Thanks for the assist.
To me, it makes sense to assume the Dead Pact works the same as it does anywhere. Undead won't attack Dustmen first, but that doesn't mean the intelligent ones are going to let their guards down or invite Dustmen into their private homes without reason.
However, the ability might leave Dustmen vulnerable to corruption checks if they use it too often. There are some entities you don't want to associate with, Dead Pact or not, not without the Dark Powers getting a grip on your soul.
Note that the 3e rules at Planewalker.com express the Dead Pact as a series of feats Dustmen can optionally take.
I agree with most of what Rip said, but the Dead Pact is involontary
It happens automatically, but it's completely optional whether or not your Dustman takes advantage of it. It's always possible for a Dustman to forsake the Pact's protections and simply attack the undead in question.
If you stand by while Strahd slaughters your friends, a corruption check is in order.
If you use the Pact to hang around with Azalin and his minions all day, a corruption check is in order.
Simply meeting the Headless Horseman while wandering alone on a dark night and having the Horseman ignore you because of the Pact, no, that wouldn't require a corruption check.
That's the difference.
I don't know. What if you're just afraid of Strahd. Does that make you potentially evil?
Your fear is a path through which evil and corruption can enter, yes. Many evil people have perfectly reasonable explanations for why they do the things they do. It may start out with simple cowardice, but not doing good when you have a chance is definitely where corruption begins. If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, how much worse for those who have no good intentions to explain themselves, only pathetic weakness?
That said, I don't think it automatically makes you corrupt to watch your friends die around you when you have no chance of helping them regardless. It depends on what level you are and what your abilities are. But using the Dead Pact as an excuse for letting evil flourish when you would otherwise have the ability to do something about it is a good reason for a corruption check.
If you use the pact to live in a city of undead and prosper, is that corruption?
Not in itself, perhaps, but one thing Ravenloft does not have in abundance is cities of neutral-aligned undead. Undead are too often tools of the Dark Lords for close association with them to serve much good. A Dustman who used the Dead Pact to operate an "underground railroad" of sorts, helping ferry innocents out of danger would certainly not get corruption points from doing that... but even so, the potential for corruption is there in associating with the forces of darkness.
Outside Ravenloft, this is not so much a problem. Neutral, or at least nonhostile, undead may be more common, and reality is controlled by entities who are constantly searching for a way into your soul. But I think it fits the themes of Ravenloft better if abuse of the Dead Pact (not all uses of it, but abuses of it) eventually damn you. So yeah, you can use it for good purposes (the aforementioned underground railroad) or neutral purposes (avoiding getting killed while walking through a field full of zombies) without too many problems, but I still think there are some entities that you're going to not going to want to associate with very much if you want to keep your soul intact.
From Sigil, Dusty the Dustman was used to dealing with all kinds of berks. Demons and devils, elementals, genies, Dusty hasn't met a cutter he couldn't get along with in that anthill called Sigil. Natually, there were the undead as well. Those left him along, due to Dusty being a member of the Dustmen, and their non-aggression pact with the undead.
The mists parted and Dusty found himself in a place most unlike the outer planes. "Bar that", exclaimed Dusty "Time to activate a portal". He used his key and... nothing. Nothing happened. Then a voice.
"Hello you", said a vampiress. Thanks to Dusty's study of the undead, he new what she was instantly.
"I will be leaving now. Good evening to you, vampiress", replied Dusty.
"Ah, how perceptive. Don't leave yet... you blood calls to me".
Dusty decided not to talk anymore and just walk away. The pact did not cover provoking the undead, so he decided that ignoring the vampiress and walking away would be better. He made a point of not looking back.
Seconds later blood was spraying out of his neck into the mouth of the vampiress, nourishing her with his essence.
Drained, and on deaths door, Dusty whispered, "Why... the pact... why don't you respect the pact?".
The vampiress replied, "I don't think I will make you one of my servants. You seem quite mad. A pity too... your nectar was sweet. In any case, I know of no pact, and I am bound by nothing but my hunger".
The vampiress left Dusty's corpse, which was feasted upon by famished ghouls not an hour later. Ignomonious is the end of Dustmen that rely on the pact in the lands of the mists.
Rip's approach is more fun. Having the Dustman walk a thin line is very interesting.
Why do you keep saying that the Dead Pact associates you with an undead?
I didn't say that. I said abusing the Dead Pact in order to associate too closely with beings of deplorable evil could lead to corruption, but I didn't say merely being a Dustman and being part of the Dead Pact meant you were automatically associated with beings of evil.
Selling goods to evil people isn't a evil act.
Again, I didn't claim it was. I mentioned the sorts of things that would trigger a corruption check, and selling harmless goods isn't one of them. Selling spell components (which is what I presume eye of newt is, since undead don't need to eat) to evil spellcasters probably would be, though, if you knew they were evil. In a city of undead like the Necropolis, that might be a good bet.
Well I would need your definition of associating.
No, you wouldn't. Use your common sense, and assume I'm not an idiot, please.
If, lets say, eye of newt is a spell component for a divination spell, would it be evil to sell it to a quasi-lich?
This is a distraction; you know as well as I do what would be evil and what wouldn't. If the Dustman has reasonable grounds to believe the quasi-lich will hurt someone with the supplies he's providing him, it's bad news. With evil undead, it's generally a bad idea to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm not saying that any incidental contact means automatic corruption. This is not a debate on the ethics of selling random objects to evil beings. Ravenloft is a place where the forces of evil control reality and constantly seek a weak point through which to corrupt the unwary. Someone who casually associates with evil beings in such a place is likely to leave an opening through which they will be corrupted. A Dustman should use the advantages she gains through the Dead Pact with caution. All power corrupts, especially in the Demiplane of Dread, and power that involves the forces of undeath corrupt all the more easily. These things are much more dangerous in Ravenloft than elsewhere, where it is not impossible to walk the line between Good and Evil, but it's much more difficult to do so safely, since any swing toward the evil side makes someone that much more likely to stay there.
I think that's a major theme in a Ravenloft campaign, so it should never be easy for a character to dabble with the forces of darkness and emerge unscathed, Dead Pact or not. The idea of Dustmen who act as neutral go-betweens between the dead and the living in a horror setting is an interesting one, and I'm not saying it's impossible, just that they have to be very cautious in doing so. Likely they would have to have a strict code that they don't deviate from.
Where is it on this site ?
http://planewalker.com/downloads/products/released.php - that has all the chapters of the 3e Planescape setting. Chapter 3 describes the Dustmen, and Chapter 4 provides Dustman-specific feats, including the Dead Pact feats.
It doesn't make sense that Ravenloft undead would adhere to a pact they are not even aware of. Nor is it right that Dustmen should be able to ignore the major threat of the Ravenloft setting.
If you *really* want to use Dustmen in Ravenloft then they need to be altered suitably for Ravenloft. My suggestion would be that a Dustman can have a pact, but has to deliberately seek out an undead Darklord of a domain (like Strahd or Azalin) and make a formal pact with that entity. If they do so they will claim all the benefits of the normal Dustmen pact in that domain, for all undead in that domain, with the exception of undead that are self-declared enemies of the undead Darklord of the domain.
Dustmen that make pacts with undead Darklords need to make any appropriate powers checks, and the Darklords themselves are unlikely to give pacts for nothing. They may demand occasional services or tasks be done.
The easiest way to introduce this concept to a Dustman recently arrived in Ravenloft is to have him meet another Dustman that tells him about it. However, Ravenloft is about being shocked so the Dustman should be attacked by undead soon after arriving in Ravenloft, and left to puzzle out why the undead attacked.
When Lord Soth arrived in Ravenloft in the novel Knight of the Black Rose, he was shocked because he could not control the zombies that were attacking him, something he should have normally been able to do with ease. The point of this, and of my advice concerning Dustmen in Ravenloft, is that characters are taken outside of their comfort zone.
Anyway, in Ravenloft the Ravenloft setting rules should take precedence otherwise playing in Ravenloft is rather meaningless.
*SNIP*
This.
I'm not assuming that your a idiot
If you come up with a scenario that's plainly ridiculous (like "what if a merchant sells a demi-lich a bag of popcorn?"), please assume that wasn't my intent. It's generally safe to assume that the limitations of common sense should apply to most of my opinions, unless I'm emphasizing the surreal, nonsensical nature of the planes.
It is not about killing the PCs. Dustmen work fine in Planescape, but their pact ruins the mood of the Ravenloft setting, and it lacks a logical basis in the Ravenloft setting. Almost all classes have their abilities altered or weakened somewhat in Ravenloft, particularly clerics in their dealings with the undead.
Indeed, but their presence could be the base of a new cult in Ravenloft!
It doesn't make sense that Ravenloft undead would adhere to a pact they are not even aware of. Nor is it right that Dustmen should be able to ignore the major threat of the Ravenloft setting.
Indeed, my thoughts too. A Dustmen would be really surprised
Dustmen that make pacts with undead Darklords need to make any appropriate powers checks, and the Darklords themselves are unlikely to give pacts for nothing. They may demand occasional services or tasks be done.
FYI, and as a reminder for other people too, a pact with a Darklord in itself isn't worthy of a power check
You can get a power check in Ravenloft only by evil acts (betrayal, murder, torture, etc.).Joël