Are these templates reasonable?

[SteveC]

In my current campaign the characters are very special: they are heirs to the powers of creation in the universe, a fact that they are just starting to figure out. I am at a place in the campaign where these powers are going to come to the forefront, and the group is going to get to choose from three options, two of which involve adding a template to the character. I'd like your opinion on how balanced you think the different choices are.

1. Immediately gain one class level, at a cost of changing your type to outsider (native).
2. Gain the lesser blood of creation template. This template has a level adjustment of +1, but the characters are gaining a level, there is no real cost to them.
3. Gain the greater blood of creation template. This template has a level adjustment of +2. Since the characters are gaining only one level, I'm going to require any character who choose this to spend their next level "paying off" the level adjustment, instead of gaining a new class level.

Here are the two templates:


Lesser Blood of Creation
+2 to any two physical abilities (Str, Dex, Con).
+2 to any one mental ability (Int, Wis, Cha).
Rapid Healing (character heals at twice normal speed naturally).
Lesser Regeneration (character will gradually heal from any wound that is not caused by a “primal” source. This results in gradual regeneration of lost limbs. This process takes a variable time of at least six months for a finger or toe, two years for more complex organs (such as the eyes) and up to 10 years for an arm or a leg. Removing major organs that would normally be fatal will still kill a character.
Your type becomes outsider (native).
Level Adjustment: +1

Greater Blood of Creation
+4 to any two physical abilities. +2 to the third physical ability.
+4 to any one mental ability.
Rapid Healing (as above).
Lesser Regeneration (as above).
Minor shapechange: You may change your basic appearance, but not gain other abilities of shapechanging. You receive a +10 bonus to disguise checks and do not need a kit to make disguises, simply 10 minutes time to change your features. Using this ability more than once per day causes fatigue or exhaustion if you are already fatigued. You resume your natural form over the same period if asleep or unconscious.
Your type becomes outsider (native).
Level Adjustment: +2

Do you think these templates are reasonable for their level adjustments? Oh, and which choice of my three options would you take? Since it's relevant: the group is higher level, ranging from 12th to 15th currently.

Thanks for your advice!

--Steve

 

[Nellisir]

They seem pretty mild. The real effects are the ability score alterations. Lesser regeneration takes so long it's essentially a non-factor -- losing a finger doesn't cost you any hitpoints or impose a penalty, afterall -- and minor shapechange is "change self" 1x/day with a 10 minute casting time. Rapid healing might be marginally useful, if there's not magical healing around, but most campaigns I know of supplant natural healing with magical healing after 5th level or so.

One note -- I don't think changing your type to Outsider (native) is really a penalty -- it doesn't change anything, except you become immune to spells that only affect humanoids.

Hope that helps,
Nell.

 

[Roman]

I think both of the templates are pretty well balanced for their LAs, as well as being interesting. A job well done to you - if I were in the position of your players I would not hesitate to choose the Greater Blood of Creation template (if for nothing else than the sense of uniqueness) - yet 2 class levels are about the same in power if not slightly more powerful.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I agree that both templates are well-balanced. If I was playing in your campaign, there's a 90% chance that I would be some sort of wizard or psion, in which case I couldn't bear to lose one of my precious caster levels, so I would take option 1. If I knew that this option was going to come up when I built the character, I might have built a noncaster so I could take the Greater Blood of Creation for the coolness factor without feeling the blow as strongly.

 

[SteveC]

They seem pretty mild. The real effects are the ability score alterations. Lesser regeneration takes so long it's essentially a non-factor -- losing a finger doesn't cost you any hitpoints or impose a penalty, afterall -- and minor shapechange is "change self" 1x/day with a 10 minute casting time. Rapid healing might be marginally useful, if there's not magical healing around, but most campaigns I know of supplant natural healing with magical healing after 5th level or so.

One note -- I don't think changing your type to Outsider (native) is really a penalty -- it doesn't change anything, except you become immune to spells that only affect humanoids.

Hope that helps,
Nell.

Thanks for the kind words! The template's abilities are meant to model some very specific character types, characters who are very much like humans but are simply better in every way. The focus of the campaign is that some people are "real" (the players and major NPCs) and everyone else is (for lack of a better way to describe it since my players read these boards) just a ghost in the machine. The shape changing is an ability that the characters can get better at with a prestige class called the Scion of Chaos.

On the subject of the Outsider template, this isn't normally a disadvantage, but in this campaign one of the characters is a cleric with faith's fury. After some discussion, we decided that the spell's big damage function applies to anyone with this bloodline, who have been the group's enemies for much of the campaign. The cleric has a habit of ground-zeroing this spell on the group, since no one will take any damage. Once the template is applied, the whole group will take damage from the spell. Now this isn't intended as a nerf, but rather as a major campaign shift: I have become that which my god hates, but he is still giving me all of my abilities? What the heck?

--Steve

 

[Stalker0]

The inevitable problem with any template is that fighters types are always more likely to take them than casters...it just doesn't hurt them as much.

So including option 1 is a good idea.

 

[Mavnn]

I'd actually call these templates slightly underpowered - especially 'Greater Blood'.

Grim Tales has a section in the appendices which gives a 'CR' equivilient for many abilities, which I find useful for creating templates (given that a class level adds +1 CR, a template should do the same per +1 LA). It reckons that +1 to a stat is worth roughly +0.1 CR.

So, taking a quick look:

Lesser Blood: Gives +6 Stat points (+0.6 CR) and two special abilities which I would rate as 'cool' story wise, but almost irrelevant to overall power at the levels you're talking about. Given that a feat is rated at +0.2 CR, and that these two abilities together could easily be counted as one feat or less, I'd be tempted to add at least one more ability. Maybe, say, replace 'Rapid Healing' with Fast Healing 2 or 3. Not enough to make too much difference in combat at this kind of level, but enough that even a few minutes down time builds back up a decent buffer of hit points.

Greater Blood: Gives +14 Stat point (+1.4 CR) and three special abilities - one which is a low level spell usable once a day (twice with a sacrifice) and the other two as the same as above... again, great flavour, but not much of a power gain. Rapid Healing could again be replaced by Fast Healing, probably closer to 5 or 6 in this template (which will start to make a more noticable difference in combat) or leave it at the same level as 'Lesser Blood' and give something useful like a 'Lesser Restoration' effect each time you would normally recover hit points from natural healing. That keeps with the theme of recovering from damage that would be perminant for any normal human.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I'd actually call these templates slightly underpowered - especially 'Greater Blood'.

Grim Tales has a section in the appendices which gives a 'CR' equivilient for many abilities, which I find useful for creating templates (given that a class level adds +1 CR, a template should do the same per +1 LA). It reckons that +1 to a stat is worth roughly +0.1 CR.

So, taking a quick look:

Lesser Blood: Gives +6 Stat points (+0.6 CR) and two special abilities which I would rate as 'cool' story wise, but almost irrelevant to overall power at the levels you're talking about. Given that a feat is rated at +0.2 CR, and that these two abilities together could easily be counted as one feat or less, I'd be tempted to add at least one more ability. Maybe, say, replace 'Rapid Healing' with Fast Healing 2 or 3. Not enough to make too much difference in combat at this kind of level, but enough that even a few minutes down time builds back up a decent buffer of hit points.

Greater Blood: Gives +14 Stat point (+1.4 CR) and three special abilities - one which is a low level spell usable once a day (twice with a sacrifice) and the other two as the same as above... again, great flavour, but not much of a power gain. Rapid Healing could again be replaced by Fast Healing, probably closer to 5 or 6 in this template (which will start to make a more noticable difference in combat) or leave it at the same level as 'Lesser Blood' and give something useful like a 'Lesser Restoration' effect each time you would normally recover hit points from natural healing. That keeps with the theme of recovering from damage that would be perminant for any normal human.

The assumption that +1 LA should add +1 CR is wrong.

 

[Mavnn]

How so? If adding a level increases your CR by 1, surely adding a level adjustment of one (and so increasing your effective level by one) should do the same.

This isn't a sarcastic comment, by the way - I genuinely fail to see how the assumption is flawed, and I'm interested in your take on it.

 

[SteveC]

I'd actually call these templates slightly underpowered - especially 'Greater Blood'.

Grim Tales has a section in the appendices which gives a 'CR' equivilient for many abilities, which I find useful for creating templates (given that a class level adds +1 CR, a template should do the same per +1 LA). It reckons that +1 to a stat is worth roughly +0.1 CR.

So, taking a quick look:

Lesser Blood: Gives +6 Stat points (+0.6 CR) and two special abilities which I would rate as 'cool' story wise, but almost irrelevant to overall power at the levels you're talking about. Given that a feat is rated at +0.2 CR, and that these two abilities together could easily be counted as one feat or less, I'd be tempted to add at least one more ability. Maybe, say, replace 'Rapid Healing' with Fast Healing 2 or 3. Not enough to make too much difference in combat at this kind of level, but enough that even a few minutes down time builds back up a decent buffer of hit points.

Greater Blood: Gives +14 Stat point (+1.4 CR) and three special abilities - one which is a low level spell usable once a day (twice with a sacrifice) and the other two as the same as above... again, great flavour, but not much of a power gain. Rapid Healing could again be replaced by Fast Healing, probably closer to 5 or 6 in this template (which will start to make a more noticable difference in combat) or leave it at the same level as 'Lesser Blood' and give something useful like a 'Lesser Restoration' effect each time you would normally recover hit points from natural healing. That keeps with the theme of recovering from damage that would be perminant for any normal human.

These are some good points. I suppose I was more concerned with making these templates too good, so I may have moved too far in the other direction.

I am thinking about adding something like the following:
Lesser Blood: +1 Natural Armor. Survival becomes a class skill for you.
Greater Blood: +2 Natural Armor, 5 Energy Resistance to Cold, Electricity and Fire. Survival becomes a class skill for you.

Note: survival is the skill used in the campaign for dimension travel and general dimensional awareness, so I should have that ability right away.

I didn't want to give Fast Healing as an ability because it has such a major campaign impact outside of combat, although I did think about it. Even if you have fast healing 1 you will completely heal up outside of combat without the need for any spells in just a few minutes. This is something I don't want to introduce into the game.

I didn't use the Grim Tales calculator for this because I don't always agree with some of the assumptions that go behind it, but you're right: I should have used it for a ballpark feature. I try to make the mental abilities more important than normal in my campaign, but I also understand that, unless you're a spellcaster, the physical stats are just more important than the mental ones.

What do you think of my proposed suggestions?

--Steve