Author Topic: Discussion and Suggestions  (Read 27511 times)

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #20 on: August 03, 2014, 06:17:24 PM »
Frozen Night is officially complete. Added a maneuver (Snow Flurry), a stance (Ice Clamber), and changed Sapping Strike a bit (uttercold damage instead of cold, added the Darkness descriptor).

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #21 on: August 03, 2014, 10:57:40 PM »
Undying Call is officially complete. Comments and critiques are welcome as always.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #22 on: August 14, 2014, 12:52:42 AM »
Posted martial ghost abilities and the Tomb of Battle magical location.

Restless Bones is just missing a 1st level maneuver and a 5th-6th level stance. I'm kinda stumped on both. Any ideas?

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #23 on: August 14, 2014, 07:14:01 AM »
Posted martial ghost abilities and the Tomb of Battle magical location.

Restless Bones is just missing a 1st level maneuver and a 5th-6th level stance. I'm kinda stumped on both. Any ideas?
1st-level counter that gives you a bonus to resist grapples, bull rushes, trips, etc. because it locks your joints and thickens your skeleton momentarily.
6th-level stance which gives you undead immunities? Or is that too strong? Or useless?

You haven't written up Army of the Dead yet, just FYI :)
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Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #24 on: August 14, 2014, 06:47:00 PM »
Gaining most of the undead (or deathless) immunities is already an 8th-level stance in Undying Call.

I've tried a few different ideas with Army of the Dead, but I can't find anything that really feels right for a maneuver.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #25 on: October 15, 2014, 03:25:55 PM »
I finally finished Restless Bones, yay!

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #26 on: February 24, 2016, 12:20:10 PM »
So...I just noticed that this was all finished.  Are you looking for any feedback?

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #27 on: February 24, 2016, 03:31:28 PM »
Oh, yeah, I guess it is. (I always had it in mind to add some feats or something...)

I wouldn't mind a look over the Death Knight mount list. It was always a first draft with only a minor balance check (mostly sticking Nightmare at 17th level or higher due to Astral Projection). It's not that easy to quickly evaluate the rest of the mounts, especially after accounting for the Zombie/Skeleton templates. Also, the Fiendish Unicorn option might need an adjustment, if only to change its Magic Circle and Detect Evil abilities to be vs. good instead (otherwise the magic circle will protect its enemies against the unicorn's own attacks).

Also, I do have some ideas for feats. If you have any more, I'd love to hear them.
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Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #28 on: February 24, 2016, 04:30:48 PM »
I'll go over everything then, why not.  I've turned into Strat's personal homebrew reviewer so I can do that for you also, I figure I've helped enough with other projects of yours to turn my attention tothis.

We'll start with the Death Knight.



I'm AFB, I'm going to assume the maneuver and stance progressions are appropriate.

The capstone could probably use Cha to Hp since it's a melee class.

Other than that it's a solid class, nothing exciting but it fills its theme well.


As for the mount list...

You should have some text about how undead steeds can't be turned while being ridden by the Death Knight (like in the Bone Knight PrC).

According to something I read (I'm AFB), DMG page 204 has paladin alternative mounts.  Paladins can get a Unicorn at 6 so Fiendish Unicorn at 8 isn't out of the question (although yeah you want some text saying that the anti-evil abilities are now anti-good).  You can also probably get away with having Nightmare as a lower level mount, just say it doesn't get the astral projection or etherealness abilities.  Say around 8 since that's when the other flying mounts come into play (that's a gut reaction).

Yeth Hound is pretty much superior to Hell Hound in all ways.

The megaraptor feels kind of forced.

I don't see any issue with the skeleton options, same with the zombie ones (zombies are only good as mounts, can't even get good combat options there). 

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #29 on: February 24, 2016, 05:54:02 PM »
I'll go over everything then, why not.  I've turned into Strat's personal homebrew reviewer so I can do that for you also, I figure I've helped enough with other projects of yours to turn my attention tothis.

We'll start with the Death Knight.



I'm AFB, I'm going to assume the maneuver and stance progressions are appropriate.

Straight copy from Warblade, IIRC.

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The capstone could probably use Cha to Hp since it's a melee class.

It's already there (Dark Blessing). A little easy to miss, I suppose, since it's a one line thing right before this huge list of stuff.

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Other than that it's a solid class, nothing exciting but it fills its theme well.


As for the mount list...

You should have some text about how undead steeds can't be turned while being ridden by the Death Knight (like in the Bone Knight PrC).

Great idea. Will add.

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According to something I read (I'm AFB), DMG page 204 has paladin alternative mounts.  Paladins can get a Unicorn at 6 so Fiendish Unicorn at 8 isn't out of the question (although yeah you want some text saying that the anti-evil abilities are now anti-good).  You can also probably get away with having Nightmare as a lower level mount, just say it doesn't get the astral projection or etherealness abilities.  Say around 8 since that's when the other flying mounts come into play (that's a gut reaction).

Yeth Hound is pretty much superior to Hell Hound in all ways.

The megaraptor feels kind of forced.

I don't see any issue with the skeleton options, same with the zombie ones (zombies are only good as mounts, can't even get good combat options there).

So, shift the Yeth Hound down to 11th level, maybe? Looking at it (and paying more attention than just to the CR), it seems much better than a simple zombified flying mount would be at 8th level (DR 10/silver and an AoE fear effect, albeit with a low save DC).

Does a Nightmare without the spells sound right at 11th level? Similar reasoning to the Yeth Hound (great flight, concealment, minor debuffing). I might want to put the Cauchemar Nightmare (the CR 11 version of a Nightmare) at 17th or 20th level and leave it with its SLAs.

I think the megaraptor was just because it's the one skeleton pre-statted in the SRD that's even remotely appropriate as a mount. Also, I just like the imagery of riding a giant skeletal dinosaur. Plus, is it any weirder than a Paladin on a dire bat or a rhinoceros?

Edit: Also, megaraptors are on the Druid animal companion list. I'm thinking about looking at the animal companion list to help flesh out the higher level options.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2016, 06:14:38 PM by Garryl »

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #30 on: February 24, 2016, 06:44:25 PM »
Yeah, I completely missed Dark Blessing.  I see it now.

Shifting Yeth Hound down and adding Nightmare to the same level works, they're both actually useful as more than just flying transportation.

I love the idea of a capstone mount! The skeleton dragon is a nice touch too.

There's nothing wrong with the megaraptor, it just jumped out at me.



Anything else before we move on to the next class?


Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #31 on: February 24, 2016, 10:25:37 PM »
Nothing of grave importance that I can think of. Aside from what we talked about just now, I also added an Ex-Death Knights section (become good, lose Fear Aura and the mount and you can't advance until you become non-good again, pretty boilerplate) and changed the mount's Multiattack so that zombies can get a 2nd attack, too, despite having that single actions only thing.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #32 on: February 25, 2016, 11:05:56 AM »
Sounds good.  Time to move on to Spirit Warrior.


Actually, spirit warrior already looks good.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #33 on: February 25, 2016, 11:49:59 AM »
On to disciplines.

There's a disparity in the number of maneuvers per level between the three disciplines.  I don't know if that needs adjusted or not.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #34 on: February 25, 2016, 12:59:55 PM »
They're all 2-4 maneuvers per level (except 9th), with a total of 23-25 maneuvers per discipline. TOB's about the same overall (Desert Wind has 27 maneuvers, Diamond Mind has 22, Iron Heart has 21, etc.) and per level (2-4 per level, except for 9th which has only 1 and for Devoted Spirit with 5 maneuvers at each of 5th and 6th level due to the 4 alignment variations).

Edit: Restless Bones had only 22 maneuvers when you looked at it, but I had some inspiration and wrote another. Coincidentally, it was while you were posting.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2016, 01:11:11 PM by Garryl »

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #35 on: February 25, 2016, 01:50:26 PM »
Haha, nice.  Okay, I didn't realize that kind of thing was normal (afb again due to work).

Time to go over Restless Bones.


Bone dance could use a reference for the returned template.

I like Corpsecrafter.  Too bad you can't dual stance with Desecration.

Since you've got rushes you should probably copy the rush rules from whoever/wherever (I can't remember who on the board first homebrewed them).  Just a quick blurb about what a rush is, etc.



All in all I like it, it wasn't what I was expecting from the name but it works well as a debuff/control discipline and is very thematic.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #36 on: February 25, 2016, 02:05:19 PM »
Haha, nice.  Okay, I didn't realize that kind of thing was normal (afb again due to work).

Time to go over Restless Bones.


Bone dance could use a reference for the returned template.

You mean like a link to it?

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I like Corpsecrafter.  Too bad you can't dual stance with Desecration.

Can't have everything :(

I may need to find a way to add more temporary animation maneuvers, though. Without dual stances or anything, it looks like Desecration only innately works with Bone Puppet and Grave Walking. Great for supporting other necromancers in your party, though.

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Since you've got rushes you should probably copy the rush rules from whoever/wherever (I can't remember who on the board first homebrewed them).  Just a quick blurb about what a rush is, etc.

That would be me.

All three disciplines use rushes, so I'll just put a note and a link in the index, I think.

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All in all I like it, it wasn't what I was expecting from the name but it works well as a debuff/control discipline and is very thematic.

Thanks. Out of curiosity, what were you expecting from the name?

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #37 on: February 25, 2016, 02:57:55 PM »
Haha, nice.  Okay, I didn't realize that kind of thing was normal (afb again due to work).

Time to go over Restless Bones.


Bone dance could use a reference for the returned template.

You mean like a link to it?
Or a book reference or whatever.  A quick google search didn't come up with anything so I'm not sure where it's from.

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I like Corpsecrafter.  Too bad you can't dual stance with Desecration.

Can't have everything :(

I may need to find a way to add more temporary animation maneuvers, though. Without dual stances or anything, it looks like Desecration only innately works with Bone Puppet and Grave Walking. Great for supporting other necromancers in your party, though.

More temporary animation maneuvers couldn't hurt.  Maybe higher level ones to give you better undead for short amounts of time?  I don't want to overload the discipline though.

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Since you've got rushes you should probably copy the rush rules from whoever/wherever (I can't remember who on the board first homebrewed them).  Just a quick blurb about what a rush is, etc.

That would be me.

All three disciplines use rushes, so I'll just put a note and a link in the index, I think.

Ahh, there we go then!  A note and link in the index would be perfect.

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All in all I like it, it wasn't what I was expecting from the name but it works well as a debuff/control discipline and is very thematic.

Thanks. Out of curiosity, what were you expecting from the name?


I was expecting an undead focused discipline all about making minions.  I don't know how you'd make that many skeleton and zombie focused maneuvers though.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #38 on: February 25, 2016, 03:20:33 PM »
Undying Call

Is spirit damage spelled out anywhere?  Edit: It looks like it is in amalgam damage, I had to get to Essence Nova to spell it out.  Maybe make a note at the top that Spirit damage is amalgam damage?

The addition of healing maneuvers is interesting but not outside the scope of the theme, I wouldn't have thought of that.

Do all the temp hp you can gain stack with each other/ other temp hp?

The Deathless Resolve/ Undying Resolve dichotomy is interesting.






Offline Garryl

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Re: Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #39 on: February 25, 2016, 03:59:31 PM »
Returned Template is part of the Tomb of Battle collection. Ditto amalgam damage. They're both listed in the index.

Adding sidebars to Undying Call and Frozen Night about amalgam damage. Also adding reminder text about the amalgam damage to those maneuvers that are missing it.

According to a quote of Rules Compendium, page 72, temp hp stacks as long as it's from different sources (which makes perfect sense to me). So to follow up with the important question, should all of those temp hp sources stack or should all of the different spirit damage strikes have their temp hp be mutually exclusive?