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Messages - Kerrus

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I'm currently playing in a homebrew  group campaign with multiple DMs and where players are heavily encouraged to contribute to the setting. My contribution is in the form of adding a number of new deities (the existing ones are shit) and variant class features offered by associating with those deities. In particular, I'm working on a god of Time and Destiny.

The following schools have some added features to make them better fit the nature of the homebrew world, but otherwise I've tried to balance them to the same general sort of effectiveness as the existing monk options. Although some of their abilities are pretty strong, I've tried to balance them less by just restricting strong abilities and more by giving them lateral utility.

The schools are as follows:


The Way of Temporal Order

Temporal Insight
Your training grants you a sense of the natural flow of events that your peers lack. Beginning at 3rd level, you cannot be surprised, and add your wisdom modifier to initiative and history checks.

One Self, Many Futures
At 6th level, as a bonus action, you may create a temporal echo of yourself, which appears in your square and acts immediately.
A temporal echo lasts for one round, vanishing at the start of your next turn, and acts as you direct it. It has speed equal to your speed and can appear to take any action that you can take. A temporal echo has sufficient physical presence to trigger traps or interact with objects as you would but its attacks do no damage, it does not impose disadvantage, and it may not cause any creature to make a saving throw as it remains partially out of sync with sidereal time. An echo's AC is equal to yours and it uses your statistics. If an echo takes damage, it dissipates as the timeline reconstitutes itself.
At 11th level, you create two Temporal Echoes. At 17th, you create three.
You may use your Ki points to enhance your Echoes. When you create a temporal echo, you may invest it with any number of your Ki Points. An echo lasts for a number of hours (rounds while you are in combat) equal to the number of Ki points invested. You choose how many points are invested when you create an echo and may not invest additional points later.
Additionally, as a reaction, you may spend 2 Ki points to exchange positions with any of your Temporal Echoes as you choose which instance of yourself is the real 'you', and which are the echoes. Using this ability leaves no overt traces, but is detectable as temporal magic by those capable of doing so.

Donning Time's Cloak
Starting at 11th level, you may grant yourself the benefits of the Haste spell for 1 minute as an bonus action. If you do, you may not use this ability again until after a short or long rest. In addition, any enemy that makes a melee attack against you must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or be slowed for one round.

Race the Future
At 17th level, you gain the ability to leap through time. As a reaction, you may spend 3 Ki points to step out of phase with sidereal time. You cease to exist and may not be interacted with, but may still perceive the world, and may take any actions that do not interact with other creatures/objects on your turn. At any point thereafter, you may choose to re-enter sidereal time. When you do, you gain advantage on your next attack.


The Way of Implacable Destiny

Unyielding Will
Your will is honed to a razor's edge, and little can deter you from your chosen course. Starting at 3rd level, you gain advantage on wisdom saving throws and add your wisdom modifier to Constitution saves.

Unbowed Spirit
Beginning at level 6, as a reaction, you may spend 2 Ki points to automatically succeed on a saving throw. If you would take half damage or suffer some other effect on a successful save, you instead take no damage / suffer no other effect.

Unshackled Strength
At 11th level, You add your wisdom modifier to strength checks, and to distance moved with a Shove or Jump. In addition, you may grapple enemies up to two sizes larger than you.

Unstoppable Skill
At 17th level, you gain the ability to enforce your will on the world, perfecting a moment of your choice. At the beginning of each day, you may choose a number other than one. Whenever you roll that number on a save, ability check, or attack roll, the roll is considered a critical success.



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D&D 5e / Re: Starting up, what's good?
« on: July 13, 2017, 01:47:44 PM »
IIRC the specific errata is that you round down (minimum 1), so you always recover *at least* one HD per long rest.

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If no one else in your group has easy access to Detect Magic, Eldritch Sight is your best bet.  Misty Visions is good if and only if your DM is cool with letting illusions actually work the way they should.

In a recent session, a level 2 wizard I was running scared off a party of level 8 mercenaries using silent image to fake an army of grungs coming to murder their faces. (The rest of the party make the noises). So pretty reasonable about illusions working the way they should.


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As a monk with only 13 charisma though.

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I've recently joined a campaign run by some friends as a monk/warlock who is currently level 3 (Monk 1/Warlock 2), but I haven't finished picking out invocations.  One is definitely going to be Devil's Sight for the obvious synergy, but I'm undecided on the second one and thought I'd ask for your thoughts.

Currently the two frontrunning choices I have in mind are either 'silent image at-will' or 'read all text', although elsewhere on the web I've seen the detect magic option rated highly.

I'm leaaaaning towards the silent image at-will for out of combat utility and sneaking, but this campaign has a lot of homebrew shit in it, so maybe another option would be better, idk.

If anyone has any campaign experience with stand-out level 2 accessible invocations, I'd love to hear about them.

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General D&D Discussion / Re: If you had to be, what would you be?
« on: July 10, 2017, 09:24:45 PM »
Probably some kind of Diplomancer would be the most efficient route. Either a Jumplomancer or an Arseplomancer- the latter would ensure I can escape any prison, while the former would let me evade those who want to kill me all day long while converting vast swathes of the countryside into my adoring followers.

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General D&D Discussion / Re: Is D&D the best system for initiative?
« on: July 10, 2017, 09:06:51 PM »
The Mothership just posted a UA aimed at replicating the 1E initiative system, here. It's basically as you expect- horribly clunky and clumsy, with some interesting bits.

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D&D 5e / Re: Unearthed Arcana: AlterNAHtive Initiative
« on: July 10, 2017, 09:05:11 PM »
Like, I understand what they're going for, but that's definitely a bridge too far. I'd rather use WW Init than Greyhawk Init, any day.

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General D&D Discussion / Re: Is D&D the best system for initiative?
« on: July 10, 2017, 02:32:21 PM »
@Kerrus your Whitewolf reverse-stack system seems useful, mainly because it seems to force players to immediately call at their actions (all of them) in rapid fire so that you can then go through and resolve the round. It seems to be a twice through system that should take double the length of time as an all-at once system like 3e. But its advantages seem to be enhanced reactions to lower initiative count actors. Can I get a more complicated example to highlight its other advantages over a forward ordered, turn by turn system?

Mostly my experience with it is that it requires the DM to do all the book keeping each round at the same time, rather than divvied up into smaller chunks. Depending on the combat situation this can make things easier or slightly more complex, but once you get used to the system I've found it really quite fun and useful for more dynamic combats. I never noticed combat rounds taking very much longer, outside of players who have no idea what they're going to do on their turn.

Additionally, the system handles massed combat much better than D&D, in which a player basically has to hope that his enemy can't hit him if he's facing a giant shitpile of mooks. But with this, there's a greater chance to react to things and handle mass combat.

For example.

The Good Guys are a ranger, a rogue, a monk, a paladin and a warlock.
The Bad guys are five mook rangers, three fighters, a paladin, a sorceror, and thirty angry peasants.

Everyone rolls for initiative, and the initiative track is as follows:

#3: 30 Peasants
#5: 3 Mook Rangers
#6: PC Paladin
#7: 2 Mook Rangers
#9:  PC Warlock, NPC Paladin
#12: NPC Fighter #1, PC Rogue
#15: NPC Fighter #2, 3
#20: NPC Sorceror
#21: PC Monk, PC Ranger

Players can delay actions to beneath their initiative level if they desire, so they can wait until someone lower in the order has announced, and then do something after that action but before other stuff happens. Characters can take reactions/immediate actions/swift actions whatever at any point during resolution, but may otherwise only act on their init (or if they delay).

So the peasants announce first. Since they're basically a mob, half of them are going to charge the PCs, and the other half are going to try to encircle them.

Then it's three of the Mook Rangers, who all get their bows out and take individual targets.

Next up is the PC Paladin, who (assuming 4E) uses his divine sanction to mark everyone in 25ft for a round, which is like the whole encounter.

The two slightly quicker mook rangers decide to get their shots in at the Rogue and the Monk before the Paladin's mark goes off.

Next up, the NPC paladin and the PC Warlock have the same initiative. The NPC paladin is going to sanction the party for the round- but since the Warlock has a higher initiative modifier, the warlock gets to declare after. He uses baleful transposition to teleport the NPC paladin out of sanction range.

NPC fighter goes now- followed by PC rogue (higher init mod). The fighter charges the PC paladin. The rogue moves out of range of the angry peasants and fires a hand-crossbow at the enemy Sorceror.

The remaining NPC fighters go to gang up on the Rogue.

The NPC sorceror drops a carpet of adhesion on the party so they can't run away from the peasants.

The PC monk and PC ranger both focus fire on the sorceror.

So basically everybody announces what they're doing at each step. The DM asks them to keep that in mind so they can be 'on call' when he resolves everything. Once everything is declared, he moves to resolution.

"Monk, Ranger, roll your attacks." "I get a 19vs AC on my daily, and do 4d10b+3d6+2d8+25" "I get a 15 vs AC- no wait, that's a 17 because of CA- and do 8d10+4d8b+2d10+20" "Okay, your attacks both hit the enemy sorceror. He throws up his hands and tries to ward off your attack- but fails! You drop him to 0 HP, and he loses his action."

*DM turns to the rogue*

"Rogue, you have two angry fighters charging you with greataxes. You're currently trying to circle around away from the angry peasants. Any actions?" "Yeah, I use my immediate reaction to teleport three squares and become invisible." "Okay, you disappear, the fighters lose sight of you and waste their action, but you don't get your attack against the sorceror." "Okay, he's dead anyways."

"PC Paladin, you have an angry fighter charging you, what do?" "I raise my shield and tank the hit while invoking the divine power of my god, using an immediate reaction to add 5 to my AC." "Does a 20 still hit you?" "Nope." "Damn. The Fighter's attack crashes against your shield but you ward him off."

"Warlock, roll your check vs will defense." "Fifteen? No wait, +charisma because it's the first round. Twenty." "That hits. You teleport the NPC Paladin five squares in any direction." "I teleport him diagonally up." "*sigh* Okay, he falls twenty feet, takes falling damage, and is out of range for his sanction." "Nice!"

"Warlock, a brace of arrows peppers you. Does a 17 hit?" "Yeah." "Okay, you take 15 damage, and are poisoned. Roll a fortitude save." "8." "You failed. You lose 5 on your initiative at the start of the next round. Monk? The other two rangers attack you. 15 and 23." "The 23 hits- but I'm going to use deflect arrows as a reaction." "Roll it- that's a success." "I throw the arrow back at him." "You skewer him with his own ammunition, he takes 10 damage and drops."

"Now the peasants charge all of you, I'm going to do mass rolls here. Everyone list your AC." "23." "18." "19." "25." "15" "I'm still invisible!." "Right you are.  Okay, those of you that aren't invisible get hit by approximately half the peasants using their improvised weapons. Each of you roll 3d6 and take that much damage. Paladin, your Divine Sanction triggers- do you want it to be lethal or non-lethal?" "Nonlethal!" "Okay, twenty six of the Peasants get knocked the fuck out. Next round!"


It might seem like it'd take longer, but basically all it does is shift individual resolution to the end of a combat round, which can make things easier from a tracking perspective because players have to keep track of less things. It also avoids some of the inter-round banter that sucks up time, and encourages players to think on their feet or have default actions that they follow. I'm also of the opinion that it makes combat more 'epic' or lively, with everything being way more dynamic and simulationist than it might otherwise be. 





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General D&D Discussion / Re: Is D&D the best system for initiative?
« on: July 06, 2017, 12:36:59 AM »
The best initiative system I've seen is the one from White Wolf's Storyteller system. It's straightforward, if a touch complicated initially, and keeps fights fluid, while also rewarding players that get high initiative with the ability of 'better information' to plan their actions.

I ran a 4E campaign for a while in which we used an adapted version of it, and the general consensus was that it was really fun, but had annoying edge cases caused by stuff like players not having a 'turn' anymore.

Basically it works sort of like the stack in magic the gathering- a first in last out sort of deal. The players/NPCs with the *lowest* initiative announce their actions first, going up the chain as each successive higher init roll announces their action, and finishing with whoever rolled the highest init.

Then everything happens, modified by what players/monsters did based on the information they had. So a turn of combat would look like this:


Rolls: 3 pc fighter, 4 pc Cleric, 5 npc Panther, 6 npc Drow Ranger, 7 npc Elf Wizard, 8 pc Human Wizard

#3: "I unsheath my sword and charge at the drow!"
#4: "I call upon the divine fire of my god and cast sacred flame at the panther."
#5: "The panther dives into cover."
#6: "The Drow sidesteps #3 and peppers him with arrows."
#7: "The Elf teleports away."
#8: "I cast teleport anchor!"

Then we resolve in reverse order. The player with the highest initiative, #8, casts Teleport Anchor. The Elf NPC attempts to teleport out. It fails. The drow and the panther both evade the attacks of the cleric and fighter, and the fighter takes an arrow to the back. But maybe that cleric has a reaction that lets him boost the fighter's AC. He uses it now, and the arrows miss the fighter.

We can do this every round, or- alternatively- after every change (ie: someone drops, the fight moves into different terrain, or someone else crashes the party- we can reroll init. I've had a lot of games were we reroll init every couple of rounds, and it keeps things really exciting.



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D&D 5e / Re: Plane Shift: Fantasy Egypt
« on: July 06, 2017, 12:13:39 AM »
Hawk-Headed Aven are OP.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Interesting stuff in Pathfinder
« on: January 07, 2017, 04:36:04 AM »
Not sure if this has been suggested before, but when a Healing Hand Monk hits level 20, they get a capstone that lets them explode, irrevocably being destroyed, rezzing all allies in 50 ft, various other things- and then are basically wiped from the timeline, with all instances of their name removed from existence, to the point where nobody- neither man, god, or anything in between, can speak their or write their name.

This is... pretty horrible from a character perspective- but that's why you use it as a tool to permanently alter the setting.

To start with, you name your monk after a deity you don't particularly like. Asmodeus, for example. Then you get to level 20 and use the power.

Forevermore, the name Asmodeus is stricken from all reality, and nobody can ever speak that name. Not even godly power can change this.

So if it turns out that there's someone floating around that also has that name (ie: Asmodeus) they're kinda fucked. Especially when they're a god because nobody can pray to them anymore.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Interesting stuff in Pathfinder
« on: January 05, 2017, 03:48:09 PM »
The Strange Aeons adventure path has a number of interesting campaign traits, some of which are quiet useful.

(click to show/hide)

Former Mindswapped in particular is pretty interesting, given the boost to untrained knowledges. I know there's some untrained skill builds floating around that might benefit from that.

Pugnacious meanwhile is just straight up gravy for a melee combatant.



Inner Sea Intrigue has a number of interesting rules- from being a comicbook superhero (or villain)-  to spreading rumors- to additional stylized spell stuff (via a 'greater' feat). Most of the stylized spell options are 'pick a trait of the spell, the spell appears to have a different one- so stuff like 'descriptor' 'type (ray/burst/whatever)' 'origin point' (entirely cosmetic but potentially useful).

But down at the end there's an option for suppressing the visual or auditory effects of a spell. Enemies can make a perception check vs (10 + highest of either bluff or spellcraft ranks + highest of your mental ability modifiers)- if they succeed they notice the suppressed effects, but if they fail they basically don't see or hear anything.

So yes, you could make an invisible fireball with this. Or nearly so.


Some new Inquisitor domains. One lets you go invisible a number of times per day, with a decent duration. My favourite, though, is the Seduction Inquisition. Granted powers are a hoot. The first lets you basically flirt with someone. Charisma check vs a piss easy DC (10 + the target's wis mod) if successful they let you talk with them for a minute when they wouldn't otherwise. Useful on guards and prisoners or the like. You can use it in combat to feint, too!

The second though, is where it's at. By fucking for an hour ("engaging in acts of physical pleasure with a willing partner") you can use a diplomacy check to improve that partner's attitude, improve your influence with them, or decrease a rival's influence with them, with no maximum on the number of steps by which you change that disposition.


There's an investigator archetype based around getting a familiar, and that familiar using your class features. Also picks up improved familiar later on. There's an alchemist archetype that works similarly, except the familiar you pick is actually clockwork, and gets improved familiar later (but clockwork) and some other stuff.

Various gear of note- ranging from poison antidotes to the glider staves from Avatar.

There's a +2 magic weapon effect called Obliviating. This does basically what you think it would do. It only works on a bludgeoning weapon, but when you crit or deal sneak attack damage to a target, they have to make a DC 16 fort save or lose all memory of the past 1d6 minutes (and become flat footed until the start of their next turn).

There's a +1 weapon effect called training that grants one combat feat while the weapon is held/wielded. The feat can't be used for prereqs, and you have to meet its prereqs to use it, but it's still effectively a free feat.

There's a hat of infinite disguises, costing 12,500 gp which uses Veil, rather than disguise/alter self.

There's a 7th level spell that lets a target wear a corpse as a meat suit. Ever wanted to impersonate the king? Now you can.

Various other stuff, but I'm not familiar enough with the classes to say if they're useful or not.

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D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Whips as a primary weapon?
« on: July 26, 2016, 12:03:00 AM »
you misplace your whip and you dq from the class?

No. It says you have to own a whip, not possess a whip. As long as you acquired one at some point, you're fine, even if you've since misplaced or otherwise lost it. Just as long as you haven't sold it. Leaving it in a random chest in a random dungeon is fine, even if another set of adventurers runs off with it.

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Gaming Advice / Re: [3.5] Why is Cloud Anchorite a low Will class?
« on: July 20, 2016, 06:41:33 AM »
Yeah... ok. I guess I was pointlessly bitching that an immortal 'wiseass man on the mountain' had a poor will save.

I'll shut up now. Regarding this 'question.'

It was for the same reason monks generally received shitty PrCs and/or were actively nerfed at every opportunity: A lot of the designers remain utterly convinced to this day that the 3.5 monk is the most OP bullshit broken class in the entire game.


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Min/Max 3.x / Re: finishing off Cleric/Shadowcraft Mage
« on: July 19, 2016, 01:55:00 AM »
Yeah, that sounds like a GM houserule.

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D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Edit: Some basic questions on spells
« on: July 10, 2016, 11:29:20 PM »
The rule I have referred to in the past is on DMGp43. Non level 1 characters can't spend more than 50% WBL on a single item.

Yeah, and then it goes on to provide the caveat that certain classes can't actually buy much shit, so they shouldn't necessarily be limited like that.

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D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: How to make a lightning mage...
« on: July 08, 2016, 03:14:48 AM »
Spell Thematics would let you make any spell 'lightning themed' also.

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D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: How to make a lightning mage...
« on: July 05, 2016, 08:35:04 PM »
There's a copy of the original thread over here.

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  • Not sure what to do with Favored Enemy. Probably going to remove it. It always kinda felt to me like you needed metagame knowledge of what enemy types are common to make it work at all, and even then it still wasn't too great
My take on it would be to enhance favoured enemy, and then make it a variable/prepared thing. So like, much like the Warblade or the Swordsage- at the beginning of the day you sit down and prepare for what kind of hunting you're expecting to do that day. This is mainly fluff supported so shit like particular fletching for your arrows, particular types of arrows- blunt headed arrows for skeletons, slashing arrows for zombies. Particular adjustments to your clothing-

Basically make favoured enemy an adjustable suite of tools a Ranger has that he can use to improve his ability to fight a specific type of enemy each day. So he gets bonuses on skills vs that enemy, maybe a bonus on attacks, definitely a bonus on damage, and as he levels up and 'favoured enemy' improves, he'd get two things:

More uses of the '1day pick', representing improving his repetoire and his ability to swap out his preparations on the fly, maybe up to three or four times per day.

And: Rider abilities that add onto attacks or actions vs favoured enemy. Stuff like a tangental dodge bonus vs the enemy, or damage reduction vs their attacks, or extra damage of [type] or whatever.

For the sneak attack, honestly I'd approach it from another angle, giving them a choice of Skirmish or the sniper shot thing, where they get bonus dice if they haven't moved. I wouldn't lock it into a fighting style or anything, so you could have zippy bow rangers and hidey TWF ambushers if you wanted.

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