Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Garryl

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 225
1
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: New NPC Classes
« on: March 12, 2024, 12:30:05 AM »
Sublime Adept NPC class
A simple NPC martial adept class. Uses the maneuvers from a single discipline moderately well.

Hit Die: d8



Level
Base
Attack
Bonus

Fort
Save

Ref
Save

Will
Save


Special

Maneuvers
Known

Maneuvers
Readied

Stances
Known
1+0+0+2+0Chosen Discipline220
2+1+0+3+0--221
3+2+1+3+1--221
4+3+1+4+1--321
5+3+1+4+1--321
6+4+2+5+2--321
7+5+2+5+2--421
8+6/+1+2+6+2--431
9+6/+1+3+6+3--431
10+7/+2+3+7+3--531
11+8/+3+3+7+3--532
12+9/+4+4+8+4--532
13+9/+4+4+8+4--632
14+10/+5+4+9+4--642
15+11/+6/+1+5+9+5--642
16+12/+7/+2+5+10+5--742
17+12/+7/+2+5+10+5--742
18+13/+8/+3+6+11+6--742
19+14/+9/+4+6+11+6--842
20+15/+10/+5+6+12+6--853

Class skills (2 + Int modifier per level): Climb, Concentration, Craft, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (local), Martial Lore, Profession, and Swim. A sublime adept also adds the key skill of his chosen discipline to his class skill.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Sublime adepts are proficient with all simple weapons and with all martial weapons from among his chosen discipline's associated weapons. Sublime adepts are also proficient with light armor and with shields (other than tower shields).

Chosen Discipline: A sublime adept chooses a single martial discipline from among all of the martial disciplines. He studies this martial discipline alone, learning its maneuvers and training with its favored weapons and key skill.

Initiator Level: Unlike other martial adepts, a sublime adept does not always count full class level towards his sublime adept initiator level. A sublime adept's initiator level equal to 2/3 his class level, rounded up, rather than his full class level. As with all characters, he still adds 1/2 his total level in other classes to his sublime adept initiator level. Consequently, a single-classed sublime adept's maximum maneuver level learned is 1st at 1st level, increasing by 1 maneuver level every 3 class levels thereafter.

Maneuvers: A sublime adept begins his career with knowledge of two martial maneuvers. Only his single chosen martial discipline is available to him.

Once a sublime adept knows a maneuver, he must ready it before he can use it (see Maneuvers Readied, below). A maneuver usable by a sublime adept is considered an extraordinary ability unless otherwise noted in its description. His maneuvers are not affected by spell resistance, and he does not provoke attacks of opportunity when he initiates one.

A sublime adept learns additional maneuvers at higher levels, as shown on the table above. He must meet a maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. See Table 3-1: Highest-Level Maneuvers Known (TOB 39), to determine the highest-level maneuvers he can learn.

Maneuvers Readied: A sublime adept can ready both of the maneuvers he knows at 1st level, and as he advances in level and learns more maneuvers, he is able to ready more, but he must choose which maneuvers to ready. The sublime adept readies his maneuvers by exercising, practicing, or meditating for 5 minutes. The maneuvers he chooses remain readied until he decides to exercise again and change them. He need not sleep or rest for any long period of time to ready his maneuvers; any time he spends 5 minutes in practice, he can change his readied maneuvers.

The sublime adept begins an encounter with all his readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times he might have already used them since he chose them. When he initiates a maneuver, he expends it for the current encounter, so each of his readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter.

Stances Known: At 2nd level, the sublime adept acquires knowledge of one stance from his chosen discipline. At 11th and 20th level, he can choose additional stances. Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended, and he does not have to ready them. All the stances the sublime adept knows are available to him at all times, and he can change the stance he is currently using as a swift action. A stance is an extraordinary ability unless otherwise stated in the stance description.



Change Log
(click to show/hide)

2
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.

3
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.

4
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)

5
Proxy Pact Warlock ACF
The multilevel marketing warlock variant

Lose invocations gained at 2nd, 8th, 13th, and 18th level.

Proxy Pact: At 2nd level, you can make temporary deals with other mortals on behalf of your patron. 1/day, you can perform a ritual taking 10 minutes with a willing participant that is not already a Warlock. For the rest of the day, that creature has a proxy pact. They count as being a Warlock for effects that depend on class, such as magic items that can only be used by members of a specific class. The subject's effective Warlock level is equal to your Warlock level - 1 or their character level, whichever is lower. The subject gains the Warlock's Eldritch Blast ability. Beginning at 8th level, they also gain the ability to use your Warlock Least invocations, lesser invocations at 13th level, and greater invocations at 18th level. The subject can use your Charisma score - 4 if that would be better than their own when determining the save DCs of invocations granted this way.

A creature that dies with an active proxy pact must make a Will save (DC 10 + your Warlock level) or be sent to your patron's afterlife instead of their normal afterlife. The creature can still be resurrected as normal.

Abilities granted by a proxy pact cannot be used to qualify for feats, prestige classes, or other permanent choices.

6
Spheromancer base class
"Hi! Lea! Bye!"

Spheromancers harness the inherent power of points, circles, spheres, and higher-dimensional hyper-spheres to defeat their foes. They conjure instant matter, a simple and easily-manipulated magical material, to produce weapons and armor in combat.

The Spheromancer is a Warlock-like class, focused more heavily on combat and less on magical utility.

HD: d8
BAB: Good (+1/level)
Saves: Poor Fort, Good Ref, Good Will
Skills: 4+Int/level

Circuits (Su): Circuits allow you to channel elemental energies to manipulate instant matter in different ways. Initially, you only have access to the neutral circuit. At levels 4, 7, 10, and 13, you can choose another circuit to gain access to. You can only have up to one circuit activate at a time, and you must have a circuit active to use most Spheromancer abilities. You can activate a new circuit (or deactivate your current circuit) as a swift action. Each circuit provides various benefits while active and is associated with a specific form of damage.
- Neutral: A balanced, general purpose circuit that does not excel in any particular field. Useful for dissipating excess circuit load. +2 bonus to maximum load with this circuit, and you dissipate 1 additional load per round from each of your circuits. Whenever you generate neutral circuit load while it is active, you also dissipate an equal amount from all of your other circuits. Damage: Untyped damage from a force effect.
- Cold: A defensive circuit that is effective at disrupting enemy attacks, but struggles to inflict great damage itself. +2 bonus to AC and all saves. Damage: Cold.
- Fire: An aggressive circuit that excels at inflicting injury upon foes, but does so recklessly with lesser regard to personal wellbeing. +2 bonus on attack rolls. Damage: Fire.
- Shock: A studious and contemplative circuit that provides a number of utility effects, but struggles with direct combat. +2 bonus on caster level checks and to save DCs of circuit abilities. Damage: Electricity.
- Wave: A strange and poorly understood circuit that generally just does its own thing (healing and HP manipulation) without any care for what everyone thinks it should do. +2 bonus to HP per Spheromancer level and +1 fast healing per 5 levels that can't bring you above 50% of max HP. Damage: Sonic.

Load: Spheromancer abilities generate load on your active circuit. Load for each circuit is tracked separately. You can safely generate load in a circuit up to your load limit. If your load for any circuit exceeds your load threshold, you enter a state of overload in that circuit. Overload does not clear until the overloaded circuit's load drops back all the way to 0. When you overload a circuit, immediately after resolving the action that caused it to become overloaded, you deactivate it and activate the neutral circuit (or remain with no circuit active, if you overloaded the neutral circuit). You cannot activate an overloaded circuit. Load in inactive circuits dissipates at a rate of 1 load per round. Load in a circuit can never be less than 0.
- Note: You never need to overload. It's just a cost that you can pay if you want to use abilities that would bring you over your load limit.

Instant Matter Armaments (Sp): You can conjure instant matter and shape it into one of the following forms. Conjuring instant matter generates 1 load, although various circuit abilities can modify this. Instant matter weapons deal damage of the type of your active circuit. You are proficient with all instant matter weapons you conjure, and they count as magical weapons for purposes such as bypassing damage reduction and striking incorporeal creatures. This spell-like ability does not provoke attacks of opportunity, has a caster level equal to your Spheromancer level, and an effective spell level equal to its load generation, to a maximum of 9th-level. Except where noted, you can use this ability only once per round and only during your turn.
Instant matter itself is a very weak material, having 1 hp and a hardness of 0. It dissipates into nothingness immediately when destroyed.
- Chakram: You form instant matter into a sharp circle. This functions as a light melee weapon, dealing a base damage of 1d8 for Medium size. You can conjure multiple chakrams during your turn as part of the same use of this ability. Conjured chakrams last for 1 round, allowing you to threaten nearby spaces and perform attacks of opportunity with them outside of your turn. Conjuring chakrams is a free action.
- Ball: You form instant matter into a dense point. This functions as a light thrown weapon with a range increment of 30 feet, dealing a base damage of 1d6 for medium. You can conjure multiple balls during your turn as part of the same use of this ability, allowing you to perform multiple attacks with them. Conjured balls last until the end of your turn. Conjuring balls is a free action.
- Orb: You form instant matter into a large sphere. This functions as a two-handed thrown weapon with a range increment of 100 feet, dealing a base damage of 2d6 for medium. Unlike other instant matter weapons, you can only conjure a single orb with each use of this ability. A conjured orb lasts until the end of your turn. Conjuring an orb is a full-round action, but you can make a single attack with the orb as part of conjuring it.
- Bubble: You form instant matter into a multi-layered hypersphere. This surrounds you in layers of ablative instant matter, providing protection against attacks. You gain the benefits of taking the total defense action, and you gain an energy shield with absorption equal to triple your Spheromancer level and recovery 1 for 1 round. Damage of your active circuit's type only removes HP equal to half the damage absorbed by the energy shield, rounded up (although it can still only block an amount equal to its remaining HP). Track the energy shield's remaining HP and its recovery even while this ability is not active; you passively accumulate instant matter in higher dimensions even when not using this ability, and conjuring it is actually only rotating it into covering your position in three-dimensional space. Conjuring a bubble is a full-round action.

Instant Matter Focus: You gain Weapon Focus with each weapon form of your instant matter armaments.

Instant Matter Enhancement: At 3rd level, your instant matter weapons gain a +1 enhancement bonus, increasing by 1 every 3 levels therefter, to a maximum of +6 at 18th level. Each time, your orb also deals an additional +1d6 damage, and the recovery of your bubble's energy shield increases by 1.

Circuit Abilities: At 1st level, 3rd level, and every 5 levels beyond 1st and 3rd, you learn a new circuit ability for each of your circuits. When you acquire a new circuit, you retroactively learn circuit abilities for that circuit from previous level. Most circuit abilities require you to have their circuit active to use them, and are suppressed otherwise. Some circuit abilities are marked as "free circuit" and can be used with any circuit (although not while you have no circuit active). Initially, you can only learn basic circuit abilities. From 6th-level onwards, you can learn advanced circuit abilities. From 11th-level onwards, you can learn expert circuit abilities. From 16th-level onwards, you can learn master circuit abilities.
- Note: Circuit abilities are sort of like invocations, except that they aren't fully at will. The active ones all generate load. The passive ones instead reduce your load limit with their circuit, or possibly all circuits for free circuit passives. Most of these are blast shape/essence type abilities that modify a usage of one or more of your instant matter armaments, but some are abilities usable on their own, and some are passive effects that are always in effect as long as you have their circuit active.


7
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: It's a Monk
« on: January 05, 2024, 02:24:17 AM »
Just added the discussed changes, plus a WHOLE lot of new pressure strikes and a lot of cleanup and polish to various features and abilities. Check the change logs if you're curious. There are 20 new pressure strikes, plus one new release to fill the gap in student releases due to moving wave of life up to master.

8
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: It's a Monk
« on: December 29, 2023, 05:05:44 AM »
I really like it. This is a very flavourful rework that greatly expands the things a monk can do - and the healing/buffing options also bring the reworked monks more in line with the things divine spellcasters can do, but in a different way.

Thanks for the feedback... Egads, it's over a decade since I first posted this here!

Quote
I think you should be able to do pressure strikes and build up resonance through ranged attacks with special monk weapons (i.e. shuriken, thrown sai) - that would greatly improve versatility and give something relevant to do in rounds where the monk can't get into melee range.

That was part of what the Martial Strikes feat was for, if you were to take Weapon Focus with a ranged weapon. That said, I think I'm going to change it to apply to all monk weapons regardless of whether or not you have Weapon Focus with them.

Note that resonance already generates regardless of what you use to make the attacks. You can even use Scorching Ray to generate it.

Quote
Double Mantra and Triple Mantra have a table entries, but not feature description.

The functionality is in the Mantras description, although I think I'm going to separate them out into their own dedicated abilities. It'll be clearer that way, and it will also keep using multiple mantras as a specific monk class feature in case of any future PrCs that advance a monk's mantras like spellcaster PrCs do.

Quote
Quote
Healing Hands
Grade: Student Pressure Strike
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will half (harmless)
If your attack hits, roll for damage normally. Instead of taking damage, the subject heals that amount of damage.
Unlimited out-of-combat HP healing for free may be a bit much. Other cheap options for that either cost money (wands) or have a limit for how much HP they can heal (Dragon Shaman Vigor Aura). Maybe a percentage cap like Vigor Aura, or a daily HP pool like Lay On Hands?

Seems reasonable. I don't want to tie it to a limited resource, since part of this revamped monk design is that there aren't any of those, just the build-up and release of resonance. Tying it to the usual limit of 50% seems like the way to go, although I think it might merit being a little stronger than that, since it's single-target, non-passive healing, unlike the Vigor aura and similar effects, and shows up at level 6 instead of level 1. A couple of possibilities jump to mind:
- Heal up to 50% + some limit (ex: 50% + Monk level).
- Healing above 50% is converted to temporary hit points, which can't bring the subject's effective HP up to above their normal maximum, and which last for 1 hour. Any healing received that generates HP while these temp HP remain also removes a like amount of them. As per normal temporary hit points, multiple uses of this ability don't stack and only the highest temp HP total applies.

Also, speaking of healing pressure strikes and any others that turn the damage into a beneficial effect on the subject, I also had a though that a coup de grace on a willing subject should not risk death, but instead maximize the damage (and thus healing/temp HP) roll. This would just be to minimize the amount of rolling at the table, especially for the proposed temp HP generation version of Healing Hands, which provides maximum benefit from a max roll crit.

Edit: Note that a similar change will be required for the Wave of Life release, unless it just gets pushed up to Master grade.

9
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Skill tricks & familiars
« on: October 14, 2023, 04:20:23 AM »
No? Unless there's something in skill trick description saying that it counts as ranks in a skill, it wouldn't be transferred to the familiar. The section you quoted only lets skill ranks transfer over to the familiar.

10
Handbook Submission / Re: Minor Updates
« on: January 17, 2023, 10:45:26 PM »
Also, for those confused and PMing me about the difference between the words 'Effect' and 'Affect' as both words are used in this mini handbook (and no, they are not interchangeable like flammable and inflammable, which mean the same thing), here is a simple memory tool: F*** Around & Find Out. Effect is you f***ing around (the thing that is happening). Affect is you finding out (the consequences of the thing having happened).

When an Effect like a fireball happens, those in the radius are Affected by the explosion. Having a fireball coming into being and heading towards you is 'f***ing around' (the Effect, which is the beginning of the process or 'the thing that is happening') and the results & consequences of the fireball going off (aka final results of 'the thing happening') is 'finding out' (the Affect it has on you, the end result of the process). Hope that helps, as that is the only real explanation that I can think of as it relates to the subject at hand.

Effect is a noun (as in something that happens). Affect is a verb (as in to influence the state of something). Typically. Effect is also a verb (as in to cause or induce something) and Affect is also a noun (as in an unusual mannerism), but those aren't their typical use cases.



11
Metamorph base class
Shapeshifting brawler that mixes and matches between various shapeshifting abilities.

Doesn't transform into specific alternate forms. Instead, has a number of metamorphic aspects that can be applied, at first independently and later in combination with each other. Available metamorphic aspects must be prepared at the beginning of the day, but can be freely assumed and dismissed during the day. Metamorphic aspects have multiple types:
- Minor aspects: Cantrip-like metamorphosis. These have small effects, but are easy to use and combine with other aspects.
- Feature aspects: Limited metamorphosis. These are low-level aspects that shift some part of you, but still leave you largely as normal.
- Form aspects: Greater metamorphosis. These are mid-level aspects that change large amounts of your body at once, leaving little if any of your original form remaining.
- Essence aspects: Absolute metamorphosis. These are high-level aspects that transform not just your body but parts your your very being, up to and including your soul.

Each metamorphic aspect has one or more associated enhancements. You can assign focus among the enhancements of aspects that you have assumed to empower them. The higher your level, the more focus you have, and the more you can assign to any given enhancement. Focus can be reassigned as a swift action.

Example aspects:

Minor
- Razor claws: Grow a pair of claws, dealing 1d6 damage (medium). Enhancements: Enhanced attacks, improved grip.
- Loping stride: Gain an enhancement bonus to your movement speed (stacking with the speed boost enhancement). Enhancements: Speed boost, reflexive leap.
- Nocturnal adaptation: Gain low-light vision and need less sleep. Enhancements: Awareness, clear mind.
- Predatory instinct: Gain scent. As a swift action, identify which creature you can smell has the lowest HD, other than yourself and creatures you've been in the presence of for more than 1 hour. Enhancements: Ambush predator, awareness.

Feature
- Threshing maw: Gain a bite attack, dealing 1d8 damage (medium) and leaving a bleeding wound that deals additional damage each round until healed. Enhancements: Enhanced attacks, carnage, bloodthirst.
- Elongated grasp: Your limbs lengthen, increasing your reach. Enhancements: Improved grip, ..., ....
- Alchemical glands: Spit acid as a standard action. Enhancements: Acid resistance, acidic strikes, poison affinity.
- Bristling spines: Grow spines that damage creatures that hit you with unarmed or natural attacks. Also deals damage each round in a grapple. Enhancements: Thorns, enhanced armor, ...

Form
- Bestial mien: You sprout a thick coat of fur over layers of armored muscle, granting you a natural armor bonus to AC and bonuses to Strength and Constitution. Enhancements: Enhanced armor, brawn, ....
- Rising span: Feathers cover your body. Grow a pair of wings, granting you flight. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Carapaced crasher: Grow a thick carapace of chitin. You gain a natural armor bonus to AC and a slam attack, and you can trample enemies. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Eye of the beholder: Your eyes merge together into a single sensory organ, and you grow additional eye stalks. Gain all-around vision. As a standard action, you can attempt to suppress ongoing magic in a cone (like dispel magic, but the spells are only suppressed for a duration instead of being fully dispelled). Enhancements: Awareness, magic consumption, ....

Essence
- Heart of flame: Type changes to elemental. Gain the fire subtype, granting you immunity to fire and vulnerability to cold. Gain the burn ability (like a fire elemental). Enhancements: Fiery strikes, fire resistance, ..., ....
- Clockwork heart: Type changes to construct. Gain the living construct subtype. Gain limited access to Crushing Juggernaut maneuvers. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Void self: Type changes to outsider. Become undetectable by divinations and most information-gathering abilities. Teleport short distances as a move action. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Consuming mass: Type changes to ooze. Absorb creatures you kill as an immediate action to heal and temporarily gain some of their stats/abilities (a subset of what polymorph/shapechange could grant). Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Unchanging ideal: Your form cannot be altered except willingly. Immune to ability damage and drain. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....

Enhancements
- Enhanced attacks: Gain an enhancement bonus on natural weapon attacks.
- Speed boost: Gain an enhancement bonus to your movement speed.
- Improved grip: Gain a bonus on Climb and grapple checks.
- Reflexive leap: Gain a bonus on Reflex saves and Jump checks.
- Awareness: Gain a bonus on Spot, Listen, and initiative checks.
- Clear mind: Gain a bonus on Will saves and Sense Motive checks.
- Carnage: Gain a bonus on Intimidate checks. Critical hits and killing blows grant a free demoralize attempt against nearby enemies.
- Bloodthirst: Gain temporary hit points for 1 round based on the damage you deal with natural weapons.
- Thorns: Deal damage to creatures that hit you in melee with non-reach weapons.
- Enhanced armor: Gain an enhancement bonus to your natural armor bonus to AC.

- Ambush predator: Gain a bonus on Hide checks (but not Move Silently). Gain a bonus on damage rolls against creatures that are flanked or denied Dex to AC, with a greater bonus if they are also flat-footed.
- Poison affinity: Gain a bonus on saves against poison. Automatically succeed on saves against poisons' secondary damage if the save DC is low enough.

- Acid resistance: Gain resistance to acid damage.
- Cold resistance: Gain resistance to cold damage.
- Electricity resistance: Gain resistance to electricity damage.
- Fire resistance: Gain resistance to fire damage.
- Sonic resistance: Gain resistance to sonic damage.
- Acidic strikes: Deal additional acid damage with each natural attack. Critical hits also leave a layer of acid on the target that deals damage again 1 round later. Multiple critical hits do not stack; use only the highest damage value.
- Chilling strikes: Deal additional cold damage with each natural attack. Critical hits also reduce the target's movement speed for 1 round.
- Fiery strikes: Deal additional fire damage with each natural attack. Critical hits also set the target on fire, causing them to take 1d6 fire damage every round until they put it out. The save DC is based on the focus you have invested in this enhancement.
- Arcing strikes: Deal additional electricity damage with each natural attack. Critical hits arc electricity to one or more secondary targets, dealing a small amount of electricity damage to them.
- Shuddering strikes: Deal additional sonic damage with each natural attack. Critical hits cause the target to become shaken for 1 round if they are not already.
- Brawn: Gain an enhancement bonus to your Strength score.
- Magic consumption: Gain a bonus on dispel checks. Gain temporary HP when you dispel an ongoing spell.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mechanics:
- At 1st level, you can have a single minor aspect and a single feature aspect assumed simultaneously. You can also assume a form aspect at 8th level and an essence aspect at 15th level.
- At higher levels, you can assume more minor aspects at once. Feature aspects will also allow up to 2 eventually, as will form aspects, although essence aspects will always be limited to just 1.
- Assuming or dismissing an aspect is a move action. You can dismiss an aspect and assume a new one in its place as a standard action.
- Focus is similar to essentia in incarnum or energy in PoC. It comes in similar quantities and works pretty much the same.

Feats and Abilities:
- Favored Enhancement: Gain access to a chosen enhancement as long as you are assuming at least one aspect, even if none of your aspects grant it. If at least one of them does, the chosen enhancement acts a though you had assigned 1 more focus to it than you actually have, which can exceed your normal focus limit.
- Reformation: Heal hit points whenever you assume an aspect, up to 50% of your max HP.
- Rapid Metamorphosis: Assume and/or dismiss multiple aspects at once as a full-round action.

12
Handbook Submission / Re: D&D 3.5: The (Mini) Astral Construct Handbook
« on: October 01, 2022, 03:31:28 PM »
The link for Ectopic Form leads to Advanced Construction's article instead. If I recall correctly, doesn't Ectopic Form trade away the ability to freely select ability menu options in favor of fixed choices, making it decidedly mediocre in many cases?

Subpsionic feats (https://web.archive.org/web/20050322110122/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pse/20021025a) also add a few abilities via Tainted Construction. The abilities are pretty poor, though, so they're only worth mentioning for completeness's sake.

A small note about Menu D abilities. 9th-level Astral Constructs get 2 Menu C abilities by default, so they would be able to access a Menu D ability with just Ecto Manipulation (no need for Boost Construct). That said, Advanced Construction was made for 3.0 psionics, which gave even more menu abilities to Astral Constructs (up to 3 Menu C abilities at level 9), which made those abilities available even earlier.

13
Board Business / Re: Results of today's website maintenance
« on: September 13, 2022, 10:35:59 PM »
Thanks, Nans. I'm glad to see this site's still getting the digital TLC it needs.

14
Interesting concept. I don't think these are worth the cost, though. Spending a feat and additional limited resources to protect against a single type of energy damage is a big ask. The nature of the resource expended is also suspect.
- For spell slots, you have to have available a blasting spell of the appropriate energy type, which typically means reserving a spell slot for an often suboptimal spell. This does make a bit more sense for spontaneous casters, though, as they don't have to reserve the slot in advance and having a blasting spell or two among your spells known is often a decent enough choice if only for dealing with swarms.
- For breath weapons, monsters that have breath weapons usually (although not always) have immunity or high resistance to their breath's energy type. In case of immunity, the damage is already negated, and in the case of resistance, attackers are already discouraged from using that damage type against the monster. Player breath weapons tend not to be tied to associated resistances or immunities as frequently, but also tend to be much more limited in their damage or uses.

If I was worried about energy damage, I would prefer to reserve a 2nd and/or 3rd level spell slot for Resist Energy and/or Protection From Energy. They last for 10 minutes/level, which is usually long enough for multiple encounters or even a full adventuring day (especially when extended). They're also flexible enough to let you pick the energy type you're protecting against on the given day, instead of needing to pick/predict it multiple levels in advance.

For comparison, the example Sorcerer (who must be at least 12th level) with the Maximized Fireball is using a 6th-level spell slot to prevent up to 60 points of damage. A Quickened Resist Energy also uses a 6th-level slot and provides 30 points of resistance, granting equal total effective HP over the course of two hits as that single expended spell slot. A precast Extended Protection From Energy provides 120 points of damage protection (twice as much), lasts for at least 4 hours, carries over the remaining damage protection if the initial hit doesn't deplete it, and only uses a 4th-level spell slot.

I think there's something here, but the implementation across numerous feats doesn't work. Maybe condensing it into a single feat, covering all 5 energy types and possibly also positive/negative energy, with a followup feat to share the protection with your allies, to remove the immediate action cost (so you can use it multiple times per round), and/or to let any excess damage protection persist for a time. I could also see these as part of the class features for an energy-focused spellcaster or Dragonfire Adept PrC.

15
[D&D 3.5] Nightfiend's Zest / Re: OOC Chapter 1
« on: August 30, 2022, 09:38:37 PM »
Hi all. Sorry for the disappearing act. I'm going to withdraw from this game. It's just not doing it for me.

Good luck and have fun.

16
Other Games / Re: 1001 TCG Card Ideas
« on: July 28, 2022, 12:20:41 AM »
Had some ideas for fun with splice.



Gift of Fortune {1}{R}
Instant - Gift
Create a Treasure token. If this spell's name is Gift of Fortune, exile the top two cards of your library. You may play one of them until the end of your next turn.
Splice onto Gift {R}

Gift of Wisdom {1}{U}
Instant - Gift
Scry 2. If this spell's name is Gift of Wisdom, draw a card.
Splice onto Gift {U}

Gift of Might {1}{G}
Instant - Gift
Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. If this spell's name is Gift of Might, it also gains trample and hexproof until end of turn.
Splice onto Gift {G}

Gift of Life {1}{W}
Instant - Gift
You gain 2 life. If this spell's name is Gift of Life, creatures you control get +0/+2 until end of turn.
Splice onto Gift {W}

Gift of Weakness {1}{B}
Instant - Gift
Target creature gets -2/-0 until end of turn. If this spell's name is Gift of Finality, it gets -3/-3 until end of turn instead.
Splice onto Gift {B}



Chronicler of Savagery {2}{G}
Creature - Bear Warrior
When this creature enters the battlefield, it fights up to one target creature you don't control.
Splice onto Creature {G}{G}
2/2

Chronicler of Portents {2}{U}
Creature - Cephalid Wizard
When this creature enters the battlefield, it connives.
Splice onto Creature {U}{U}
2/2

Chronicler of Restoration {2}{W}
Creature - Human Cleric
When this creature enters the battlefield, return up to one target aura card with mana value less than or equal to this creature's mana value from your graveyard to the battlefield attached to this creature.
Splice onto Creature {W}{W}
2/2

Chronicler of Fury {2}{R}
Creature - Goblin Warrior
When this creature enters the battlefield, it gains haste and first strike until end of turn.
Splice onto Creature {R}{R}
2/2

Chronicler of Vengeance {2}{B}
Creature - Zombie Warrior
When this creature enters the battlefield, it gains undying until end of turn.
Splice onto Creature {B}{B}
2/2



Would this even work? Playing around with equipment.

The Evolving Armory {1}
Artifact - Equipment
Equipment cards in your hand have mutate. Their mutate cost is equal to their mana cost.
Equipment spells you cast for their mutate cost can target The Evolving Armory as though it was a creature.

Soul Shell {2}
Creature Artifact - Equipment Spirit
Mutate {3}
Equipped creature has all activated abilities of Soul Shell other than Equip or Reconfigure.
Equipped creature has +X/+X, where X is equal to Soul Shell's mana value.
Reconfigure {2}
2/2

Vehicular Manslaughterer {2}
Artifact - Equipment Vehicle
First Strike, Trample
Equipped creature has +1/+1, first strike, and trample.
Sacrifice equipped creature: Vehicular Manslaughterer becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.
Equip {3}
5/5

Road Chopper {3}
Artifact - Equipment Vehicle
Equipped creature has +1/+1.
Whenever Road Chopper becomes crewed by exactly one creature, as Road Chopper stops being a creature this turn, attach it to that creature.
Crew 1
3/3

17
Berserker

Barbarian-like rager.
Has more flexible rage benefits, inspired in part by PF's Rage Powers.

Rage Depth: Class feature that increases with level. This controls the magnitude of benefits you gain from raging, but also the penalties. Starts at +1, increases up to +5 or +6 by level 20.

Rage: You can enter a rage, a state of heightened emotion and aggression. There is no limit to the number of times you can enter a rage per day.

Rage Forms: Not all rages are equal. Different rage forms affect how you enter and maintain a rage, as well as what happens when you cease raging. Except where noted, your rage lasts for a number of rounds equal to your rage depth + your Con modifier, you can end a rage prematurely on your turn as a free action, and for 1 minute after the end of the rage, you cannot enter another rage.
- Instant Temper: You fly into a rage as a swift action on your turn. For 1 minute after the end of the rage, you are fatigued. You cannot enter a rage this way while fatigued or exhausted.
- Stoking Fury: You can fly into a rage as a swift action on your turn. During the first round of your rage, your rage depth is 2 less than normal (minimum 0). You can stoke your rage as a free action, increasing your rage depth by 2 for 1 round, but also reducing its remaining duration to 1 round.
- Battle Rush: You can fly into a rage as an immediate action whenever you hit an opponent with an attack or are hit by a damaging attack.
- Survival Instincts: You can fly into a rage as an immediate action as long as your hit points are less than or equal to half your maximum or whenever you receive a critical hit. Treat your rage depth as 2 less than normal for the purpose of rage drawbacks.

Rage Powers: At level 1, you gain 2 rage powers. Each rage power affects the benefits of your rage, granting you bonuses of various sorts.
- Flexible Rage: Costs 2 rage power options, but lets you select a rage option you qualify for each time you enter a rage, rather than only when you gain levels.
- Guarded Fury: You gain a dodge bonus to your Armor Class equal to your rage depth.
- Toughening Rage: While raging, you gain a bonus to your natural armor equal to your rage depth. If you do not already have natural armor, treat your existing natural armor bonus as +0.

- Pain Suppression: You gain a bonus to any damage reduction you may have equal twice to your rage depth. If you don't already have any DR/-, you gain DR 0/-, allowing you to apply this bonus to it.
- Indestructible Thews: Requires Pain Suppression. If you would take any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution damage while raging, reduce it by your rage depth. If you would suffer any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution drain, reduce it by half your rage depth. This can't reduce ability damage or drain to less than 0. This ability does not protect against ability damage or drain that you receive willingly or that you inflict upon yourself.

- Single-Minded Fury: Add your rage depth as a bonus on Fortitude and Will saves.
- Unyielding Mind: Requires Single-Minded Fury. If you would take any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma damage while raging, reduce it by your rage depth. If you would suffer any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma drain, reduce it by half your rage depth. This can't reduce ability damage or drain to less than 0. This ability does not protect against ability damage or drain that you receive willingly or that you inflict upon yourself.

- Adrenal Force: Add your rage depth as a bonus on melee and thrown weapon attack and damage rolls.
- Frenzied Strikes: Requires Adrenal Force. When you make a full attack, you can accept a -4 penalty on your attack rolls in order to make an additional attack at your full Base Attack Bonus. This penalty is reduced by your rage depth, to a minimum of -0. If your rage depth is 4 or greater, you can increase the penalty to -8 to instead make two extra attacks.
- Unyielding Might: Requires Adrenal Force. Add your rage depth as a bonus on a Strength, Strength-based, Constitution, and Constitution-based checks.

- Beastly Rage: While raging, you gain a pair of claw attacks (1d6). These natural weapons gain an enhancement bonus equal to your rage depth.
- Furious Maw: Requires Beastly Rage. While raging, you gain a bite attack (1d6). This natural weapon gains an enhancement bonus equal to your rage depth.
- Enraged Pounce: Requires Beastly Rage. When you charge while raging, you can make a full attack instead of a single attack. You cannot make more attacks this way than 1 + your rage depth.

- Adrenal Resilience: When you enter a rage, you gain temporary hit points equal to your rager level x your rage depth, which last for as long as the rage does. If your rage depth increases during the rage, you gain commensurately more temporary hit points. If your rage depth decreases during the rage, you lose a commensurate amount of temporary hit points from among those that remain from this ability, and take nonlethal damage equal to the difference if there are not enough temporary hit points to remove.
- Deathless Frenzy: Requires Adrenal Resilience. You gain a bonus on saves against necromancy and death effects equal to twice your rage depth. You gain a bonus equal to your rager level x your rage depth x 2 to your hit points. These hit points are not lost first like temporary hit points, and disappear when the rage ends.

- Arcane Defiance: You gain spell resistance equal to 5 + your rager level + twice your rage depth.
- Arcane Repudiation: Requires Arcane Defiance. Whenever you make a weapon attack while raging, before resolving the attack, you attempt to dispel up to one effect from either the target of your attack or from the space into which you are attacking. This functions like the area dispel mode of dispel magic, except that you use 1/2 your rager level + your rage depth in place of your caster level for the dispel check and that there is no maximum to your effective caster level for the dispel check's modifier.
- Arcane Denial: Requires Arcane Defiance. You are protected from spells with a level equal to or lower than your rage depth as per a globe of invulnerability.


Rage Drawbacks: Each rage has its own drawbacks, which last as long as you are in the rage.
- Impatience: While you are in a rage, your ability to think calmly and clearly is compromised, although not as badly as with a barbarian's rage. You suffer a penalty equal to twice your rage depth on all Charisma-, Dexterity-, and Intelligence-based skills (except for Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, and Ride), and on the Concentration skill. You require a successful DC 15 Concentration check to use any abilities that require patience or concentration, to cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll), or to use the Combat Expertise feat, item creation feats, and metamagic feats. Make this check only once per round when you first attempt to perform such an activity. If you fail, you must choose to do something else with your action (you don't lose the action or waste the spell or item use, you simply cannot bring yourself to attempt such an action in the first place). Effects and abilities that would allow you to use these skills, abilities, and actions in a rage (which would normally disable them entirely) removes the penalties and need for a Concentration check from a rage.
- Reckless Defense: You suffer a penalty equal to your rage depth to your Armor Class.
- Tunnel Vision: You can make one fewer attack of opportunity per round per point of your rage depth. You suffer a penalty equal to your rage depth to your Armor Class against attacks of opportunity.
- Suggestible: You suffer a penalty on Will saves equal to your rage depth.
- Self-Destructive: You push your body beyond its limits while raging. Each round that you remain in a rage, you take damage equal to your rage depth.


18
[D&D 3.5] Nightfiend's Zest / Re: Chapter 1 - Out of the Dark
« on: July 12, 2022, 08:40:53 PM »
Per tears off into the grass again, emerging only to stab at the hyena's exposed flank.

(click to show/hide)

19
[D&D 3.5] Nightfiend's Zest / Re: Dice Rolling
« on: July 12, 2022, 08:34:58 PM »
Send the dark companion over to the hyena, then charge at it.
Melee attack 1d20+15 : 9 + 15, total 24
Damage 1d6+7 : 4 + 7, total 11
Sneak Attack 2d6 : 5, 6, total 11
Critical confirmation (if threatened) 1d20+15 : 3 + 15, total 18
Extra critical damage (if confirmed) 1d6+7 : 5 + 7, total 12
Hide while charging 1d20+12 : 17 + 12, total 29
Move Silently while charging 1d20+10 : 9 + 10, total 19


20
Breach Wave
Level 5-ish spell
Conjuration (teleportation)
The spell creates an unstable connection to another plane in a cone. This deals damage to creatures and objects in the area initially, then fills the cone's area with the chosen plane's planar traits for 1 round/level, overriding similar planar traits for the local plane. Only limited planar traits are transferred, and often weakened (so no time traits, and magic-modifying traits might have lesser effects or only apply to lower-level spells). The spell's descriptors and damage type change based on the chosen plane.

PlaneDescriptorsDamage TypeEnergy and Elemental TraitsAlignment TraitsMagic Traits
Prime MaterialNoneUntypedNoneMildly neutral-alignedNormal magic
EtherealNoneUntypedNoneMildly neutral-alignedNormal magic
AstralNoneUntypedNoneMildly neutral-alignedTimeless magic (lower-level spells expire at half their normal rate within the area)
ShadowDarknessUntypedNoneMildly neutral-alignedEnhanced magic (+10% shadow reality for lower-level spells), impeded magic (lower-level light spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
AirAirSlashingAir-dominantMildly neutral-alignedEnhanced magic (lower-level air spells are enlarged), impeded magic (lower-level earth spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
EarthEarthBludgeoningEarth-dominant (area is difficult terrain, rather than being filled with solid earth)Mildly neutral-alignedEnhanced magic (lower-level earth spells are extended), impeded magic (lower-level air spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
FireFireFireFire-dominant (area only deals 1d6 fire damage/round, 2d6 to water creatures)Mildly neutral-alignedEnhanced magic (lower-level fire spells are enlarged), impeded magic (lower-level water spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
WaterWaterBludgeoningWater-dominant (attacks and effects into the area are resolved as if underwater, area deals 1d6 damage/round to fire creatures)Mildly neutral-alignedEnhanced magic (lower-level water spells are extended), impeded magic (lower-level fire spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
TODO: Positive, negative, dream, outer planes.
Note: Despite suppressing magic traits, dead magic traits won't be suppressed because the spell can't affect that part of the plane to begin with.
Magic traits only apply to spells of lower level than this spell. Spells of equal or higher level use the local plane's normal magic traits.

Not sure if the spell should let the caster choose the plane or have it be determined randomly.

Also a higher-level version that deals more damage and allows more powerful traits through.


Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 225