Gez's Arcane Nifties Gathered

[Spatzimaus]

Should there be any abilities and "unaligned" creature gets that others can't?

I was thinking about that, and I had five things in mind:

1> They don't have to all be equal. Good and Evil might be better overall than Unaligned. Since that Unaligned person will also have two other Aspects (one Creature and one Element) it's not like he'll be lacking for options. Likewise, Dragon could be marginally better than Mundane or Aberration. As long as the difference isn't so pronounced that no one ever takes it, it's no big deal.

2> I was trying to use a system where you always took one option from each group. But, just because your ancestor was a nice guy shouldn't entitle you to the Good benefits. So, there needed to be something else on the Alignment list.

3> There could easily be some abilities that are available to "Not Evil" or "Not Good" and so on. The Unaligned person would be the only one capable of taking all of these.
This especially works if you add a few more types of abilities, like ones that give DR, Low-Light Vision, Darkvision, and so on. For example, most of the abilities listed above were about magic, so let's add a few more physical ones. The part in brackets depends on which level you take, and each requires the previous levels.
Damage Reduction (Lawful, Unaligned, Mundane, Dragon, Earth): Gain DR 5/[magic, lawful, adamantium, or epic]
Vision (Chaotic, Unaligned, Mundane, Aberration, Psionic): Gain [low-light vision x2, low-light vision x5, darkvision 60', darkvision 120']
Claws (Evil, Unaligned, Mundane, Dragon, Shadow): Your hands have claws that allow you to make natural attacks without drawing Attacks of Opportunity. Base damage is [1d4, 1d8, 2d6, 2d10]. If selected with the Evil or Shadow Aspect, you divide the damage in half but have a vampiric effect. (That is, a Transcendant Claws ability for Evil people is 1d10 damage and 1d10 temporary HP). Adjust for size as usual (2d6 -> 2d4 for Small, and so on)
Fast Healing (Good, Unaligned, Fey, Outsider): Gain Fast Healing [1, 2, 3, 5]

And so on. Basically, "Unaligned" and "Mundane" would be the options to take if you want all the brute-force stuff. These were just off the top of my head, so they're not really balanced, but you get the idea.

4> I was rolling True Neutral into this, and neutrality tends to tie into nature magic a lot (both because Druids were True Neutral, and because animals inherently are). So, an ability like "Minor Nature Spells" could be limited to "Fey or Unaligned".

5> For the Resistance line of abilities, it'd give a different one than the other alignments. Maybe a better one, to make up for its lack in other areas. For example, let's say it goes:
Acid: Earth
Cold: Water
Electricity: Air
Fire: Fire
Level/Ability Drain: Shadow
Mind-Influencing Effects: Psionic
Paralysis: Good
Disease: Evil
Petrification: Lawful
Poison: Chaotic
Force: Unaligned
and the Creature types don't give resistance options.

Anyway, that's why I added Unaligned to the list.

 

[Gez]

Wow!

Okay, how about this then, since I feel like brainstorming:

Sort the Aspects into three groups.
5 Creature types (Dragon, Fey, Outsider, Aberration, Mundane)
6 Elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Psionic, Shadow)
5 Alignments (Good, Evil, Chaotic, Lawful, Unaligned)

What about:

Sorcerous Bloodlines are created when powerful creatures share a part of their power with mortals. Depending on the supernatural "ancestor", various methods of creations are possible. Actual mixing of blood (dragons are specialists of this one, but fey and outsiders use this also), magical experiments (a favorite of mind-flayers), special blessing or tainting (frequent outsider practices), etc. Sometimes, it's a mortal that seeked power and performed rituals to infuse himself with the power of a creature, and the descendant of that mortal inherit parts of that "stolen" power. Most elemental bloodlines derive from this.

Magic

• Arcane: Most creatures that may create bloodlines have innate arcane powers themselves.
• Divine: Servants of ethos or deities, deities themselves, and other powerful outsiders may create sorcerous bloodlines with innate divine might.
• Nature: The fey, elementals, and other powerful creatures that use the magic of the creation itself, may create sorcerous bloodlines with innate nature magic.
• Psionic: Some rare creatures, such as the gem dragons or the monstrous illithids, may create sorcerous bloodlines with innate psionic capacities.

Themes

• Alignments: Bloodlines may be keyed to zero, one or two alignments, among chaos, evil, good and law.
• Elements: Bloodlines are frequently keyed to one (seldom more) element, among air, cold, earth, electricity, fire, sonic and water. (Energies are lumped with elements because fire is both an energy and an element, and the spell protection against elements protects against energies... I've decided to merge the two concepts. Well, so I can get a sonic elemental -- like my little brother when he was younger -- or air damage.)
• Energies: Yin & Yang. Positive energy, life, light; negative energy, death, darkness. (Note they're more neutrals IMC than usually.)

Various creatures

• Dragons: The reptilian nobles are numerous, varied in behaviour and themes, but share several common traits. Most are keyed to arcane magic, but some are keyed to other magic.
• Fey: Like outsiders are embodiment of their planes, fey are embodiment of life and nature. All are keyed to nature magic, but several also have arcane powers.
• Outsiders: Each plane engenders its own outsiders, which are usually keyed to divine magic (for outer planes) or nature magic (for inner planes). Several outsiders also have arcane powers, and a little number of them have psionic capacities.
• Monsters: Extraplanar oddities, subterranean horrors, this grab-bag group includes aberrations, but also other categories of creatures that are alien in more ways than one. Beholder, illithid, aboleth, ethergaunt, spellweaver... They are the most likely to create sorcerous bloodlines through experiments (or rather, they are unlikely to be able to use another way).
• Mythical Creatures: Sphinx (including lammasu), some giants, medusae, yuan-ti, and other creatures that are magical, even monstrous, without being totally alien.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Wow!
(list snipped for brevity)

Okay, I like some of the differentiations you made, but it leads to a few questions:
1> How does a Sorcerer determine what his ancestor was? How many things does he pick? The way you wrote it, he COULD take two alignments, more than one element, yin and yang... if he doesn't pick as many as possible, he'll have less choices later on.
2> Do you really need to differentiate Cold from Water, or Air from Electricity? What about Acid? What exactly is Earth damage? If each element is tied to one type of energy damage, just list the Element, I'd say. As you pointed out, Fire is both, which means that it'd be unbalancing to force someone to pick only one entry on the list. If they pick anything other than Fire, they'd only get half the effect.
3> How would you get a Sonic Elemental, anyway? You'd need a Elemental Plane of Sonics, which'd require changing the basic cosmology, which'd change a lot of other things. While your campaign may use a nonstandard cosmology, it doesn't really help people who are shopping this thread for things to use if the concept is incompatible with the standard.

So okay, with what you've said, let's try again.

4 Magic types (Arcane, Divine, Nature, Psionic)
5 Creature types (Dragon, Fey, Outsider, Monster, Mythic)
6 Elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Life (Yin/Positive), Death (Yang/Negative))
5 Alignments (Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, Neutral)

So, would it still be one from each group? Pick any two? One "high" (Magic or Creature) and one "low" (Element or Alignment)?

The problem I can see is that there's too much correlation now. Good+Outsider almost always implies Divine. Fey implies Nature. Life and Death usually imply Divine or Nature. And so on. Any three categories form a complete set; if I say "Good + Life + Outsider" you say "Guardinal". To try and then add the Arcane/Divine/etc. split, I'd need to come up with a lot more types of good outsider.

Maybe the solution is to drop the Alignment group altogether, then. So, you take one Magic type, one Creature type, and one Element. That'd still lead to 120 fruit flavor combinations, but again would only require balancing a handful of things against each other. The problem, to me, is that not every background automatically implies an elemental damage type, which was why I put things like Psionic in with the elements before.

 

[Gez]

As I saw it, it was "any two", and preferably, not two from the same metacategory (magic, theme, creature).

So, a lammasu could be mythic and good, or air and divine, for example.

Energy elementals and planes are a possibility, not a necessity. Elemental damage likewise. (Basically, the damage you get from an Earth spell like earthquake is earth damage. It makes sense that an Earth elemental would not be harmed by an earthquake, anymore than a fire elemental would be harmed by a forest fire, or an air elemental by a tornado. Note that Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed use the same principle.)

I prefer to separate cold from water, acid from earth, etc. for several reasons. First, there's as more reasons to associate acid with water (acids are usually liquid). Likewise, Electricity could well be associated with fire. Sonic with all but fire. Etc. Basically, most of these associations don't make particularly sense -- a steam mephit, being a water creature, would become associated with Cold... And a thoqqua, being an earth creature, would be associated with Acid. Frost giants don't seem particularly watery to me. And so on.

 

[Vaxalon]

Regarding the wizard staff rules:

I don't like the "imbue spell" feat, nor do I like the free cantrip. What adventuring wizard could pass up using detect magic at will? He'd be worse than the Paladin!

I'd also change the "arcane smite" spell such that it would allow the free touch attack that is made as part of a touch spell to be made using the staff.

I've got some other edits I'm working on.

 

[las]

I like the wizard staff stuff alot its looks better then some of the other things that people made that are simler to it.

 

[fuindordm]

The staff idea is really cool. I would love to have one as a player--maybe a little too much! These items are so useful, I would be inclined to make it a separate feat that they
can take as one of their bonus feats.

Or, to borrow an idea from AU, make a feat "Attune Staff" that they can use on any sort of staff, mundane or magical, to give it the stated properties for the cost listed. A ritual requiring 1000 gp, 80 xp, and 1 full day. That way high-level wizards don't lose the benefit when they start finding potent magical staves.

Do the smites/ranged smites require the wizard to expend a stored spell?

I agree that the 'automatically fail your will save' is a little harsh,
but a severe penalty is in order nonetheless.

Regarding the sorcerous bloodlines: this is a neat way to add flavor to the class. A long while back myself and a couple of other people come up with 'sorcerous domains' (each sorcerer picks two based on their bloodline) that gave some minor boosts (extra class skills, minor resistances, etc.) in addition to determining one spell per level per domain. Half the sorcerer's spells were fixed by the domain choice, ensuring that their magic had the flavor of their bloodline. This was probably too constraining, since the sorcerer has too few spells to begin with.

You might consider, however, enforcing a bloodline theme on some of their spells in exchange for the extra power in addition to the XP cost (which is not onerous). Of the aspects listed, how about this:

1) Each aspect has a 'domain' (one spell per level).

2) The sorcerer picks a greater aspect and a lesser aspect (but
no more than one per category as before).

3) The first spell that they learn in each new spell level must come from their greater aspect's domain. (some subbing allowed, but the spell must be clearly on-theme) This spell can never be exchanged for a new spell as the sorcerer gains levels.

4) Bonus powers can be bought at levels 5, 10, 15, 20 as described for the greater aspect. Powers can also be bought for the lesser aspect, but they count as one category higher.
4a) alternatively, just say that a transcendent power can only be obtained for the greater aspect.

I appreciate your sharing these ideas--they're very interesting.

--Ben

 

[Glacialis]

Excellent all around, Gez! I like the staff idea, but just one thing...a comment a few users above me about a possible Attune Staff feat so you don't have to pass over a new magical staff because you can't use it for the things your plain old wooden staff that you've spent 80xp on.

What do you think? I like it myself, and I don't think there's really a reason to put any sort of restriction on such a feat other than increasing the gp/xp costs of attuning to a new staff. Staves are powerful items, so by the time you get a hold of one you should probably qualify .

Might even open up the long-debated issue (NO! NO! GET AWAY FROM ME WITH THOSE FLAMETHROWERS!) of recharging items, particularly expensive ones like staves .

 

[Gez]

I don't like the "imbue spell" feat, nor do I like the free cantrip. What adventuring wizard could pass up using detect magic at will? He'd be worse than the Paladin!

But would that be really bad?

I'd also change the "arcane smite" spell such that it would allow the free touch attack that is made as part of a touch spell to be made using the staff.

I won't lie and pretend I was happy with it; but I felt that something like that should exist. If I find a better mechanism, I'll change it.

The staff idea is really cool. I would love to have one as a player--maybe a little too much! These items are so useful, I would be inclined to make it a separate feat that they can take as one of their bonus feats.

I'm trying to have them not worth a feat -- similar to a familiar, in that they give a little boost but represent also a risk for you. A trade-off.

Or, to borrow an idea from AU, make a feat "Attune Staff" that they can use on any sort of staff, mundane or magical, to give it the stated properties for the cost listed. A ritual requiring 1000 gp, 80 xp, and 1 full day. That way high-level wizards don't lose the benefit when they start finding potent magical staves.

Nothing prevent someone from possessing a personal staff, and some magical staves found here and there.

Do the smites/ranged smites require the wizard to expend a stored spell?

No, otherwise it would not have been 1/day. I try to avoid to use several limitations mechanisms ("you must pay X and can do it only Y per day and only if you Z").

I agree that the 'automatically fail your will save' is a little harsh, but a severe penalty is in order nonetheless.

I think it's appropriate.

Regarding the sorcerous bloodlines: this is a neat way to add flavor to the class. A long while back myself and a couple of other people come up with 'sorcerous domains' (each sorcerer picks two based on their bloodline) that gave some minor boosts (extra class skills, minor resistances, etc.) in addition to determining one spell per level per domain. Half the sorcerer's spells were fixed by the domain choice, ensuring that their magic had the flavor of their bloodline. This was probably too constraining, since the sorcerer has too few spells to begin with.

I've thought about things like this, too. Although I think it's better to only fix 1 spell per level (but the first spell).

You might consider, however, enforcing a bloodline theme on some of their spells in exchange for the extra power in addition to the XP cost (which is not onerous). Of the aspects listed, how about this:

1) Each aspect has a 'domain' (one spell per level).

The latest draft works about this way.

2) The sorcerer picks a greater aspect and a lesser aspect (but no more than one per category as before).

3) The first spell that they learn in each new spell level must come from their greater aspect's domain. (some subbing allowed, but the spell must be clearly on-theme) This spell can never be exchanged for a new spell as the sorcerer gains levels.

4) Bonus powers can be bought at levels 5, 10, 15, 20 as described for the greater aspect. Powers can also be bought for the lesser aspect, but they count as one category higher.
4a) alternatively, just say that a transcendent power can only be obtained for the greater aspect.

I appreciate your sharing these ideas--they're very interesting.

Good ideas.

Excellent all around, Gez! I like the staff idea, but just one thing... a comment a few users above me about a possible Attune Staff feat so you don't have to pass over a new magical staff because you can't use it for the things your plain old wooden staff that you've spent 80xp on.

As I said, you can have only one "wizard's staff", but you may possess magical staves in addition. I don't remember staves to be slotted items.

What do you think? I like it myself, and I don't think there's really a reason to put any sort of restriction on such a feat other than increasing the gp/xp costs of attuning to a new staff. Staves are powerful items, so by the time you get a hold of one you should probably qualify .

Well. Why not.

Might even open up the long-debated issue (NO! NO! GET AWAY FROM ME WITH THOSE FLAMETHROWERS!) of recharging items, particularly expensive ones like staves .

I've found that, as a rule of thumb, you may divide the XP cost by the number of charges, and allow a character that would be able to craft the item in question to spend time recharging to imbue XP in the item to give it more charges. Takes 1 day per 40 XP.

 

[Nellisir]

Err, lost a post there...

Anyways, cool stuff here Gez!

Re: staff - I'd remove the skill penalty (if the mage loses his staff) and change the save penalty to a -4 vs individually targetted spells. This opens it up to many more spells and still confers a hefty penalty. I'd also make it voluntary whether or not a mage's bond is sundered with his staff if it's lost, and make it impossible to attune to a staff more than once. Makes a staff more useful to the enemy (longer shelf life, assuming the wizard chooses not to sunder his bond) and makes the wizard really think about ending the bond (particularly if it's a magical staff).

Cheers
Nell.