I need some help with some ideas...

[cybernetic]

I hope this is the appropriate forum....

I am in the process of putting together a new homebrew world for an upcoming campaign. Basically, the premise is the world is one composed of the dreams and nightmares of mundane humans living in the real world....it'll be kinda like a darl twisted fairy tale like world....

Humans are actually a minority of sorts (as opposed to nost settings) with elves being the widest spread racial type. Some humans actually visit the world in their dreams and smaller group of those who can access the world are actually pulled into it permanently...with all humans who live there being either pulled through or decendant from someone pulled through.

What I need help with...is that many of those humans who are pulled through realize that the world is composed of mundane dreams and nightmares and are able to manipulate and play with the fabric of dreams composing the world....I want to make a Human only core class for humans who are pulled through called the Lost Soul. I'm not sure what to give the class mechanic-wise though...I need some help with ideas of what kind of abilities to give them and such...

 

[Terath Ninir]

Well, you need to decide how difficult it is to manipulate the dreams and nightmares. Also, are you going to have regular spellcasting classes in the setting? One way you could do this is to have the Lost Souls be the only full spellcasting class. They control the chaos by organizing it into spells.

If you're going to have the regular spellcasters, then you'll need some other mechanic. If you have the Manual of the Planes, you could steal the rules they use for the plane of Limbo. The Lost Souls could organize the dreams, depending on how strong they are. Maybe you could have a range based on their level, with them getting new effects as they go up in level. For example, being able to twist the world so that another character is trapped and/or hurt is a fairly powerful ability, so you wouldn't want to have that available at 1st level. To start with, the Lost Souls shouldn't be able to directly or indirectly hurt others when they change the world.

You could have the World Shaping be a skill. That way, different Lost Souls could fight for control over reality, with the winner of the skill contest shaping it they way they want. (You could have a tie end up halfway between the two -- which could bring about some really weird results.)

Those are the two ideas that leap to mind. That help any?

 

[rkanodia]

I would recommend watching the movie Dark City. It owns and you can get it on DVD for $10 these days.

I like the idea of World Shaping being a skill; however, for balance reasons, it should probably be enabled by racial feats or class abilities, since there's no such thing as a class-exclusive skill anymore. If you're introducing new mechanics, I think it's good to try and tie them tightly to the existing framework so that they are as intuitive as possible.

For instance:
World Shaping (Su): You may attempt to World Shape (as described in the Lost Soul class description), using up to ten ranks of Concentration.

Greater World Shaping (Su): You may attempt to World Shape (as described in the Lost Soul class description), using up to fifteen ranks of Concentration.

et cetera.

For suggestions on feats/abilities, here are a few ideas:

No Such Things As Ghosts: 'Ghosts' are just figments of other peoples' imaginations.
Benefit: Any weapon you use (or unarmed strike/natural weapon) is treated as having the ghost touch property, and incorporeal creatures may not ignore your armor bonus when they attack you.

Lucid Dreaming: Your will is your own, even in dreams.
Benefit: As the slippery mind special ability for rogues.

What You See Is What You Get: Illusions aren't any less valid than the rest of this fake world.
Benefit: You may treat illusions as real objects. For instance, you can walk on an illusionary bridge or climb an illusionary ladder, even if you have already disbelieved it. If you use an illusion as a tool, it affects other creatures and objects as though it were real; this effect lasts only as long as you hold the item. Magic properties emulated by an illusion are not preserved; for instance, you wield an illusionary +5 vorpal longsword as a masterwork longsword.
Alternate Benefit: Others find your illusions particularly compelling, increasing the save DC of all figments, glamers, and shadow spells by 2.

Fire to Farce: You can defeat some attacks by changing their nature.
Prerequisite: Evasion as a class ability.
Benefit: If you sucessfully negate damage from an area attack using evasion, the attack also fails against all creatures within a 10-foot radius as an explosion turns into a spray of feathers, a bolt of lightning into a bolt of cloth, or whatever other harmless objects strike your fancy.

 

[alaric]

For mechanics you may want to look at the Shaper from the psionics handbook. Basically you just substitute dreamstuff for astralstuff and it should work out fairly well. Instead of astral constructs that you can build on the fly you are summoning nightmares that you can create on the fly. Shapers also have object creation, you through in some psychokinetic powers for fun and I think you could have a fun class.

 

[AeroDm]

I would suggest looking into the Wheel of Time d20 book. There is a mechanic within where people are able to enter into the dream world (Tel'aran'rehiad or some other crazy word) and those skilled can manipulate and shape. The mechanics are fairly well done if a little on the powerful side, but it would be a great starting point.