A couple home-rule balance questions

[Sniperfox47]

I've been setting up a new campaign for a bit now and a couple things have come up that I'd like to ask balance advice on:

1) Our artificer (construct creation artificer) would be likely to go into lichdom for various storyline purposes. Is there anything unbalanced with having a construct "lich" by just swapping out the undead type (and traits) for the construct ones?

2) On the same construct lich note, I don't really see anything else in there that would need to be changed to suit flavor except possibly the fear aura (either leave as is or replace fear with confusion a la the elder eidelon's insanity aura) and swapping out the negative energy touch for an electricity touch. Anything else that might be an issue?

3) the world its taking place in will feature common use of mind altering affects like mind seed and mindrape. Not enchantments/compulsions but actual changes to a persons persona. What's the best way to deal with this? I'll need to expose the PCs to this to at least a degree. I understand that protection from evil and the various ways to get invulnerability to mind affecting affects will make this a moot point after a while, but things still always come up. My initial ideas are to allow thought bottles a 4th option whereby they can store and restore a copy of a person's persona, though not memories. So a fundamental change to someone's personality could be reversed, but restoring all the minor changes to that persons memories may not. Any thoughts?

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. I just don't want to be throwing in something without a second pair of eyes.

 

[GMMichael]

1) Our artificer (construct creation artificer) would be likely to go into lichdom for various storyline purposes. Is there anything unbalanced with having a construct "lich" by just swapping out the undead type (and traits) for the construct ones?

So, the artificer is a construct, or he makes constructs? I get the feeling that negative energy can't animate objects as well as formerly living creatures, so an undead construct might not have the same, for lack of a better word, vitality.

2) On the same construct lich note, I don't really see anything else in there that would need to be changed to suit flavor except possibly the fear aura (either leave as is or replace fear with confusion a la the elder eidelon's insanity aura) and swapping out the negative energy touch for an electricity touch. Anything else that might be an issue?

Nothing's an issue unless you have some rules-lawyers in your group.

3) the world its taking place in will feature common use of mind altering affects like mind seed and mindrape. Not enchantments/compulsions but actual changes to a persons persona. What's the best way to deal with this? I'll need to expose the PCs to this to at least a degree. I understand that protection from evil and the various ways to get invulnerability to mind affecting affects will make this a moot point after a while, but things still always come up. My initial ideas are to allow thought bottles a 4th option whereby they can store and restore a copy of a person's persona, though not memories. So a fundamental change to someone's personality could be reversed, but restoring all the minor changes to that persons memories may not.

What are mindseed and mindrape if not enchantments nor compulsions?

And what is a person/persona if not a collection of memories?

 

[Sniperfox47]

So, the artificer is a construct, or he makes constructs? I get the feeling that negative energy can't animate objects as well as formerly living creatures, so an undead construct might not have the same, for lack of a better word, vitality.

The artificer is what people on this site seem to refer to as a hordificer. An artificer who creates constructs. He would be finding a way to extend his life (as a lich does) and modifying the lich template to fit that role seems easier than drawing one up from scratch. I don't think I ever mentioned Negative Energy so I'm not sure where that came from...

Nothing's an issue unless you have some rules-lawyers in your group.

Considering the setting uses a number of variant systems already those players have already been reminded that "The DM Makes The Rules". Like I said in the first post was asking more from a balance standpoint.

What are mindseed and mindrape if not enchantments nor compulsions?

And what is a person/persona if not a collection of memories?

Mindrape has the enchantment school, and Mind Seed has the compulsion sub-school, but *only* until the spell ends (instantaneous for Mindrape and 1 week for Mind Seed [EDIT] Mind Seed is instantaneous too, my mistake.[/EDIT]) after which their affects are permanent, non-magical changes to a person's fundamental self.

In real life yes a person is a sum of their parts, you're right, but in D&D the rules are set up such that a persons self is independent from their memories.

Neither of these points are related to the question I was asking however.

 

[Nagol]

If you can, take a look at the prestige class Green Star Adept for ideas on a slow conversion to a construct (Complete Arcane). The half-golem template in Monster Manual II also may provide some ideas. I think you have the basics covered pretty well.


Word of warning about the thought bottle. It is ripe for abuse. IF you do indeed go that route, strip its ability to hold xp/repair xp loss.

 

[Sniperfox47]

Word of warning about the thought bottle. It is ripe for abuse. IF you do indeed go that route, strip its ability to hold xp/repair xp loss.

Thanks for the tip but that issue's already been nipped in the bud. Quoted from my campaign's homerule list: "any XP willingly spent, or taken from your character with their consent, leaves a 'ghost' of that knowledge on their soul. Such XP cannot be restored even through the use of experience storage devices, including (but not limited to) the thought bottle."

With regards to the idea of the green star adept, we briefly considered progressing him up that path, or developing a similar prestige class. However he feels (and I agree) that he's better off with an LA+4 template rather than taking it as a HD+10 class. (In part this is because of a character creation house-rule. Gestalt with one side class levels and the other as racial, template, or NPC levels.)