dead_radish
Explorer
Here's a house rule I'm proposing for our campaign. I can't see any real issues with it, and the group seems to see it as balanced, but I wanted to throw it out there.
A Double Manifested witch has forsaken other powers to expand his primary witchery. The effect varies, depending on the manifestation. A witch can double manifest at any point he would normally gain an additional manifestation type.
The effect of being Doubly Manifested varies, depending on the manifestation.
A manifestation that has a number of uses per day gains 50% more uses (so a 4/day power can be used 6/day). A once/week power can be used twice per week.
A manifestation that has only one use per day gains another use.
For Blade manifestations, the witch gains the ability to manifest a second blade identical to the first, or to manifest a more powerful single blade (chosen when the manifestation is picked). An iron witch gains an additional bonus to hit (but not damage) of +1/4 levels, a wind witch gets a deflection bonus of +1/3 levels, rather than 4, a cold witch deals an additional 1.5 points of cold damage per 2 levels rather than +1 (round down), a mind blade deals 1d6+1.5/level, a wood witch deals 1.5*wisdom mod in bonus damage, and counts 1s and 2s as 3s when attacking undead, and a Sea Witch sucks just a little less (Sorry sea witches)
Some manifestations don't fit either mold, so their effects are below:
Armor Song: The Iron Witch can manifest a shield as well, which has a shield bonus of 1/2 wisdom mod, and an enhancement of +1/6 levels), and also has no armor check penalty. The shield may the witches' size or smaller.
Nature's Warding Word: In addition to a natural AC, the witch gains DR 1/- for every 6 levels (yes, taking it as your 2nd manifestation gets you squat. This is intentional)
Fire Lance: A fire lance deals an additional 1.5 points of fire damage per 2 witch levels.
Sea Song: The chance for hostile encounters is 25%, rather than 50%.
These abilities stack with Witchery Lord, but the Witchery Lord is applied to the base ability and then the Double Wed bonuses are added on.
Basically, there are a few purposes for this. It allows low stat witches to focus on something, and make it usable on par with a high stat witch. It allows a blade user to boost their blade, though not (imho) to an extreme level. And it creates variety in a simple way - you don't know if a 5th level witch has 2 manifestations, or a more powerful one. A 20th level witch could have 2 double manifested powers, one with a witchery lord, and one single, with another. And if you just don't like a manifestation for whatever reason, you can focus somewhere else.
Each double is less than a full ability, though, other than the 1/day, so you're losing out (assuming manifestations are balanced).
Thoughts? Problems? Abuses?
The most powerful potential I see is the 2/day double damage hails, which pale in comparison to a magister, or the double mind blade, which at 20th level is 1d6+40 subdual, which isn't all that nasty for a 20th level character.
A Double Manifested witch has forsaken other powers to expand his primary witchery. The effect varies, depending on the manifestation. A witch can double manifest at any point he would normally gain an additional manifestation type.
The effect of being Doubly Manifested varies, depending on the manifestation.
A manifestation that has a number of uses per day gains 50% more uses (so a 4/day power can be used 6/day). A once/week power can be used twice per week.
A manifestation that has only one use per day gains another use.
For Blade manifestations, the witch gains the ability to manifest a second blade identical to the first, or to manifest a more powerful single blade (chosen when the manifestation is picked). An iron witch gains an additional bonus to hit (but not damage) of +1/4 levels, a wind witch gets a deflection bonus of +1/3 levels, rather than 4, a cold witch deals an additional 1.5 points of cold damage per 2 levels rather than +1 (round down), a mind blade deals 1d6+1.5/level, a wood witch deals 1.5*wisdom mod in bonus damage, and counts 1s and 2s as 3s when attacking undead, and a Sea Witch sucks just a little less (Sorry sea witches)
Some manifestations don't fit either mold, so their effects are below:
Armor Song: The Iron Witch can manifest a shield as well, which has a shield bonus of 1/2 wisdom mod, and an enhancement of +1/6 levels), and also has no armor check penalty. The shield may the witches' size or smaller.
Nature's Warding Word: In addition to a natural AC, the witch gains DR 1/- for every 6 levels (yes, taking it as your 2nd manifestation gets you squat. This is intentional)
Fire Lance: A fire lance deals an additional 1.5 points of fire damage per 2 witch levels.
Sea Song: The chance for hostile encounters is 25%, rather than 50%.
These abilities stack with Witchery Lord, but the Witchery Lord is applied to the base ability and then the Double Wed bonuses are added on.
Basically, there are a few purposes for this. It allows low stat witches to focus on something, and make it usable on par with a high stat witch. It allows a blade user to boost their blade, though not (imho) to an extreme level. And it creates variety in a simple way - you don't know if a 5th level witch has 2 manifestations, or a more powerful one. A 20th level witch could have 2 double manifested powers, one with a witchery lord, and one single, with another. And if you just don't like a manifestation for whatever reason, you can focus somewhere else.
Each double is less than a full ability, though, other than the 1/day, so you're losing out (assuming manifestations are balanced).
Thoughts? Problems? Abuses?
The most powerful potential I see is the 2/day double damage hails, which pale in comparison to a magister, or the double mind blade, which at 20th level is 1d6+40 subdual, which isn't all that nasty for a 20th level character.
