Talk:Pariah

• Pariah (was Warlock)
  • rewards for aggression, gets fragile if not aggressive
  • spell-casting scrappers (think COH's "blapper" hybrid)
  • arcane-powered pact magic, movement and close attacks
  • if move towards enemy and closest of all allies, can turn aoe into multi-ranged-touch attack
  • add defenses for aggression, must acquire each round (e.g. blur/fast-healing/AC from movement, etc.)

has a way of taking good luck now, in exchange for bad luck later. For example, the pariah may be able to roll 2d20 for any d20 roll he wishes, taking the best of the two results, any time! However, each time he does so, the GM gets to mark down 'bad karma', and use it against the pariah at a future time. This bad karma might manifest as the GM saying the pariah must roll 2d20 and take the worst of the two results. (In general, the downside probably shouldn't be as powerful as the upside, since this is a class feature. Perhaps the player can use bad karma on d20 rolls of their own choosing, to try to burn off the bad karma before the GM can use it against him.)

• from the Coriolis Kickstarter

Bargaining for Karma

• some things a Pariah can do to gain karma from the spirits:

• deliver the killing blow to a non-minion enemy
• speak a truth when you would prefer to lie
• wake from a full-night's rest with lingering injuries
• sacrifice a damage die, dealing no damage with it
• rolling 2d20 on a d20 roll and taking the worst result (must declare you are doing this before you roll)

• Players are encouraged to come up with other things that might interest the spirits.

• Players should always announce when they do something to earn the favor of the spirits (like telling the truth when they'd prefer to lie). The spirits (the GM) can then decide how much favor/karma the deed was worth.

Spell System

character class has a smaller set of spells which are unique to the class (maybe as few as 35?). Each spell scales with level, and offers a different flavor depending on the source of their pact magic. Spells tend to be melee-oriented effects, akin to shocking grasp. When we write these, they should be distinct based on each pact, and have enough flavor text to provide a weirdness and unpredictability to the magic. Make magic great again.

Spells are not memorized, but are instead granted by the pact's source. You can keep casting a spell until you fail to cast it (see failure, below). Once a spell casting fails for a particular spell, you can't cast that spell again until after a full night's rest.

pariahs don't have to make concentration checks, even when threatened. In addition, spell resistance has a harder time resisting pariah's spells. Instead, each time a pariah casts a spell, he must roll 2d6 to see if he is favored by his pact source enough to cast it today.

• on a 2 - 6, the spell fails, and he can no longer cast this spell until after a full night's rest.
• on a 7 - 9, the spell casts as normal
• on a 10 - 12, the spell casts as normal, and if the pariah wishes to spend a point of karma he can add a critical effect to the spell.

If a creature has spell resistance, the 2d6 result is reduced by 2, but the effects above are otherwise unchanged.

pariah can spend 1 karma to add +1 to a spell casting roll.

Pact Sources

Each pariah gets his magic from a deal made with a more powerful entity or source of power. It should remain unclear what the entity or source gets out of the deal, but it should be clear that they get something.

• the whispering void - that tentacled god seemed nice enough, and hey, free magic!
• the well of power - drawing primal magic from the source of all magic (sipping from a firehose)
• the heirloom - drawing power from a poorly-understood artifact, passed down in secret among your family members
• the masquerade - power from the heart of the First World
• the prince - the classic faustian pact with a devil. Yay! Satanism in D&D. It's not just for Tom Hanks any more.

the most important thing to achieve with pact sources is to provide some class diversity among pariahs. The second most important thing is to create a sense of wondrous weirdness in the class and its magic.

Mechanically, pact sources differentiate themselves with the following:

• a specific class ability or two at various class levels, depending on the pact chosen.
• critical spell effects are different for each pact.
• maybe offer 1 or 2 different ways to generate and/or spend karma, per pact.

(we want to minimize how much work is involved in creating the class, but without just phoning it in. We'll have to design around 50 spells or so, though we can borrow heavily from existing spell lists, if we want. In my opinion, this is an opportunity to create a champions-like spell system that is interesting and flexible.)