Stormlords

[rustediron]

To get the stormlord bonuses, one would have to follow Talos, as he is the one that gives them to you. Sounds logical enough.

[nickbeat]

Hard to find a good cleric PrC as it is, maybe the new Auril one could be interesting but once again only for evil.

Not that clerics aren't badass enough by themselves really.

[Kangleton]

To get the stormlord bonuses, one would have to follow Talos, as he is the one that gives them to you. Sounds logical enough.

Talos isn't the only one that allows for lightning.

[rustediron]

No, but Stormlords are the titles given to those that follow the Church of Talos. This is why 'Stormlord' abilities have to given by Talos, to the church of Talos, and it makes no sense for any other deity to give an identical gift. Unless they were a copycat

[Jaeram]

I think what Kangleton means is that we shouldn't treat it as Talos clergy just because Obsidian decided to name it that. Why not just change the class name? I honestly think with the amount of thunder and lightning I've seen Karthus use he should have no problem making some of that go around his spear. I could understand if you were using a cleric or wayward soul base class (who get their powers from their deity), but using a druid base class I think it should be a plausable non Talos approach. Most druids get their power from nature not their deity, so it seems logical that some one with a great amount of control over the elements could use it that way. If you look at the new Ice Fury of Auril PRC, you might think of it as divine caster - focus - ice. So you could think of Stormlord as divine caster - focus - lightning. Granted the DM's are intending that the Ice Fury only be used by followers of Auril, but that was their choice. This is just the way I happen to feel, because I have to think if any cleric or druid can use lightning as a battle implement, i.e. call lightning, call lightning storm, storm of vengeance, and call air elementals, why couldn't they focus some of that? If this is the case shouldn't these spells be completely restricted from use by anyone who doesn't follow Talos? If the druid can't focus a little bit of lightning the way he does with the level 2 spell flame weapon, then surely he should not have the ability to conjure up entire giant storms, that just doesn't make sense people.

That's just my 2 cents, but honestly after 3 months I'm quite surprised that the DM's haven't just made a final ruling (they may actually have earlier in the thread though it's been so long I can't remember) and closed this topic.

[Gairun]

Well I can understand the younger crowds frustration with not being able to play a lightning throwing cleric Prestige class, but you have to understand that on Sundren, as is in Pen and Paper, a Stormlord is the name given to a highly devout follower of Talos.

A paladin can sing why can't he be a bard? My chaotic good mage kills bad guys for money why can't he be an assassin? My gnome is really good with a short bow why can't I be an Arcane Archer?

All of these questions are really pointless as the reason the rules are set up the way they are is to make each class as unique as possible. And especially, and I mean ESPECIALLY prestige classes. There is a reason they are called PRESTIGE classes and not just regular/core classes. The reason is because to qualify for a prestige class you have to meet a very narrow and difficult set of guide lines. A Stormlord is the given title to ultra-faithful followers of Talos, any explanation after that is kind of pointless.

However I will say one thing, if Saulus wanted to rename the class to, oh I don't know, Master of Elemental Lightning, then we would be having a different converstaion and there would be no problems. Until then I don't see a reason to even really have this discussion.

[Jaeram]

Honestly, I think you're right Gairun, I don't really want to play a lightning throwing cleric myself, but you made a good point. I honestly just think the ball was dropped a bit on class customization. I think if your mage takes the time to learn how to be as stealthy as a rogue, theres no reason he shouldn't be able to be an arcane assassin. I could see a mage using silent spell coupled with improved invisibility and a really high move silently skill, delivering a flesh to stone or lightning bolt to the back of some unsuspecting fools skull, but we don't have that kind of customization implemented. I think people were just attracted to this topic because a cool class was fully implemented for us but no one really gets to use it, I do understand that the DM's don't want a bunch of thunder spear wielding fools, which is why I would be all for it being an application class, for some reason it just bothers me that it's Talos restricted based merely upon what the class gives the person. I could see if it was full of skills with Talos related names that specifically denote this comes from Talos (i.e. Boon of Talos or something) but by looking at the class abilities none of them even mention him, if you took away the class name I would never even know for sure that the class had anything to do with Talos specifically, I would see it as generic lightning spear warrior.

[Gairun]

As always you make rational sense Jaeram. About the Mage thing though, the reason I used a Chaotic good Mage not being able to be an assassin wasn't the class features, but the fact that you have to have an evil alignment to play an assassin.

I also agree a little more liberal sprinkling of the Title Talos in the powers of a stormlord would have helped differentiate it a bit.

[Jaeram]

Actually I don't really see any reason an evil character couldn't be an assassin, I think that should be amended, because in the normal context of things you might say yes that kind of act is evil. If though, the people are assassinating are evil, and you are doing it to support those that are good and lawful (i.e. maybe sneaking in to an evil wizards castle and assassinating him in his sleep to free a town of good people from his clutches, or a similar situation with vampires and stacking their hearts in their coffins and what not) the method is the same but the motive driving that method is not. I don't see how it could be considered evil when what you are destroying is in itself evil. Once again I think this is the fault of people not thinking outside of the box a little bit.

You might actually just think of many assassin skills as employing guerrilla tactics, if theres only you against a whole army you're not going to knock on the front door of their encampment and say hey I'm here now you can surrender. That's ridiculous, you're going to go in under the cover of night, slice the guards throats, sneak in to the castle and stab that evil son of a *I guess we can censor here* in the back for all the shit he's put you through.

[Gairun]

One of the requirements to take levels in the Prestige class Assassin is to kill in cold-blood a random person for nothing more then money.

What you described Jaeram could be a person simply taking Rogue levels, or possibly even a fighter built a certain way.

[nickbeat]

Funny that the word shit doesn't get censored.

I do think that some sort of evil is required to be an assassin, though it can certainly be tempered by goodness. I do get your point logically, but this just balances out Good Vs Evil. Evil characters get Assassins and Stormlords, and goody goods get Shadow Thieves and Paladins.

[Gairun]

Good aligned characters can also be Dwarven Defenders. Funny thing is only dwarves can be dwarven defenders, wtf! /sarcasm

[Jaeram]

I do think that some sort of evil is required to be an assassin, though it can certainly be tempered by goodness. I do get your point logically, but this just balances out Good Vs Evil. Evil characters get Assassins and Stormlords, and goody goods get Shadow Thieves and Paladins.

Well, I would think that the antithesis for a paladin would be more along the lines of the Blackguard class than the Stormlord myself.
I think my point though was like this, according to the NWN2 manual, how they wanted the class to be viewed, the first 3 sentences in the class description are : The assassin is the master of dealing quick, lethal blows. Assassins also excel at infiltration and disguise. Assassins also function as spies, informants, killers for hire, or agents of vengeance. The thing I don't like is that Obsidian lumped all these skills together into an evil class, but do you really have to be evil to fit that bill? Lots of organizations have people who are spies, infiltrators, and assassins. When I think of the Assassin class, I think about ninja's during Japan's feudal era. Not over the top depictions like the one's in movies but the real ones. They were trained to do that kind of stuff like infiltration and delivering poison, or stealing information, that doesn't make them evil. What bothered me was the Assassin class kind of takes it above and beyond the skills of the regular rogue, and it's like saying if you're not evil you could never excel this way. That's kind of what I see them doing with Stormlords too. If you look at the Assasins skills I don't see anything oh my god evil about it not the spell like abilities because any mage good or evil can use those, poison resistance isn't evil, nor is the enhanced dodges, and shadow dancers get HiPS as well so that's not 100% evil or anything. The death attack while it might seem kind of evil *shrug* doesn't really seem that way to me, looks like a similar thing could be accomplished with the right kind of poison on a dagger.

[rustediron]

Assassins use poison, generally accepted to be an underhanded, and hence evil trick. Poison resistance is due to the in-depth knowledge of poisons the assassin has - this is gained from using them to their own ends, again, an evil.

To be perfectly honest, as an assassin, you're usually going to be trying to kill someone quickly and quietly with the least amount of effort and risk. That usually means you're going to kill them in cold blood, while they are prone. Now that's just cheap. Cheap = Evil, in my opinion.

[Gairun]

And we have to remember Obsidian did NOT make these classes. They are taken from Pen And Paper Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. With a few changes due to it being a computer game format. And as I said before to be an Assassin in Pen and Paper one of the requirements is to willingly take a contract to kill someone you do not know in cold bold for money.

A ninja could be a fighter/rogue easily, I would even make a ninja like this Fighter 4/rogue5/shadow-dancer 6 Take weapon specialization short swords (Wakazashi) and your good to go.