With the discussion about opening the Ranger class to evils taking place, I thought it might be a reasonable time to bring up the idea of an RP-intensive evil-only class balanced against Paladins. There are several avenues that such a class could take which I'll try to delve into, but I'll also lay out the good reasons for having them.
Reasons why such a class would be a good idea:
- Encouraging quality RPers to play evils would be beneficial for the game as a whole. As of right now, the most RP-intensive classes are good-only classes. Players who look for an RP challenge, for a class that requires the most work, the most responsibility and the most dedication will tend to go for Rangers and Paladins. In many ways, these are some of our best RPers, and they're naturally drawn to the most challenging classes, it would give them more reason to play evils and hence lead into the next point...
- RP intensive classes tend to produce leaders. Paladins and Rangers tend to be natural leaders when it comes to RP. They set examples, they follow their codes strictly. Good leadership promotes good RP for everyone. Someone who would rather die than betray their creed inspires others to live up to RP ideals. Which leads to...
- Good leaders influence their entire faith/class. Many evil faiths are not particularly active, or lack active leadership. The evils have no analogue to the Waterdeep City Watch. They have no analogue to the Ranger Council. They have no cooperation among their deities akin to that between Torm, Tyr and Ilmater. They have no groupings of Paladins. The Zhents are the best the evils have, and there are very few Zhent players, and by its very nature, their activities are behind the scenes. We need more evil organization, and it needs to be more open and more accessible to the average player. A class that is devoted to developing leadership skills among its players, and provides a challenging and unique RP experience will be singularly well-placed to help bring such organizations into existence and keep them going.
Possible incarnations of such a class
Blackguard type - This is the most familiar type of Anti-Paladin. Lawful evil in nature, he is a fighter who has a divine spellcasting base analagous similar to that of a Paladin. This noble warrior is familiar with heavy weapons, swords and lances, mounted combat, and serves as a divine warrior representing their faith. They adhere to a strict code of honor and work to uphold the ideals set down by their faith, guild leaders, kings, etc.
This class has obvious problems. The creed of the Paladin is extremely strict, and a lawful evil analogue doesn't exactly work. For someone who is Lawful Evil, they have no reason to adhere to the kind of code that a Paladin does, because it simply doesn't translate particularly well. The sort of deities who would sponsor orders of knights like this would be Bane, Loviatar, and perhaps to a lesser extent Shar or Beshaba. That leads to the next type...
Chaos Knight type - This is another sort of Anti-Paladin, but one that is more like a Bizarro version of a Paladin than simply an evil version. While a Paladin is Lawful Good, a Chaos Knight would be chaotic evil. While a Paladin can speak only the truth, a Chaos Knight might be required to speak lies. Where a Paladin can only do good acts, a Chaos Knight can only do evil acts. Whereas a Paladin can never associate with evil, a Chaos Knight can never knowingly associate with good. They must always try to lie, to cheat, to hurt those in need. A Chaos Knight would be like a force of nature. To follow a Chaos Knight would be to submit completely to them, in the hope that they would not turn on you. Completely unpredictable, they would be an awesome force of evil.
Problems - A class dedicated to doing horrible things would be VERY tough to RP for many, and would require a ton of restrictions in terms of RP. This would make a Paladin look like a cake-walk if you wanted to pull it off without simply being a murderer, which is obviously something we definitely don't want. But as Cyricists manage to pull it off, I don't think this is beyond the bounds of the game by any means, no matter how formidable it sounds. Think of them rather, as the ultimate embodiment of the code of deities like Cyric, Talos, Malar or perhaps Shar. They would be tasked with being embodiments of pure evil while still actively and positively contributing to the game.
Arcane Caster/Fighter Combo - This would be a third option, one that would be original to FK, as I've never seen a class very much like it in terms of skills and abilities, though I have seen 'Tyrant-like' classes or prestige classes elsewhere. In many ways it would be more akin to the first combination, and my idea would be something like this. Lawful evil in alignment, this class would be a Tyrant. A noble-born warrior who has devoted him/herself to reaching not only the pinnacle of combat, but is also highly intelligent and charismatic. They've reached beyond the mere physical prowess of a warrior and have managed to become almost a force of nature in terms of their sheer willpower and personality.
This class would have access to several arcane spells, but I would say that for the most part none of them should be stat or skill-buffing spells, no bulls strength or things of that nature. This class is already proficient in combat, they seek something far more than that, power in its most pure and raw forms. Information would be a commodity to this class. Willing servants. The ability to dominate based on reputation alone, to instill fear and subservience in others. The few spells they get would be ones devoted to information and mind-alteration. Charm, Identify, Clairvoyance, Magic Mirror. Their noble bearing, their willpower, their belief in their inevitable destiny as a person of great power and importance in the realms, as well as to an extent their paranoia, their arrogance, their domineering nature, would make them an extremely interesting class to play, as well as make them natural leaders to evil characters in the same way that paladins tend to be leaders of good characters.
Gods like Bane, Talona, Loviatar, Shar, and to a lesser extent Mask and Beshaba, would be perfectly suited to players of this ilk. They'd fit in quite well with the game world, interested in dominating and controlling, not killing or destroying unless it served some specific purpose. The Arcane/Fighter combination would balance quite well against the Divine/Fighter combination represented by Paladins and Rangers, and would offer a unique combination to evil that would be more than just an 'opposite of Paladins or Rangers' for people to get into. This class would be specifically designed not to appeal to power-players, as they'd be less adept at fighting than a normal fighter, and their arcane spells would all be geared towards roleplay.
One way that the class could actively engage one-another and ensure a consistently high quality of roleplay would be to have a council much like that the Rangers have, though there would be far more of a rivalry between the various persons within. Imagine them more like a group of squabbling, selfish medieval lords. They respect one another, and would never tolerate any disrespect to their station by an outsider, but each one is in the end, a rival for power. Several 'fiefdoms' could be established, a certain number of power bases centered around the major cities in the game, Waterdeep, Westgate, Zhentil Keep, Zazesspur, Daggerford, Darromar.
Each Tyrant could represent one city, and new Tyrants would actively train with existing ones to learn noble social customs and bearing, the proper methods of ruling (And this could get into some seriously Machiavellian politicking), methods of wielding arcane power, etc. When a Tyrant comes into his own, he would be tested by the cabal and if he passes, might be granted a fiefdom of his own, or given a subordinate station to another Tyrant if there are no open ones. Tyrants could challenge one-another for more prestigious fiefdoms, or to take over a fiefdom if they have none. These challenges would be formal declarations of war with rules, the point being to force your opponent to submit to you before your peers, to surrender and acknowledge your power, not merely to kill them, for where is the victory in that? In these conflicts, you'd use all of the resources available to you, most especially servants and allies you've gained throughout your life. The most powerful Tyrants would be constantly on the watch, securing alliances with one-another and outsiders against their rivals, but also seeking to increase their collective power.
Anyway, I'll stop talking about this because as I type, I get new ideas and I could probably go on forever. The crux of my argument is that better RP-opportunities for evil players would lure better RPers to play evil characters and would have a positive overall effect upon evil RP, which would have a net positive effect upon good RP. The success of the Ranger council and Paladin training group in improving RP within those classes, the lessons learned, could be instantly applied to a new class.
In the end I think that any class that defines itself as the 'opposite' of another class is kind of silly. Rangers are chaotic and are defined by their love of the wilderness. That doesn't really touch on alignment, so to have evil Rangers is very different from having a sort of Anti-Ranger, which would be someone who say, hates the wilderness for some reason. Similarly to have an Anti-Paladin seems less interesting and three-dimensional to me than to just have another class, whether an original one like the Tyrant or something else, which is evil and has roleplaying standards as high as what is expected of a paladin, regardless of what they do or believe. And in the end, a unique evil class which presents a fun and engaging roleplaying challenge will attract players and benefit the game overall.
