Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

Time to open this topic up, IMO... *ducks*

Since the new spell system went in, we have evil druids (Malarite priests). I am proposing that in light of the slight move to 3E in this aspect, that we look at a wider embracing of alignments for both rangers and druids.

The D20 rules stipulate that druids can be any neutral alignment (ie, NG, LN, CN, or NE), provided that lines up with the alignment of the deity. So, that means in FK terms, NG for Mielikkan priests, TN for Chauntean priests, and NE for Malarite priests.

Likewise, D20 allows the spectrum of alignments for rangers. Rangers are no longer simply Aragorn clones, but rugged survivalist warriors, forward scouts, etc. In the same way that we now have opposing forces of nature with evil druids, the same schism would be played well with good vs. evil rangers.

Now, I would not propose this in a way that would overrule the current structure of the "good" rangers (Markana, the Council, etc), for that matter, the neutral rangers would likely be under the covering of said organization, following neutral deities like Chauntea.

Evil rangers would need a different quest, a different covering group, etc. At the very least, there should be Malarite rangers... though I have seen a evil PC of another hopeful faith, that if it could be a ranger, it would be the most fitting for the person's RP.

Thoughts, comments?

That's not really a code discussion. Code (as in: hard code) has nothing to do with alignment restrictions on rangers.

That being said, I still have to see what we would gain by opening the ranger guild to evil. And it would certainly require area support first. Once again, I'm back to the player base...

Noted, moved to the ranger and druid forum

I think, at the very least, starting small with area support in the Malarite temple, possibly, for malarite rangers. I would be glad to lend building effort to some area support, even sponsor a guild, should discussion lead toward it.

Playerbase, I don't think it's as much an issue as with the drow. The point being, these would be surface dwellers, who would interact with good and evil PCs alike, so we're not "borrowing" from the player base, as with drow stuff. We already have evil fighters, who make their RP in a ranger-ish fashion. This would be of course a hard break from the 2E tradition we curently adhere to with a lot of classes.

Would this option be open only to new, unguilded warriors, or could there some area-supported way to strip fighters of their fighter-unique skills and fighter class and transfer them into the evil rangers guild?

As far as I know, it is not easily possible to remove skills once trained. Removing a fighter from the fighters guild does not automatically remove the fighters skills that they gained by being in the guild.

If I am correct in my thinking on this I would have to say that no, existing fighters would have to re-create the character or create a new warrior who would join the relevant guild.

As I recall... it requires a recreate, the PC stripped of trained skills, unguilded, and level 10. That was the way it was posed when a couple players I know wanted to re-guild.

An area-supported guild change as I invision it would use an MP command to set certain fighter-exclusive skills to a value of 0, then change the PC's guild to rangers. I had a look through the MP commands just now and didn't see a command that could do that, so either I missed it, or it doesn't yet exist, or it is impossible to code?

One opportunity for abuse comes to mind as I am thinking this idea through, and that is access to guild-exclusive areas. A PC could join one guild to receive the benefit of using the trainers and equipment of that area, then quit the guild but still retain the skills and equipment from the area.

It's technically possible to reset skills, but there would be much more than that to be done, including...

- removing objects from class-restricted areas.
- removing quest bits related to class-restricted factions and/or quests
- removing glory given by class-restricted quests previously done
- ...

And that's where the nightmare begins.

Kregor wrote:Now, I would not propose this in a way that would overrule the current structure of the "good" rangers (Markana, the Council, etc), for that matter, the neutral rangers would likely be under the covering of said organization, following neutral deities like Chauntea.

Err, since when Chauntea is Neutral? she's Neutral Good, just like Mielikki. (/mode rant on
gah, me want Silvanus in the game...
/mode rant off)

Now, on evil rangers, why not, but it would indeed requires some area supports, seeing how many "good" rangers zone is for so little skills/spells.

Now of course, class/race/alignment restrictions on the mud comes mainly from 2nd ed as it was the rules when it was created, and it is slowly changed. That the way it looks.
I think it only need some times for it to be made more accurate to 3rd ed.

Brar

I once heard a halfing say "All rangers are evil anyway.":)

Back in 2004 Sharni said...

Because rangers on FK have to be good aligned (still using second edition rules and the quest to become a ranger is good orientated), then you cannot follow an evil god without some sort of hefty rp (and likely an application) to back it up.

I think we need to hear what she has to say before we take the time to do anything concrete.

Perhaps this could be added to here:

http://www.forgottenkingdoms.com/board/ ... php?t=4864

As it was discussed a while back (about 5 posts down from this one, in fact).

I am a renewbie, so take my thoughts for what they are. I think though opening rangers up to evil could really open a whole new chapter in Rping, especially in that conflict of Mielikki (the Patron of Rangers) and Malar (as I am reading it who would be the main evil ranger god).

The same I guess could go for druids as well, if the alignment for 3.5 was used here. A NG druid sees the world different than the NE druid who focuses on the deadlier side of nature. Malar, Talos, and Umberlee IMO beign the main evil druid gods.