Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[paradox42]

Well, I'm about to playtest the lowest tiers of divinity myself it seems- in tonight's Evil game, my sub-Epic one (they're presently 16th-17th), the party Telepath drew the personal attention of Nexus, the god of Power and Corruption (who is known for offering mortals "deals" in much the same way the Devil offers people things in Earth folklore for selling their souls to him). Now, in the case of this Telepath, the god's been watching the character for some time anyway, because the character's actions have dovetailed quite nicely with his usual agendas, and the character agrees- being at this point a de facto worshipper of him, even though the sheet still says no deity and no ordination or initiation ceremony has been conducted.

Nexus therefore offered the character this deal: give him part of your soul now (OOC, give up the next several levels to pay off the level adjustment of the template you're going to get if you say yes), and all of it after you die (i.e. no resurrection unless the caster gets to you before your soul really leaves the Material Plane, like within a few hours or so at most), and you'll be granted the Disciple or Prophet template and get a taste of divinity.

Not a lot of characters would seriously consider this offer given the price that's being demanded, but in this character's case I expected the player to jump at it- and boy did he ever. So he'll likely be playing a Chosen of Nexus or Herald of Nexus by the end of the next session.

Having more complete examples of Portfolios would really help for this of course, but the player is aware that this is effectively a playtest and the rules aren't finished yet- so no hurry.

I just wanted to share with the rest of the class.

 

[dante58701]

It's not like you're making entire classes pointless with this line of thought.

In response to this I can only say this...

1. All spellcasting classes are relatively similar. All the minor variances between them are more or less flavor text. The only exceptional differences are the "Specials" that come with each class, which have very little to do with spellcasting in many cases.

2. With the innumerable spells that exist in dungeons and dragons, particularly those which cross the barriers between classes, it makes little difference what spellcasting class someone plays...anything one class can cast another is likely to also be able to cast, particularly with miracle and wish involved.

3. No class is ever made pointless by a blending of the multitudinous classes that WOTC keeps spewing out. In fact, that line of thinking is rather negative and counter productive.

4. With the plethorical advent of such prestige classes that bind two seperate spellcasting classes together, WOTC is essentially making a statement saying that the seperate styles of spellcasting can be blended anyways.

5. Even in the very beginning of dungeons and dragons there were two spellcasting classes that Gary Gygax himself blended...The Magic User (or Mage) and the Illusionist...which were at one time seperate classes. This rid the world of the tediousness of having to be both classes just to get the spells you wanted.

6. As all classes are a primal set of rules with mad ammounts of flavor text, those rules...as stated in the DMG are meant to be modified and adjusted as the DM and the PLAYERS see fit, although the DM has the final say in all things.

7. How anyone could consider a class to be rendered useless is beyond me. Even with the advent of DIVINE abilities, they would not still be considered useless. A Wizard is a Wizard and a Sorcerer is a Sorcerer. Those basic classes are stepping stones, in of themselves, to a plethora of feats, skills, prestige classes, and roleplaying personas. So if you feel somehow stripped of your identity, then perhaps you should have your characters run around and scream..."IM A SORCERER!!!" or "IM A WIZARD!!!" and dress them in the stereotypical fashions accorded to their kind.

8. Any disrespect is purely unintentional and polite discussion regarding the controversial issues is more than acceptable on a seperate page. I am, of course, apologizing for any perceived antagonistic verbality on my part beforehand since some people are "sensitive".

 

[dante58701]

On a side note...what does everyone think of a wereowl

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

Still seems more appropriate for the Cosmic level, to me. If it should exist at all.

Its possible.

And wizards can change their "spells known" every day, without sacrificing a divine ability slot.

What about:

Divine Sorcery (to counter Divine Wizardry)

Doubles the number of Spells Known.

Hmm.... how did I forget about that? I might call it divine, myself.

So you think Enlightenment should be Divine and Total Recall should be Cosmic...?

Bwuh? I would have assumed that without a base Rage ability to modify, the various Rage-boosting feats would have no effect for non-Barbarians.

I suspect you could easily manifest the original rage ability with a wish spell.

Again, I disagree. I don't see any reason for "tapering to a point" in general, as a matter of fact. I find breaking down the distinctions between classes.... distasteful.

I generally only think this applies to the Sorcerer/Wizard, where you get overt bleeding. The other classes usually have at least one specific power that I can get my teeth into and expand upon.

Except that the two kinds of casting are still tracked separately. He needs at least 18 levels of Sorcerer to get 9th level spells to qualify for most Epic Sorcerer feats, and even then, those feats would not benefit his Wizard casting.

Well, we already know that multi-classing, with regards caster level at least, is broken within the rules as written, since you'll almost certainly never penetrate the Spell resistance of monsters of the appropriate CR.

Why? I think breaking down the barriers between them is antithetical to the d20 system.

I don't believe the barriers between Sorcerer and Wizard are sufficiently pronounced.

Something that bars effects of the same type?

Exactly.

One template that allows for any animal to be used with it is enough for me, but whatever. It's not like you're making entire classes pointless with this line of thought.

Well I usually try to advocate you at least have as many HD/Levels as the total ECL of any templates you add.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey paradox dude!

Having more complete examples of Portfolios would really help for this of course, but the player is aware that this is effectively a playtest and the rules aren't finished yet- so no hurry.

What Portfolios on the list was he thinking of taking and I can include those amongst the new ones the next update. Its possible I may even get all the portfolios in the next update, although I suspect they will all still need another 5-10% of work done to them.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi dante matey!

On a side note...what does everyone think of a wereowl

I think that would be a hoot.

 

[paradox42]

What Portfolios on the list was he thinking of taking and I can include those amongst the new ones the next update. Its possible I may even get all the portfolios in the next update, although I suspect they will all still need another 5-10% of work done to them.

He wasn't yet- he's too busy figuring out what Divine ability or abilities he wants (I suspect abilities, since I suspect he'll be willing to pay 6 levels to get two divine ranks, but he hasn't said so for sure yet). Honestly, my rules for how deities grant Domains to Clerics are radically different from the core rules anyway, so it's possible the Portfolio rules will need tweaking in my case regardless- Nexus, for example, is an Intermediate god who has 14 Domains on his list for Clerics, even though he only has three actual "spheres of influence" which should obviously equate to Portfolios. And while your Portfolio list does include Disease, it does not include his other two, those being Power and Corruption. What I told the player for now is that we should start with Nexus's list of Domains and basically either pick a Portfolio from the IH, or make one up based partly on the chosen Domain depending on which Portfolios get chosen. It seems the best solution for the moment.

The player in question is one of the group's powergamers, so this is a dream come true for him even without the Portfolios- his exact words were "It's funny I already had my wish in mind for Nexus' deal, and then I found out I would get much more!" This whole "deal with the Devil" subplot has been working up in the game for a couple of months now- he just didn't try to initiate it before this last session. And technically he didn't do it even then, but he did fulfill the trigger condition which was to speak the god's name three times in a single utterance. He had Knowledge (Religion), and could have asked me how to trigger Nexus's coming, but just never thought to do so. Oh well- now he knows.

In my game we don't have a problem with retroactive changes when necessary, so what I told the player is that if we have to work up Portfolios and add them to the character later, there are a couple of ways we could easily explain away the sudden power-gain in game. The two most obvious ones are (A) maybe the character just didn't understand the full extent of the powers until now, or (B) Nexus wanted to wait until he started to receive the "payment" (i.e. one or more of the lost levels that will be paying for the template) before granting the full powers. Either way, it means we can have the character going around without the Portfolio abilities for a short while without it being unbelievable in a story sense or requiring that the Portfolios stay off the character forever.

On the note of Portfolios, one intriguing possibility occurred to me- since the GM is supposed to pick one of the two the character gets, and since this case is one where the power is being directly granted by a deity, that essentially means the deity is picking at least one of the Portfolios granted. And given who the deity in question is, it makes a certain degree of sense for there to be a "Slave" or "Servant" Portfolio that the deity uses to fill the second slot of mortals that have one or two Divine Ranks bestowed upon them in this manner. Does this idea work well with the concept of the Resonance? Should a deity who is acting as patron to a mortal with 1 or 2 ranks, or a new Immortal with more, have a special Portfolio that is granted to such a character in that specific circumstance? What would that sort of Portfolio do? I think this opens up a rather unique roleplaying possibility and very interesting story elements.

 

[Arg-ha Lardgoa]

Artifacts

your guide to building immortals states an immortal has 4 artifacts and usually a very limited supply of "mundane" magic and then give the break down on the maximums, now what is not clear is whether the immortal gets 4 artifacts at the stated power levels or are the power levels broken up amongst the 4 items?

 

[Servitor of Wrath]

Which is of course where Portfolio Mastery comes in. With a single portfolio half the effect is divine. If the target is otherwise immune to death (for example with Death ward) and you cast finger of death on them, they still must save, although they get a +10 bonus. If its a double portfolio they gain only a +5 bonus.

What if you PWK a creature immune to death? +10 to a save if worthless if you don't get a save in the first place.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

What if you PWK a creature immune to death? +10 to a save if worthless if you don't get a save in the first place.

Perhaps because of your divine nature or portfolios, you would be afforded one as appropriate. (With the +10) If you are using PWK on something immune to death, why not just Finger of Death? I should also point out PWK is an enchantment spell, and there is nothing Negative Energy affiliated with it at all (And in my opinion, that doesn't make much sense with the Death tag on it) and wouldn't probably recieve any benifit from the Death Portfolio bonus.
And if this were 3.0, I doubt the Death portfolio would benifit 3.0 Disintigrate.
PWK never kills anyone except mooks anyway. (Except when a 17th level mage fights the 9th level party, which if they walk away from such a fight, that mage must be really stupid or have a very poor selection of spells. That, or they are really bloody lucky)