Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[Upper_Krust]

Hey WarDragon dude!

I probably will.

The Bonus Domain Epic feat, and any number of PrCs that give extra domains notwithstanding, yes. I'm just saying that a published god converted to this system would have drastically reduced options, and that doesn't sit well with me for some reason.

Most gods will have 3 or 4 domains, so Bonus Domain, won't go to waste.

But at the same time, gods should be focused, and I think 'drastically reduced options' is stretching things a bit, especially given my portfolios will totally poo all over the official ones in terms of diversity and power.

No, a divine ability that makes the sorcerer better at being a wizard than actual wizards. Seriously, that is the effect of Total Recall, in reverse.

Total Recall allows you to cast a limited amount of spells an unlimited amount of times per day.

Something like this:

Spell Rearrangement
Prerequisites: Cha 70, ability to spontaneously cast 9th level arcane spells
Benefit: You can change your list of spells known each day as you desire.
Normal: You can only change one spell known every four class levels.

Does that really look like a balanced ability to you?

Its probably weaker than Alter Reality.

I keep forgetting about that. Probably because there are no words of sufficient vitriol in the English language to express how strongly every fiber of my soul rebels against the concept.

But why? Everything ultimately tapers to a point. Its not a matter of if Total Recall is possible, simply a matter of when it is possible.

I'm curious to hear how you saw epic spellcasters evolving differently...?

Perhaps the Shield effect could work against anyone striking the deity? Or do you already have one like that which I'm forgetting?

Yes, the 'Blood' option already works like that.

Just allow for Legendary Werethings. I personally find the power inflation of therianthropes (it's only a "lycan" if it's a wolf) in popular culture annoying, but I'm not sure why.... Honestly, they really shouldn't be any more powerful than the base creature. How the blazes does it make sense for a normal, not-particularly-muscular guy who gets bitten by a rat to suddenly be able to bench press a volkswagen? :\

Well, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, and now he has strength about 100 times that of a normal man...so it is possible.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Ltheb mate!

<Snip>
I originally planned to post an idea for a [Shield] Effect, but in thinking about it, and comparing it with forcefield, the only conclusions I reached were: If it is similar to Force Field, it is superior to Force Field. (Scaling, uses an action probably VS. Not Scaling, no action required) and If it is similar to storm, it is inferior or equal to storm. (Use of actions, greater damage, possibly smaller area VS. no action, lowest damage, biggest area)

The only idea I came up with would be damage dice nullification. Perhaps instead of dealing damage, it cancels a similar [Effect] based on differences of damage dice. (I would rank its damage die prevention at 1/16 to start, so it nullifies the more persistant effects.) So basically, If I had an [Electicity Shield] and it would stop say, 8 dice of damage, and my foe throws an [Electric Ray] for 20 dice of damage, this effect would reduce the ray's effectiveness to 12 dice worth. The [Electicity Shield] would be worthless against a [Divine Ray] or a [Holy Storm], but would stop a deity with the Thunder portfolio, who you have said may deal half their electricity damage as divine damage. (Assuming the shield can nullify all their dice, which generally means to cancel their strongest, 1:1, HD:damage die, powers, you need to be 4-16x their HD...)

I think something like that may be potentially too complicated (its something I have considered myself). Absolutes - like Rings of Elemental Immunity and so forth may make such things obsolete.

If there were no absolutes to start with, then such things would be easier to deal with.

So I think we have to accept that absolutes will pop up via spell or magic item. Hence the reason I have the 1/2 divine and full divine attached to the portfolios.

 

[Kalitharus]

Hiya mate!



What sort of feats of strength does this were-beast display? Or is it just all in the description?

Well, in The Hyde Effect, this werewolf is surrounded by four officers and they shoot him as fast as possible, and this beast just regenerates as the lead is being shot in to him, even with catostrophic injuries, like shots to the head and throat. He takes several hundred bullets in that first meeting and all the bullets are eventually expelled from his instantly healed body.

He is electrocuted later in the book, set afire, and hit several times by a car BUT keeps getting up! The only time he really has trouble is when a silver crucifex is jabbed in his back by a civilian... it burns him like acid and he cannot remove it (he can't reach it on his back).
He is only killed when he is eventually beheaded; one of the few ways to kill a monstrosity like this.

*thinking* The most impressive feat of strength is when he lifts a car off his chest while prone on the ground, only after being hit several times with that same vehicle.

 

[dante58701]

Mayhaps Achilles style Regeneration with heightened regeneration at the expense of beheading being a liability? As for the Strength...Legendary Strength. Id say that werewolf may have been either an abomination or a paragon.

 

[dante58701]

Hi again Krusty....

....you could also have the Nosferatu come in a variety of variable appearances. Vampires tend to get moldy when they all look the same. That way not everyone will make theirs look like porcelein and not all will look diseased. Maybe even make it a purely random thing that reflects their personality. One might be skeletal, another bat-like, another arachnoid, another statuesque, another rotted, another shadowy, another ghostly, another monstrous and deformed...ect. You could even have various vampires resemble their makers or even the particular sins they embody.

As for lycanthropes...I love lycanthropes...they are often the most overlooked and underpowered villians in gaming. Thus far even the best werewolves really suck. We could use a few epic level variations on the theme. And if anyone can do it, its you. Though you should also make a variant that incorporates bugs...epic level Entomanothropes.


The main thing that bugged me about those templates is WOTC limited them to humanoids and giants, which is lame. I think all creatures vulnerable to disease should be able to contract Entomanothropy or Lycanthropy, not just humanoids and giants. I just dont get their reasoning so I ignore that ruling all the time and make lycanthropic animals, undead (infected before becoming undead), demons, devils, ect. It's just fun.

I also ignore the rule about outsiders and undead...

They say outsider cannot become undead because their bodies and souls are one....yet.....they break that rule completely with the possession ability.

Possession strictly states the outsider leaves it's body behind (and vulnerable to attack) while it's spirit (a seperate entity) goes off and wreaks havok.

My ruling is different....Ive always ruled that fiends, except, for incorporeal fiends, are all spirits bound within immortal flesh. Thus they can become undead.

This bypasses any contradictory rules based on whatever flaws keep popping up.

 

[dante58701]

On another note...regarding therianthropes.

The reason therianthropes become so much stronger is quite simple. Humans are flabby and lazy in comparison to the common wild animal. While a small rat is considerably weaker...an enormous human sized rat by comparison would be drastically stronger than the average domesticated homo sapien. Hence the strength increase. Wild animals are also drastically stronger than your common variety domesticated animal of equal size. Most wild animals have far denser musculature and bone structure, giving rise to the theory that a therianthrope, with animalistic (wild animalistic) DNA would be drastically stronger than a human of equal size. Now if someone were to put forth an argument that a werepoodle should be significantly weaker than a wererat...that I might buy, although I would allow domesticated therianthropes to bite at one dice higher due to the lack of use their teeth would recieve (and thus less dulling of the teeth) as a result of eating puppy chow and table scraps and fillet minion. I would however impose strength penalties for nearly all domesticated fluffy werebunnies and werehamsters.

As a general rule domestication robs most creatures of their inherent strength and vitality...hence why adventurers have higher strength scores than some overgorged banker or other domestically inclined human. Even your average domesticated body builder is not going to be as strong as a human born and raised in the wild...or a human who is forced to break rocks and wear chains for many years.

Muscle size has relatively little to do with muscle strength, for example...I personally am 6' tall and am fairly built. I weigh in at 210 pounds and Im pretty solid from doing martial arts for about 15 years. However...I know a guy who is about 5'6" and weighs only 160 pounds. He's vastly stronger than me because he was forced to do a few years of manual labor. The same applies to animals. Animals in the wild become incredibly strong without gaining much in size, they do however gain in mass...as noted by krusty regarding virtual size categories. In truth I personally would give wild animals one virtual size category and domesticated animals their typical strength.

Thus therianthropes in retrospect make perfect sense in regards to strength unless one is referring to a domesticated animal.

However, the premise behind the therianthrope assumes a human infected by a virus that changes him into a WILD animal and thus all arguments against increasing their strength become fundamentally null and void...not to mention biologically unsound.

Another prime example is the chimpanzee, it is smaller than a human but is capable of ripping the arms and legs off of a human with little or no effort. The common variety ape in D&D is seriously underestimated and although apes are very docile when kept in captivity...one must never piss them off in the wild. An angry chimpanzee is very dangerous.

Ive often considered taking some animals and giving them barbarian levels to illustrate the reality of some more aggressive predators and primates.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

 

[historian]

Hey U_K

So someone finally took my advice and got Hellsing.

Indeed, I've been very pleased. I love the intro music.

I was curious as to where you would place Alucard's power level?

It seems like Incognito might be a full-fledged Nosferatu, but I'm wondering whether Alucard might be something different?

Hard to say.

I am also picking FASERIP back up. I was able to acquire the basic set at a discount. Many of the IH powers convert nicely (particularly "Evil Eye").

I'm using a variation on your previously suggested Class 10,000 levels and up as well (with a +1CS shift per divine rank basically). It looks something like this:

Class 10,000 = Stage I Demiurge
Class 25,000 = Stage II Demiurge
Class 50,000 = Stage III Demiurge

Etc.

I was wondering whether you would still consider CR or ECL*20 = FASERIP to be a reasonable approximation of power?

Apologies if any of the foregoing is a distraction.

 

[paradox42]

I have a few issues with the d20 modern/future heavy weapons rules (primarily nukes).

Yes, we know. The inclusion of Kiloton in the Bestiary, and numerous posts you made in threads prior to release of the bestiary, made that very clear.

Does Dragonstar do anything to rectify those mistakes?

Eh. I'd say it rectifies some at the expense of others, but anyway I've never seen a published equipment list of energy weapons which sat well with me so my own game has my own list. Dragonstar weapons do decent dice of damage, from what I can tell- they don't suffer d20M's lack of damage dice- but they do suffer from not having rules for weapons of mass destruction, at least not in supplements I've seen, and (IMO the big one) in equating all energy weapons to the five base energy types (so for example a laser deals Fire damage). Thus, any dragon immune to Fire is also immune to lasers, not to mention nukes (as I believe is explicitly mentioned in one of the Dragonstar texts) which to my mind is absurd.

For my own game I took the example of Force damage, a la Magic Missile, and created six more types of energy which I call "Advanced Energy" that operate along different principles from the traditional five energy types, even if they end up having similar effects. Disintegrate, for instance, is not untyped damage in my game; it instead is the most prominent example of an energy type called Disruption. I also incorporated rules similar to the ones WotC used for Frostburn (Piercing Cold) and Sandstorm (Searing Spell) to bring in "super-hot" and "super-cold" damage types called Plasma and Gelid, respectively. Nukes in my game deal Plasma damage, not Fire, so even critters completely and totally immune to Fire still take damage from Plasma effects. Antimatter deals another type called Particle damage, and finally there's Radiation (which is dealt by lasers and other similar effects) and Electromagnetic damage (to which most organic creatures are immune- it's mainly for use against robots and other such constructs).

Of course, with these new energy types, mages and psions can learn how to harness and create effects using them, by having enough ranks in appropriate skills and (in the case of mages) by taking two Energy Substitution feats related to the appropriate Advanced Energy type. So it's possible for a mage in my game to learn to deal Force damage with any spell; for example, a blaster mage in one game I ran in this setting got Force Substitution and frequently used it in conjunction with Ice Storm to devastating effect. Prior to that, a Kinetecist Psion got the Particle Substitution feat (this was in 3.0, before psionic powers were all rewritten to allow the manifester to choose energy type upon manifestation) and favored using it to create "Particleballs" (as opposed to Fireballs) at vast distances from the enemy. I set the feats to have a +1 spell level penalty; in play this seems to have worked out rather well. The generally lower damage output of the spells compared with others of the same level is nicely balanced by being able to ignore resistance most of the time (obviously a few rare creatures can and do have resistance to Advanced energies) and get other special effects like hitting Incorporeal targets (in the case of Force).

 

[Angel of Adventure]

Bought V1.2

UK,

It has 105 out of 170+ pages. Is this the most up-to-date version of your book?

Overall, I am very pleased with the Bestiary. I will be trying a couple of those monsters (hopefully) in tonight's game. I'm certain some of these will scare the pooh out of the PCs.

The PCs in my game are lvl 31-32. Your CR system seems a bit different than that of WotC. Is this correct thinking on my part, and what CRs would you recommend for these PCs?

Thanks,

AoA

 

[Cheiromancer]

IIRC, multiplying UK's CRs by 2/3 gets a number that corresponds well to WotC CR. I call the number so obtained KR. If a PC is a monster, don't multiply by 2/3 (ECL = CR) but give them standard equipment for a PC of their level.

It can be helpful to work out the "challenge" of the party to see how well they can handle groups of monsters. Square the individual ECLs of the players and add them up. Do the same thing for the monsters, but use the KR. It'll mean that a KR 30 monster will be a standard encounter for a group of four 30th level characters.