Server balance and concepting

[efuincarnate]

The server seems far to goody goody atm, and I am concepting. So...I am stuck. My inclination is to play some ebol cleric of whatever and give the masses of paladins something to rage against, but ..I am still thinking about it all. Feel free to toss any ideas, factions that are lacking members, your own plots that need players, etc..my last two chars were a ton of fun, the first almost all rp, the second almost all quest/pvp.  I am trying for a happy medium of those two. But I am open..so let's here it. Any DM's that might have some advice, I would be really greatful. Both the last two chars died on quests, and I left them there, because I had come to an empass with them, so the deaths felt right. Would like to get a char that, if possible, had a longevity to him.

Thanks,

-efui

[Semli]

You should be more concerned about characters that appeal to you rather than balancing server trends.  If going up against a lot of paladins is your idea of fun, then do it.  If you have an awesome paladin idea, even if the server has more than a few, you shouldn't feel the urge to try and balance it or feel like you're just playing what's convient.

Anyhow, there's any number of evil cleric concepts that can appeal.  I assumed you wanted a cleric that wasn't just lawl evil but rather a weird interpretation of a certain faith.

Evil Helmite - You want to protect the settlement at any cost.  You advocate the creation and use of undead soldiers, unwilling conscripts, and other unsavory tactics to make certain the Colony will not fall.

Evil Tyrran - Haraumous (or whatever the hell his name is) is an idiot who protects necromancers and other criminals with the improper application of the law, and the only people he's correctly sentenced are those who confessed.  Your goal is to not only replace him but to make certain you condemn every criminal you can get away by the letter of the law with to make the Ziggurat a better place.  People will stop treading in grey legal areas if you treat them all as if they were in the black.  Unfortunately I went and checked it out, but Tyr doesn't support evil alignments.  You'd have to go non-divine or get special approval to make this happen.

Evil Oghman - You know well that knowledge is power, and you'll stop at no means to get it.  No secret is too dark, and no price for those secrets is too high.  Whatever acts you commit are all forgiven in the end because you serve the highest cause; enlightenment.

NE Waukeen - You are greedy and like taking all da monies.  Starving beggers don't have a good work ethic.  The slave trade is not out of the question for you.

NE Grumbar - Society cannot be allowed to change.  Rebels must be dealt with, along with all possible rebels and their families.  Everything is black or white, wrong or right, and your commitment to seeing the community stay as stable as possible knows no boundary.

Evil Hoaran - Probably not the most original cleric, but you are all about revenge.  People come to you that have been wronged, and you enact the most brutal and sadistic punishments in response.  The people are sickened by your savagry but you don't care, because in the end they all desperately plead for Hoar's justice when everything and everyone else has failed them.

Evil Red Knight - War is a game, and you are the ultimate player.  The people who work with you are your pawns, and you accept the reality that to take over the board some of them will have to be sacrificed.  There is no taboo strategem for you, because you always do the most tactically efficient thing as need dictates.  The people and things you oppose are, in some respects, irrelevant.  You could make a name for yourself and enjoy some prosperity by supporting the powers that be, but a greater challenge awaits if you oppose them.  Ultimately, however, it's just a game to you.

Evil Siamorphe - You support the rulers of Old Port and their claim over the colony of Old Port, taking the form of a divine right to rule in your mind.  You are slavishly loyal to them and will stop at no end to route out all who oppose (or might potentially oppose) them.

Evil Ubtao - You see the island and its jungles as a maze of a sort, and because of that, a test to all who are selected by Ubtao to participate in it.  You are interested in seeing how successful people can be and how long they might survive, the ones that die meriting the least of your attention.  The very successful adventurers pose an interesting problem for you, and you believe that by besting them, you serve Ubtao's will as a component of the maze and better understand your own place within it.

Evil Ulutiu - You are superior to every person and beast that wanders the Ziggurat, and you do not hesistate to let them know it.  A large component of this is direct demonstrations of your power.  Moreover, the people are no better than the animals they kill, so you look at every encounter with a slain animal as a fatal one between two individuals, meaning that cat hide traders are the worst sort of assassins in your estimation.

Here's a few to start you off with.  Good luck!

[Yalta]

Good ideas Semli .. just to discuss the title of the thread...
 
This to me is the way of things, as the DM's have said many times the server waxs and wanes good and evil, it wasn't that long ago that threads were started that team good was nowehere to be seen and had to hide in the shadows fearful of the power of team evil and one PC faction in particular....
 
And now, several excellent promienent Evil PC's of that faction are dead or exiled and the wheel has turned, don't worry, i am sure one of our highly skilled RP'ers will roll up some nasty bastard some time soon and all the good PC's will learn to fear/loath them.

[Egon the Monkey]

Actually, I reckon we have a better balance going now.
Previously, there were a lot of LN/LE/NE factions and PCs with (at least on the surface) rather cooperative goals, which made it hard to actively promote Good projects.

Right now we have a LN/LE govt, a bunch of zombie-creators,  the Stygians gaining PC strength, and the Order which seems to lean a little more to more Lawful than Good IMO. We also have a cartload of Paladins and this new Lathanderite faction setting up. Yes there are a lot of Good PCs but they don;t seem to have all that much power.

My suggestion for you would be to create a CE/CN guy to become an adversary for the huge amount of Lawful (from Good to Evil) on the server. A Beshaban, Cyricist or Brandobarian maybe, who loves the very nature of chaos and disorder and strives to create mischief and panic. Send Guards on wild goose chases, set off Stinking Clouds/Bewilderments in the market place, frame the Order or Stygians for a robbery, explode a few things.

[Aldrick Tanith]

Evil Helmite - You want to protect the settlement at any cost. You advocate the creation and use of undead soldiers, unwilling conscripts, and other unsavory tactics to make certain the Colony will not fall.

This.  A character goal could be to get close to Dogshead and join the guard, to convert the guard to your views.  Dogshead is perhaps the settlements most well known Helmite and it also offers some interesting conflicts with the Order.

Hook up with me on IRC and we can bounce ideas back and forth.

[burningworld]

make EFU:A's montezzi imo.

[efuincarnate]

So much food for thought..thanks to all of you, espeacially Semli, I was expecting "Join my xxx, we need peeps" type of thing. I will definelty do something from this thread in some form.  For the record, I was not asking how to balance the server, I just like to play the lesser of the balance, which ever it may be. Server always does go in this cycle. I just don't always see the cycle, as I play nights PST(USA), where the server pop is generaly 5 or 6 folks.