Paladins in general have always struck me as hunters of the evil-doer. While the Cleric hunts the metaphysical spawn of evil -- the undead, the demonic, the damned soul -- the Paladin hunts their creators, the actual mortal, living people steeped in evil and guilty of committing atrocities.

So tangentially related to this suggestion, which I really like, what if Paladins had additional damage bonuses against cursed beings? It would be a way of mechanically delineating Clerics from Paladins in terms of what their magic is most effectiveness. Holy magic in general can work well on both, but Clerics get extra bonuses against undead while Paladins get extra bonuses against living but cursed beings.

It fits into the general pathos of a Paladin I think to be tasked with destroying evil men instead of monsters.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

Well, that's why I think extending it to "cursed beings" of which there are many would be good.

In conjunction with this, what if Paladins had a spell that allowed them to tag something as a cursed being?

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

So, give Paladins detect evil. That and smite evil are the two things Paladins should do.

Now if there were a way for evil people to a crew evil points that'd be even better.

>It doesn't sound as though we're likely to get more anti-undead abilities, "because there's already a guild that does that as efficiently as we care to let any PC do it," and "Making Paladins and Clerics even more alike is likely to be counterproductive."

You're right. Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was just contrasting niches to prove how anti-necro is a little too niche, not to imply I want to be another undead hunter.

>I think you might see more Paladin vs. Necromancer RP if Paladins had tools for fighting Necromancers.

That's a fair point.

>>Sebestyen64: More RP is always good. Of course, we can do this without new abilities with some effort.

Is it possible? Sure. But right now, Clerics and Moon Mages have the main detection abilities, so they tend to be the most prominent in groups like the Inquisition.

When it comes to Necromancer hunting, Paladins really are no better at it than Rangers. This seems like both a missed opportunity and one area where Paladins can get some love without trespassing in another guild's wheelhouse.

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/

armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide

>Is it possible? Sure. But right now, Clerics and Moon Mages have the main detection abilities, so they tend to be the most prominent in groups like the Inquisition.

I, too, have found it odd that we have no tools to detect necromancy. Our Sacred Insight is not that sacred.

>Would be funny for a Glyph of Truth that revealed:
>1) if someone killed recently
>2) if someone is flagged as a graverobber
>3) if someone has criminal charges
>4) if someone has Social Outrage
>5) if someone has Divine Outrage
>6) if someone is explicitly a Necromancer

I like the suggestions above, but I would rather have it tied to Sacred Insight than a glyph. The only one I think should probably be left out is number 5. I feel like Clerics should be able to detect DO and paladins should be able to detect SO. Regardless, both holy guilds should be able to detect at least some of the taint of necromancy IMO, like a brand, so 6 fits both guilds.

I remember being excited to do the Sacred Insight quests, and then subsequently never really finding a good reason to use it aside from Raiden eyes. I also remember someone assuming in a cryptic post that Paladins could detect necromancy via Sacred Insight around the time the Necro guild was released, and that's probably because it sounds so much like the effect fits the ability.

The more I read these posts, the cooler "truth" or judgment abilities sounds. It's easy imagining paladins being gifted with the ability to catch things other adventurers might miss through microexpressions or funny feelings or whatever. Like Lennon mentioned, we already do that in many ways, which I honestly never considered all at once. It's easy to extend that (spidey, clarity, etc.) to other sorts of reactive abilities, too, like counterattacks and such.

>>Teveshszat: Would be funny for a Glyph of Truth that revealed:

I love these ideas, though thematically, I think they fit better as a form of sacred insight. Warbrolus had an interesting idea about distinguishing between divine outrage (Clerics) and social outrage (Paladins).

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/

armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide

You could make them a room based glyph to avoid that.

GLYPH WARD EVIL - Increases attunement costs for all arcane spells and/or reduces arcane mana levels and/or increases and/or adds DO and/or SO gain in the area for a time.

Probably would have to break that up into different glyphs or maybe make it skill based off of Ascetism with different tiers that have cumulative effects or something.

>>FYI this is considered attacking someone, and can/will (rightfully) lead to PvP.

My two cents, anything that negatively impacts the play of another PC SHOULD be PvP. With all attached stuffs to that. This does not weaken, or invalidated such an ability, and I would still be all for it.

Samsaren

>>As a consequence, what I see a lot of the time is players who RP indifference toward necromancers, and that’s a shame. The way the lore is written, zombies and ostentatious necromancers should be kill on site, not hanging out outside the Empaths’ guild. If the Paladin guild is the one to lead the charge against Necromancers, I’ll happily take it. I find Paladins are often the biggest champions against them IG anyway, even if it’s sometimes a war of words.

I think part of the problem is that DR's hero class are pretty historically apathetic toward everything unless it benefits them.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you know.

If I could essentially live forever and was grossly more powerful than everyone I bumped into each day, I'd probably be a bit less worried about, say, global terrorism.

Might be interesting if, as certain activities took place in towns, certain facilities would start shutting down over time due to fear/abandonment (why would societies stay open in the center of a Necromantic outbreak, or vaults, or banks, or stores, etc), but that's a bigger conversation in another thread, I'm sure.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>> Necromancers' very existence threatens the Immortals and, by virtue, their ability to live forever.

Part of the Philosopher party line is that they're trying to eradicate death, in theory for everybody. Whether you believe that (you shouldn't) is up to you, but more than one version of the story is being told, and it's up to individual PCs who they find more credible.

Mostly, though, people are too apathetic to care about that kind of roleplay, and given its antagonistic nature and the aversion some people have to any kind of PvP, I can't blame people too much.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

>>That's what doesn't make sense to me, though. It does benefit them to eradicate necromancy. At least, it's supposed to. Necromancers' very existence threatens the Immortals and, by virtue, their ability to live forever.

Moon Mages threaten to tear holes in reality and end the world and Warrior Mages risk planar destruction. Immortals going to keep you alive when you're shoved into a reality of nothing but electricity or the concept of time and space implodes?

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I know there have been a few discussions in the necroforums about ways to possibly highlight that Necromancers and their ways are more than just a Moon Mage or Warrior Mage fooling around with something bad and I do hope that some of those do actually come into play. It would be nice if there was more of a threat placed on it all just for the RP reasons. I'm all for creating more of a give and take with abilities and stories that highlight these as long as everyone plays by similar rules (regarding consent and all that).

Please note these are all generalities. It's also probably giving a lot more leeway to a non-RP stance of "I just don't care"

>>The Paladin guild doesn't care that moon mages do that and neither does most of Elanthian society, so why should my character?

I'm not saying your character should. But I am saying that, in a general sense, a character who is worldly/educated enough to be aware of things like the Plane of Probability, the Elemental Planes, the dangerous nature of Sorcery, and the like might be a bit less irrationally terrified of one particular Big Bad just because it's a Big Bad. If a Moon Mage heard that Pelag ai Aldam broke into the Plane of Abiding from the east and that another fragment of Lyras crossed over from the west, 100% of the time they're going to want to take care of Lyras first?

That said, yes, the Immortals are concerned over Necromancy. Probably threatened by it. So what? The Immortals are apparently threatened by some kind of doom and destruction every few years, necromantic or otherwise. The hero class may play dumb about it, but they're well aware that the Immortals are not as all-powerful as they say they are. From subordinates who think they can do better, to a goblin with a cup, to MOLE PEOPLE, every few years one of them is about to succumb to something until the hero class does something about it. Please keep in mind, only one example of the three was Necromantic.

>>Everyone and his/her mom, dad and dog considers necromancers to be a world ending plague. Hell, even "Philosophers" don't call themselves necromancers.

Hero class isn't everyone. Hero class tends to take very few things seriously, for better or for worse. Hero class is probably as apathetic toward dangers except the ones they're particularly invested in as the Immortals are. A hero with a fanatical mob would probably train their zealots to destroy anyone with an interest in removing all the tyrium from the world before considering the danger of an elemental plane crashing into the plane of abiding. Immortals aren't that much different, for whatever reason. And heroes, for better or worse, kinda realize it.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>Only real thing that lessens the threat is the ooc fact that the necormancer guild CAN'T end the game tomorrow or even hopefully five years for now. So the threat is removed.

This could arguably be said for any storyline in DR, ever.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>Where I think the game doesn’t do a great job is reminding the players of non-necromancers in the same not-so-subtle fashion that necromancers are really really bad guys.

I think the game does a fine job of this in as much as it supports any of its other side-plots. As a story element and gameplay mechanic, necromancers have been a mostly static for years now and they have very naturally outlived interest in them in the same way nobody really cares about Tuesday. Or louts. In-character the profane aegis is unassailable, out of character death is mostly meaningless, there is no progressive metagame -- and maybe their shouldn't be? Player-vs-necromancer isn't what Dragonrealms is about in the same way that world-vs-necromancer is what the Necromancer guild is about.

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Re: Life mana Spell preps

You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.

>As a story element and gameplay mechanic, necromancers have been a mostly static for years now and they have very naturally outlived interest in them in the same way nobody really cares about Tuesday.

I'm willing to accept that if it's the case, but I prefer to think the denouement didn't precede lichdom and Risen.

<GLYPH WARD EVIL - Increases attunement costs for all arcane spells and/or reduces arcane mana levels and/or increases and/or adds DO and/or SO gain in the area for a time.

How do you propose a paladin would know enough about the process to make that happen? I could understand the SO and DO factor, just couldn't see why a paladin would be able to meddle with a Necro's magic capabilities in an attunement or mana level sense.

Suppose that Paladin magic is diametrically opposed to Necromantic magic. There's a bit of a yin/yang aspect to it (I'm still curious about the black flecks in our mana streams):

>You reach out with your senses and see flaring streams of golden Holy mana radiating through the area. Flecks of black drift >slowly through the mana streams.

Our Glyph of Mana could have a secondary effect that suppresses Arcane mana, perhaps?

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"We have a name for your disease. We call it a hyper-aesthetic one. You have been encouraged to over-indulge yourself in literature; and have inflamed your organs of fancy."