Dreamscarred Press Announces: Path of War Expanded

[Milo v3]

Archetypes. I think I heard mention of a trait being made but I don't remember.

Traits would be nice, archetypes and traditions can have too much baggage in some cases.

[Snowbluff]

You wanted it, now you have it. I present to you: the Path of War: Expanded Traditions.

TWENTY. EIGHT. PAGES. OF TRADITIONS. Now covering every Discipline currently included in the Path of War line. I will note that we don't have Elemental Flux released just yet, but we're working on that.

In the meantime, I'm eagerly taking feedback & testing. Some of these bonuses will need tweaking, optional rule or no.

Damn, the Quill look cool. I only have one problem. Why evil? If anything, it sounds like LN like Wee Jasites. They don't seem to actively seek to harm others, and any mental problems just seems like a side effect of doing something that could be construed as a good venture. The only outright evil parts is the offhand mention of demons; even the defectors dying sounds like it's more pragmatic that malicious for a group of secret keepers.

[Lord_Gareth]

What about Steel Serpent?

....

<.<

>.>

There is no war in Ba Sing Se.

[Forrestfire]

Damn, the Quill look cool. I only have one problem. Why evil? If anything, it sounds like LN like Wee Jasites. They don't seem to actively seek to harm others, and any mental problems just seems like a side effect of doing something that could be construed as a good venture. The only outright evil parts is the offhand mention of demons; even the defectors dying sounds like it's more pragmatic that malicious for a group of secret keepers.

Did you miss the part where Whisper drives them to do deeds terrible enough that many cut off their emotions or develop split personalities to deal with the guilt? Or the part where the organization is very active with assassination, killing others in the organization for merely asking the wrong questions? What about the bit where they carry out their orders without thought of morality, be they guarding something unspeakably evil from destruction or doing "good" acts for the sake of their superiors' orders? Or the bit where anyone who disobeys Whisper's will is summarily hunted down and executed? Don't forget the common dealings with evil outsiders, and how when not ordered to do something, their default goal is "steal knowledge and keep for themselves." I'd imagine that a large amount of those thefts involve the murder of those who know what the knowledge is.

Yeah, they're pretty evil.

[Snowbluff]

You can be crazy and good. You can protect your organization's secrets and be good. Programmed Amnesia is just Mindrape with a longer casting time.

[Forrestfire]

They are crazy as a direct result of their orders causing them to commit untold horrors. That is outright stated. They also actively kill each other for imagined slights, and do not care about morality. Also, I think you also missed a key passage from their writeup:

Far from locking this knowledge away, Quills are encouraged to learn from it and use it to gain power for themselves. Some of the books they keep are dark, hungry things that devour sapience the way a starving wolf tears the meat from a fawn, and many more simply contain secrets that are horrific to contemplate. The Quills as a whole have a comprehensive and terrible knowledge of the role of evil in the multiverse and how it might be used to further one’s own goals, but with every inch they reach into the darkness a little more hope dies inside.

And here's some more info that is not in the doc, sadly, such as an example of a member of the organization:

The sample Quill, Mad Logan the Book-Eater, was once mighty enough that he slew a planetar in single combat and stole the artifact its was guarding. Now he marauds the planes, finding places where books are kept and butchering their inhabitants. he'll spend months, years there, soaking each page in sapient blood before eating it. He'll go get people to soak the pages if he runs out.

He is still a member. Mad Logan is significant for his personal power, not for his madness. More Quills are mad and violent than are sane, and they tend to go mad in ways that encourage further violence, because of the nature of the secrets they learn and attempt to exploit. One minute it's "I can commune with this demon lord if I sacrifice a child born in wedlock beneath the new moon" and then next thing you know t's a trail of dead babies everywhere, because the organization encourages using the knowledge, not just having it.

I'd suggest reading through the Quill writeup again. They're nowhere near nonevil. There might be neutral members, but they're likely in short supply and one order from Whisper away from the deep end.

[Snowbluff]

Reread the oath. Morality? Ignored. That's neutral on the G/E line. If what they do for the Whispers is evil, than survival instinct is evil, and we should move animals to NE, too. Furthermore, not being evil doesn't break the oath; being evil as a requirement is utterly unnecessary. Is being mentally ill supposed to be an evil trait? How is that okay? Doing gross things isn't really evil, either.

"Obedience." The first rule. This is a damned lawful trait. Follow the rules. It's not their fault that the Whispers might not know what she's doing. The only reason why they perform tasks for the group is because the Whispers say so.

[Forrestfire]

Being mentally ill is not an evil trait. Doing evil is. Being mentally ill as a result of doing evil and it damaging your mind does not excuse it.

Blind obedience that causes you to do evil is still evil. Lawful Evil, probably, but still evil. Maybe if Whisper wasn't such a terrible person, they wouldn't be an evil organization. But she is. And they obey. So they are, too, now.

[Snowbluff]

Blind obedience that causes you to do evil is still evil. Lawful Evil, probably, but still evil.

Yeah, because rescuing that peasant was an evil act. :l

And how is the Whispers terrible? This actually sounds like a miscommunication issue. Maybe the Whispers needs this organization to keep her secrets, because people think she's evil for unintentionally making them go crazy?

[Forrestfire]

You seem to be under the impression that Whisper only orders neutral and good acts, when it is stated, multiple times, in the description, that not only do all her acts and orders have a purpose (that involves gross amounts of evil, so it can't be Good overall), but that the organization as a whole actively uses its knowledge for the purposes of more evil acts.

I am forced, at this point, to conclude that you're either trolling or playing devil's advocate, because I cannot imagine that someone could be that bad at reading comprehension.

[Snowbluff]

You seem to be under the impression that Whisper only orders neutral and good acts, when it is stated, multiple times, in the description, that not only do all her acts and orders have a purpose (that involves gross amounts of evil, so it can't be Good overall), but that the organization as a whole actively uses its knowledge for the purposes of more evil acts.

Justifying the means with the ends is considered evil in DnD. However, this is utterly backwards for the tradition.

You have to start off as evil, recognize that you are committing self sacrifice, and even get little tear marks on your face. After that, you're allowed to move your alignment towards good. What the heck?! It conflicts with the (shaky, and unclear) narrative that this is supposedly an evil organization. It describes people losing empathy, but shouldn't evil people have that in short supply in the first place, or at least the people joining the organization? If people don't know anything about the Whispers or the Quills, how are PCs supposed to know that being evil is a requirement? How can an unknown motive achieved through ambiguous actions by people who sometimes take a cut be obviously construed as evil? Are we supposed to assume that it's a mystery to everybody, or are the only people left in charge at the Quills are the evil ones? Does that mean the people "asking the wrong questions" are getting killed because the Whispers recognizes how stilted and corrupt the Quills have become, or the evil leaders securely his position under the guise of orders from Her? No one would question it, since they barely have enough information to operate in the first place.

It just seems to me that ascribing an alignment or allowing alignment shifts (which would probably cause disobedience, which should mean this is impossible) is a plot hole. Either that or I just wrote a much more interesting backstory for it. We should have PoW novels.

I am forced, at this point, to conclude that you're either trolling or playing devil's advocate, because I cannot imagine that someone could be that bad at reading comprehension.

Watch it.

[Seerow]

Well this last page of discussion is a spectacular reason why I ignore anything remotely alignment related in my games. Thanks for the reminder.

[Forrestfire]

Justifying the means with the ends is considered evil in DnD. However, this is utterly backwards for the tradition.

You have to start off as evil, recognize that you are committing self sacrifice, and even get little tear marks on your face. After that, you're allowed to move your alignment towards good. What the heck?! It conflicts with the (shaky, and unclear) narrative that this is supposedly an evil organization. It describes people losing empathy, but shouldn't evil people have that in short supply in the first place, or at least the people joining the organization? If people don't know anything about the Whispers or the Quills, how are PCs supposed to know that being evil is a requirement? How can an unknown motive achieved through ambiguous actions by people who sometimes take a cut be obviously construed as evil? Are we supposed to assume that it's a mystery to everybody, or are the only people left in charge at the Quills are the evil ones? Does that mean the people "asking the wrong questions" are getting killed because the Whispers recognizes how stilted and corrupt the Quills have become, or the evil leaders securely his position under the guise of orders from Her? No one would question it, since they barely have enough information to operate in the first place.

It just seems to me that ascribing an alignment or allowing alignment shifts (which would probably cause disobedience, which should mean this is impossible) is a plot hole. Either that or I just wrote a much more interesting backstory for it.

I think that the main thing you're missing here is that Whisper doesn't appear to care if your alignment changes, only that you obey. And the vast majority of the time, her orders are going to involve bad things^tm. If they didn't, then the organization wouldn't be full of broken people, continuing to work obediently for her ends, regardless of the cost. The question here is why you think they'd even allow someone nonevil to join. They know what they are. Also... This is an organization that keeps itself highly secret. This isn't a club you apply for, this is a group that finds you and asks you to join. The alignment requirement is "Any Evil" because why would they accept nonevil members, knowing that there will be orders to commit evil acts, and that not following them to the letter will both displease their master, and result in the recruit's death.

Regardless of how much short supply of empathy the recruits into the Quills had, they have even less now. Because Whisper's goals and means are that bad.

According to the writer of the organization (via IRC chat), there's also this:

02:34:14 <Lord_Gareth> Because failures of suitability are most often fatal. Because more often than not, /they/ find /you/.
02:34:57 <Lord_Gareth> This isn't a club you apply for
02:35:12 <Lord_Gareth> The Quills are some straight Illuminati ****

2:38:28 <Lord_Gareth> ...Because Whisper is malicious and cruel and she forces her servants to act that way too, just out of spite.
02:38:32 <Lord_Gareth> Because the Quills /hurt people/

Honestly, I feel like this stuff should probably be added to the doc, if it's that hard to understand from the strong implications in the text.

[Snowbluff]

An evil person is just as likely to refuse a good act as a good person will refuse an evil act. Either both alignments are useless, or they are given tasks specifically based on their alignment. Either way, an alignment requirement isn't a good idea.

EDIT: Yeah, it needs to be rewritten with that in mind. It says some evil, but leaves a lot of room for inferences or implications on good. Either strike the alignment, or make it unambiguously one alignment, leaving out things like the changeable alignment or the line about Quill concerned about the safety of the ignorant.

Well, the problem isn't necessarily one about alignment. You're playing characteristic hopscotch from both a player and DM perspective. It's totally possible that this ambiguous organization could send you rescuing peasants every task, despite your character's thirst for blood. Either that, or a redeemed Quill could find himself on a terrible chain of quests that he refuses because he's empathetic, and this gives more wiggle room for a DM to justify an assassination. It's the paladin of the tradition, because it has no defined goal other than "do that."

Not that this is a huge detractor, but I will say you should be careful with it.

[Forrestfire]

An evil person is just as likely to refuse a good act as a good person will refuse an evil act.

That's... not how alignment works. Evil does what it wants, and whether or not the act is "good", an evil follower of Whisper is going to still do it. Because they obey. They're not letting whatever morals they have get in the way. In the flipped situation, a good character ordered to do evil... Well, being good is by definition letting your morals get in the way, so to speak. If they went through with it, they wouldn't be good.

In any case, I think the main issue here is that, Whisper does not serve the narrative purpose you seem to think she does. Whisper is not a 'person', or a 'leader', or a 'cause'. She's closer, story-wise, to the monster under the bed. She's a malicious and seemingly incomprehensible evil, and the point is that she is not rational, and nor are her orders. I understood that from reading it (and it was stated in chat as the intent), but it's apparently not clear enough, so I'd suggest that Gareth change it to be a bit more clear on that front.

[Lord_Gareth]

An evil person is just as likely to refuse a good act as a good person will refuse an evil act.

"Save this man and deliver him untraumatized to the Bridge of Nine Flags, or I'll rip your soul out and beat what's left of your body to death with it," is a pretty prime example of a good act that an evil person won't be refusing any time soon.

I'm going to say here that you've managed to miss the point of the Quills, and by a fairly wide margin. They're not supposed to make sense. The Quills are secretive. Their master is malicious, their purpose is unknown even to their agents, their weapons corrupt even their wielders. If you can't see a narrative place for a malign influence whose purpose is unclear and whose goals are inscrutable, I might suggest the Quills aren't for you. Thus far you're the only person who's expressed any manner of concern about them. Others have understood that a Quill who, for example, changes alignment, does so at their own risk and without any promise of safety from Whisper or from their fellows.

Your morals on your own time are not Her concern. Only your obedience, obedience reinforced by threat and not by any kind of respect or loyalty.

[Snowbluff]

"Save this man and deliver him untraumatized to the Bridge of Nine Flags, or I'll rip your soul out and beat what's left of your body to death with it," is a pretty prime example of a good act that an evil person won't be refusing any time soon.

I'm going to say here that you've managed to miss the point of the Quills, and by a fairly wide margin. They're not supposed to make sense. The Quills are secretive. Their master is malicious, their purpose is unknown even to their agents, their weapons corrupt even their wielders. If you can't see a narrative place for a malign influence whose purpose is unclear and whose goals are inscrutable, I might suggest the Quills aren't for you. Thus far you're the only person who's expressed any manner of concern about them. Others have understood that a Quill who, for example, changes alignment, does so at their own risk and without any promise of safety from Whisper or from their fellows.

Your morals on your own time are not Her concern. Only your obedience, obedience reinforced by threat and not by any kind of respect or loyalty.

Except the altruistic Quill are used as interfaces for the rest of the world. So somebody somewhere in the organization is concerned, and they only take orders from the person who supposedly doesn't care. I don't know what we're supposed to think, but this hole needs to be patched up. I don't think "it's crazy, guys" is really a suitable excuse. I'd accept "for the evulz" on a bare minimum.

I might suggest the Quills aren't for you.

I mean, I might be one of the few people who have read it, but what the hell?!

It's also sucks that Cursed Razor can only be accessed via an evil tradition. For narrative purpose, I guess it's okay for a wacky cult that only works skin deep, but for player use it's not very useful. The alignment changing line does make more sense in the context of "I keep having to do things I really shouldn't be doing," which is awful.

[Lord_Gareth]

I mean, I might be one of the few people who have read it, but what the hell?!

This is actually their fourth beta release thus far, for the record. The Quills were first released back when ALL the Traditions were going to be in this book; unexpectedly, space opened up for a few in PoW 1. They were the first Tradition written, the first showcased, and have been out since before PoW was released. Hell, they hit beta before the Black Thorns did.

[Snowbluff]

This is actually their fourth beta release thus far, for the record. The Quills were first released back when ALL the Traditions were going to be in this book; unexpectedly, space opened up for a few in PoW 1. They were the first Tradition written, the first showcased, and have been out since before PoW was released. Hell, they hit beta before the Black Thorns did.

I guess we'll disregard the offhanded dismissal. It's good to know some traditions were thrown in as a bonus, though. :l

I think the problem with the Quills is that you gave us too much to work it. If you don't want it examined, you should probably shorten it and add some more malice that was in the chat. Of course, this is assuming you don't want people to analyze the insane cult of megaebil before entering it.

[Doomeye56]

Its really obvious you don't like the Quills, so why the continued argument about it? its not like this conversation is going to cause the tradition to be radically changed to fit what you want.

[Snowbluff]

Its really obvious you don't like the Quills, so why the continued argument about it? its not like this conversation is going to cause the tradition to be radically changed to fit what you want.

I love it's potential. That's the only reason why I am here. PoW2 has delicious, delicious potential. If it didn't, you wouldn't see me talking about the Quill. Not that you would know, because you wouldn't be here, either.

Also, if they aren't going to look for input, why bother ever releasing them for testing? I'm giving my input, whether or not people will listen. You never know until you talk to them about it. Gareth heard me, and I doubt he'll make any changes. Unless anyone has a direct comment to me, I'll drop it. I didn't hurt anything aside from Forrestfire's perception of me, but I think he didn't like me, anyway.

[Taveena]

So why are the secretive illuminati knowledge-seekers all marked very visibly and blatantly? As my friends in another channel put it, "Have you noticed that every clown we've run into is evil and/or insane?"

[Kaidinah]

As I've said earlier on this thread, I love Traditions because they help disciplines feel more organically part of the world. It lets me as a GM create cool plot hooks, even if nobody in the party is part of the Tradition. If a player wants to gain those juicy allegiance benefits, I can use their Tradition as an adventuring hook that pulls them into the adventure personally. It implies that some fighting styles are more than just fighting styles. That is fun for me as a GM.

I am not a lazy GM, but when someone presents you with organizations like these that are easily inserted into any many fantasy settings, its hard not to eat them right up.

So why are the secretive illuminati knowledge-seekers all marked very visibly and blatantly? As my friends in another channel put it, "Have you noticed that every clown we've run into is evil and/or insane?"

Do you think it would it be blasphemous to Whisper to use make-up to cover up that mark? Or perhaps illusion magic. I'm sure the disguise check to cover it up couldn't be that high though.

[Milo v3]

Just wondering to see if I'm the aberration in the room, am I the only one who doesn't like Traditions? Not saying they shouldn't exist, they just aren't my cup of tea and find it interesting that I seem to be the only one who seems to dislike them.

[Kaidinah]

Just wondering to see if I'm the aberration in the room, am I the only one who doesn't like Traditions? Not saying they shouldn't exist, they just aren't my cup of tea and find it interesting that I seem to be the only one who seems to dislike them.

Nothing wrong with not liking a thing. Though I do want to know what you don't like about them?

[Gemini476]

Just wondering to see if I'm the aberration in the room, am I the only one who doesn't like Traditions? Not saying they shouldn't exist, they just aren't my cup of tea and find it interesting that I seem to be the only one who seems to dislike them.

I'm not too fond of them either since I'm personally more interested in crunch than fluff and they're mostly just fluff, but since I'm not really planning on buying the product anyway my opinion could probably safely be discarded.

[Snowbluff]

Just wondering to see if I'm the aberration in the room, am I the only one who doesn't like Traditions? Not saying they shouldn't exist, they just aren't my cup of tea and find it interesting that I seem to be the only one who seems to dislike them.

I agree with you that it would be nice to have more ways to swap schools.

It's hard to argue with them from a crunch perspective. You get something for nothing. Something like a +2 to will is a neat little buff, regardless of whether or not you even want the school or skill bonuses.

...I'm not really planning on buying the product anyway my opinion could probably safely be discarded.

Uh, no. That's not really a good reason to ignore you.

[PsyBomb]

I find it a bit odd that the only school with bonuses that specify monks, the Sultans of Beggars, have a requirement of non-Lawful on the school. Basically means that Initiator Monks can't take it, since their only Archetype that clears the alignment restriction is incompatible (both modify your Bonus Feats).

[Lord_Gareth]

Going to take a brief moment to remind folks that the bonuses granted by Traditions (aside from maneuver access) are explicitly optional. That in mind, I do want to balance them out and I'm taking feedback on their relative power level, but...

The thing is, amusingly enough, that Traditions began as a place to put Codes of Conduct, as a concept. There are two major schools of thought on Codes of Conduct, the first being that a roleplaying restriction is enough to justify a mechanical bonus, and the second being pretty much the precise opposite. Allegiance Bonuses exist for gaming groups in the first camp (and others interested in them), but no DM should feel obligated to include them.

That in mind, I'm thus far hearing that the Cagebreakers and the Reverents might need some changing. I'm a little confused on the reports of the Quill bonus to saves being strong when no one batted an eyelash at an equivalent bonus to Fortitude in the previous book, but it's under consideration.

[Rickshaw]

Welcome to GitP, where rules are made up, and fluff don't matter!