their aura off, last time I checked, even though it's supposed to be a permanent condition, and play buddy-buddy with Paladins because they chose not to give away any of their ungodly traits.

No, I'm not for forcing PMs to be discovered for what they are. If you don't do it with everybody else, then don't do it with them. Scaly skin is no different from ghoulish skin. And the details of the Palemaster's condition are entirely up to the player. Does he smell, or doesn't he? Is his skin just an unhealthy white or does he actually look bony, rotted or whatever? If you take these choices away from the player, it's just one more step towards "We tell you what this character is and how you're supposed to play him."

Lizzie wrote:

NinjaClarinet wrote:

They get three, at levels 13, 16 and 19.

Does anybody take PM past level 10? I've never contemplated a PM build; how useful is more than 10 levels of it?

Pretty useful. Very powerful summons, insane AC and ridiculous necromancy/graft DCs. Pretty sure Lucius is 10/20 and is probably our toughest guy

NinjaClarinet wrote:

Going back to Yoss's original post, I think a good way to get palemasters out and proud, in addition to glowing darkvision and the arm-clothing script, would be to create a few abilities to add to the palemaster's bonus feat list. They get three, at levels 13, 16 and 19. Were it my ball game, I'd script up 3-4 very enticing bonus feats, that have the drawback of some sort of very obvious, permanent visual.

Some ideas:

Lucius' Lord of the Flies: People attacking the palemaster take xdx damage on a successful hit, due to the cloud of stinging and biting insects that surround the palemaster. This comes with a permanent flies visual.

Stench of the Grave: Hostiles within x yards of the palemaster are nauseated unless they made a DC x fort save. Comes with a permanent green cloud.

Lillith's Lifting Wings: The palemaster gains flight by grafting on a set of bone and leather wings.

Troll Blood: The palemaster embalms them self with magically infused troll blood, granting x regeneration. Their skin turns a sickly green.

I like this idea. My biggest problem with palemasters though is the extensive abilites and combat bonuses they get, particularly to AC. It lends itself to melee PM builds which is ridiculous to me. PM should come from dedicating yourself to black magic, not from taking enough levels in an arcane class to dump a bunch of levels for insane AC bonuses.

That said, I LOVE NCs idea, maybe even go an extra distance and say to get the extra AC bonuses past a certain point (Its supposed to be from bone ya? Or something like that) the character would have to be even more phsically obviously jacked up, putting some sort of visual effect on them.

Yeah, one has to keep in mind that any changes made to the balance of the class will apply not only to the more standard archetype of palemaster but also to those that choose to use the class for melee perks, such as fighter/bard/palemaster. That said, as it stands, I'm not in much of a position to comment on how balanced the class is in any state... though the idea of a damage shielded, regenerating, critical immune melee tank does seem a little scary!

Regarding more physical changes and or the denial of abilities if one chooses to cover their grafts: I'm all for it. As far as I can see it can only create more scenarios for interesting roleplay.

I'm not opposed to negative impacts to fighter/bard/palemaster melee builds myself, because as I said I find said builds ridiculously silly and stupid. To me Palemastery (As well as Paladin, Monk, Blackguard, and Dragon Disciple) are not careers so much as a way of life, and I never really liked that people can multiclass like crazy with those.

NinjaClarinet wrote:

Lizzie wrote:

NinjaClarinet wrote:

They get three, at levels 13, 16 and 19.

Does anybody take PM past level 10? I've never contemplated a PM build; how useful is more than 10 levels of it?

Pretty useful. Very powerful summons, insane AC and ridiculous necromancy/graft DCs. Pretty sure Lucius is 10/20 and is probably our toughest guy

*terrible if you want to be any sort of real spellcaster and not use a gimmick, but pretty cool otherwise, since you get all the summons by being 20/10

CouncilofAutumn wrote:

In before Lucius asks for "D: All of the above"

I was going to request all of the above + everything other in PM package anyway, so one huge, epic, YES please.

I was going to post something along Ninja's suggestion.

The arm-covering trick is fine. It doesn't change much because your nature is apparent as soon as you use your abilities, anyway. Sucking the life out of someone with your bone arm is pretty obvious even if you wear a glove.

But on to the cool factor!

Why not give Pale Masters a choice of effect? Glowing eyes, insect swarms and dust clouds are all cool, but they don't apply to every Pale Master. I agree it's unwise to shoehorn everyone into one interpretation. So why not give them a choice at a certain level, to pick a visual effect and a minor power to go along with it? If you pick glowing eyes, you get Ultravision instead, or maybe a minor spot bonus? Flies swarming around your rotten flesh would bite attackers or maybe you just have disease immunity. I'm sure we could think of other visual cues. A bone tail is relatively simple.

I'm... Really not sure about any of this. Especially seeing the effort my PM has gone to in order to hide her PM-ness. Hell, she's got three cloaks shoved in there, wrapped in a layer of leather bindings, and then there's her armor over it. All of which serves to make her significantly worse at archery than she would be otherwise.

However, if done right, this could be an extremely interesting addition to any PM character. The optional bonuses and arm-covering-detection especially interest me.

Combining what Iron and Ninja said, a choice of abilities would be an excellent method to diversify PMs. Once again using my Pm as an example, she goes to great lengths to keep her arm and herself clean, so a permanent cloud of bugs or stench would be extremely annoying to deal with. But as her arm is effectively skeletal, maybe something like a small boost to slashing resist would be appropriate? (Or is it bludgeoning, I always mix them up...)

What if the bonus is related to the undead that the arm originally belonged to? Zombie arm gives stench, mummified gives flies, etc.

If you really wanted to be fancy, you could then add things such as eyes, other limbs, etc, as a different bonus feat. Even more diversity, less same-y PMs who can't operate in normal society without being stab-murdered by every good-aligned adventurer within sight. Plus, it would make the big reveal all the more fun.

Edit: Extra Idea! Perhaps make Bone Skin one of these non-arm bonus feats, and make it change the PC's skin to Bone (As was suggested previously). Means the AC bonus is only given to those who are willing to deal with being unable to hide their freaky freaky skin.

Make it where you can only use the pm arm and hand eats if the arm/hand is free from cover, glove, or restraint.

Create some lore or reasoning for this.

The key to this issue is to have people do their homework about the palemasters and understand that it's not a crit. immunity class. If people bothered to come and do the rituals, they would get to like the class and then, when properly RPed through the rituals, they would understand the RP potential. How to do it? I suggest that since WotC was scarce, we homebrew our own lore. Tormak did a great job writing those rituals and it is considered "the proper way" IG (or at least I like to think that). It is really well written and gathering the components can take days, weeks and months. Through all this players would get attached to their characters and get to understand that it's not just a powerbuild class, it's also a powerRP class.

Let us take a step further and homebrew it as our official lore. The point is not to enforce, but to encourage the roleplay.

Heck I'd probably be even willing to be altruistic and help all those characters IC with Lucius. But they have to be interested. I cannot force them, even though I am always telling every palemaster that comes by that it should be done.

Cure the cause, not the symptoms. Making a script that would make palemasters unable to use their grafts attacks if wearing gloves does not make much sense to me. If they cannot project the energy through their own metal/leather glove, how can they project the energy through metal/leather armor of the person they are "touching". Mind that it would make no difference to me really, just sayin'. Glowing eyes? Sure. Give me some black tinted googles and off they go. Heck if a Palemaster wanted not to have a bone arm and still use the abilities he most likely could with some RP (if you can have a functional bone arm, you can also sew some flesh back on it). Flies are attracted to rotting flesh or the scent of death and a palemaster can be rather sterile if needed.

Yoss pretty much nailed the point.

Quote:

(In my own personal opinion, they shouldn't even really want to; having abandoned humanity to pursue undeath, what do they care about the opinions of others?)

So through the improvement in quality of RP by homebrewing some official PM lore, players should be encouraged to do the rituals, and through such RP (and I promise it is absolutely awesome), they will get attached to the class, and they will get to understand what is this class all about. When such is done.. they will proudly wave their grafts around, intentionally keep a swarm of flies and so on. They will make themselves visible without any stinking clouds / red eyes / other-nasty-VFX.

This all being said implement some additional graft widgets onto Amia, and make them available on lvl 13 / 16 / 19. These grafts should additionally change the appearance of a palemaster making it even harder to disguise (but still not impossible).

GreatPigeon wrote:

Make it where you can only use the pm arm and hand eats if the arm/hand is free from cover, glove, or restraint.

Create some lore or reasoning for this.

This, I would think just this would suffice (and also making it so you can't use the bone arm when shapeshifted, since the bone arm is no longer there to use).

Dead wrote:

Cure the cause, not the symptoms. Making a script that would make palemasters unable to use their grafts attacks if wearing gloves does not make much sense to me. If they cannot project the energy through their own metal/leather glove, how can they project the energy through metal/leather armor of the person they are "touching". ... Heck if a Palemaster wanted not to have a bone arm and still use the abilities he most likely could with some RP (if you can have a functional bone arm, you can also sew some flesh back on it). Flies are attracted to rotting flesh or the scent of death and a palemaster can be rather sterile if needed.

For the first part, we would need to define what 'touch' means in the case of the graft. But for the second part, and anyone interested, Libris Mortis actually states:

Quote:

At 6th level, a pale master gives in to terrible necrophiliac urges. He cuts off his arm and replaces it with an undead prosthetic, which may be skeletal in form or preserved ﬂesh stitched in place like that of a ﬂesh golem. Regardless of its composition, the graft grants a +4 inherent bonus to the character’s Strength score.

Just be glad they don't get the +4 STR, people ;p

And I think part of the issue is nearly every single PM (I have seen only three or four IG that blatantly show off their bone arms: Lucius, Lilith, and .... oh God who was that ... she's a black dragonkin as well) wants to be the evil PM yet always hide it. It's kind of silly, to me, that a PM would always be in disguise. I can understand sometimes, but there's an extent.

I think having the arm uncovered to use it makes perfect sense in the same way that you cannot use breath attach with your mouth stuffed, you cannot use gaze attacks with your eyes closed and you cannot fire a gun that has its barrel stuffed etc. Also if the code works as I presented it, it'll also mean you have to be in a PC model for it to work so it'd treat being shifted as having the arm covered.

Pale masters should become grotesque and ugly because of the things they do to their body during their rituals. Parts of the dead are grafted to their body. Bones are visiable over the tops of their skin from these grafts. Their undead eye should look dead. The only way a pale master should be able to hide what it is would be to cover their entire body in bandages and appear to be a leper. This would cause them to be treated much the same by anyone that walked up on them. Not many people want leprosy.

I would like to see advantages for players that embrace their changes rather than believe that the changes can't be seen. Your character becomes a pale master because it wanted to. These changes are not forced on you and if they were the rituals would fail most likely or they would drive your character insane due to the pain involved and the mental anguish it would cause.

I would also like to see more advantages for players that take more than the ammount of levels that give the optimum advantage for a power build. (IE. greater than 10 pale master, more than 7 weapon master more than 10 dragon disciple.) We are starting to see this for classes like assassin and shadow dancer and it would be great to see more of this.

This is a bit of a side track now:

xordae wrote:

Dragon Disciples can don a cloak and not mention their funky skin in the description at all, if they choose so. Blackguards can leave their aura off, last time I checked, even though it's supposed to be a permanent condition, and play buddy-buddy with Paladins because they chose not to give away any of their ungodly traits.

This is another thing that bugs the hell out of me. By level 3 Dragon disciple There should be visible anatomical changes to a dragon disciple aswell. You gain the ability of dragon breath, this isn't a spell, you are expelling the breath from your character. At this point you would develope some sort of gland in your throat that holds the substance of your breath just as a dragon would have and the anatomy of your mouth and lips would change in order to allow you not to take damage from your own breath weapon. As a dragon disciple gains armor class from the rituals performed to become more dragon-like you grow scales. The source of draconic armor. The most obvious change you see on your characters animation are the wings but that isn't the only physical change to your character.

(EDIT: Oh god, who is going to read this -.-)

There's a lot of opinions here from people that came to help fix something unrelated to them, something that was presented as a negative trend among people who (i assume) take the PM class for crit immunity and discard all the RP potential, by hiding their condition. Both are probably unaware of how the PM has developed on Amia, and that Tarkuul - your local hub of experts on all things icky - has expanded on the Deathless Arts RP beyond the scarcely informative canon, and defined the processes involved in such transformation.

Please consider people who have adopted this version of the Arts, and are actually playing "expanded" PM lore, like Dead or myself.

That said, i'm against the glowing eyes idea, because my drow pale master character didn't poke her eyes out to replace them with grafts that have Darkvision... her own work just as well in this regard, and are a lot prettier. It's a choice.

I'm also skeptical on the whole uncovered=works/covered=disabled arm graft idea, because it doesn't address the issue at all, and just introduces a measure of control that's unnecessary. It will not affect people that cover their arms, because they never use their grafts in the first place - those builds have crappy DC. Also from the looks of that code, you'd have to have your entire arm uncovered to be able to use it - i never do that, i have two appearances: first is the 4'th robe (long sleeves, hand visible), second is bone cuirass (cloth sleeve on biceps, forearm and hand uncovered).

xordae wrote:

And the details of the Palemaster's condition are entirely up to the player.
(...)
If you take these choices away from the player, it's just one more step towards "We tell you what this character is and how you're supposed to play him."

This. Whether someone plays a PM-lite, or has RP'ed out all the Deathless rituals, glowing eyes is something that has no relevance whatsoever in either version of RP. It's as if you wanted to permanently stick a banner into PM's arse saying "I'm a pale master", just for the sake of enforcement - that is not the way to go.

I am in agreement though, that if someone plays a Pale Master, it should be impossible to hide his condition, just as it is impossible inRP for Blackguards to "disable" their Aura of Despair, their presence is always disturbing. Pale Masters are the same pair of shoes.

And so, my first thought was to give PM's an aura too, a visual indication that there's something not quite right with this fellow, regardless of how well he might be trying to conceal his horrifying features. Here's why:

*

Quote:

This gradual decomposition tends to make the living somewhat uncomfortable, to say the least and imposes a -1 penalty, per Pale Master class level, to all Bluff, Diplomacy and Gather Information checks made with the living. The upshot of having such a monstrous appearance is that it makes cowing the weak much easier, granting a +1 circumstance bonus to all Intimidate checks made against the living.

PM prerequisite wrote:

Feat - Daunting Presence
You are skilled at inducing fear in your opponents.
If the opponent fails a Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Cha modifier), it is shaken for 10 minutes.

There's enough hints, and it's not something to debate, that PM's presence is not something you can hide, and it's something that you actually want to emphasize, because it's intimidating.

Question for the devs: is it possible to make auras of BG and PM permanent? If not, what other visual effects can be made permanent? Glowing eyes are a check, but as that doesn't make much sense, what else is there?

Mind you, i'm not advocating for introduction of a mechanically useful aura at PM level 3 that has some considerable benefits. Merely for visual representation of the character's disturbing presence, and some minor effects of the aura would of course be nice.

DolphinRacer wrote:

I'm not opposed to negative impacts to fighter/bard/palemaster melee builds myself, because as I said I find said builds ridiculously silly and stupid.

It's not the builds that are stupid, it's how the characters are played. I have a STR based 10 PM, i'm fine thank you very much, and she's a perfectly adequate "RP build" without Dev Crit, but still of the combat-oriented variety. Even though there's no actual STR boost coming with the arm graft, i RP that strength is one of the benefits of the condition.

PS. Custom PM bonus feats? YES PLEASE.
Keep in mind that balance-wise, 16-19 PM are not viable anymore for optimized melee performance, having considerable loss of AB, not to mention the 4'th attack. There's a reason why people stop at 10 PM, an incentive to go further might be just the thing. I know i'd be the first to rebuild for more PM if there was something interesting, to hell with swords if i can be lord of the flies

bard8/pm10/ftr12 - BAB 22 4apr
7/2/11 -> 1/8/1

bard5/pm13/ftr12 - BAB 21 4apr
4/6/10 -> 1/7/2

bard4/pm16/ftr10 - BAB 20 3apr
3/8/9 -> 1/8/1

EDIT2: *I just now realized that i used quotes that are not from Libris Mortis prestige class, but from a Pale Master Revision, a fan made resource that i've mistaken for an earlier (or later) canon source. Disregard it or not, personally i believe it is still an adequate expansion on the basics, very much alike our own Deathless Arts by Valkin Mulgin.

Scripting the bone arms so they're not usable when covered is a fine idea, but entirely irrelevant to the point of this thread. The issue under discussion is whether and how to make palemastery unconcealable all the time, not just whenever the PM feels like revealing a bone arm. Any PM who's trying to conceal their PM-ness in the first place isn't going to be bothered by not having their graft attack available while they're doing it.

it seems llke a great idea, palemasters did get a certain boost with necro caster lvls, but melee palemasters could use a power boost of sorts.

If what people are suggesting is that they do to PMs what they did to DDs, then that should satisfy on the lore-side. So there'd be an established way which is specifically NOT the only way, and some general guidelines allowing for other options while keeping it consistent. But that's not really the issue here.

Aeqvinox wrote:

That said, i'm against the glowing eyes idea, because my drow pale master character didn't poke her eyes out to replace them with grafts that have Darkvision... her own work just as well in this regard, and are a lot prettier. It's a choice.

The same could be argued for the bone arm, but it's decided that yes you have a bone arm. It even says in LM that if you already have darkvision, it gets improved. And again, it doesn't have to be a graft. Can be. Doesn't have to be. But for whatever reason it's as necessary a step as the bone arm.

What we're after is some sort of inobtrusive but noticeable VFX. Glowing eyes isn't exactly a seamless solution but it serves the purpose better than any other suggestions so far. So, what do?

serbiris wrote:

What we're after is some sort of inobtrusive but noticeable VFX. Glowing eyes isn't exactly a seamless solution but it serves the purpose better than any other suggestions so far. So, what do?

I don't see why you couldn't be given a choice. Different visual effects for different types of modifications, so you weren't forced into one visual giveaway. Glowing eyes are hideous and cheesy and shouldn't have been implemented for monks, either. >_>

Alright, but my point is if you really don't like it we need an alternative that serves the same purpose. I think a lot of the other suggested VFXs are hideous too, and I don't really want my screen to be littered with them.

With the graphical limitations of NWN it is to easy to hide obvious physical features and still get the benefit of looking like a "normal person"

Just like with RDD scales of the matching dragon type will cover their whole body, not something you can hide with a simple cloak.

You're /consciously seeking/ to become more like an undead. Nothing about that says "I should be acceptable in polite society", I'm sorry. And if my chars see someone swathed to the gills at high noon in summer, I don't care who you are, they're going to ask questions. Well, some of them. Some wouldn't care.

No offense was intended with the title of the thread, 1802. I just wanted it to be memorable. The only ones I think are failures are Bard/PMs that ignore the fact that they are bards, unlike the greatest Bard/PM I know.

Otherwise, thank you all for giving your input.

Hahahaha. Yoss, that clip is hilarious. I cannot believe I haven't seen it before anywhere o.o

That clip's as old as dial-up, man. DIAL-UP.

It would be far easier and far less ridiculous if Detect Good/Evil and variations thereof were added which gave the caster feedback in their combat log as to who was evil vs a Will save and it's not hard to create a tag or a variable for undetectable alignment custom items and spells, nor is it hard to Will Whore. If you want to be a bad-ass mother fucken spy/palemaster/blackguard, then you need to be more clever than just walking into a city with a change of clothes on. At least that's my personal opinion on the whole matter.

MoshingChris wrote:

It would be far easier and far less ridiculous if Detect Good/Evil and variations thereof were added which gave the caster feedback in their combat log as to who was evil vs a Will save and it's not hard to create a tag or a variable for undetectable alignment custom items and spells, nor is it hard to Will Whore. If you want to be a bad-ass mother fucken spy/palemaster/blackguard, then you need to be more clever than just walking into a city with a change of clothes on. At least that's my personal opinion on the whole matter.

If you have ever actuallu tried this you would learn how wrong you are. A successful spot check conveniently dc 20 so anyone can make it affords the spotter a green, name with which they can discern spies.

MoshingChris wrote:

It would be far easier and far less ridiculous if Detect Good/Evil and variations thereof were added which gave the caster feedback in their combat log as to who was evil vs a Will save and it's not hard to create a tag or a variable for undetectable alignment custom items and spells, nor is it hard to Will Whore. If you want to be a bad-ass mother fucken spy/palemaster/blackguard, then you need to be more clever than just walking into a city with a change of clothes on. At least that's my personal opinion on the whole matter.

Long as the appropriate counterspells are given the same mechanical representation. Not that it matters, with his reputation, but some of us are diligent about Undetectable Alignment

Alignment doesn't exist in my game world.

IronAngel wrote:

Alignment doesn't exist in my game world.

I just fell in love with you.

_________________ *Inactive as of November 28, 2013*

Out of all the suggestions posted here (glowing eyes, clouds of flies, stink auras, etc), I'd say that Terra's "covered bone arm = penalties" suggestion is by far the most fair. It gives the Palemasters an opportunity to avoid auto-PvP if they so desire, with the expense of losing most of their undead abilities. Of course, this would definitely result in normal clothes that conceal the bone arm and battle armors that don't. However, most people have their battle armor on while hunting, so... what's the problem, exactly?

Last edited by Vinasius on Tue, Mar 05 2013, 10:59 AM, edited 1 time in total.

I disagree with the notion completely to shoehorn what could be oppurtunity for rp variation into a visual effect. Do not forget palemasters can be neutral as well and do not have to be evil alone. What if one built a high charisma palemaster instead....or wants to rp his/hers palemaster to be remotely decent looking. I disagree with forcing every character to be Quasimodo just as much I disagree that all assasins should be sneaky cowl and dagger gits, pallys should all have shiny armor and druids should look like characters in an enya video clip.

Forcing this on palemasters just removes the whole fun of finding out whose the evil witch in a village, the best part about being in the EO were the investigations, the inquisition etc. There were touches of intelligent.. detective work in all that. Now it's just not going to be unlike "Theres an elf! eetz in black armor! cant see eetz skin but must be a drow. Keel eeetz!"

Is there some homebrew lore that I've missed about the PMs? 'Cause if this is accurate, the only blatantly obvious thing about the Palemaster is the graft. Everything else is incredibly vague, and doesn't necessarily imply any rot or decay. Becoming more similiar to the undead could mean vampires or wraiths just as easily as ghouls or skeletons. It seems incredibly arbitrary to me to decide that Palemasters are walking spawns of Moander just because they "should" be disgusting.

Darkvision as a graft doesn't really make sense to me. The fact that the sourcebook just says that the dark holds less mystery to the PM is one thing, but what really makes it jarring to me is that it happens at a so early level. The undead graft is in many ways the turning point in a Palemaster's career, the achievement that confirms their indisputable competence in the field. It doesn't make sense, thematically, to already have hacked out your eyes and replaced them long before then.

That said, I'm positive towards the possibility of more varied grafts, some with more risk/reward in their obviousness than others. That I recently made a PM has nothing to do with this, of course.

Phalemastery

Who is online