Chapter 118: Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes:

Katarina originally started out as a custom D&D 3.5 class "Witch Hunter" which was a stripped-down Ranger (no spell list). What made the class distinct were a few specific things:

-A starting Spell Resistance (SR),

-A single Favored Enemy (spellcasters)

-And Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Firearms) by default.

Aside from that, she’s nothing special; just a bounty hunter for the church.

In fact, here’s her initial stats (roll 4d6 drop lowest d6) :

Stats

Score

Modifier

STR.

11

0

DEX.

15

2

CON.

13

1

INT.

13

1

WIS.

16

3

CHR.

15

2

Saves

Total

Base

Fort

1

0

Reflex

5

3

Will

6

3

Some other stuff:

Because there was no dedicated Witch Hunter trainer (due to their abysmal survival rate) she was trained by a Paladin, A Cleric, an Inquisitor, and a magical expert (who later turned out to be a Witch as we saw in Book 6) she gained some cross-class skills.

We don't see a lot of Katarina's level-up progress. She's deep into her career as a Witch Hunter when we first meet her. She's capable, competent, and focused. However, she's not terribly charismatic, so she doesn't get along very well with other people. There have been times when she's been used, manipulated, so she has a deep mistrust for the Church, Nobility, and agendas. She wants no part of that; she just wants to do her job- something she's exceedingly good at.

As her class progresses, she gains some abilities:

Her SR gets stronger- unless a spellcaster rolls a 16 or higher, the spell won't affect her, but spell effects would still be relevant. A great example is Book 1- she’s immune to a magical lightning strike, but the thunderclap, the tree exploding, et cetera are non-magical consequences of a magical spell- thus she’s vulnerable to them.

She gains immunity to mind-affecting spells as well as being magically detected and tracked.

I wanted to explore how Spell Resistance could be evolved, developed, manipulated, but there’s not a lot of flexibility in D&D for that sort of thing, so I took the initiative and made my own.

First, Spell Resistance isn’t Spell Immunity. Theoretically someone could still fuck her up with magic. She implies it’s not perfect in Book 2, which tells us it hasn’t always worked out for her in her past. There’s another mention we’ll get to in a bit.

Second, I took Counterspell from WoW (because at the time it disrupted spellcasting) and gave it to her. Well, the interrupting spellcasting part. If she’s in range of a spell being cast, she can disrupt the cast. D&D’s Counterspell was a no-go, because at the time, you had to have a spell list- something Katarina didn’t have.

Third, her SR now expresses out from her in an antimagic field, which is a 10x10 square. If she catches a mage in that square that is constantly centered on her at all times, they lose the ability to use any magic.

This focus on utilizing SR actually makes her a terrible fighter. Without the use of her gun, she's just a stripped-down Ranger, which means she's mostly dodging, stabbing, and hoping she doesn't get hit. We see bits and pieces of this throughout her adventure.

Levels:

This world has a "soft cap" of 11 levels. Once you hit level 11, you're at peak human performance. You can't get much stronger or smarter on your own. That's where things like pacts come into play.

Katarina has made a pact with her Goddess, which "unlocks" the ability to gain additional levels. At this point, Katarina gains the Saint Template. This is not church recognized Sainthood, this is her Goddess giving her extra levels plus the stuff that comes with the template, so she’s now a Level 14 Witch Hunter.

Side note: Katarina’s Goddess has always been just a little obsessed with Katarina.

One of the things about adding templates to D&D classes is that it increases the CR of the class, which would have made it difficult for Katarina to make it to level 14 without some shenanigans.

Shamefully, I pulled some shenanigans: Katarina died and was re-leveled as a Witch Hunter with the Saint Template.

That’s why she was having all those convulsions, the feeling that bugs were crawling under her skin, et cetera; she was basically getting powerleveled back up to her original level by her Goddess.

Heh.

At this point, she's obtained a pact; this is something the Goddess has given her. She's a level 14 (Sainted) Witch Hunter.

There are were D&D items that, when equipped, allow you to act as a member of a different class of your level when equipped. So what was it she equipped? Saint Alicia’s Sash. It's a relic that allows her to behave as though she's a Paladin of equivalent level. (also, it makes her technically fireproof, since Alicia was burned at the stake. More on that in a bit) So at this point it’s like "Fucking really?"

I mean, a Level 14 Witch Hunter that is also functionally a Level 14 Paladin?

But a Paladin’s spell list was mostly useless for what I wanted to do with Katarina, so I threw it away. Instead I gave her the 3.5 Glory Domain. (slightly modified)

If you look at the different classes as raw numbers, then a Paladin has their numbers in different stats, and gains some weapon proficiencies. I didn’t fuck with Katarina’s stats, but I did let her have the weapon and armor proficcency so that I could swap out her perfectly ordinary cavalry saber for a longsword.

So now she can fight, she can smite, she can shoot, and with the Saint template, she can do some visually interesting but largely (unused) things. I really wanted to go into this in Book 4, but I couldn't frame it right, and because of that, Book 4 suffered.

Side note: Katarina’s Goddess has always been just a little obsessed with Katarina.

Whatever deity there is out there- a Deity of Magic, a Deity of the Church, A Deity of Nature, whatever, what’s important to them above all things is souls. Who gets your soul when you die? That's kind of a big deal.

Simurgh was very interested in continuing to "hunt" alongside Katarina, because then she could claim soul-rights over Katarina- who clearly belonged to her Goddess- so Simurgh was punished.

A note on Angels:

There are two types of Angels in the world- There’s the Angelic Spirit, which is basically a chunk of divine power, and a few emotions. No real sentience, no real will, they just wander around and do whatever the fuck they want. They’re bound to respond to certain things- in this case, Simurgh is bound to an ancient war-horn, which Katarina unknowingly carries. Simurgh becomes interested in her at first in order to steal the horn, because she absolutely cannot stand the thought of a mortal commanding her, and finally because she likes Katarina’s relentless nature.

The second type of Angel is the Heroic Angels. People who have proven themselves through lives of heroic virtue, elevated to the celestial. They hang out in the Deity’s realm, sing praises, and wage celestial wars above mortal ken. Theoretically. All of the Saints that Katarina encounters are Heroic Angels.

Katarina is given the half-celestial template, which fucked up her numbers for me again, so I had to kill her off and then level her up again. Sorry about that. Or am I? It gave me a great opportunity to develop side characters after all.

One thing a Deity desires is a Champion. An Angel is a celestial. They can do some really cool shit, but no matter what, they invariably have to return to the celestial realm or they lose their powers and die. A Celestial is like a battery, able to hold a charge for a while, but once the power runs out, it runs out. A Champion however is a human with the spark of the divine. No batteries; she makes her own power. Immortal, nearly indestructible, able to work miracles, and happy to champion the cause of the Deity for all time, ensuring a constant supply of souls for eternity. They're also expensive to make. There's only a few Champions wandering around the world.

So... what does that mean for Katarina?

Katarina just wants to do her job: Kill the Witch. She likes the freedom of answering to nobody except her Goddess, She likes to travel, she actually likes to make friends (she’s just abysmally bad at it), and she likes killing witches. That's pretty much all she wants to do.

Katarina’s Goddess however is just a little obsessed with Katarina and keeps lavishing her with "gifts".

Plot Holes!

Specifically, the fight between her and the mage in Chapter 12 of this Book!

Katarina should have been able to disrupt his spellcasting, right? I mean, it makes sense, she had line of sight on him a couple of times, so shouldn't she have been able to interrupt his spellcasting? The correct answer is, "Welcome to D&D." When I was building the class back in 2008 I worked with a number of DMs to make sure that it was balanced. One of the questions I asked was "How can we kill her with magic, if she's inside an animagic sphere?"

Conjuration (creation) spells. Magic is only involved at the moment the spell actually goes off. Put a person in an antimagic field. Stand outside the field and cast a fireball. The fireball is supressed because it's a magical phenomenon. However, stand outside the antimagic sphere and cast Orb of Fire, and the Orb will hit, because it's literally just fire. All the magic was used (instantaneously) the moment the spell was cast. Fire is fire. So I rolled up a wizard with a very specific and handpicked spell list filled with conjuration (creation) spells. Plus, he used traps (alchemist's fire) to distract her. Incindiary Cloud is another spell he used. Conjuration (creation). Basically lots and lots of ordinary fire. He would have gotten away with it, too. He absolutely could have killed her with magic (and did several times, when she didn't win initiative rolls). Also, he pretended to cast spells in order for her to use up her ability. (The swords, among other things).

Also, even though Alicia's Sash would have prevented her from being burned alive, it wouldn't have prevented her from suffocating or choking to death because of smoke inhalation.

So what happened to her in the village at the end?

Hahahaha, wouldn’t you like to know? I’ll tell you a little bit, because I don’t think i was able to convey it properly- When a mage is caught in an antimagic field, they feel cut off from their powers.

In that village, in that cave, in the presence of a Deity that was not her own, she was cut off from her divine gifts. Now she knows how it feels to be on the receiving end?

I wonder what’ll happen next? Actually, I know what’ll happen next.

However, I’m going to take a short break. I’ve been migrating all the previous books into "The Complete Collection" (which is one huge book containing all the other books), and I’d hoped that I wouldn’t have to start a Book 10.

I might have to.

I need to weigh the pros and cons of starting a new book while continuing to migrate the older books into the Complete Collection.

Should I just add another chapter onto this book?

Should I start a new book altogether?

Let me know what you think.

Also, we’re coming very close to the end of Katarina’s story. If this story has shortened a bus ride, or made a Study Hall go faster, or has just entertained you in some way, consider tipping me a buck in my Paypal.

Even though I might be done with Katarina directly, there’s still plenty of world out there, and no end to the amount of heresies, witches, monsters, mutants, beastmen and blasphemers... and heroes.