Handing out abilities rather than magic items

[Oryan77]

I'm thinking about giving a reward to the PC's in the form of a god granting them water based qualities rather than magic items.

Here is the PC build:

8th lvl Sorcerer Half-Elf
7th lvl Rogue Tiefling
7th lvl Ranger Half-Elf
7th lvl Cleric Half-Orc

1. First of all, would granting them water abilities harm the game when I only plan to have 1 adventure set underwater? I don't want to make the abilities too powerful where I'll regret it later.

2. Do you have any ideas for what I can grant each PC?

My ideas so far are:

8th lvl Sorcerer Half-Elf - give a swim speed (not sure how high)
7th lvl Rogue Tiefling - give Fast Healing 1 when he's touching water
7th lvl Ranger Half-Elf - not sure, she has a wolf companion, maybe something to allow her to bring a wolf underwater without it being goofy?
7th lvl Cleric Half-Orc - give access to the Water domain.

 

[Jack Simth]

If I were the Sorceror or the Ranger, I would feel downright sad, as the abilities granted to the other players would kinda eclipse what you've listed for the Sorceror or the Ranger. You see, the Sorceror can get a Swim speed fairly readily, simply by having the ever-useful Alter Self, a mere 2nd level spell. A Ranger's Animal Companion is kinda.... well... useless, for most things beyond flavor. Sure, it can yelp a couple of times when something comes near, and take a turn guarding the camp at night, fetch a few things, but for the most part, a Ranger's Animal Companion is very weak compared to the Ranger. Tack on that you're not planning on taking them back underwater anytime soon, and both those abilities become kinda useless, comparatively.

The Fast Healing 1 when in contact with water, and the access to the Water domain, on the other hand, are extremely useful. Depending on what limitations you put on the Fast Healing, the Rogue will thereafter pretty much always be ready to go (Pour canteen into bucket. Put hand in bucket. Wait ten minutes. Poof! 100 HP healing; pour bucket through funnel into canteen - want the water for next time! And besides, Create Water is a very low-level spell for clerics.....). The water domain has such nifties as Fog Cloud, Ice Storm, Cone of Cold, Acid Fog, and Horrid Wilting (Elemental Swarm is useful, but mostly only under the right circumstances, as it only lasts 10 min/level, and takes half an hour to power up), in addition to the domain power (team up with the Sorceror for some Planar Binding goodness - Sorceror Calls up a Medium Water Elemental, Cleric Commands it - Disposable Minion!).

If you have access to it, what would be sweet for the Sorceror would be an appropriet Bloodline feat from Dragon 311; the Water Bloodline feat (minus the drawback, prefferably, as you don't really want your Sorceror to suddenly lose Fireball and Scorching Ray) and it gives him an extra spell known per level (from a specific list).... which would rock for a Sorceror about as much as an extra domain would for a cleric (although the Water Bloodline feat is kinda low on combat use until about 12th or so when it's 6th level spell becomes available).

For the ranger.... that's a tougher one. Of the entire party, he's the one that would get the most use out of Fast Healing, I should think....

Although... as it's a boon from a diety, perhaps give them a list of choices (e.g., the Water domain, the Bloodline feat, fast healing when in contact with water, a few others) and let them choose what they want.

 

[Land Outcast]

The Ranger? Reduce the penalties when fighting underwater by say, +2, AND give water breathing to his pet.

maybe? fast healing and water domain are still better...

add in a Swim speed.

For the Sorc, use what Jack mentioned.

 

[Sejs]

The ability to breathe water would be a nice start.

For the swim speed mentioned, I'd think a 20' swim speed would be good. Not quite equal to their full base land speed, but still far better than what they'd be able to do on their own.

A suggestion - give all the PCs the ability to breathe water. Call it (Name of Sea God)'s Blessing. Have that be your entry ability. Then list out a number (say, 5) of abilities such as the ones you've mentioned: fast healing 1 while immersed in water (not just touching, but in it at least up to your waist otherwise you'll get people fast healing by sticking their pinkie in a wine glass), a swim speed (again, say 20'), some sea-related magical ability such as the ability to add the Water Creature template to any summoning spells they cast x/day, etc, etc. Then implement a way that a character can gain abilities from that list by building on the gifts they've recieved by way of the Blessing. Either invest X exp (sorta like making yourself a magic item) to purchase it, or being able to improve the Blessing by spending a feat to the tune of one list ability per feat.

 

[Dracandross]

My suggestions are, maybe alone or combination:

- Better vision underwater (as normally you cant see well in water
- Lower hit penalties with slash/blunt weapons and lower damage penalties with em too
- Waterbreathing
- Bonus to swim or free ranks to swim
- Dr/something while underwater
- Sr(X) while underwater is specially handy as it gets worse as chars advance and wont be such problem later
- Reaction modifiers to water creatures / penalties to fire ones
- Fire vulnerability / Cold and or acid resistance
- Bloodlines can be found at www.d20srd.org so check them out

Id allow character to choose a bit what they get forexample give them something set and let them choose something (with minor abilities). Specially it would be stylish to get some penalty.

-Dracandross

 

[meankanin]

In my experience, if you're going to give a permanent abilites instead of magical items, it's better to give every character the same ability. If you don't it's likely that one or more player characters will feel their power is inferior. Since it's a permanent effect, they will feel stronger than if it's just some magic item.

 

[TheGogmagog]

In my experience, if you're going to give a permanent abilites instead of magical items, it's better to give every character the same ability. If you don't it's likely that one or more player characters will feel their power is inferior. Since it's a permanent effect, they will feel stronger than if it's just some magic item.

I wouls second that. My suggestion would be for the slotless effect of the:

Necklace of Adaptation
This necklace is a heavy chain with a platinum medallion. The magic of the necklace wraps the wearer in a shell of fresh air, making him immune to all harmful vapors and gases (such as cloudkill and stinking cloud effects, as well as inhaled poisons) and allowing him to breathe, even underwater or in a vacuum.

Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Wondrous Item, alter self; Price 9,000 gp.

Even at slotless the value is 18,000. And will continue to be usefull for the resistance to noxious clouds. You might want to do something for movement, a LOW 10' or 15' swim speed, or just let them manage that themselves with alter self and freedom of movement. I'd have to look up swim rules to see if a swim speed of 10 is different than taking 10 on a swim check.

 

[Infiniti2000]

1. First of all, would granting them water abilities harm the game when I only plan to have 1 adventure set underwater? I don't want to make the abilities too powerful where I'll regret it later.

As noted above, it quite easily could harm the game. Fast Healing when touching water is a mistake IMO. Maybe make it 'when touching a large body of water' or something along those lines to avoid most canteen-causing problems. Granting a whole new domain is IMO a high-level power. How many magic items do you know that do that?

 

[Einan]

It only harms the game as much as you allow it to as the DM. I've done something similar with giving out special abilities instead of treasure. My rules for this were the following:

1. They had to make sense for the character's background.
2. They had to be different. A +1 Dodge Bonus is cool, but a pair of fiery wings that erupt from your back and cover you in the heat of battle (which grants a +1 dodge bonus) is even cooler.
3. They had to be relatively equal across the board for all the characters. Keep them equivalent if not the same.

To balance this, I added an effective character level to each PC. So I was putting level 6 characters up against CR 8-9 baddies without too much problem involved.

Einan

 

[kigmatzomat]

I've given out abilities rather than gear and it works out well as long as you try to be fair. The easiest way to be fair is to either give everyone the same thing or give them a choice. After all, maybe the sorceror has or plans to have a familiar and would like to be sure it can breathe water like the Ranger's companion.

I would highly recommend that you figure up the GP cost of the gifts as if they were slotless items, possibly adding a 25% markup b/c they can't be stolen. Then, rather than using an ECL, you factor that into their personal wealth. IMC each character has the the equivalent of a +2 Tome of (stat buff), a slotless Mind Blank, and a slotless Zone of Truth. I could either fudge the ECLs or just say "this is worth 100,000GP worth of stuff" and go about my normal DM business.