Nevermore Design Diary #3: Dream Points: What the Government Doesn’t Want You
Nevermore Design Diary #3: Dream Points: What the Government Doesn’t Want You to Know
After a short break for Easter, I have returned with the third installment of this design diary, a discussion of “dream points” and the rules that govern them:
What are Dream Points?
Dream points represent a creature’s subconscious vitality and are in many regards similar to hit points. They increase with each hit die a creature attains, are usually modified by a creature’s Charisma score, and can be damaged and healed. The loss of dream points can cause characters to become fatigued, exhausted, and even helpless. However, this is about where the similarities end, as dream points can be used to grant a creature: surreal abilities, incredible skill uses, fantastic feat benefits, improved spellcasting, and dream weaving.
A Matter of Class
One of the things you can do with dream points is enhance class features, such as extending a barbarian’s rage, sharing a paladin’s grace, or making a sorcerer’s spells more potent against creatures with spell resistance.
Walking on Sunshine
Dream points can also be used to perform amazing exploits of skill. You can balance on a beam of light, climb a waterfall, and leap buildings in a single bound… Create items from thin air, summon mounts, and intuit the direction of your arch nemesis… All these things and much, much more await those willing to walk the wild lands of Nevermore .
Feats of Daring Do!
Feats can also be affected by the expenditure of dream points allowing a character to do that little extra special something for his friends and to his enemies. This can range from spending dream points on the Cleave feat to gain the dream benefit to take a 5 ft. step before making the extra attack (as long as you did not move beforehand) or the Spell Penetration feat’s ability to reroll a failed spell penetration check.
What Do Wizards Dream?
Dream points can be used to augment spells as well. Ever hated watching a creature with fire resistance just shrug off your fireball? Well, now you can fix that problem. Ever wanted to create an antimagic field that still allows the spell schools you specialize in to function? Ever wanted to imbue a verbal component spell into a magic mouth? Or even increase the Strength score of an unseen servant? Well, with dream points you can do just that!
These Weaves are Made for You…
Last, but certainly not least, you can weave the very fabric of Nevermore to your will for the right amount of dream points… You can create a delicate dreamspawn butterfly to dance upon a breeze or summon a cruel nightmarish skeleton to serve your dark desires… You can raise an ivory tower or bring low the mighty walls of a fortress.
Of course using dream points has a price beyond just their expenditure and the bending of a living world to your will can oft time irritate it enough to lash back at you… a subject that shall be discussed in the next installment: Nevermore Design Diary #4: Backlashes: I’m Sorry I Can’t Do that Dave…
Take Care,
Joseph Miller
Lead Designer/Writer Nevermore CS
Designer’s Note: We are just entering the playtesting phase so some of the above examples may change.
PS: You can find the first two installments of this designer diary in the following threads:
Designer Diary 2:
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47352
Designer Diary 1:
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46703
Nevermore Design Diary #3: Dream Points: What the Government Doesn’t Want You to Know
After a short break for Easter, I have returned with the third installment of this design diary, a discussion of “dream points” and the rules that govern them:
What are Dream Points?
Dream points represent a creature’s subconscious vitality and are in many regards similar to hit points. They increase with each hit die a creature attains, are usually modified by a creature’s Charisma score, and can be damaged and healed. The loss of dream points can cause characters to become fatigued, exhausted, and even helpless. However, this is about where the similarities end, as dream points can be used to grant a creature: surreal abilities, incredible skill uses, fantastic feat benefits, improved spellcasting, and dream weaving.
A Matter of Class
One of the things you can do with dream points is enhance class features, such as extending a barbarian’s rage, sharing a paladin’s grace, or making a sorcerer’s spells more potent against creatures with spell resistance.
Walking on Sunshine
Dream points can also be used to perform amazing exploits of skill. You can balance on a beam of light, climb a waterfall, and leap buildings in a single bound… Create items from thin air, summon mounts, and intuit the direction of your arch nemesis… All these things and much, much more await those willing to walk the wild lands of Nevermore .
Feats of Daring Do!
Feats can also be affected by the expenditure of dream points allowing a character to do that little extra special something for his friends and to his enemies. This can range from spending dream points on the Cleave feat to gain the dream benefit to take a 5 ft. step before making the extra attack (as long as you did not move beforehand) or the Spell Penetration feat’s ability to reroll a failed spell penetration check.
What Do Wizards Dream?
Dream points can be used to augment spells as well. Ever hated watching a creature with fire resistance just shrug off your fireball? Well, now you can fix that problem. Ever wanted to create an antimagic field that still allows the spell schools you specialize in to function? Ever wanted to imbue a verbal component spell into a magic mouth? Or even increase the Strength score of an unseen servant? Well, with dream points you can do just that!
These Weaves are Made for You…
Last, but certainly not least, you can weave the very fabric of Nevermore to your will for the right amount of dream points… You can create a delicate dreamspawn butterfly to dance upon a breeze or summon a cruel nightmarish skeleton to serve your dark desires… You can raise an ivory tower or bring low the mighty walls of a fortress.
Of course using dream points has a price beyond just their expenditure and the bending of a living world to your will can oft time irritate it enough to lash back at you… a subject that shall be discussed in the next installment: Nevermore Design Diary #4: Backlashes: I’m Sorry I Can’t Do that Dave…
Take Care,
Joseph Miller
Lead Designer/Writer Nevermore CS
Designer’s Note: We are just entering the playtesting phase so some of the above examples may change.
PS: You can find the first two installments of this designer diary in the following threads:
Designer Diary 2:
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47352
Designer Diary 1:
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46703
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