Would You Take this Ability? (Now with a Poll!)

[Kelleris]

A proposal of the class might help a little. I'm inclined towards just using the golem stats for the power...including the healing and slowing with fire and lightning and DR penetration comparitive to HD as per a slam attack. Unless it really doesn't work with the class. More information would help.

That's an interesting idea, though it doesn't solve the party transportation problem.

The class is a Technologist base class I've been working on for my homebrew campaign setting. My conceit with the class is that my world's technology is, in one sense, very high, higher in fact than the modern world (though based on vastly different principles, because I refuse to have any physics majors wandering by and telling me my fantasy science is impossible).

I figure, in a world where you can just cast contact other plane or commune and call up Boccob and just ask him how this whole general relativity thing works, it's improbably at best that technology, in raw knowledge form, would stay stagnant for so long. So, instead of knowledge, the problem is implementation - magic, the ascendant force, relies on fluctuations in natural laws that prevent any technology (chemical, mechanical, or whatever) above a certain (coincidentally medieval) level of development from working.

Thus, Technologists are characters who take this excellent knowledge of physical laws and combine it with an ability to suppress magic to create and maintain powerful devices. I won't get into the details, but that's the theory-nutshell - Technologists are very good at suppressing magic because high-tech devices don't work otherwise.

So I was trying to come up with some flavorful, high-level abilities to express this talent for antimagic, and magic immunity struck me as an interesting possibility - the Technologist gains the ability to just deny the effects of magic on himself. As I've said, though, it's tricky to balance in a D&D context.

So the context is a skill-heavy caster class. The Technologist, unfortunately, is not terribly good at planes-hopping, magical healing, and teleportation (they get only a little bit of these), and those are the very sticking points Saeviomagy pointed out. They can generate resistance bonuses, enhancement bonuses to stats, and other normally-magic-dependant effects on their own, though, as long as they pick the right devices (and they only get 36 devices and/or antimagic abilities over the course of their 20-level progression).

(That number, by the way, is identical to the new Psion - Technologists get many fewer points/day, relatively speaking, and have a bit of MAD (Charisma to suppress magic/activate devices and Intelligence to determine their devices' potency) to make up for their other advantages, mostly high skills from a good list.)

EDIT: Now that I think of it, though the golem-style magic immunity would make for an interesting capstone ability for a Technologist PrC, something transformational based on the half-golem template. Hmm...

 

[Tonguez]

The ability is way powerful but as Saeviomagy says also way debilitating.

If you make it droppable then it makes a mockery of he whole thing ("eww here I'll spend 50xp you buff me up and then I'll go all invunerable again"). SO that means you need some kind of big cost to balance it if you want it droppbale maybe 200xp and NO magic weapons

 

[Kelleris]

The ability is way powerful but as Saeviomagy says also way debilitating.

If you make it droppable then it makes a mockery of he whole thing ("eww here I'll spend 50xp you buff me up and then I'll go all invunerable again"). SO that means you need some kind of big cost to balance it if you want it droppbale maybe 200xp and NO magic weapons

Well, presumably when the magic immunity goes back up again it would suppress all those buffs. It might be a good idea to force concentration for the suppression, so you can only be a passive target during that time. Also, the XP cost I mentioned would be something pitched to come out to about 50 XP per level, so if you want to use that variant every comabt, you'd better be resigned to gaining levels at a glacial pace.

 

[Rystil Arden]

In a normal D&D world, characters with no magic abilities and magic immunity are pretty much guaranteed to lose except against arcane casters because their opponents will still have their magic buffs and the antimagic guy would not. In your world, where the Technologist has his own means of buffing, the Technologist is ridiculously overpowered because he can still power himself up and remain immune to all magic.

 

[drakhe]

Don't tweak..

I say don't change anything, and let the players roleplay themselves out of trouble.

e.g.: someone stated it would be a pain as you can't travel by magical means (making the old teleport escape impossible etc etc) - let them deal, that's what roleplaying is about.

I NEVER create an ability/feat/item/.... and then go tweak it to give players an easier way out. In my world: magical items and magic as a whole are dangerous, mysterious and rare, and using it/them should always be a risk.

That's one of the reasons I like WFRP so much and now with WFRP2 magic is even more dangerous, the link to chaos more prominent.

It's not just my DM viewpoint, as a player I also prefer to have an item or ability that needs thought/roleplaying to use, golden bullet stuff that makes you untouchable... just kill the fun for me.

 

[Dracomeander]

I agree with Frukathka. I wouldn't take it even with the option to lower it.

In most campaign settings where the presence of magic is assumed to be readily available and nearly omnipresent, I would actually consider it to be more of a curse than a benefit.

Yeah, magic may wash off of you with no effect, but that cuts both ways with the drawbacks outweighing the benefits. You have no benefit of magic yourself. A good portion of DRs become unbreachable. Your defenses can't benefit from magic so your AC will be lower than expected for the encounter level meaning you take more damage. And if it takes a conscious choice to lower the immunity, you are screwed when you go unconscious, as nearly all battlefield assistance your allies will have available will be magical in nature.

 

[Kelleris]

In a normal D&D world, characters with no magic abilities and magic immunity are pretty much guaranteed to lose except against arcane casters because their opponents will still have their magic buffs and the antimagic guy would not. In your world, where the Technologist has his own means of buffing, the Technologist is ridiculously overpowered because he can still power himself up and remain immune to all magic.

Yes, that's why I was thinking that suppressing all worn (and maybe nonarmor) magical items would be a good idea. With a fairly limited list of available devices, unless the Technologist is extremely focused on self-buffing, the loss of magic items would I think generally cancel out the Technologist's own abilities.

What do you think? Yes, no? I'm well aware that this is a pretty powerful ability, but I think it's interesting enough to try to salvage.

 

[Kelleris]

A good portion of DRs become unbreachable. Your defenses can't benefit from magic so your AC will be lower than expected for the encounter level meaning you take more damage.

This is why I was considering making arms and armor an exception to the general magic-item-suppression rule. FWIW, though, this is basically a caster class, so being unable to breach DR is not a huge problem for them in most cases. The low AC/hit point loss is partly offset by immunity to spells, spell-likes and supernaturals, and there are several mage armor/shield-style devices for getting a decent AC if you need it. And I was considering allowing magic (probably light in this case) armor, of course, as one of the few exceptions.

And if it takes a conscious choice to lower the immunity, you are screwed when you go unconscious, as nearly all battlefield assistance your allies will have available will be magical in nature.

A good point, but I would see this as a feature, not a bug. Having to weigh the drawbacks makes abilities more interesting, and this particular drawback isn't crippling. Might want to talk the cleric into sinking a few more ranks into Heal than he did before, or whip up some healing gel (alchemical, ergo not magical) and pass it around.

Thanks for all your comments. The last couple of times I started a thread it didn't even get this far. I am a little surprised at the categorical insistence that magic does characters more good than ill, though - it seems buffing magic and clerical healing is more common than my personal experience shows.

 

[Rystil Arden]

This is why I was considering making arms and armor an exception to the general magic-item-suppression rule. FWIW, though, this is basically a caster class, so being unable to breach DR is not a huge problem for them in most cases. The low AC/hit point loss is partly offset by immunity to spells, spell-likes and supernaturals, and there are several mage armor/shield-style devices for getting a decent AC if you need it. And I was considering allowing magic (probably light in this case) armor, of course, as one of the few exceptions.



A good point, but I would see this as a feature, not a bug. Having to weigh the drawbacks makes abilities more interesting, and this particular drawback isn't crippling. Might want to talk the cleric into sinking a few more ranks into Heal than he did before, or whip up some healing gel (alchemical, ergo not magical) and pass it around.

Thanks for all your comments. The last couple of times I started a thread it didn't even get this far. I am a little surprised at the categorical insistence that magic does characters more good than ill, though - it seems buffing magic and clerical healing is more common than my personal experience shows.

I am a little surprised at the categorical insistence that magic does characters more good than ill, though - it seems buffing magic and clerical healing is more common than my personal experience shows.

Well, it depends on what level you play. If you are playing level 5+, then the lack of magic items is going to hurt a lot.

Basically, in a campaign without Technologist gadgets, the ability is balanced based on my least favourite balancing factor: Supremely powerful and cripplingly weakening all at once. When you add in the gadgets though, you're just basically saying, in a sense, "He can only use his own magic." At this point, it becomes ultra-unbalanced in the Technologist's favour. This would be the equivalent of playing a "psionics is different" campaign wherein all psions are 100% immune to magic, but the mages were not immune to psionics

 

[Bront]

I might suggest something on the oposit end of the spectrum.

Allowing him to nullify all magical effects on himself (perhaps 10' Rad) for a particular duration (Perhaps 1 rd per level) one or more times per day. Basicly, he can anti-magic shell himself for short periods of time.

He can be buffed and worked magicly, use magic armor, etc, or he can sacrifice all that to nullify all magical effects in his general vecinity for a limited amount of time. If you want, you can scale the range AND duration of the influence per level, so a low level character might be able to use it on himself (And therefore nullify magic to use a flash light or calculator) while a high level one might be able to sustain a large envelope for a fairly long time (Allowing him to use a larger vehicle, ect).

If you want it specificly for him to be always on though, you might be better off with non-droppable SR that scales with the class level (10+1 per level), basicly that the higher level he gets, the harder it is for him to be influenced by magic of any kind.

All of these are simpler and cleaner mechanics as well, doesn't involving rewriting anything already existing, but draws on existing powers/spells and simply adjusts the scope of the effect (Area of effect for the Anti-magic, or just non-droppable for SR).

Plus, if you like both of these, you can include both of them since they don't realy overlap each other.