Inspired by Over the Top? Your thoughts. I came up with this...

Frenzied Penitent (Elite Advance)
Prerequisites: Must have Corruption 10+
Advance Cost: 200
Effect: Gain the Flagellent and Frenzy Talents. Reduce Fellowship by 5. Gain the Purity in Death trait. Hereafter, gain access to the following advances

• Berserk Charge (100 exp)
• Chem Geld (100 exp)
• Furious Assault (200 exp)
• Hatred (choose one) (100 exp)
• Insanely Faithful (200 exp)
• Resistance (Fear) (100 exp)
• Unshakable Faith (100 exp)

Purity in Death (trait)
The character seeks out forgiveness for their corruption through a glorious death in the service of the God-Emperor. The character will not accept medical treatment or psychic healing of any injuries suffered, offering up their pain to Emperor as penance for their sins.

Thoughts, comments and constructive criticism welcomed....

This so smacks of the life of a Troll Slayer (minus flagellation) from Warhammer Fantasy setting.

I think it's a really interesting advance.

Very nice advance. Lots of fluffy and crunchy goodness.

My only issue is that, IMO, it seems a tad under-priced. But that's just me. Good job.

LuciusT said:

How about changing the "Glory in Death" from the points given into "cannot burn fate points to prevent death"? After all, death is the fate the figur choose him-/herself?

Thereby, it would be the "purtian" way of dooming ones figure to death (instead of losing it to a daemon seed due to corruption)

Just a quick heads-up from something I noticed: if the character must refuse medical treatmeant, and must flagellate themselves for 1 damage each day, how do they heal themselves if they get seriously injured?

Unless they have a *very* good way of roleplaying that sort of scenario away, or their fellow acolytes tie them to a bed and FORCE them to recuperate (good luck pulling that off when they're powered solely by rage and emprah), it seems they're essentially only good for a single nasty scrap or two before they become permanently crippled and just waiting for that last 2-3 crit damage to put them out of their misery.

Which isn't necessarily bad or contrary to a fun character/game(see a lot of the RH advances for other examples of ways to die- I mean alternate ranks etc), but I just thought I'd point out what is a very real possibility RAW-wise.

The Hobo Hunter said:

Actually, that's the point. The Frenzied Penitent is a character who believes that they have become so corrupt in the eyes of the God-Emperor that the only way they can redeem themselves is by death in glorious battle with His foes. Surviving long enough to buy additional advances from this elite package represents someone tough enough, crazy enough or (un)lucky enough to survive more than a single session of this madness.

Think the pre-req's are a little easy, CP's by themselves have no real currency (aside from being a rough number) and I reckon it should need at least a current malignancy or start of a minor mutation and quite a lot of insanity points (around 20?) before being allowed to take it. Mostly because personally, because Im a bit of a bastard, mutation won't be a case of waking up one morning and "hey, awesome I've got some scales/extra arm or a tail, let me just get my shotgun and do a Kurt Cobain interior decoration job to take the easy way out" oh no...

It'll start off as a small bump somewhere you just can't quite scratch enough to ever be comfortable, maybe a clump of hair falling out or a lovely oily black discharge in the toilet and the spiral into degeneration begins as you slowly realise that the fundamental core of your physical form is out of your hands, then the insanity can begin!

and if he is tempted to chaos he will be a lovely addition to the Khornate army or the pilgrims of Hatred

Gregorius21778 said:

Fate Points are spent by the Player, the character somehow survives, not by the character who wants to die.

Santiago said:

Yes, sure. But the game already has mechanics were different classes have different abilities to use their fate points (see Soroitas Career) and entries where some "goodies" are balanced by reduction of fate points (see the "Dusk Origin" as one example)or by the way a player can use said fate points (see RH).. So why not limiting the players access to the fate points this way to reflect the changes his figure has undergone? To reflect the lack of "will to life" and the emporers "accepting of the final penance", so to speak.

Interesting philosophical point here. Arguable this is what Gotreks problem is in warhammer. The will to die is their but he has too much fate to let it happen.

So the other result would be a trait called Doomed that wouldn't let them spend fate points on healing or preventing injury.

It's an interesting package by the way. Seems fine on the surface, although I suspect there's a way of dodging it's downsides. Such as a techpriest with hermetic infusion based regen which stretches the concept.

Face Eater said:

Well, that's where the key element of any elite advance comes in: GM's permission. If the GM feels that the player isn't in the spirit of the advance, the GM has the right to say no.

Perhaps something more along the lines of "Will refuse all medical attention, psychic healing and so on WHILE IN COMBAT."

The goal of such a character would be to die in glorious battle slaying scores of the Emperor's foes. This goal is not served by dying of septic shock in a dark corner after a battle, nor by any number of petty-deaths. Nothing less than GLORIOUS death in battle will do! To die otherwise is to **** your tainted soul, and you will NOT fail the Emperor a second time! Not now, not ever!

I agree the package has a rather cheap entry requirement, but it is REALLY cool overall.

I do not like the idea of denying the use of Fate Points, since those are the PLAYER representing the fickle hand of fate's intervention as opposed to the CHARACTER doing anything, conscious or otherwise. There is nothing wrong with taking a little inspiration from the Sororitas though:

When in combat the character with this package may not spend Fate Points to heal themselves. They are free to do so when not in combat if they so choose. Instead, this character may spend Fate Points to channel the righteous fury of the Emperor's wrath while in combat, adding 1D5 damage to any one melee hit they inflict on someone known to be impure in the Emperor's sight. This bonus damage is subject to Emperor's Fury if the 1D5 roll is a "natural 10".

ZillaPrime said:

Discusable point of view, depending of which religious mindset/dogma one assumes behind it. If it is a very militant / war-oriented believe, you sight will be the only true.

In many christian dogmantics, "suffering" alone is penitence as long as it is "self inflicted". Whipping oneself was (or is) a common practive. For monks, it was a form of penance to have a stone between ones sole and ones feet to "suffer" for certain (smaller) sins.

By this point of view, suffering a death from infected wounds in a dark alley weeks after the battle would be sufficint...since ones inflicted this weeks of torment and pain on oneself in order to purify the soul.

...but I totally agree that "glorius death in combat" is perhaps more fun to roleplay for the majority