Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[Anabstercorian]

...and as soon as I imagine them I'll be sure and type them up.

7th Sense: See a moment in to the future: you may take all your actions as if they were readied actions readied against whatever you desire at the time you choose to act - i.e., whenever you damn well please, interrupting whomever you desire as though they were immediate actions. When two characters with this ability face off, they commit to a course of action as soon as they act, while their opponent can immediate react to their action however they choose - as a result, two characters with this ability will generally just stand and stare at each other, waiting for the other to crack. (In situations where there's no time pressure that forces one character to act sooner than would be wise, you can determine who cracks first by rolling initiative, then acting in reverse order. Three or more characters process similarly.)

Eighth sense: You recall the present before it is forgotten, seeing things which should be secret. Upon encountering any creature, object, or anything else, the character immediately learns the answer to any one question of the players choice regarding that thing, so long as the answer to that question will some day be forgotten. The only defense against this sight is to ensure that the answer is known to all, forever.

9th sense: You know the names of things. At any time as a free action, you may speak the name of a thing and it cannot harm you thenceforth.

10th sense: You perceive intention before it is born. You are invulnerable to any attack that has any chance, however slim, of missing you, if that attack is delivered with malice.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey guys!

I'll reply to those previous posts later tonight.

At the moment I am puzzling over a few other abilities.

1. Perfect Weapon Focus: BAB increases at core rule rate (e.g. 30th-level Fighter would have BAB +30)
2. Uncanny Weapon Focus: Always use your highest BAB for iterative attacks
3. Unearthly Weapon Focus: Only require touch attacks to hit (replaces Legendary Warrior)
4. Supreme Weapon Focus: Always hit on anything but a '1'

1. Perfect Weapon Specialization: Deal Maximum Damage
2. Uncanny Weapon Specialization: ?
3. Unearthly Weapon Specialization: Gain one attack/5 BAB
4. Supreme Weapon Specialization: ?

1 & 2 would be divine abilities, while 3 would be cosmic and 4 transcendental.

 

[Alzrius]

Would PWF allow a god who took it to recalculate his BAB to match his current hit dice? It seems like it'd work better if it allowed you to do that, since otherwise it'd only help you after you took it.

I think Unearthly Weapon Focus is good, but I wonder if making it a cosmic ability matches what's laid down in the Bestiary. I seem to recall that the Maskim, who are lesser deities, have this ability. Likewise, Supreme Weapon Focus reminds me of Alabaster's Were-Sword. Is that a transcendental sword?

 

[Anabstercorian]

Hey guys!

I'll reply to those previous posts later tonight.

At the moment I am puzzling over a few other abilities.

1. Perfect Weapon Focus: BAB increases at core rule rate (e.g. 30th-level Fighter would have BAB +30)
2. Uncanny Weapon Focus: Always use your highest BAB for iterative attacks
3. Unearthly Weapon Focus: Only require touch attacks to hit (replaces Legendary Warrior)
4. Supreme Weapon Focus: Always hit on anything but a '1'

1. Perfect Weapon Specialization: Deal Maximum Damage
2. Uncanny Weapon Specialization: ?
3. Unearthly Weapon Specialization: Gain one attack/5 BAB
4. Supreme Weapon Specialization: ?

1 & 2 would be divine abilities, while 3 would be cosmic and 4 transcendental.

Is there any particular reason these need to be these as opposed to larger attack and damage bonuses? The rest of the abilities are plenty complicated as is; sometimes simplicity is best, and there's a certain unquestionable impressiveness in whipping out +128 damage with a normal longsword.

Ah, but of course since it's expected that characters will pick up the ability that allows them to apply weapon spec/focus to all weapons, these are essentially renaming the other existing techniques for a more unified naming scheme, which I can respect.

Uncanny Weapon Spec could be a flat damage multiplier - if Perfect Spec is Maximize Damage, Uncanny Spec could be Double/Triple damage. Alternatively, perhaps Uncanny Spec allows you to deal damage of any physical type - bludgeoning, piercing, slashing - with any weapon, through some weird metaphysical process, and Supreme Spec could allow you to deal damage in any form whatsoever - so if there is ANY element that they have a vulnerability to, that is the form in which you strike, be you using mystic kata to drain the heat from their bodies, super-fast blows to heat your sword to a white-hot brand before you strike, or parrying every ambient neutrino in to a core point inside your opponent's body to trigger a nuclear radiation burst. I don't know if either of these are worthy of transcendental/divine power, but they strike me as possibilities.

That last one would need a bit of clever flavor text, or else people will think it's ridiculous to be able to deal Tuna Damage with your wooden stick or the like.

Perhaps Supreme Spec divides the target's current hit points by two before you deal normal weapon damage? I.E., you strike God, who has 10,000,000,000 hit points, you automatically deal 5,000,000,000 hit points worth of damage (plus 4d8+80 or whatever, that's not important) followed by 2,500,000,000 with the second and 1,250,000,000 with the third and so on. I'm not sure if that's balanced, but I'm pretty sure you could tweak the fractional damage up or down to get something even with the other transcendental abilities.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Alzrius mate!

Would PWF allow a god who took it to recalculate his BAB to match his current hit dice? It seems like it'd work better if it allowed you to do that, since otherwise it'd only help you after you took it.

Yes, it would recalculate. Similar to Good Reflexes.

I think Unearthly Weapon Focus is good, but I wonder if making it a cosmic ability matches what's laid down in the Bestiary. I seem to recall that the Maskim, who are lesser deities, have this ability.

Likewise, Supreme Weapon Focus reminds me of Alabaster's Were-Sword. Is that a transcendental sword?

This reminds me of part of dante's post I replied to last night (where he suggested I rework the Bestiary so that all the powers add up to Ascension specifications). The Bestiary preceded Ascension by quite some margin and thats to say nothing of my compulsive habit of reworking/restructuring things.

If later testing or ideas show that ability 'x' is down as divine when it should be cosmic, then I hold my hand up and say my fault.

But I have no plans to rework the Bestiary at this juncture.

Even if the Maskim has a cosmic power when it should have a divine power (?) then thats basically a 5 point CR mistake (less than a 10% swing). But in real terms what does that mean, not much given how ELs work.

 

[paradox42]

And for my 300th post I'll return to my favorite subject.

I certainly don't blame you for not updating the Bestiary, even if there are "mistakes" in light of changes made before Ascension's final release. It may be worth considering that around the time of Bestiary II's release, however, since you'll be back in "monster mode" at that time and the exercise may help you flesh out the new beasts in greater detail.

The one thing I'd like to see in an updated Bestiary, were such a thing to happen, would be something in the entries for Adamic and Nehaschimic (damn that's hard to spell) dragons making explicit which Divine and Cosmic abilities they gain at each age category- the way the entires for the Neotic dragons already do. It would make the examples more clear, and thus make our own efforts at Adamic and Nehaschimic dragons easier to undertake.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Anabstercorian matey!

Is there any particular reason these need to be these as opposed to larger attack and damage bonuses?

Yes, its a more involving mechanic and its a more interesting power. Simply creating powers with bigger bonuses serves no real purpose, especially when there are feats and abilities which can stack to accomplish the exact same thing.

e.g. Epic Potency can stack, so you could have Divine Potency +12 damage, Cosmic Potency +72 damage, Transcendental Potency +436.

But I think messing with the mechanics is more fun and imaginative.

The rest of the abilities are plenty complicated as is; sometimes simplicity is best, and there's a certain unquestionable impressiveness in whipping out +128 damage with a normal longsword.

I hope to have this sort of thing simplified with a list of divine abilities by class.

Ah, but of course since it's expected that characters will pick up the ability that allows them to apply weapon spec/focus to all weapons, these are essentially renaming the other existing techniques for a more unified naming scheme, which I can respect.

Uncanny Weapon Spec could be a flat damage multiplier - if Perfect Spec is Maximize Damage, Uncanny Spec could be Double/Triple damage. Alternatively, perhaps Uncanny Spec allows you to deal damage of any physical type - bludgeoning, piercing, slashing - with any weapon, through some weird metaphysical process, and Supreme Spec could allow you to deal damage in any form whatsoever - so if there is ANY element that they have a vulnerability to, that is the form in which you strike, be you using mystic kata to drain the heat from their bodies, super-fast blows to heat your sword to a white-hot brand before you strike, or parrying every ambient neutrino in to a core point inside your opponent's body to trigger a nuclear radiation burst. I don't know if either of these are worthy of transcendental/divine power, but they strike me as possibilities.

That last one would need a bit of clever flavor text, or else people will think it's ridiculous to be able to deal Tuna Damage with your wooden stick or the like.

Perhaps Supreme Spec divides the target's current hit points by two before you deal normal weapon damage? I.E., you strike God, who has 10,000,000,000 hit points, you automatically deal 5,000,000,000 hit points worth of damage (plus 4d8+80 or whatever, that's not important) followed by 2,500,000,000 with the second and 1,250,000,000 with the third and so on. I'm not sure if that's balanced, but I'm pretty sure you could tweak the fractional damage up or down to get something even with the other transcendental abilities.

I'm not sure about the mechanics behind your ideas but I liked the favour!

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey dude!

You know... the 3.0 Monster Manual II had the Phoenix in it, and the phoenix had a very interesting (and I think unique throughout all the various books) ability that allowed it to apply normal metamagic feats to its spell like abilities, with no other restriction other than it casts metamagic'd SLAs as a full round action.

That could make for a decent Divine Ability... and allow it to combine with AMC.

I think I'll just add a sentence to AMC saying that it also works with spell-like abilities rather than create a new ability (or copy someone elses).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey WarDragon dude!

Thanks. By "not sure," do you mean it's too weak, or too strong?

Too weak.

The prerequisite means that a Sorcerer or Bard would need 40 Charisma to take the ability, a Wizard would need 40 Intelligence, a Cleric or Druid 40 Wisdom, etc..

That explains it, thanks.

Heh, yeah. Once I started writing those out, I realized I'd done what I was railing against.

If it works for SLAs as well as spells, it should specify that in the feat.

I'm also thinking it should work with the likes of Alter Reality.

That reminds me; the feat should also specify that it doesn't increase the casting time of spontaneous spells, if it's meant to be a true replacement for Automatic Quicken. I assumed that was the case, but...

Okay.

Just so we're clear, you mean one wish per rage, right? Not wishing to rage as a Barb of your level, or something like that? If that is what you mean, I have no objection.

A wish should be able to duplicate a feat, if it can increase an ability score by one.

Although I wonder what the consequences would be of allowing that...maybe you could only have a total of 30 in this way (eating into the +5 bonus to each ability score you can grant with wishes). Even then, wishing for 30 AMC would cause problems so it may not be such a good idea.

Maybe the first feat costs 1 wish, the second costs 2 and so forth...?

Interesting. Outsider HD, I would presume?

Probably depends on the parents.

All the suggestions I've made here and at DF, and you need to ask?

Oi! Cheeky.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Alzrius matey!

Actually, his name is Saint Kargoth. Kazgoroth was the Darkwalker, from the Moonshae Trilogy in the Forgotten Realms. I got that wrong too.

Well you all knew who I meant...although I appreciate the correction.