Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alex319" data-source="post: 4662813" data-attributes="member: 45678">One pattern that I see a lot in many of these powers (and a common mistake in a lot of homebrew designs) is a tendency to invent new game mechanics that are only going to be used for one particular power or ability.For example, one homebrew monster I looked at had a "ray of light" attack that blinded the target, and there was a penalty to the attack roll if the target's eyes were shielded from the blast. However, such a power would necessitate an entirely new combat subsystem to adjudicate. (What kind of action is it to shield your eyes? How long does it last? Does it give you any penalties to attack? What can you do it with?) And such a system would have to be tested, explained to players, etc. - a lot to add for one monster ability.Some of these abilities also have that. For example, as described above. the "Broad Shield" power also involves a new mechanic - that of choosing a "direction" from which to defend. When you start thinking about that mechanic, all sorts of questions arise. Is the "direction" keyed to a particular compass direction or to a particular targeted square? (In other words, in the above example, if Y were defending against C3, and he was then force-moved to B3, he would now be defending from the south because that's where C3 is, or would he still be defending from the east because that's the direction he was defending before?) Does it have to be the exact direction, or will it work if you're 45 degrees off? Or even less? What happens if one (or both) of the participants takes up multiple squares - then how do you adjudicate which direction the attack comes from? This is a lot of additional complexity to add for just one power.Now, I'm not saying new mechanics are always bad - far from it. I am saying that when you add new mechanics, it should in general be for something that is used often or is a key component of what you're trying to add (like the new class), so that you can explain it once and then reuse it. For example, if there was an entire class with a key feature that revolved around choosing directions to defend from, then you could spend a page or two explaining how "choosing directions" works, and then use that same mechanic in all the powers that revolve around this. You use this to good effect with your IoD's - there's one place that explains it, then all the powers can inherit from that explanation. But if your new mechanic is only for  one power, it's probably a better idea to find a different way to achieve the effect you want.</blockquote>

Verification