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A player in our regular group is a battlemind who wields Shadowbane.  He's relatively new to D&D compared to the rest of us, but he's doing very well.  We're about to start the Epic campaign, and the epic destiny that appeals to him most is Raven Knight.

That's somewhat problematic, since the artifact Shadowbane hates shadow creatures and one of the facets of becoming a Raven Knight is:

"If your origin is not already shadow, your origin changes to shadow, and henceforth you are considered a shadow creature for the purpose of effects that relate to creature origin."

We rotate DM responsibilities in our group, and I've never actually judged any of the recent mods that have Shadowbane.  I'm assuming that when he finally got Shadowbane (I recall it taking several adventures) that it came with Concordance rules. (btw, what mod has that info?)

The player recognizes that this is a bit iffy lore-wise, and has come up with the following story to explain it, which was well recieved.  What do you think -- does this seem viable?









Thoughts?
 

A few thoughts:

- After completing the NETH 3-x series, your player is actually wielding Lesser Shadowbane, not Shadowbane itself. 

Spoiler: Show

Lesser Shadowbane is not an intelligent weapon, nor an artifact, so, from a pure rules standpoint, this conflict isn't as severe as you make it out to be.  However, from a roleplaying standpoint (and I state this as a player whose warlord wields Lesser Shadowbane), I'd certainly continue to encourage your player to bear in mind the overall purpose of his sword.  (Edit: what Uthrac said. )

- The Raven Queen does not exist in the Forgotten Realms.  Period, full stop.  Kelemvor, the god of the dead in the Realms, is, technically, the "equivalent" of the Raven Queen for purposes of feats, etc., but his outlook and portfolio are somwhat different from the Raven Queen's.

- For that matter, Orcus, AFAIK (though I'd be happy to be shown otherwise), has no real involvement with Netheril; it's really all about Shar in Netheril, and the Realms version of the Shadowfell.  However, Orcus's role with undead would certainly put him at odds with Kelemvor (who hates undead).

- If you're the DM, take a very close look at the epic destiny, to see if there's a piece of cheese which the player is trying to take advantage of.  I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt, but I've seen too many instances in which a player tries to spin an elaborate RP story to try to explain why his character has a seemingly-incongruous collection of powers (which were nearly always chosen for powergaming purposes).

Fluffy bunny damage ignores insubstantial.  

Sep 10, 2012 -- 12:11PM, Keithric wrote:

Battleminds don't tend to be chargers.

Clearly you've never run into a Battlemind with Momentum Swing and Lightning Rush.

Charge cheese FTW!

--
Pauper

(Edit: CharOp lists Raven Knight as one of the top Battlemind Epic Destinies - community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... )

This thread took a quick turn towards CharOp!

Thanks for pointing out the distinction between Last Grasp of Shadowbane and Lesser Shadowbane.    In fact, I don't think he was really aware that the sword is no longer sentient either.  As such that sort of alleviates any major concern.  I wanted to be aware if there were any game-mechanic issues or major lore/RP issues.

To be honest in our group we might decide to keep Lesser Shadowbane as sentient fluff-wise, but de-powered.  Separate from the Last Grasp of Shadowbane, but still keeping its personality.

It's more fun that way... it's about time LFR allowed us to have some fun stuff!

Since it lost all of its Concordance aspects and game-mechanics I suppose it's only fair that the "discord" that the sword has with its wielders will also be non-mechanic.  That should actually be ripe with role-playing opportunity.

As to whether the player chose the Epic destiny first then tried to fit it to a story... I think that goes without saying.  He said as much: "which seems very good for my build but is kinda iffy flavor-wise".  It's also what most of us do in LFR as well (if we're honest).  For example, almost all of my choices (though not all I admit) are for their game-mechanic benefit.

In his case he's a Battlemind that loves to use Brutal Barrage, so he might not interested in a charging build.  But apparently Raven Knight is the best epic destiny for his build, so I don't begrudge him choosing it.

I was more interested in if there were any game-mechanic issues or major lore/RP issues.  Sounds like "no" to game-mechanic issues and still "yes" (though to a lesser degree) to lore/RP issues (assuming the group decides to keep it sentient).