Brainstorming - Powers rather than Spells

[Malin Genie]

Just thinking about creating a class which is granted (Su) powers rather than casting spells ("Gifted" or "Chosen' or somesuch.)

These powers would all be useable at will, to avoid 'spell slots', 'mana points', 'casting checks' or similar mechanisms; obviously balancing is going to be the tricky bit.

The initial thought was to have granted powers follow the sorceror spells known progression, and possibly to have power chains that were upgradeable. There would be no caster level, and thus fixed range/damage etc.

Example: The 'flight chain' might be equivalent to Slow Fall 10 as a 0th level power, Slow Fall 30 as a 1st level power, Feather Fall as a 2nd level power, Levitate as a 3rd (4th?) level power, and Fly as a 5th level power (remembering that this ability is 'always on'.) A 'fire' chain might have the ability to produce a candle-sized flame at will at 0th level, Burning Hands (1d4) as a 1st level power, Produce Flame (1d4+1) as a 2nd level power, etc

I am only at the brainstorming stage, so would welcome any thoughts/suggestions (especially how to incorporate healing into such a system)

 

[Blacksad]

It will cost you a few $/€, but FCTF can handle this.

If you really do not want to buy it:
the base class has d4 Hit Dice
no skill,
low save,
low Bab,
8 HrP/level,
you could alter it to 6HrP/level and give it skill point of 2+Int/level with the sorcerer spell list.

the copy and paste of number in this PDF are weird, I do not really want to type them because I'm lazy, so....

roughly for typical spell, it's (spell level*2+3 HrPs), and for summon monster and other spell which get much more usefull when you can use them over and over again like summon monster it's (spell level*3+3).

You use your Hero Points (HrPs) to buy those power.

Tada! Plus you'll get a list of many powers that do not exist as spells if you buy the book.

edit: healing is one of the power in the book and it has an higher cost, it begins at the ability to transform 1 hp damage into 1 subdual damage, and you can increase the power to really heal and to do so on more damage.

edit2: there is a magical restriction on power, so that they are affected by antimagic and other such things, it reduce the cost of power by 1 point.

 

[Malin Genie]

Actually, I do own FCTF - excellent value and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for new and different ideas even if they arent likely to run a Dark Decade (or other FCTF) campaign

It is sort of along the lines I was looking for, but I was hoping to do without the necessity of introducing a whole new mechanic (HrP.) I also am not sure that I agree with the idea of a flat HrP per level.

Certainly (while I disagree with some of their costings, which I think perhaps followed 'spell level' costings *too* closely...) reverse engineering some of their powers backward into level-equivalents might provide some guidelines...

Although IIRC (I put the darn printout in storage and don't have the PDF on this computer) FCTF doesn't really have a mechanism for healing (edit: that is, healing others) either.

 

[Blacksad]

Actually, I do own FCTF - excellent value and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for new and different ideas even if they arent likely to run a Dark Decade (or other FCTF) campaign

It is sort of along the lines I was looking for, but I was hoping to do without the necessity of introducing a whole new mechanic (HrP.) I also am not sure that I agree with the idea of a flat HrP per level.

You could rework the mechanic to determine what spell level character get at each level, something like:

class
level - spell level (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) - rough total HrP equivalent

1 - 2 - 6
2 - 2,1 - 11.5
3 - 3,1 - 14.5
4 - 3,2 - 20
5 - 4,2 - 23
6 - 4,2,1 - 31
7 - 5,2,1 - 34
8 - 5,3,1 - 39.5
9 - 5,3,1,1 - 50
10 - 5,3,2,1 - 58
11 - 5,4,2,1 - 63.5
12 - 6,4,2,1 - 66.5
13 - 6,4,3,1 - 74.5
14 - 7,4,3,1 - 77.5
15 - 7,5,3,1 - 83
16 - 7,5,3,1,1 - 96
17 - 7,6,3,1,1 - 101.5
18 - 8,6,3,1,1 - 104.5
19 - 8,6,4,1,1 - 112.5
20 - 8,6,4,2,1 - 122.5

I'm lazy, but I wanted to do something similar myself

Certainly (while I disagree with some of their costings, which I think perhaps followed 'spell level' costings *too* closely...) reverse engineering some of their powers backward into level-equivalents might provide some guidelines...

Or did not followed them at all (the blindsight ability is really cheap).

Although IIRC (I put the darn printout in storage and don't have the PDF on this computer) FCTF doesn't really have a mechanism for healing (edit: that is, healing others) either.

As I've said in my second edit, their is a heal power inside that work on other.

 

[Tonguez]

In my Feat based 'classless level-less homebrew system' (still underdeveloped) I did the same thing using Feats as the basis.

Anyway in the System starting characters have 10 Feats and then gain 1 feat for every 2000XP

So a Character might start with

1 Toughness +2
2 Toughness +2 (HP 8 (4+2+2))
3 Training Feat (+1d4 Skill points)
4 Flight: Slow Fall 10
5 Wings (Glide 30 ft)
6 Manouverability (Flight) - Poor
7 Simple Weapons
8 Martial Weapons
9 Dodge
10 Bonus Feat