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51
I think Divine Retribution isn't bad as a general idea, it just needs a curated spell list. The Adept might make for a better starting point, as it has a bigger focus on divine damage spells like Scorching Ray and Lightning Bolt. The Warmage spell list and evocation-heavy cleric domains like the Fire Domain could be used to pad out spells above level 5. Or you could hand out a pseudo-Quicken Spell, so that weak low-level evocations stay relevant and work better with the action economy of mid-levels onward.

I concur. I love the idea of the ability and a curated spell list is exactly what it needs. I just don't feel like searching for spells for it at all right now. Well, actually, that's not quite right. I spent a bit of time looking through the SRD, and came up with the following (in the spoiler). Couldn't find anything at 6th level that fit, 2nd and 4th level were a little light, and I don't love how many of the 5th level spells were just save-or-lose.
(click to show/hide)

The original version in 1001 homebrew ideas actually had the quicken aspect; the spells were cast as a swift action by default.

Iron Body Training is a little weird.

It's a bit of a design-by-committee ability, which is really weird to say given that it was only me working on it. There were a few different thought processes that went into it.
  • 1) Make an ACF that is associated with Iron Heart. At one point, I was trying to do this for all nine disciplines, but Devoted Spirit (Divine Retribution), Desert Wanderer (Desert Wind), Battlefield Commander (White Raven), and Iron Body Training (Iron Heart) were the only ones I could come up with anything decent for.
  • 2) Trade away something that doesn't overlap with the other warblade ACFs. Warblades don't actually have many class features at low levels, and I'd already written two for each of Uncanny Dodge and Battle Clarity, and I don't want an ACF that exchanges Weapon Aptitude, which doesn't give direct combat effects, for an ability that does. That basically leaves skills and proficiencies.
  • 3) How about armor proficiency? And 5E's barbarian has that cool (but impractical) Con-to-AC instead of armor thing. How about something like that? Maybe do a monk's AC bonus-type ability, but based on Int, since it's already a warblade secondary stat? Just switch it to an armor bonus instead of untyped, so it can avoid stacking with armor without needing that pesky no-armor-worn clause explicitly spelled out, fit the barbarian-inspired theme of just blocking hits with your mighty thews rather than dodging them, and match the paradigm I tried out with my pressure strikes monk. And you can still use a shield, as intended, which is why that proficiency wasn't removed.
  • 4) It's got to scale, since it's replacing armor, and I still want to tie it a bit more directly to Iron Heart. How about based on your Iron Heart maneuvers? Scaling with the level of maneuvers known keeps the numbers around the right place in napkin math land, although if it's a little high then the fact that it fluctuates up and down a bit based on whether or not you've actually used an Iron Heart maneuver might balance that out.
  • 5) Uh, oh. It's a 1st-level class feature that gives an attribute to AC. We don't want Int to AC to be overly easily accessible with a 1-level dip for non-warblades. I know! Cap it by Strength, too, so that those wizards and jade phoenix mages can get something but not too much out of it. It won't affect pure warblades, since what kind of melee warblade won't have a higher Strength and Intelligence already?

So, yeah, a little weird. But I kind of like it, you know? If I get to doing another pass on it, I might tweak the numbers a bit, and the bit about needing to initiate Iron Heart maneuvers to keep the full benefit might get axed, no matter how much I appreciate its quirkiness. Even without that, its physical defensiveness fits Iron Heart better than I thought. Despite the aggressiveness associated with the discipline from Punishing Stance at level 1 and Strike of Perfect Clarity at level 9, more than half of its maneuvers and stances are about crowd control, defense, and damage mitigation (11/21). I'm pretty sure only Devoted Spirit and Setting Sun beat it on that front.
52
Board Business / Re: Additional Forum / Discord Integration Accomplished
« Last post by Stratovarius on March 11, 2024, 11:10:49 PM »
Very cool to see this working, and I will be using this in short order for Arhosa PbP.
53
Board Business / Additional Forum / Discord Integration Accomplished
« Last post by Nanshork on March 11, 2024, 11:00:12 PM »
Way back in 2022 I asked for people's input about what they'd like to see now that I'm running around inside the forum code and doing who knows what, and Discord integration came up as a request.  I set up the snazzy header image but that was all that came out of that request.

More has now been done, but not in the way you might expect.  The Discord server header image is still the only part of Discord that touches the forum, >99% of active members are already over there anyway.

Instead, the forum now touches the Discord server.  Moving forward, every new thread/post made (including this one) are automatically sent to the Discord server with a link back to the forum.  I don't know if it will boost forum activity any, but since Strat and I manage both we're interested in keeping both alive and as healthy as possible.
54
Offhand I don't have any balance input but it's nice to see something else using your Auras overhaul.

Iron Body Training is a little weird.
55
I think Divine Retribution isn't bad as a general idea, it just needs a curated spell list. The Adept might make for a better starting point, as it has a bigger focus on divine damage spells like Scorching Ray and Lightning Bolt. The Warmage spell list and evocation-heavy cleric domains like the Fire Domain could be used to pad out spells above level 5. Or you could hand out a pseudo-Quicken Spell, so that weak low-level evocations stay relevant and work better with the action economy of mid-levels onward.
56
Minor nitpick:
Crusader => Divine Retribution:
"and can only target an opponent who have dealt damage that was delayed by your delayed damage pool."
(insert part in bold for a complete sentence)

Spells known/prepared are undefined. So Divine Retribution Crusaders can spontaneously pick any Cleric spell as needed?

The original intent was effectively spontaneous from the whole cleric list, albeit with those rather significant restrictions. You're right, though, that it's probably better not to be so wide. I might make it prepared, or rather retrieved like Spirit Shaman where you pick the spells in advance but can freely and repeatedly cast each of them without the spell-by-spell limits of prepared spells and their finite spell slots.

On second thought, I'm probably going to just nix Divine Retribution. The more I think about it, the more loopholes I see with its possible usage vs. my intentions (ex: have you ally punch you in the face so you can cast Restoration on him), and there are fewer offensive spells than I thought that actually do fit the direct concept. I can't see any easy way around that short of writing up a dedicated spell list for it with only the offensive spells and extending it somewhat.
57
Minor nitpick:
Crusader => Divine Retribution:
"and can only target an opponent who have dealt damage that was delayed by your delayed damage pool."
(insert part in bold for a complete sentence)

Spells known/prepared are undefined. So Divine Retribution Crusaders can spontaneously pick any Cleric spell as needed?
58
Miscellaneous Tome of Battle Alternative Class Features
On a whim (about a decade ago), I jotted up three ACFs for each of the three ToB base classes in the 1001 homebrew ideas thread. I got inspired again and added another three per class this week.



Crusader
(click to show/hide)



Swordsage
(click to show/hide)



Warblade
(click to show/hide)



Change Log
(click to show/hide)

In Progress, Deprecated, and Removed
(click to show/hide)
59
Uncle Kittie's Hopefully Humorous Guide to Abominations / Re: Cinematica
« Last post by bhu on March 08, 2024, 09:36:35 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_the_Great_Glass_Elevator

Vermicious Knids
                      Medium Aberration (Shapechanger)
Hit Dice:             6d8+24 (51 hp)
Initiative:           +3
Speed:                Fly 100 ft. (20 squares)
Armor Class:          18 (+3 Dex, +5 Natural), touch 13, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple:  +4/+8
Attack:               Bite +8 melee (1d8+6)
Full Attack:          Bite +8 melee (1d8+6)
Space/Reach:          5 ft./15 ft.
Special Attacks:      Ram, Improved Grab, Swallow Whole, Sunder, Strange Reach
Special Qualities:    Darkvision 60 ft., Flight, Space Travel, Limited Shapeshifting, Immune to critical hits and flanking
Saves:                Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +7
Abilities:            Str 18, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 8
Skills:               Intimidate +7, Knowledge (Physical Sciences, Planetology, see Spelljammer.org and D20 Modern) +13, Listen +10, Search +10, Spot +10, Survival +8
Feats:                Cleave, Great Cleave, Power ATtack
Environment:          Any
Organization:         Solitary, Group (5-10), Swarm (thousands)
Challenge Rating:     6
Treasure:             Standard
Alignment:            Neutral Evil
Advancement:          7-9 HD (Large) 10-18 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment:     ---

“You’d have been fossilized with fear and glued to the ground! Then they’d have got you! You’d have been a cooked cucumber! You’d have been rasped into a thousand tiny bits, grated like cheese and flocculated alive! They’d have made necklaces from your knucklebones and bracelets from your teeth!”

The Vermicious Knids look like an egg stood up on it's pointed end, and covered in wet, wrinkled, greenish brown skin.  In their thickest, center point they have two red-pupiled eyes the size of teacups.  Their mass pulses slightly.  They vary somewhat, and some are larger than the average.  They can bend and shape their bodies into letters, such as when they take Wonka and company to 'scram' by forming the letters.  They can generally shift into just about any shape or form, but they keep the wet skin and red eyes.  Wonka claims they can stretch themselves into any letters they wish,  but that scram is the only word they know.  They have continually tried to invade Earth, but always burn up on entry.  Despite having no mouth, they are said to have other means of biting people, being able to take a mans head off at 5 yards.

Ram (Ex): If the Knid successfully makes a Charge attack it does 2d6 plus Str modifier plus 1d6 damage per 10 feet it traveled.

Improved Grab (Ex):  To use this ability, Knid must hit a creature of any size with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity.

If it wins the grapple check, it it establishes a hold and can attempt to swallow the opponent in the following round.

Swallow Whole (Ex):  A Knid can try to swallow a grabbed Medium or smaller opponent by making a successful grapple check.

A Knid that swallows an opponent can use its Cleave feat to bite and grab another opponent.

A swallowed creature takes 2d4+4 points of bludgeoning damage and 4 points of acid damage per round from the Knid’s gizzard. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 15 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 12). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out.

A Knid's gizzard can hold 1 Medium, 2 Small, 8 Tiny, or 32 Diminutive or smaller opponents.

Sunder (Ex): If the Knid successfully makes an attack with it's ram or bite, it can immediately make a Sunder attempt as a Free Action without provoking an attack of opportunity (it may only do this when attacking an object or constructs or similar structures.

Strange Reach (Su):  The Knids have a range of 15 feet, despite not having limbs this long.  Or at all for that matter.

Flight (Ex): A Knid's body is naturally buoyant. This buoyancy allows it to fly as the spell, as a free action, at a speed of 20 feet. This buoyancy also grants it a permanent featherfall effect with personal range.

Space Travel (Ex):  Knids are personally capable of existing in space and do not need to breathe, and are immune to Cold and Radiation damage.  They do not take penalties for being in zero G environments, or vacuum.  They are capable of space flight, and even at moving at vast speeds, but tend to burn up on re-entry to planets with an atmosphere.

Limited Shapeshifting (Ex): Knids cannot change their color or texture, but can change or stretch their basic form.  For example they could vaguely resemble a human or giraffe, but still have no features beyond it's wet, greenish-brown skin and red eyes.  Using this as a Swift Action, they can squeeze through a space half their size without movement penalty.

Combat:  Knids are okay tacticians, but rely overly much on their own brute prowess.  They don't use weapons, just their own personal brawn.  They will use teamwork to thwart opponents, but often their idea of teamwork is self limiting.  If a tactic fails, they tend to pursue it with more vigor, figuring they just need to 'try harder'.  Their speed is up to the DM, but is vastly improved upon what they can do in the atmosphere.


60
September 1776 / Re: Chapter 2: Haxan
« Last post by bhu on March 08, 2024, 07:56:02 PM »
ooc you killed some ghouls on the way into town when they started to pick your people off
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