Author Topic: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]  (Read 10688 times)

Offline Bozwevial

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Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« on: September 30, 2012, 03:45:10 PM »
Infinite Shore



And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They have a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being.

The fool pays no attention to dreams. The product of an overactive imagination, such fantasies are precisely this, and nothing more. They are inconstant, fleeting, and of no worth to one concerned with what is real. To obsess over dream is to waste away, squandering what precious life one has. But always, always in the back of the mind during a dream, there is the burning, certain notion that this is real, and once this notion is seized, the very nature of the dream can be reshaped into any form imaginable. These sleepers who grasp this crucial skill often wonder if perhaps the waking world could be made more like dream, or if dream could be given form, for then their mastery over thought would become mastery over the world.

In this way was the school of the Infinite Shore founded. Surrounded by shrieking jungle, twelve warriors came together to forge a style of fighting which imposed their will onto reality. Favored by spies and assassins, the school is often dismissed as mere fiction, for its practitioners prize the secrecy their skills afford them. Even beyond that, they enjoy the notion that they are the bearers of a truth about the nature of reality which few have yet come to accept.

There are two ways to master the discipline. The first is to have been trained in it. If you choose to make a martial adept that has already been trained in the Infinite Shore discipline, you simply replace one discipline that adept could normally learn with maneuvers from with the Infinite Shore discipline. He loses the associated skill of the replaced discipline as a class skill, but gains Lucid Dreaming as a class skill.

The other way is to seek out a master of the Infinite Shore discipline–a martial adept capable of using at least 5th-level maneuvers from the discipline–and training under him. You must train for a month under the master, and spend 1,000 xp at the end of your training. You gain the ability to learn maneuvers from the Infinite Shore discipline, and add Lucid Dreaming to your martial adept class’s list of class skills. In addition, you may exchange your maneuvers known for maneuvers of the Infinite Shore discipline. You may exchange one maneuver of each level, and the new maneuvers you learn must be of the same level as the exchanged maneuvers, unlike normal.

While many of the discipline's abilities rely on a connection to dream, most of them do not depend on the target's ability to dream, as even creatures who do not dream such as warforged have minds which are connected, however intangibly, to the realm of dream. Unless otherwise noted, a creature's inability to dream or sleep does not render it immune to the maneuvers of this discipline. In addition, a creature who learns maneuvers from this school gains the ability to sleep and dream if it could not otherwise do so. Maneuvers of the Infinite Shore discipline are supernatural abilities unless otherwise noted in their descriptions. The associated skill for Infinite Shore is Lucid Dreaming, as virtually all of the school's abilities require mastery over dream. Its associated weapons are the scimitar, falchion, unarmed strike, dagger, short sword, and sickle, as well as any weapons created by Infinite Shore maneuvers.
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2012, 03:45:27 PM »
1st level:
Devouring Mirage: Strike - Bolster yourself by consuming your foe's dreams.
Drowned Aggression: Counter - Penalize your opponent's attack with a momentary flicker of idea.
Remembrance Splintered: Forge a weapon out of your memory.
Thoughtful Current Walker: Stance - Gain telepathic ability.

2nd level:
Hollow Darkness Mantra: Counter - Hide your mind from a mental effect.
Midnight Slaying Strike: Strike - Make an attack whose effects are felt when the target sleeps.
Tethered Wraith: Enter a coma and walk the world as your dreamself.

3rd level:
Epidemic of Thought: Strike - Infect your foe with a memetic virus.
In Dream Preserved: Counter - Convert an attack to subdual damage which quickly fades.
Mimicked Reflection: Boost - Gain temporary competence in a skill.
Tranquil Strife Walker: Stance - Enter a sleepwalking trance during combat.
Window to the Soul: Boost - See through the eyes of another.

4th level:
Dreams of Discord: Counter - Your opponent believes it has already defeated you.
Pond-Calming Strike: Strike - Erase your presence from the minds of your opponents.
Psyche Undertow: Boost - Briefly ignore immunity to mind-affecting effects.
Remembrance Shattered: As Remembrance Splintered, except created weapon fights autonomously.

5th level:
Cloying Horror Strike: Strike - Plague your opponent with nightmarish visions of you.
Dreamheart Dive: Boost - Conceal yourself within the mind of another.
Gathering Umbra Walker: Stance - Summon a shadowed dream creature.

6th level:
Inexorable Mirage Blow: Strike - Attacks deal extra damage, may be resolved as touch attacks.
In Nightmare Defended: Counter - As In Dream Preserved, except your resilience unnerves your foe.
Seven-Mind Stride: Boost - Use minds as temporary gateways.

7th level:
Reflection-Shattering Strike: Strike - Implant your personality into your foe's mind.
Shrouded World Walker: Stance - Hide your presence from all who observe you.
Sublimation of Form: Counter - Briefly infuse your flesh with dreamstuff.

8th level:
Cardinal's Fantasy: Boost - Attacks erode your foe's reality.
Gemini Phantasm Walker: Stance - Fight alongside your dreamself.

9th level:
Dreamtide Tempest: Strike - Blow cripples enemy's mind, may put them into a catatonic state.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2012, 03:17:00 PM by Bozwevial »
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2012, 03:45:38 PM »
1st level:
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2nd level:
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3rd level:
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4th level:
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5th level:
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6th level:
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7th level:
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8th level:
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9th level:
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« Last Edit: February 04, 2013, 12:24:56 PM by Bozwevial »
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2012, 06:46:17 PM »
Reserved for discipline feats and miscellany.

Posting from here on is not only kosher but also the thing that all the cool kids do.
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Offline Drammor

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2012, 07:12:51 PM »
Oh holy carp. I am so excited to see the descriptions.

Also, I've been posting on this thread since before it was cool.
[20:32] <DonQuixote> A POX UPON YOU ALL!
[20:32] <DonQuixote> YOU, J, FOR STEALING THE PURITY OF NORNS.
[20:32] <DonQuixote> YOU, DRAMMOR, FOR ENSNARING ME IN THIS FIENDISH PRISON.

Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2012, 07:36:49 PM »
Descriptions are up.
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Offline Garryl

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2012, 10:27:53 PM »
1st
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2nd
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3rd
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4th
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5th
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9th
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Will look at levels 6-8 later.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2012, 11:33:44 PM »
Dude... this is awesomeness. I will try to provide more constructive mechanical feedback later, but the fluff is spectacular. Definitely going to include this in my Mindscapes sub-system somehow. :D
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #8 on: October 01, 2012, 12:49:42 AM »
(click to show/hide)

Will look at levels 6-8 later.
Thanks much for doing this.
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Offline Drammor

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2012, 12:22:20 AM »
In Reflection-Shattering Strike, is this intended to make wights out of characters of 4 and fewer HD?

Also, what happens if your Gemini Phantasm stops being on the same plane as you?
[20:32] <DonQuixote> A POX UPON YOU ALL!
[20:32] <DonQuixote> YOU, J, FOR STEALING THE PURITY OF NORNS.
[20:32] <DonQuixote> YOU, DRAMMOR, FOR ENSNARING ME IN THIS FIENDISH PRISON.

Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2012, 10:33:56 AM »
In Reflection-Shattering Strike, is this intended to make wights out of characters of 4 and fewer HD?
Nope. I've amended that.

Also, what happens if your Gemini Phantasm stops being on the same plane as you?
It should probably dissolve, clarified.
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2012, 03:18:58 PM »
Moved Shrouded World Walker to 7th level as per Garryl's suggestions. I'll also be going back through and stripping the [Mind-Affecting] tag from maneuvers which probably don't merit it later, as well as adding options to mitigate that drawback through discipline feats. If you have any suggestions for additional material you'd like to see or balance concerns, do let me know.
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Offline sirpercival

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #12 on: November 24, 2012, 04:06:15 PM »
Looking over this again for a new homebrew... I'm once again struck by how ridiculously awesome it is.  Kudos given.

EDIT: And don't forget feats, legacy item, etc.!
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Offline sirpercival

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2013, 04:26:21 PM »
EDIT: And don't forget feats, legacy item, etc.!

Bump...
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Offline Garryl

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2013, 05:08:14 PM »
Remember when I said I'd look at levels 6-8 later? I lied.

(Okay, maybe not.)

6th
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7th
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8th
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #15 on: February 04, 2013, 10:36:27 AM »
Seven-Mind Stride: I'm not 100% sure how this works. It seems to be that you enter a creature's space, initiate the maneuver, pop over to someone else, and the maneuver's done, but the intent feels like you're supposed to be able to do that repeatedly over the course of one round.
You have the intent correct. I added clarifying language.

This should also be a teleportation effect.
That it should. Fixed.

Unless you're using Tumble at a DC of 25 or higher, you're gonna provoke a lot of AoOs from this maneuver. One from the creature you move into and one from the creature you move out of, at the very least.
That appears to be legacy text. Fixed.

Is there anything stopping you from stepping into your own mind? I don't see anything.
Well, now there is.

Reflection-Shattering Strike: So... Dominate Monster on a tactical level? Cool.
There are no ties in opposed checks. If the results are equal, whoever had the highest modifier wins. If both are equal, you keep on rerolling until the tie is broken.
You're right. Deleted the relevant sentence.

Shrouded World Walker: DC is 2 points too low. I think you forgot to adjust when raising it to 7th from 5th.
Fixed.

Sublimation of Form: Have your trained trouserfang snake ready an action to attack you whenever someone else does (or on your command, if you want to walk through walls or something), thus ensuring an easy Lucid Dreaming check for 1 round etherealness rather than a potentially difficult one that would protect against only one attack.
Yeah, that seems to be a common problem with counters that have effects which last longer than the triggering action. I'm just going to axe the Lucid Dreaming check and give it the full duration. The effect isn't especially crazy at that level, it's just the trigger condition that's weird if you exploit it. If you have a more elegant solution in mind, I wouldn't mind hearing it. (I could scrap the attack requirement and make it a boost, but eh.)

Cardinal's Fantasy: Just give it a fixed duration. It's 3 rounds when you get it anyways, and it only goes up to 4 if you're at level 20. Is there anything in ToB that uses IL-based durations? I'd be tempted to leave this at only 2 rounds, personally, since it's only a boost and gives no save, especially since it's also in a discipline with a great many full-attack-granting strikes (many of which strongly encourage gaining extra attacks).
True on all counts. Modified.

Actions are resources, too, so technically, this effectively shouldn't do anything. How about instead of going back on something that's already happened and leaving things open to loopholes and other problems, just say that the subject has an X% chance when taking an action to lose the action, doing nothing instead.
   Wording needs some tweaking. As far as I can tell, each attack grants a separate failure chance, which each attack also boosts, so 2 hits = 36% chance, 3 hits = 65.7%, etc. Also, "successful attack" is ambiguous. Try something like: "If you hit an opponent with an attack, each action that opponent undertakes has a 10% chance to fail to no effect, swept away by the undercurrent of dream. Multiple hits each add another 10% to the chance of failure, to a maximum of 100%."
Thanks for the clarification. Fixed.

Gemini Phantasm Walker: What happens if you swap places into a space you can't occupy (such as another creature's space or a solid object)?
The swap fails, clarified.

Planar travel ending the stance seems too harsh, especially with a maneuver but one level lower that does exactly that! Just have the dreamself transport to the same plane as you (at the same distance and orientation). That will also stop arguments about whether or not teleportation (most commonly involving a momentary stop on the astral plane) kills it.
Fair point. Changed.

Wording about effect transference is unclear. When do you make this decision? How many effects can you transfer? Does it transfer back automatically when the duration falls below 1 round? Depending on what it is, you may be granting persistent effective immunity to all effects with durations grater than 1 round, which is way too much power for a non-epic ability.
Changed the text of the maneuver so that transferring a condition takes a swift action. The 'one or more rounds' was to prevent transferring instantaneous effects – I don't think there would be any problem with durations dipping below one round, since typically the time quantum for tracking effects is one round. I could be wrong, of course.
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Offline Garryl

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #16 on: February 04, 2013, 11:41:28 AM »
Seeing as you can repeatedly use it in a round, what's stopping you from hopping back and forth between two creatures over and over with Seven-Mind Stride until one or both of them fail the Will save (or, you know, you run out of movement, although you've got up to 5 shots at it even with only a 30 foot speed)?

P.S.: Cool imagery, and it's neat to have mind-affecting and teleportation mingle together. It's not a descriptor combo you see very often.

Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Infinite Shore [3.5, Discipline]
« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2013, 12:25:44 PM »
Seeing as you can repeatedly use it in a round, what's stopping you from hopping back and forth between two creatures over and over with Seven-Mind Stride until one or both of them fail the Will save (or, you know, you run out of movement, although you've got up to 5 shots at it even with only a 30 foot speed)?

P.S.: Cool imagery, and it's neat to have mind-affecting and teleportation mingle together. It's not a descriptor combo you see very often.
I'll limit that to one save per use of the maneuver. And thanks, I'm glad you like it. That's one of my favorite maneuvers in the discipline.
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