Author Topic: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime  (Read 308548 times)

Offline Xhosant

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #400 on: July 29, 2013, 08:25:42 AM »
The guy with the intrusive power source. To go the cliche way: meet Joe, half-demon, suffering split personality between demon and mortal, suppressing his demonic alias Eoj. When Joe taps into his heritage for power (or when he should but doesn't, or when he's mildly inconvenienced) Eoj gets a chance to evict him, so to speak.

Things get out of hand because: a) there's truckloads of different concepts on that premise, and we need a scaffold covering them all, b) some cases may be forced upon the player (Bob really shouldn't have used the cursed artifact, even if he seeked it out on his own), so a simple PrC won't cut it. We need something scaling off of HD, decidedly not-class-y, powerful but not overpowered despite the last 2 points.

Offline Amechra

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #401 on: July 29, 2013, 04:28:06 PM »
A campaign setting where psionics is spookity evil; the main rule-change is that the psionic classes will be done away with, taking two Psionic feats changes your alignment to Evil, and power points/psionic focus don't auto-recharge.

Instead, you get 'em back by being a horrible person; I'm thinking that anything that would make you gain Depravity or Corruption would give you back a similar number of power points.

A change to Hidden Talent to fit this campaign setting:

Hidden Talent [General]
The voices in your head have really been pushing you to do horrible things lately. It is quite a nuisance.
Benefit: You gain a pool of 2 power points, as well as knowledge of a 1st level Psionic power. Your manifester level is equal to the lower of your character level and the number of [Psionic] feats, and you gain bonus power points based off of your Charisma.
Special: For all purposes except for qualifying for it, Hidden Talent is a [Psionic] feat.
"There is happiness for those who accept their fate, there is glory for those that defy it."

"Now that everyone's so happy, this is probably a good time to tell you I ate your parents."

Offline Garryl

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #402 on: July 29, 2013, 04:39:28 PM »
Better wording: Make it actually be a Psionic feat, except that you need not be psionic to select it. Fewer words and clearer, more obvious effects.

Hidden Talent [Psionic]
The voices in your head have really been pushing you to do horrible things lately. It is quite a nuisance.
Benefit: You gain a pool of 2 power points, as well as knowledge of a 1st level Psionic power. Your manifester level is equal to the lower of your character level and the number of [Psionic] feats, and you gain bonus power points based off of your Charisma.
Special: Unlike other psionic feats, you need not be psionic to select Hidden Talent.

Offline Amechra

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #403 on: July 29, 2013, 05:02:12 PM »
I thought of doing that, then thought that the exception would be weird. Oh well, looks better.
"There is happiness for those who accept their fate, there is glory for those that defy it."

"Now that everyone's so happy, this is probably a good time to tell you I ate your parents."

Offline Garryl

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #404 on: July 29, 2013, 05:33:21 PM »
I thought of doing that, then thought that the exception would be weird. Oh well, looks better.

Which is weirder? And doesn't have a double negative?
A is like B except for this one thing.
X is like Y, except for everything but this one thing.

Offline FireInTheSky

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #405 on: July 29, 2013, 09:32:23 PM »
The voices in your head have really been pushing you to do horrible things lately. It is quite a nuisance. And you've been listening.

FTFY

Offline Amechra

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #406 on: July 30, 2013, 07:20:32 AM »
They make pretty music.
"There is happiness for those who accept their fate, there is glory for those that defy it."

"Now that everyone's so happy, this is probably a good time to tell you I ate your parents."

Offline Quillwraith

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #407 on: July 30, 2013, 11:12:42 AM »
They make pretty music.
Mine don't  :(

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #408 on: August 03, 2013, 06:14:36 PM »
Spellforged Warrior (Warforged Wizard Substitution Levels)

Gish Archetype for Warforged
:
Trade Scribe Scroll for the ability to treat your body as a spellbook
Trade your Familiar to ignore spell failure in composite plating (of all kinds)
Trade your bonus feats to burn spell slots for permanent buffs (Cast a Mage Armor on yourself, it becomes a permanent part of you, taking up the slot indefinitely. One spell per bonus feat lost.)

Offline 123456789blaaa

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #409 on: August 06, 2013, 12:47:17 AM »
It's pretty obvious that the half-fiend and half-farspawn templates are counterparts to one another right? Well I was looking at the variant half-fiend article and bemoaning how you couldn't really apply it to the half-farspawn since a "farspawn" group was never partially standardized like the fiends were.

Then I realized that all you have to do is look at the article and look at the half-farspawn template while comparing both. Doing this should allow you to figure out which things are common to all "farspawn". Most fiends are extremely different from each other anyways except for those things that were standardized across them. All you have to do is create a far-realmy monster (or take an existing one) and just slap on the standardized traits. Voila! You have a Farspawn! Then you'll be able to apply the variant half-fiend article to the half-farspawn template.

Did any of the above make sense? I'm pretty tired right now.
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #410 on: August 15, 2013, 09:49:50 PM »
Random thought:  For the lowbie-casters like ranger and paladin, a way to get certain specific spells to always be spontaneously castable would help greatly.  Either make it equal to the number of spell slots, or perhaps use the "spells known" progression of the hexblade to determine how many spells of each level a ranger or paladin can choose to always be spontaneously castable.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #411 on: August 15, 2013, 09:55:44 PM »
Random thought:  For the lowbie-casters like ranger and paladin, a way to get certain specific spells to always be spontaneously castable would help greatly.  Either make it equal to the number of spell slots, or perhaps use the "spells known" progression of the hexblade to determine how many spells of each level a ranger or paladin can choose to always be spontaneously castable.
Hell... just let them cast like a duskblade. Of course, that brings with it a crapton of book keeping, if you want to optimize it...
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #412 on: August 15, 2013, 10:02:05 PM »
Random thought:  For the lowbie-casters like ranger and paladin, a way to get certain specific spells to always be spontaneously castable would help greatly.  Either make it equal to the number of spell slots, or perhaps use the "spells known" progression of the hexblade to determine how many spells of each level a ranger or paladin can choose to always be spontaneously castable.
Hell... just let them cast like a duskblade. Of course, that brings with it a crapton of book keeping, if you want to optimize it...

Cast like a duskblade how, specifically?  Get 0 and 5th level spells and a huge bunch of slots, then select their spells but be able to cast the few spells known spontaneously?  Or just the spell selection and casting?

The idea was meant to be less powerful than simply giving them any sort of duskblade casting.  They simply have Favored Spells, which will ease the burden of choosing spells a bit since it allows them to prep for odd things, but if that odd thing doesn't happen for whatever reason then the spell slot can still be used for something else that the character would definitely go for.

Though I do agree the duskblade progression would be wonderful for paladins, rangers, and hexblades.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2013, 10:06:09 PM by Jackinthegreen »

Offline sirpercival

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #413 on: August 16, 2013, 12:11:40 AM »
Though I do agree the duskblade progression would be wonderful for paladins, rangers, and hexblades.
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Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #414 on: August 16, 2013, 08:42:31 AM »
Random thought:  For the lowbie-casters like ranger and paladin, a way to get certain specific spells to always be spontaneously castable would help greatly.  Either make it equal to the number of spell slots, or perhaps use the "spells known" progression of the hexblade to determine how many spells of each level a ranger or paladin can choose to always be spontaneously castable.
Hell... just let them cast like a duskblade. Of course, that brings with it a crapton of book keeping, if you want to optimize it...

Cast like a duskblade how, specifically?  Get 0 and 5th level spells and a huge bunch of slots, then select their spells but be able to cast the few spells known spontaneously?  Or just the spell selection and casting?
Can't duskblades spontaneously cast anything from their spell list? Or is that just beguilders, dread necros, and warmages? Anyway, I meant let them spontaneously cast from their entire spell list, but using their "normal" spell slots (as listed in the PHB).
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Offline Agita

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #415 on: August 16, 2013, 03:51:01 PM »
Random thought:  For the lowbie-casters like ranger and paladin, a way to get certain specific spells to always be spontaneously castable would help greatly.  Either make it equal to the number of spell slots, or perhaps use the "spells known" progression of the hexblade to determine how many spells of each level a ranger or paladin can choose to always be spontaneously castable.
Hell... just let them cast like a duskblade. Of course, that brings with it a crapton of book keeping, if you want to optimize it...
Cast like a duskblade how, specifically?  Get 0 and 5th level spells and a huge bunch of slots, then select their spells but be able to cast the few spells known spontaneously?  Or just the spell selection and casting?
Can't duskblades spontaneously cast anything from their spell list? Or is that just beguilders, dread necros, and warmages? Anyway, I meant let them spontaneously cast from their entire spell list, but using their "normal" spell slots (as listed in the PHB).
Duskblades get spells known like everyone else. The full list casters are just Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and Warmage.
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #416 on: August 22, 2013, 08:50:58 PM »
Though I do agree the duskblade progression would be wonderful for paladins, rangers, and hexblades.
aka sirp's houserules

Yup.

Random thought: Some knight/paladin double-progression PrC.  Its neutral or evil counterpart would be hexblade/knight.

More stuff:  Perhaps start a series called "Class redesign by committee" where the design failings of the T5 and T6 classes could be gone over, and then we as a forum can put together revisions of them that actually get to at least T4.

Offline Garryl

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #417 on: August 22, 2013, 09:35:54 PM »
Spell Critical: Your damaging spells have a critical save threat range of 1. (Whenever a subject fails a saving throw against a damaging spell you cast by rolling a natural 1 on the die, it must make a confirmation saving throw. If the second save fails, the subject takes double damage from the spell.)

Improved Spell Critical: Requires Spell Critical, CL 8th. Double the critical save threat range of your spells of the chosen school.

Power Spell Critical: Requires Spell Critical, Spell Focus (chosen school), CL 4th. Add +4 to the save DC of your spells of the chosen school for the purpose of confirmation saving throws.

Vorpal Spell [Metamagic]: Requires Spell Critical. Whenever a subject fails a saving throw against a damaging spell you cast by rolling a natural 1 on the die, it must make a confirmation saving throw. If the second save fails, the subject's head is removed from its body. Even if your spell critical save threat range is larger than 1, Vorpal Spell only triggers on a natural 1. A Vorpal spell takes up a spell slot 5 levels higher than normal.

Offline Garryl

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #418 on: August 27, 2013, 02:15:42 AM »
Spell Ablation: A defense against magical effects. Anything that ignores SR also ignores Spell Ablation (SA). Rather than sometimes completely negating spell effects like SR, SA reduces its effects, not entirely dissimilar to the difference between AC and DR. Whenever a creature with SA would be affected by a spell with any level-dependent variables as part of its effect, the spell's effective caster level is reduced by the creature's SA when determining those effects. The spell is not negated if this would reduce the effective caster level to less than the normal minimum required to cast the spell. However, if this would reduce the spell's effective caster level to less than 0, the spell is negated as though it had failed to bypass the creature's SR.

Range, area, number of targets, HD of creatures affected, and other factors that determine which creatures are affected are not influenced by SA, only the actual potency of the effect applied to those that are. Duration is affected only for spells that apply their effects individually to each of their subjects (or to their sole subject, in the case of single-target spells).

If a spell would affect multiple creatures, one or more of whom have SA, determine the effects of SA's caster level reduction for each creature independently.

If a creature has both SR and SA, the reduction in effective caster level does not apply to the caster level check to bypass SR. The two magical defenses apply independently of each other.

Multiple sources of SA do not stack. Use only the highest one.

A creature with SA who willingly accepts a spell can choose not to apply SA to that spell.

... not sure how to word how Spell Ablation affects powers. Something to do with reducing the effective amount of augmentation, but how, exactly? Probably capping it at the newly reduced effective manifester level and determining the effects accordingly, or something like that.

Offline Garryl

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Re: 1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime
« Reply #419 on: August 28, 2013, 10:16:18 PM »
Money is power variant

Instead of using experience points to level up, players gain levels whenever their wealth reaches the next level's total on the Wealth By Level tables.

Experience points are still accumulated and can be spent as normal. Might want to reduce xp rewards a fair bit, though.