Three more Traditions

[TiwazTyrsfist]

First off I'd like to say, should we have a spot to put all our homebrewed traditions/careers and races, like a sticky masterpost, or is there a spot they should go I just don't know about yet? I feel like fairly soon it will be easy for these things to get lost if we all just post them each as their own separate thread.

That aside, I've made three more traditions for O.L.D., which aren't yet playtested, but I believe will turn out to be fairly balanced. Paladin is probably in the most need of tweaking.

Anyway, they are:
Paladin – An armored knight with light healing and holy magic
Witch-Hunter – A bounty hunter that specializes in taking down (rogue) magic users.
Illusionist – A magic user specializing in Weaving illusions and using Light

Paladin 3+1d3 years

Requirements: Squire OR Man-At-Arms with Religion:: OR Cleric with Sword

Spell Lists: Heal Person, Abjure Evil/Hex Good*, Evoke Good, Infuse Good

You have been called to serve your god, creed, or philosophy as a holy knight. Paladins form orders, and these orders train would be paladins in combining the arts of combat with light spell casting. A Paladin is called not only to serve his community through battle, but also through good works in the community, caring for and healing the sick and infirm, and generally being a stereo-typical ‘Do Gooder’. This does not, however, STOP some Paladins from falling into evil and cruel ways, or simply betraying their orders, or becoming draconian totalitarian despots in the name of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’.

Str +1, End +1, Wil +1, Rep +1 Religion, Sword, Leadership, Tactics, Healing, Heraldry, Bravery, Evoking, Survival, Shield

I. Mag +1. Sense Evil 10’**

II. Gain the ‘Holy Sword’ and ‘Divine Aegis’ special powers.***

III. You can exceed your normal MP cap on Heal spells by up to 4, but lose 1 HP for each MP over the cap you go. If you use this power you cannot heal yourself with this spell.

* - When a paladin takes Abjure Evil, instead of Hex Evil they gain Hex Good. Thus, this spell set allows them to gain protection vs Evil, or make another target vulnerable to Good. A Paladin can never gain the power to Abjure Good or to Hex Evil by taking the paladin tradition, although they can gain those spell lists by taking other casting traditions as normal.
** - If a creature or object with the Evil virtue passes within 10 feet of the paladin, he knows it instinctively, though he cannot pinpoint the exact creature or object, nor does he know if the offending power is truly Evil aligned (such as a demon) or simply under the effect of Infuse Evil.
*** - Holy Sword and Divine Aegis are, effectively, signature spells that simply don’t count towards the characters normal limit on signature spells, and can’t be relearned to alter them. They are skills taught by rote in the holy orders. They may also involve spell lists the paladin doesn’t have access to, or which technically don’t exist, but either way, the Paladin can cast them as if they were spells she had access to and which actually exist.
Holy Sword (1MP) – Create Good 2. This spell creates a Sword (generally a longsword, but any sword under 50gc value is legal) out of pure Divine energy. Yes, this is a violation of the fact that Create does elements and not Virtues, that’s why it’s a special power. And yes, it costs less than it should. Special. Power. The sword does Good aligned damage, lasts 1 minute (10 combat rounds) and deals damage to targets under the same rules as Evoke Good, which is to say the sword doesn’t affect Good or Free-Willed creatures.
Divine Aegis (1MP) – Abjure Evil 1. Requires a shield. Cantrip Effect +2 Defense Vs Evil, 1 MP to add Withstanding 1 for 2 Soak vs evil. Effect is centered on the shield, lasts 1 minute. Additionally (since this IS a special power) shield is good aligned so if used to shield bash an opponent that is Vulnerable to Good, it will deal extra damage.

Witch-Hunter 1d6 years

Special: Witch-Hunter is an exception to the rule that you cannot take a tradition if it’s stat change would take your stat to Zero or less. Even if Witch-Hunter would reduce your Magic to less than zero you can take this tradition, but you should record your new negative magic score because witch-hunter antimagic is a hole you have to work hard to dig yourself out of if you wish to both be a witch-hunter AND a spellcaster.

Agi +1, End +2, Wil +2, Luck +1, Mag -2 Survival, Tracking, Spellcraft, Knife, Trapping/Trap making, Bow, Net, Interrogation, Restraints

I. +4 defense/mental defense against Magic

II. You may Counterspell as a counterspell Abjure cantrip. However you use your Will instead of Magic for the roll. You may use this power up to your Will score times per day.

III. +4 to any attempt to disbelieve magical Illusions, and your defense against magic improves to +6 Def/MDef against magic.

IV. You can see magic. If an item is enchanted you know it (but not what the enchantment is), you can tell if a creature has a Magic score of at least 1, and you get a free disbelieve attempt (with your bonus) as soon as you come into range of any illusion.

V. You gain a special pool of Anti-Magic Points (AMP) equal to your Will attribute. These AMP can be spent like MP, but only for Abjure Counterspell functions.

Illusionist 1d6 years

Prerequisites: at least 1 Weave spell list, and at least 1 Light spell list.

Spell Lists: Weave [any], [any] Light

The Illusionist is a caster who has chosen to specialize is sensory deception. Mixed into the tricks of light are also effects of Elemental Light, so their foes can never really be sure if that glowing sword is an illusion that they just THINK hurts, or if it’s really a sword of solid coruscating light that is REALLY severing their arm…

Int +1, Wil +1, Mag +1, Cha +1 Spellcraft, Weave(spellcasting), Bluffing, Concentration, Stealth, Disguise, Artistic and Crafting skills as might apply to creating more convincing illusions

I. You can use Weave Force and Weave Nature effects even if you do not know the Create spell lists.

II. You gain a single Weave spell list as a signature spell list (this functions exactly like the Mage IV power)

III. People trying to disbelieve your illusions take a 1 die penalty to their roll.

 

[Khaalis]

WARNING - LONG

Some comments:

PALADIN
* Starting Years: This should only be 1d6 as that seems to be the standard, except Prison which is 2d6 years.

* Prerequisites: I would change this to “Squire I, Knight I or Man-at-Arms I; Religion skill /OR/ Cleric I; Sword skill”

* Spell List: Just a layout comment - I’d add the Abjure restriction note directly to the spell list section rather than foot note. Also note, if you want them to have all 4 spell lists, you either need to give them 1 free starting spell list like clerics get Charm Undead and Heal Person free; OR make it a 4 tier tradition.

* Attributes: Personal balance issue here. I would go with... STR +1, END +1, WIL +1, MAG +1, REP +1 (see below)

Abilities
* MAGIC: As mentioned above, I would move the MAG to regular attributes. If this is only a 3 Grade Tradition, that’s only MAG 3 which at least gives the Tradition some wiggle room to actually be able to use some effective spells from their spell lists. MAG 1, really isn’t worthwhile over 3 grades of a tradition that gets magic. Even a Paladin that gets no other MAG bonuses ever should at least have the MAG 3. This also allows the Paladin to actually be able to cast Holy Sword, which they normally could not with only a MAG 1 since you max MP expenditure per spell = MAG.

* Sense Evil: I would be a bit more gracious with this and use Detect Magic/Mage I as a reference. Something like this:

Sense Evil: You can sense the presence of evil easily. You do not need to make any kind of attribute check to detect a source of the Evil virtue within 30’, and are aware of its existence automatically. You may attempt a Challenging [13] INT check that takes 1 minute. If you succeed the check, you know roughly how many different Evil sources there are, and exactly where the Evil virtue(s) are radiating from.

* Spell-Like Abilities: Interesting. The same basic idea I’ve been working with for a Warlock tradition. I would slightly change how these work though. Something that states these are Spell-Like Abilities that act as a Signature Spell for casting (2 actions) but are not actually Signature Spells (thus not needing to add the comment about not counting toward max Signature Spells, nor do they need to be stored in prayer beads, etc.).

On Holy Sword, I think you need this to be more as one of the following:

Whiles breaking the Virtue restriction of Create, either

Holy Sword | Partum Beautus……..2 MP
Create Good II / Meta I
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 minute
You create a sword of pure good energy that deals 3 dice points of Good damage to creatures with the Evil virtue.
Cost: 2 MP elemental object

OR

Holy Weapon | Partum Beautus……..1 MP
Create Good II
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 minute
You imbue your weapon to deal +1 die points of Good damage to creatures with the Evil virtue.
Cost: 1 MP elemental weapon

** Personally, I think I like this one. It’s cheap and it can use any weapon rather than creating a weapon that only hits Evil creatures. It is also scalable so it could scale up with future Tradition Grades. It also matches up to Divine Aegis better.
* Holy Weapon I: +1 die points of Good damage for 1 MP
* Holy Weapon II: +2 die points of Good damage for 3 MP
* Holy Weapon III: +3 die points of Good damage for 5 MP / Etc.
EDIT: However, I think this only deals its damage ONCE, not for the entire minute??

Or you could do this, which doesn’t break the Virtue issue for Create but is more expensive.

Holy Weapon | Adsumo Beautus……..4 MP
Evoke Good II / Meta IV
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 minute
You imbue your weapon to deal +1 die points of Good damage to creatures with the Evil virtue.
Cost: 0 MP +1 die Good damage, 4 MP Enduring Damage (Very Short duration)


Divine Aegis: I would remove the Shield restriction. There is no real reason the Paladin can’t just cast this “shielding” spell.

Divine Aegis | Repello Malus ……..1 MP
Abjure Evil
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 minute
You gain a +2 Defense bonus and SOAK 2 against Evil creatures and effects.
Cost: 0 MP Cantrip, 1 MP Withstanding
Also scalable:
* Divine Aegis II: +4 Defense bonus and SOAK 4 against Evil creatures and effects for 4 MP
* Divine Aegis III: +6 Defense bonus and SOAK 6 against Evil creatures and effects for 6 MP / Etc.



WITCH HUNTER
Firstly, I would change the “Special” section as I’m not keen on the “negative” attribute. I would make it a Pre-Requisite that you have MAG 0 and no Magical Traditions. I would also state that you lose this tradition’s special abilities if you ever gain Grades in a magical tradition. JMHO.

I: I think +4 to both Defenses might be too high for first grade, however it IS just against Magic so it might be ok. Would need to be tested against some attack checks.

II: This power seems useless. Not only does Abjure require a specific Source (i.e. Abjure Fire) a 0 MP Dispel is nearly useless except against other Cantrips. What might work better is to make a unique power, something like this. However, this absorbs the step V ability which would need to be replaced.

DISPELLING: You gain the ability to dispel magical effects. This acts exactly like the Dispelling Enhancement of the Abjure spell with the following changes.
* Dispelling requires 2 actions.
* You are considered to have all Abjure spell lists.
* Rather than MP, you use a Dispelling Pool (DP) that is equal to your WIL*3.
* You use WIL instead of MAG for the difficulty checks.
Additionally, you gain the Counterspelling magical trick as a bonus trick.


III: I’d alter to: “You gain +4 to all WIL checks to Disbelieve magical Illusions”.

IV: I’d slightly alter this to something like, and drop the illusion tag since I’m pretty sure this is already part of disbelieving.
SEE MAGIC: You are able to detect magic easily. You do not need to make any kind of attribute check to detect magic within 30', and are aware of its existence automatically. You may also see magical aura’s of any creature with a MAG score higher than 0.

V: Since I recommended absorbing this into the Grade II ability, I would suggest the following for Grade V, stealing form Inquisitor.
V: You become resistant to magic, gaining SOAK 10 (magic).



Illusionist
Attributes: I would increase MAG to +2 like other specialists.

I: I’m a little confused by this ability. Shouldn’t this be “You gain the Weave Force and Weave Nature spell lists as bonus spell lists”? If so this could be moved to the Spells section, just like Cleric bonus spell lists.
It’s my understanding that Weave has to have the associated source element as a spell list to use effects of that element. Having Create Force and Weave Fire doesn’t allow you to use FORCE (real damage) to Fire Illusions, you’d have to have both Weave Fire and Weave Force.

II: I’d just spell this out rather than referencing. Considering the above, I’d also move this to Grade I.
“I: You gain a complete Weave spell list as a signature spell list. Any spell which uses only that Weave spell list (plus metamagical enhancements) is treated as a signature spell.”

III: I’d move this to II and word it… “People trying to make a WIL check to disbelieve your illusions take a 1 die penalty to their roll.”

I’d also push this to 5 Grades. Something like….
III: You gain +4 to all WIL checks to Disbelieve magical Illusions.
IV: You are now able to invest more MP into Weave spells. You can exceed your normal maximum expenditure (equal to your MAG attribute) when weaving any spell including a Weave spell list by 4 MP.
V: You become completely immune to all Simple Weave iIllusions (i.e. those created purely from a Weave spell list).


Hope that helps you mull some stuff over.

 

[Morrus]

I love seeing folks make stuff! Paladin and illusionist were on my list of traditions to create later down the line, so it's great to see folks getting there first!

The witch-hunter - that's kinda what the current Inquisitor is.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

So, hopefully later today I'll have time to revisit these, and also my blood mage, and polish them up a bit.

The paladin special powers will definitely get a rework, my ideal for both powers being low cost weapon enchants.

As for the magic score on Paladins, I feel like, with it only being a three tier tradition, that leaves room for even a starting paladin to take other casting classes for Magic score. A lot of my design choices for traditions are made with the assumption that a starting character will take 1 rank each in four traditions, not spend all their starting ranks on a single job.