Author Topic: [3.5] [Feat] [Magic Item] [Skill Trick] Defiance of the Divine (P.E.A.C.H.)  (Read 967 times)

Offline Draco Dei

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Feat
Defiance of the Divine [Divine]
Your connection to the divine in the form of positive or negative energy is especially close, and flows with surpassing ease.  When need is greatest it is not even solely reliant on yourself awakening within you if you are oppressed by an arch-foe.
Prerequisites: Rebuking ability that can affect your own creature type, Knowledge[Religion] 6 ranks.
Benefit:
You gain a +2 bonus to turning/rebuking checks, and may turn/rebuke as a swift action (but regardless of actions used, not more than once a turn).

You may turn/rebuke without the need of a holy symbol, albeit with -4 (-2 when counting the above bonus) penalty to the turning check, and with -5 to the turning damage.

At the end of any turn that you both started and currently are turned, rebuked, or commanded, if you have any applicable turning/rebuking left a usage of your applicable turning/rebuking is expended to attempt a dispel-turning that affects only yourself. This requires no action or volition on your part (indeed you couldn't stop it if you wanted to, which is a good thing if you are Commanded).

Normal: Being Turned, Rebuked, or Commanded usually prevents you from dispelling turning on yourself. Turning/Rebuking is a standard action.

(click to show/hide)

How is the name?
Is there some way I can phrase this more clearly?
I suspect this is flavorful but underpowered. Perhaps it should, at your option, affect others if there are remaining hit-dice of turning/rebuking left after successfully affecting yourself?
Maybe if, as a thematic rider, and power-wise main point it let you turn/rebuke as a swift action? If there something that already does that? Maybe THAT should cost two turn/rebukes?

Skill Trick
Resilient Defiance of the Divine
Your connection to the divine is not solely reliant on yourself. When you are oppressed by an arch-foe, it awakens within you.
Prerequisites: Turn or Rebuke ability that can affect your own creature type.
Benefit: Once per encounter, at the end of any turn that you both started and currently are turned, rebuked, or commanded, if you have any applicable turning/rebuking left a usage of your applicable turning/rebuking is expended to attempt a turning dispelling that affects only yourself. This requires no action or volition on your part (indeed you couldn't stop it if you wanted to, which is a good thing if you are Commanded).
If the initial effort fails, this repeats once per hour (10 minutes? 1 Day?) after that whenever you have the applicable sort of Turning/Rebuking available to you.
Normal: Being Turned, Rebuked, or Commanded usually prevents you from dispelling turning yourself.


Magic Item (W.I.P. Especially formatting and small details-wise)
Divine Defiance Heart-stone
Price (Item Level): ?5,000 gp? (?9th?)
Body Slot: Throat
Caster Level: 5th (Often higher, increasing cost)
Aura: Moderate (DC 1?; Necromancy)
Activation: --- and Full-Round (Manipulation, to remove or don)
Weight: 5 lbs
Worn over the heart, this would be an amulet on a adamantine chain, if it were not for the additional chains passing from the back of the neck and under the armpits*. It is favored by clerical liches and dread necromancers who have completed their journey into unlife.
*Like the non-cup portions of a bra.
Several versions of this device exist, each specific to a certain creature type or sub-type. Undead is the most common, but Deathless, Fire, Earth, Water, and Air are all known to be possible. If a creature has both a type and a sub-type, then it protects against all sorts of turning/rebuking provided at least one of the (sub-)types matches the single type of the item.

At the end of any turn that you both started and currently are turned, rebuked, or commanded, if you have any applicable turning/rebuking left a usage of your applicable turning/rebuking is expended to attempt a turning dispelling that affects only yourself. This requires no action or volition on your part (indeed you couldn't stop it if you wanted to, which is a good thing if you are Commanded).

This item's chains are held together with a lock (open lock DC 35) that includes a Mage Lock like feature at the items caster level (which is often the highest the wearer can obtain or make themselves. Note that neither the wearer nor the creator can open this as if they were the caster. Only with the matching key (included in the creation requirements), may the lock be opened to remove this item. Most wearers place the key in a location that would require a significant amount of time for them to access, or destroy it entirely.

It has a hardness of 25, 50 hitpoints, and a break DC of 40.

Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, Knock, ?Life Ward? (Spell Comp. p. 131), Mage Lock, Creator must be able to turn or rebuke undead as appropriate to the intended sort of wearer.
Cost to Create: 2,500 GP, 200 XP, 5 days
« Last Edit: December 25, 2022, 04:45:50 PM by Draco Dei »
P.E.A.C.H. = Please Examine And Critique Honestly

Offline Versatility_Nut

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Prerequisite on the feat should be "affect", not "effect", and it seems like it's doing a bit much. +2 to effective level AND Swift Action use AND no symbol required AND automatic counter-Turning is rather much for "is a Cleric that can Turn or Rebuke self". Many a Necropolitan is getting this upon returning to third level, no questions asked. Whether it be Knowledge (Religion) ranks, some level of Divine spellcasting, or an effective Cleric level, it REALLY needs more than the mechanically-necessary prerequisites, because that's A LOT of value for a potentially 1st level feat.

Possibly make the mechanic Swift Action 30 ft. radius (versus the 60 ft. with poorly-defined directionality), with JUST that getting the Command-bypassing automatic use. "Counter-Turning" is also not actually a thing, it's called Dispelling Turning. Could throw in Bolster on the same roll to have it as an Immediate Action instead, so it prevents the Turn/Control in the first place.

Offline Draco Dei

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Personal struggles have delayed my response although I saw this days ago.
Balance wise, the biggest (and yet most useless) thing I can say is that I added in everything but the self-dispel-turning in response to someone saying (more than once I think after at least one revision plus the original I think) that it was amazingly underpowered.

Also, it isn't +2 effective cleric levels (that WOULD be overpowered... or at least relatively unprecidented) it is +2 to the turning check, which in turn (ha.) determines what you add or subtract from your cleric level to determine what is the maximum single hit-die of undead you can turn/rebuke that time around.

I will fix the grammatical and wording problems you pointed out now I think... probably also going to throw in some Knowledge[Religion] ranks but they might not be as many as you were thinking... Should be done now?

Thank you for all the parts!
« Last Edit: December 11, 2022, 09:59:16 AM by Draco Dei »
P.E.A.C.H. = Please Examine And Critique Honestly