I don't see why you need to be a slave to pre-existing classes if you want to play a unique concept. Just make one up and if it has special powers or freedoms, request it. Classes are obviously not something predefined and limited in number IC, new stuff is released in every D&D product and new organizations get their own Prestige Classes. That clearly indicates IC training and research can lead you to a new, previously nonexistant class. If you want a Sorcerer with Sneak Attack, you could theoretically just make a new class for yourself (both IC and OOC) and not bother with other Rogue skills. In practice you of course simulate it with multiclassing, but classes shouldn't be seen as predetermined IC paths.

So if Blighter doesn't work but you want to play a corrupted druid who has lost his favor with the gods but found another way to retain his nature magic, just make a custom request. You may need to hammer the points above into DM heads, because people in general are comically attached to the idea of "classes" in D&D, but it shouldn't be an impossible feat. I'm not sure why anyone would want to play a canon Blighter Amia anyway, because there's no good way to simulate it. You keep your lame-ass druid spells but lose access to your other druid powers (animal companion, dragon shape), and you can't get the class goodies in NWN anyway.

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I agree with what you said, Iron. I was speaking in generalizations. My point is that Malar himself hasn't adopted the gospel of Saernclaws as a part of his demands for his faithful. That's evident in that Priestly Malarites -do- sometimes spread disease without feeling the wrath of Malar for it.

There are many cases where faithfuls create new doctrine, in hopes that the faithfuls will find wisdom in it and follow suit. More importantly, in hopes that the god himself/herself will find wisdom in it and adopt it as a core thing that his/her clergy -must- do. I think that's the hopes for the gospel of Saernclaws for some Malarites perhaps.

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About Storm of Vengeance, Hellball, Greater Ruin, etc., I think those aren't even close to equal what the Blighter does with Deforestation. You can't compare them, simply because Deforestation, in effect, comes with a sort of evolved Unhallow. This means that a priest has to literally sit in the area that has been Deforested and cast Hallow so that plants can grow again. The process of casting Hallow is a full 24 hours. A whole day, in order to negate what the Blighter did in only seconds. A Storm of Vengeance, a Hellball and a Great Ruin don't do that. And the destructive power to the landscape is nowhere near as powerful and vast in those spells as it is in Deforestation.

That's why I believe the Blighter class as it is in the books simply can not work. It's entirely too powerful for a PC to have in an online multiplayer setting.

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My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

*first curses because comp crashed at the end of a long post that didn't send, then retries to type out points*

I'm not saying that mechanic wise, hellball, GR, even SoV or such have the same level of damage that Deforestation has. What I was saying or suggesting is that the spells -visually- look far, far more devastating than they likely already are.

Visuals are the point of the suggestion that if a person really wished to play a blighter, to have a modified visual like the AoEs that many consider ICly and OOCly to look horribly devastating even if they mechanically are not. That's all largely. Just the visuals.

Maybe to have that Blighter-ized AoE take out some unplotted trees on various maps? There have been numerous threads already about the day/night cycles on Amia so the 24 IG hours needed to Hallow would not break someone who plays an hour or so. It could be a task assigned to a lower level druid or cleric who has the Hallowing spell? Homework almost.

It's not dismissing the difficulty of a Hallowing spell, only reminding that 24 hours in the game, is far less time than most people spend standing around discussing anything IG already.

A Blighter is a strong PC and concept yes, much like a Palemaster, full 30 druid and some other rather prestige classes. All had to be modified in some way for NWN. However, the Blighter seems as though it would need such wide scaled calls for devastation scaled way, way, WAY down.

Personally...I like evil druids. They're feisty and good RP conflicts.