Immortals Handbook Epic Bestiary (now available)

[CRGreathouse]

Spirit: Transfinite (aka. Supremacy). You can add the power of any single opponent to your own. A character with the Legion cosmic ability can sunder their own spirit into multiple lesser forms (think Dagda).

Nice. Transfinite is strong!

 

[Anabstercorian]

Entropy: Transmortality (aka. True Immortality). This is basically like Cosmic String except that you cannot even be killed by someone more powerful than yourself. You can still be sundered and imprisoned, but you can't be destroyed.

Balance-wise I can't call heads or tails for this, but thematically, it's perfect. How can you destroy death? You cannot throw me in to the abyss, you cannot consign me to oblivion, you cannot scatter me to the farthest reaches or condemn me to the gaping maw of un-existence. These places are my home, these briar patches are my bread and butter. You cannot end me. I die through existence and you cannot end either.

Fate: Evil Eye. Any opponents gain the worst possible dice roll against you in all situations. Opponents with the Inner Eye cosmic ability can ignore this, but they no longer gain the best possible dice rolls for themselves.

I would say that you could decide exactly what your opponents roll - or your allies, for that matter. If you ARE the dice, you decide where you land, do you not?

This is probably not well balanced, but it seems more thematic.

Matter: Transmute, Allows you to rearrange matter into any form. Beings with the Plastic Soul cosmic ability would not be automatically converted, but would suffer 50% current hit point damage per round.

Anyone who's damn fool enough to go up against their own body (for when you face Matter itself in battle, you would be dim-witted not to realize that you are a subset of that set) without extracting themselve from it and in to an immaterial form first deserves anything coming to them.

If this doesn't sound fancy to you, realize that this means you can construct the various divine-equivalent technologies, of any scale, as a standard action. Do you need to compress someone in to a white-hot sphere of death? Rebuild the entire universe from the ground up in to an agony engine, with them at the core, and fire it up! Once they're dead, turn it back, with no one the wiser - though they might have odd dreams for a while. This is a BIG POWER. It's totally appropriate for a supernal entity, but maybe TOO much, when you think about it.

Spirit: Transfinite (aka. Supremacy). You can add the power of any single opponent to your own. A character with the Legion cosmic ability can sunder their own spirit into multiple lesser forms (think Dagda).

Sounds pretty good. Virtually unstoppable - but only virtually. All you need is a big enough crowd...

Thought: Transpose (aka. Rectify) If you make a Will save (against an attack for example) you can simply disbelieve the action ever occurred.

Yeah, that's pretty weak.

Bluntly put, the only force that should be able to effect Thought is an unthinking engine, mechanical and mindless. Thought should be able to casually eradicate consciousness from it's foes, instill it in to it's allies (perhaps animating objects), and create astounding magical constructs in it's mind effortlessly. You know that thing the Nexus Dragon does, with the reality alter power with all the spells for free? Yeah, like that. But bigger.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Alzrius dude!

I think that the Transfinite power is going to need a lot of adjudication regarding how long you gain the power for, etc.

I have this under control (its a very quick mechanic).

The Transmute power seems like it's basically a very powerful polymorph any object ability. The ability to control all physical matter seems like it should be more...well...cosmic, somehow.

Likewise, the Transpose ability may be a bit clunky, depending on how the DC is calculated. I assume it's going to largely be set by the damage dealt? Again, that doesn't seem to fully encapsulate the magnitude of power over sentience.

Exactly. I am just not happy with Transmute or Transpose.

Essentially, with Transcendental powers should put you beyond something.

So Matter should be beyond matter and Thought should be beyond though.

It could be that Matter makes you immune to physical harm, whereas Thought (linked to Chaos) makes you beyond Magic (perhaps like a dead magic aura that doesn't impede your own abilities).

That said, what I think most of all is that you have sixteen days before this is going to be released to the general public, and that it's better to make a decision and stick with it, even if you have some misgivings, than to let indecision bog you down.

I know, thats why I brought it to the thread. It has been annoying me for a day or two.

By the way, I should point out that Time Lords gain all six abilities as standard.

 

[Upper_Krust]

U_K!
Love 'em all.

Thanks matey!

Only one that I think could be better would be Entropy's power. When I think of Entropy, I think decay/weakness. Perhaps, instead of true immortality, a true mortality power, that negates opponent's ability to survive. Barring that, swaping Fate's ability with the True Immortality might work.

I dunno about this.

One option might be to have something like Transdimensional or Transversal and follow up the Space dimension part instead of Fate.

Or one might give Entropy a Entropic mastery style power - Ex: Every effect is permenent.

I thought of that but I was of the impression that 'it' would already have that power.

One other power was Oblivion, which lets you invest parts of your body to increase damage of attacks/spells.

Also I think Rectify is a bit over the top. It negates all the other "equivalent" powers. (I reads like you can make a will save vs anything to negate it) It grants a universal benifit vs everything, while the others seem to only affect one area. If it is available to PCs, It seems like a "must have" for anything with a high wisdom. (and/or Inner Eye)

Agreed. Not happy with Transpose.

The True Immortality power would be another PCs-will-allways-take-this power, virtually ensuring their adventure can continue. (though If my PCs tried this, I may just sic an Elder Quintessence Elemental on em, then have the BBEG kill 'em.

Well like I said you can still be imprisoned or amalgamated. You just can't ultimately be destroyed. So you could still technically remove PCs from play.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey CRGreathouse matey!

Nice. Transfinite is strong!

I'm thinking it would be more a case of adding 'spirit power' aka the Divinity of the opponent.

This will make it incredibly easy to factor.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey dude!

Balance-wise I can't call heads or tails for this, but thematically, it's perfect. How can you destroy death? You cannot throw me in to the abyss, you cannot consign me to oblivion, you cannot scatter me to the farthest reaches or condemn me to the gaping maw of un-existence. These places are my home, these briar patches are my bread and butter. You cannot end me. I die through existence and you cannot end either.

Glad you like it.

I would say that you could decide exactly what your opponents roll - or your allies, for that matter. If you ARE the dice, you decide where you land, do you not?

Yes, but only for beings within range of your divine aura.

This is probably not well balanced, but it seems more thematic.

Exactly you still have to consider game balance. thats why most of the Transcendental powers have a cosmic defense that stops them from becoming so all-encompassing.

Anyone who's damn fool enough to go up against their own body (for when you face Matter itself in battle, you would be dim-witted not to realize that you are a subset of that set) without extracting themselve from it and in to an immaterial form first deserves anything coming to them.

If this doesn't sound fancy to you, realize that this means you can construct the various divine-equivalent technologies, of any scale, as a standard action. Do you need to compress someone in to a white-hot sphere of death? Rebuild the entire universe from the ground up in to an agony engine, with them at the core, and fire it up! Once they're dead, turn it back, with no one the wiser - though they might have odd dreams for a while. This is a BIG POWER. It's totally appropriate for a supernal entity, but maybe TOO much, when you think about it.

It does need limits, which is why I may change this to physical immunity. You exist beyond matter, rather than you are all matter.

Sounds pretty good. Virtually unstoppable - but only virtually. All you need is a big enough crowd...

Indeed.

Yeah, that's pretty weak.

its definately the most problematic power.

Bluntly put, the only force that should be able to effect Thought is an unthinking engine, mechanical and mindless.

Which is why the Pseudonaturals are ultimately opposed by the Inevitables.

Thought should be able to casually eradicate consciousness from it's foes, instill it in to it's allies (perhaps animating objects), and create astounding magical constructs in it's mind effortlessly. You know that thing the Nexus Dragon does, with the reality alter power with all the spells for free? Yeah, like that. But bigger.

All these beings will have Alter Reality anyway. I'm thinking that perhaps Thought should be unaffected by Magic.

In the sense that Magic is bending/shaping reality by your thoughts/will.

 

[historian]

Hey U_K!

This has got me thinking of the Infinity Gems.

Perhaps Transpose could make it impossible to willfully harm/manipulate the wielder being that the wielder is beyond thought?

It's a tough one.

 

[Pssthpok]

Thought making you immune to magic is a good idea. I suppose you already have abilities that make you immune to effects that call for specific saves?
If not, Matter could be immune to Fort save-effects and non-magical damage.
Thought could be immune to Will save-effects and magical damage.
Entropy could be immune to damage but not save-effects, since such a being would be able to control its concentration of energy/heat.
Well, that's my 2 cp. Good luck.

 

[Anabstercorian]

Ah, I misunderstood the thematics. I was working from the 'controls all' rather than 'beyond' theme. I'll swing through for another round of ideas in a moment.

Edit: Perhaps a good thing for being 'beyond thought' would make you impossible to describe or perceive - you cannot be contained in the minds of men or their writings. You have no true name, you have no absolute definition. It would be a pure and untrumpable occultation.

 

[Fieari]

Entropy: Transmortality (aka. True Immortality). This is basically like Cosmic String except that you cannot even be killed by someone more powerful than yourself. You can still be sundered and imprisoned, but you can't be destroyed.

This one, I'm a big big fan of. Since we're not talking about embodying entropy, but rather transcending it, this is perfect I think. An upgraded superstring.

By the way, on the subject of superstring, you mentioned in this thread that having a weaker being defeat something with superstring would mean that it becomes dormant in some fashion instead of dead. Are you going to spell that out in Ascention? And I'd only support this ability here if this condition applied to it as well...

Fate: Evil Eye. Any opponents gain the worst possible dice roll against you in all situations. Opponents with the Inner Eye cosmic ability can ignore this, but they no longer gain the best possible dice rolls for themselves.

The abilities Evil Eye and Inner Eye are fantastic, and even if you don't keep them attributed to fate, I really hope you keep the abilities in general. I rather like the concept of instead choosing what they roll / what you roll though, which doesn't seem to clunky as most of the time you really will just say "lowest" or "highest". But choosing the number means flexibility in situations where you want more precice control over situations...

Matter: Transmute, Allows you to rearrange matter into any form. Beings with the Plastic Soul cosmic ability would not be automatically converted, but would suffer 50% current hit point damage per round.

Yeah, this one doesn't work well, being at once too weak and too powerful, and not really trascending matter. It could work as an ability (not tied to Matter specifically)... but you might want to consider putting limits on it. Range, duration, saving throws... possibly xp expenditure?

Being immune to HP damage is an interesting concept, although I'm thinking this too might do well with some limits. I feel like some things that do damage still should... let something get through. Perhaps umbral (permanent) damage still gets through? That way, a combination of that and ability damage to constitution could still cause HP death, so that the stat doesn't become meaningless (and thus boring)...

Spirit: Transfinite (aka. Supremacy). You can add the power of any single opponent to your own. A character with the Legion cosmic ability can sunder their own spirit into multiple lesser forms (think Dagda).

Nifty. Robes of the Almighty anyone?

Thought: Transpose (aka. Rectify) If you make a Will save (against an attack for example) you can simply disbelieve the action ever occurred.

Heh. In my games, there's a location where anyone can do this, but of course, usually it's the master of the place that makes use of it. I have the players make will saves of their own in a "contest of wills" to allow their action to take place. If the disparity is big enough, I let this ability completely rewrite reality, down to the ability to unmake things.

The only thing that keeps my players from abusing this is knowing that there's someone more powerful out there that can do it to them, and only his good will keeps them from being unwritten. If the players were given this as a one-way ability, I can't imagine them using anything else. The entire rest of the game fades away, replaced only by will saves. I'm not happy with this. There's gotta be something that keeps this from destroying the entire rest of the game.

That's jsut for if you choose to keep this as an ability at all. As far as thought goes, probably not the best ability. I like the immunity to magic concept. Or perhaps selective immunity to magic? Or... the ability to convert any spell cast within the divine radius into any other spell of equal level or lower, with any valid target? Too much?