So, in my setting, to cut down on pantheon size, most of the gods work several jobs. Travel, knowledge, and magic all folded into one. The Grim Reaper is also the god of music and revelry (Swell guy.)
Thus, there’s also one goddess responsible for both Night (and all the associated spheres, like thievery and murder) and Healing (as night is also a time of sanctuary, safety, and rest.)
Thus, I was thinking it’d be really neat to have Shade-aligned Priestesses have the ability to start up something like a Hideout. (It was only later that I realized I was essentially just trying to write the Bene Gesserit, but I don’t count that a misstep.)
I’m just really unsure how to do this without stepping on the thief’s toes or upsetting endgame balance. I’ll post rules when I think of them; for now I was just curious if the community had any warnings about this.
This is a full-up combination, where they get both the Divine & Thievery stronghold types?
If I had to think of something easy, I’d suggest a custom character class that’s using, say, a fake racial value of 2 (0,1,2), limiting the class to level 11.
So say the standard cleric is Div 2, Fight 1, HD 1, this class is Div 2, Fight 1, HD 1, Race 2, where the only benefit of the Race points is the combined stronghold types.
Can’t advance as high because your attention is so widely taken up, which, perhaps oddly, mirrors the fact that their gods are broadly spread as well - heck, do all your priestly orders like this and go for the theme.
You’ll get two levels worth of this combination, then you’re done. (unless you do some tradeoffs in Fighting or Divine to get the +1 level power, still, that’s only to 12th.
Oddly, ACKS is the only DND game I’d say cutting off the level advancement is an actual penalty…
Assuming you just want to add hijinks specifically to the temple stronghold, spend one custom power (from sacrificing turn undead, weapon or armour ability, etc.) to gain a custom power at 2nd level and add hijinks to your stronghold should be enough (using the class power point buy elsewhere in the forums).
Instead adding the fanatical morale, half-price,and domain securing to a hideout (congregations are attached to the divine caster’s ability to perform magical research) would need a custom power spent to gain the stronghold upgrade plus a custom power at 5th level.
If you squint enough, thief skills are just like any other proficiency. it just happens that most of them scale by level, but in theory another proficiency that requires a roll (healing, loremastery, tracking, navigation) could theoretically be balanced the same way a hijink is. Now, how that balance would look… i have no idea. but it SHOULD be possible!
Start with the average GP value by hijink table in ACKS Core and reverse engineer a new formula that comes out to the same average. Different proficiencies can have different advantages and disadvantages while maintaining roughly the same averages (Loremastery might require a roll of 18+ but pay out huge, thus being swingy, and have a bonus to its average to compensate; Healing might only require a roll of 4+, thus being reliable, and have a penalty to its average to compensate.)
Honestly, I would sacrifice Turn undead and allow the priest to pick 2 thief skills (their choice maybe) which would then allow them hijinks. Maybe add Climbing to their proficiency list for 3. And if you wanted to sacrifice armor down to leather, that’s another two. So you could have a priest class with 4 thief skills to start, plus one from a prof it they wanted it.
Then just let them run the hijinks they have based on their skills, if this is a setting thing.