[Augment]

[Cheiromancer]

I tried to be restrained by the guideline that a character could use a spell to get access to a magic item about six levels early. The lure of nice round numbers sometimes distracted me from this guideline, however.

I incorporated a cap for Damage Reduction based on the recipient's hit dice, and a similar rule for regeneration/fast healing. I thought seriously about including a cap for Spell Resistance (hit dice +12 or hit dice x 1.5 or something), but I thought that it wasn't that big a deal to give them a golem-like resistance to enemy spellcasters. Especially with epic spell slots so scarce.

Other functions could be added. Immunity to certain levels of spells (instead of just particular spells) would also be possible. Improved sensory capacities (true seeing and blindsense and the like) could be here, but I thought [reveal] would be a more natural home for such things. I should really put in overland flight and water breathing though. And evasion and fast movement and freedom of movement... a lot of things, really. What would the grouping of these abilities be called? Oops. Gotta go- Heroes is on!

This seed steps on the toes of [ward] more than a little. Especially given factors which change ranged spells to emanations. Maybe that's OK.

[Augment]
Transmutation

Root Spell: Bull’s Strength, Spell Immunity, Spell Resistance
Preferred Mitigation: Power Components
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 75 ft.
Target: One creature
Duration: 20 hours
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

[Augment] is a versatile seed with many possible applications. You may develop spells to enable the subject to withstand a particular kind of threat, or to lend it additional power or effectiveness in a certain area. Multi-function spells are common.

When developing a spell based on this seed, you may allocate 24 points of factors, which enables the purchase of one or more functions. Each +1 in additional factors is purchased by increasing the Spellcraft Prerequisite by +1, and so it is convenient to give the price of each function in terms of SP. Applications of the spell include the following:

Non-epic Bonuses

• Each +2 enhancement bonus to an ability score costs 1 SP, to a maximum of +6 per ability.
• Each +1 morale bonus to attack rolls costs 1 SP, to a maximum of +4.
• Each +1 enhancement bonus to natural armor costs 1 SP, to a maximum of +5.
• Each +1 resistance bonus to saving throws costs 1 SP, to a maximum of +5.
• Spell Resistance 12 costs 1 SP; each additional +2 SR costs 1 SP, to maximum of SR 30, which costs 10 SP.
• A +3 competence bonus to a single skill costs 1 SP. Each additional +3 to that skill costs 1 SP, to a maximum bonus of +30, which costs 10 SP.

Epic Bonuses

• A +8 enhancement bonus to an ability score costs 16 SP. Each additional +2 bonus costs 4 SP.
• A +5 morale bonus to attack rolls costs 10 SP. Each additional +1 bonus costs 2 SP.
• A +6 enhancement bonus to natural armor costs 12 SP. Each additional +1 bonus costs 2 SP.
• A +6 resistance bonus to saving throws costs 12 SP. Each additional +1 bonus costs 2 SP.
• Spell Resistance 30 costs 10 SP. Each additional +1 SR costs 1 SP.
• A +30 competence bonus to a single skill costs 10 SP. Each additional +1 bonus costs 1 SP.

Damage Reduction

The cost of damage reduction is determined by the amount of damage reduced and by the kind of the weapon it is susceptible to. The base cost of Damage Reduction is 1 SP per point of damage reduced. E.g. DR 10 costs 10 SP. The susceptibility is priced as follows:

• 2 SP for one of the following 10 qualities: either /magic, /cold iron, /silver, /bludgeoning, /piercing, /slashing, /chaotic, /evil, /good, or /lawful.
• 4 SP for either /adamantine or /epic.
• 10 SP for no susceptibility.

If two qualities are required to overcome the Damage Reduction, add the price of the qualities. E.g. /silver and good would cost 4 SP. Two qualities of the same type (two metals, two alignments, two types of weapon damage) cannot be combined. If either of two or more qualities can overcome the Damage Reduction, reduce the price of the most expensive quality by 1. E.g. /silver or good would cost 1 SP.

Special: A character’s DR component is nullified if it matches his alignment. E.g. a chaotic good character loses any /chaotic and /good components in the imbued DR, and might be left with useless DR that every attack overcomes.


Energy Resistance and Immunity

• Resistance to either acid, cold, electricity, fire or sonic damage costs 1 SP for every 10 points of resistance.
• Immunity to either acid, cold, electricity, fire or sonic damage costs 8 SP.

Factor: Other types of energy may be included in the remit of [augment] by paying an additional cost; for example, you may increase the Spellcraft Prerequisite by +2 to add force damage or negative energy damage to the list. This spell cannot enable you to bypass force effects like a wall of force, nor does it grant immunity to energy drain or ability damage. [Augment] cannot protect against some sources of damage, notably typeless and primordial damage.


Fast Healing and Regeneration

The cost of regeneration is determined by the amount of regeneration and by the kind of damage overcomes it. Regeneration granted by [augment] is nullified if the creature is immune to nonlethal damage, and it overlaps with any regeneration or fast healing the recipient may already possess.

The base cost of regeneration is 5 + 1 SP per point of damage regenerated per round. Increase the cost by the type of damage that deals lethal damage:

• 10 SP if nothing deals lethal damage.
• 5 SP if one of the following 10 types of damage deals lethal damage: acid, cold, electricity, fire, cold iron, silver, chaotic, evil, good or lawful.
• 3 SP if two or more of those 10 types of damage deal lethal damage (i.e. 2 less than if only one type did).

Special: The recipient's regeneration is reduced by 5 if his alignment matches a type of damage that bypasses his resistance, or if he possesses immunity to that type of damage. Reduce the regeneration by 1 for every point of resistance he possesses to that kind of damage, to a maximum reduction of 5.

Fast healing costs 10 + 1 SP per point of damage healed each round.


Other Bonuses

Changing the type of a bonus generally costs twice its epic price. I.e. a +40 insight bonus to Spellcraft would cost 40 SP, and a +8 morale bonus to Intelligence would cost 32 SP. Other bonuses are at the DM's discretion.


Spell Immunity

• [Augment] can grant unbeatable spell resistance against one or more non-epic spells. The cost is equal to half the total level of the spells.

Spell immunity protects against spells, spell-like effects of magic items, and innate spell-like abilities of creatures. Spell immunity doesn’t protect a creature from spells for which spell resistance doesn’t apply, and so it does not protect against supernatural or extraordinary abilities, such as breath weapons or gaze attacks. Similar spells must be purchased separately; for example, to protect against both fireball and delayed blast fireball would cost 5 SP (total level is 9, halved is 5). A creature can have only one effect granting spell immunity in effect on it at a time.


Flexibility Factor: The effects of an [augment] spell are specified during spell development. To allow related effects to be chosen at the time of casting, increase the Spellcraft Prerequisite by +4.

The flexibility factor does not give the ability to change the number of points allocated to a particular function; only the allocation of points within that pool can be changed. You could specify which ability score would be augmented, or which energy would be resisted, and so on, provided you had set aside points for those functions during spell development. However you could not move points from a resistance bonus to saving throws to an enhancement bonus to natural armor, even though these bonuses are priced similarly.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Very nice indeed. I love the format.

My initial reactions:

I'd scrap the nonepic bonuses. I suspect that people aren't interested in a moderate increase in A, B, C and D - they have cheap items and nonepic spells which provide these. They want to pump A through the roof, instead. An epic spell which increased your casting stat for one round, cast as a swift action spell would grant a +12 bonus at SP24, which is kind of nice. A two-function epic spell (say a +8 enhancement bonus to Dex and a +30 bonus to Tumble checks) is available as a 200-minute entry-level spell: which is also pretty cool.

I think you should drop the caps on DR and fast healing. I think things will be fine without them.

Other Bonuses

Nice. Nice discretionary note, as well. I think this is the best way to go. I suspect this will be the first of several 'recommended' factors.

[Augment] can grant unbeatable spell resistance against selected non-epic spells. The cost is equal to half of the total number of spell levels protected against, rounded up.

I'm not sure if you mean an SP5 factor will protect against a single spell of 9th-level or all spells of that level. I assume you mean the former; the latter would be a globe of invulnerability type effect.

If we include this in [augment] then [ward] is definitely an area seed.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Very nice indeed. I love the format.

My initial reactions:

I'd scrap the nonepic bonuses. I suspect that people aren't interested in a moderate increase in A, B, C and D - they have cheap items and nonepic spells which provide these.

True, but it might occasionally be desirable to augment a large number of non-epic characters; I'm thinking NPCs might be especially likely to do so. And if you have a couple of SP leeway in your spell, you might want to pad it out with an extra (non-epic) bonus.

It *is* a nice format, isn't it? I admired the layout of [binding] very much.

I think you should drop the caps on DR and fast healing. I think things will be fine without them.

Ok. I was trying to practice some restraint. It was a novel experience.

I'm not sure if you mean an SP5 factor will protect against a single spell of 9th-level or all spells of that level. I assume you mean the former; the latter would be a globe of invulnerability type effect.

I rephrased it for clarity. It is supposed to work like spell immunity, with a higher spell cap. And rather than protect against 5 spells, I made it a number of spell levels.

If we include this in [augment] then [ward] is definitely an area seed.

Replacing touch with an emanation can be expressed as a factor; think of the difference between invisibility and invisibility sphere. My notes are not entirely consistent as to how these sorts of things are priced. I might have to sit down with the invisibility suite and the mass whatever spells and work it out in more detail.

[Augment] will be very unwieldy if it subsumes [ward]; the list above is pretty long, and we haven't included movement bonuses, flight or water breathing. I suspect that SR belongs more to abjuration than transmutation, and school might be the principle way to distinguish [ward] from [augment]. Damage reduction and energy resistance/immunity could quite rationally be classified as abjurations, too. Once we have more features priced we can think more about how best to divide them between seeds.

I'm glad you liked it. We may need to revise it as we flesh out [ward], but it seems a pretty solid basis for further work.

[edit] You know, if you squint a little, the non-epic bonuses look kinda like the spell levels of the corresponding spells. Giving a bull's strength is 2 SP, giving a heroism-like bonus is 4 SP (less than greater heroism but you only get the attack bonus). Certainly not more expensive; spell resistance is not 10th level. I wonder if one could add metamagic factors as spell-levels. Add "mass" for an additional +4 SP, or something. Multiple extensions for +1 SP each. And/or add other non-epic benefits for near their spell level. Water breathing and fly both for 4 SP, or something. Free action for 6 SP.

Combining the two (especially if the range of effect of your mass spells can be increased cheaply; +6 for all targets within long range, or something) and you could augment your human army so they can take their battle to the sahuagin city; or fly over city walls. That might be too much. How about giving +6 to the Dexterity, Constitution and Strength of your soldiers?

Maybe some effects could be included in another section that doesn't allow for cheap mass effects, but could be multiply extended for a single target. An omnibus defensive suite that can be cast once a week or so, and does what Matt does with his octuply extended spells.

Tantalizing possibilities. We'll have to think what we want Battlefield spells to be able to do.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Following up on the above, I would like to add the following.

Non-epic Bonuses

• ...
• Enlarge person (as the spell) costs 1 SP.
• Reduce person (as the spell) costs 1 SP.
• Each +10-ft. enhancement bonus to a creature's base movement rate costs 1 SP. The bonus is doubled for flying speeds, and halved for other movement rates. No more than 3 SP can be spent in this way.
• Darkvision (as the spell) costs 2 SP.
• Spider climb (as the spell) costs 2 SP.
• Water breathing (as the spell) costs 3 SP.
• Each +10 temporary hit points costs 1 SP. No more than 3 SP can be spent in this way.

Epic Bonuses

• ...
• Each +10-ft. enhancement bonus to a creature's base movement rate costs 1 SP. The bonus is doubled for flying speeds, and halved for other movement rates. Any number of SP can be spent in this way.
• Each +10 temporary hit points costs 1 SP. Any number of SP can be spent in this way.
• Overland flight (as the spell) costs 4 SP
• Freedom of movement (as the spell) costs 6 SP
• Death ward (as the spell) costs 6 SP
• Mind blank (as the spell) costs 10 SP

The last three really belong to [ward]; one of these days we'll have to split this seed in two. I included them because they are so valuable I didn't want to forget them; I bumped their price a bit (from 1 SP/level) because I thought they were quite valuable.

The temporary hit points are really borrowed from aid and mass aid, and so are technically enchantments. Temporary hit points are kinda homeless, though. Having them in the same seed as provides bear's endurance seems to make sense.

I'm thinking of providing a feat that benefits those who use lesser augmentations on large numbers of creatures; an army buffing spell. That's why the movement rate bonuses and the temporary hit point bonuses are split in such an arbitrary way.

I'll have to give some thought about how to organize these functions. Maybe the spell-emulators can be together, alphabetically, and the numeric bonuses also can be together? Or should they be grouped according to cost?

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I've given spell emulation factors thought before; for some time, I worked on the assumption that, as many spells were unreplicable, so the nonepic spell had to be 'made epic' by joining it to a seed. I gave up on the idea - it was a long time ago. An unformed idea flittered through my mind when I first read your version of [augment], but it didn't 'stick' in my head.

I'm glad it stuck in yours. This is quite excellent. It just seems perfectly weighed.

I would like to include the nonepic bonuses in a sidebar - my concern is that they break the 'flow' of the seed when it is scanned.

The sidebar should be big - maybe a third of a page. It should include notes regarding different campaign styles because a mass-combat oriented epic campaign paradigm is very likely. If the default style (of the main text) is 'traditional' - i.e. regular-scale combats, 'killing monsters stealing their treasure' - then judicious use of sidebars can be made to explore different paradigms of play. Unusual factors, and groups of linked ideas can be explored outside of the body of a seed's text - I think this adds a great element of depth.

A mass-combat campaign style can be addressed in one sidebar, a poilitical-intrigue type style in another - emphasis on [reveal] and [conceal] and [delude] and [foresee]; groups of related factors would be a way of exploring these divergent campaign possibilities. Spells can be contrived to illustrate these themes.

Aggregates can address very specific mythopoeic ideas - massive curses, rains of fire etc.

I don't know if it has occurred to you that to incorporate an emulated effect at (2 + spell level) gels perfectly with the idea of secondary seeds, or whether you formulated it based on that idea. The base value of an epic spell is 10th; 10+2 = 12, the cost of a secondary seed.