GLADIATORS WANTED
SEVEN DAYS A WEEK
PROVE YOUR METTLE
EARN FABULOUS PRIZES
ENTERTAIN THE CROWD
INQUIRE AT THE ARENA OF KORD
NO ENTRY FEE
In the interest of providing a surfeit of options, I recently introduced an arena combat option into my Open Gaming Table. This is one aspect of the OGT concept taken to an extreme.
---
You see, one of my intents with OGT has been niche-filling. There were several DMs in Buffalo Gamer's Society and Buffalo State CRAGG who were running regular campaigns, and most of them (I've heard) were fairly heavy on roleplay, light on combat. That's normally what I prefer (though 3.5 combat is so much easier to run than the system I played for years that I tend to unintentionally skew towards combat when running 3.5, no matter how much I would prefer RP), but the market is currently saturated on that style of DMing, so I offer a more mindless sort of entertainment.
And the one true weakness of the OGT is how little it encourages roleplaying. A different group each week means there's scant opportunity to really get into a sense of who your fellow characters are. (Though there is opportunity to get, say, a couple paladins thrown into a group together with a couple Chaotic Evil characters, making one of the many possible options "PvP combat", though that's its own little world separate from both regular combat and regular RP.)
---
So, the relevance of the gladiatorial combat: mindless violence, not even in pursuit of any goal (aside from the cash prizes).
I think there's three kinds of player with regards to this sort of pure-combat thing:
1.) The kind of player whose favourite part of D&D is the tactical combat. This kind of player would do better to play 4e, where they've slightly polished the combat and stripped out everything else, but in the absence of a 4e game, they're likely to find this 3.5e gladiatorial combat satisfactory.
2.) The kind of player whose favourite part of D&D is getting more powerful. This kind of player is likely to love this gladiatorial combat, because it comes with more consistent and faster rewards in terms of XP and treasure. If you go exploring or just RPing, you'll get roleplaying and exploration experience, and you're likely to come across some monsters, though not all those monsters are likely to have treasure (especially in the lowest-level option of my OGT, the mine infested with mostly centipedes). If you sign up for gladiatorial combat, you're faced with a chain of monsters with very little in between, and a cash reward after each match.
3.) The kind of player whose favourite part of D&D is roleplaying or achieving in-game things or really just about anything else.
The nice thing about the gladiatorial combat in the Open Gaming Table is that you don't have to do it. If mindless fighting or repetitive grinding is your thing, you can pick this one option and keep with it until it's no longer challenging. If neither is your cup of tea, well, one player can pretty much veto any option if they object strongly enough.
---
I seem to recall coming across at least one prestige class somewhere which was centered around gladiatorial combat, oriented not so much towards beating your opponents as towards being entertaining while doing so. So consider encouraging your players to make Perform checks as they fight (probably associated with whatever violence-related actions they're taking, rather than making them waste standard actions on making the check), and maybe they'll get a bonus, because as far as the event's organizers are concerned, entertaining the crowd is the very point of the exercise.
---
My players should stop reading here.
So, design philosophy on setting up gladiatorial combat. I took as my model, of all things, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
There are eight rounds. Each round has an encounter level equal to the number of the round (e.g., round 1 is a CR1 foe, or two CR1/2 foes, or three CR1/3 foes, et cetera). This was largely arbitrary; you could easily have more or fewer rounds, or associate each round with a higher or lower encounter level. In my "NPCs above level 5 are super-rare" world, I set the upper limit at 8 mostly because that's about the strongest creature a huge group of NPCs could conceivably handle.
After each round, you have the option of either taking your winnings and going home, or gambling everything you've won so far on the hope of getting even greater winnings next round. (There's few enough rounds that I didn't bother with including rounds where you can bank your winnings and go home with at least that much if you lose later on.)
Reward-wise, it needs to always be in the party's interest to go on. If you can get more or equal money by taking your reward and then starting again at round 1, then you're likely to do that. So each round's reward needs to be more than twice the previous round.
For the early rounds, at least, the reward should be less than the average recommended treasure for having beaten encounters of that level. e.g., the reward for round 3 should be less than what you'd get if you went out into the wild and defeated a CR1 creature, a CR2 creature, and a CR3 creature. The increased reliability of the gladiatorial combat should come with a decreased payoff, just so it's not always the obvious best option. (Whenever there is a choice, if there is an obvious best option, then it's not actually a choice at all, but rather a decision or calculation.)
The later rounds can be a higher payoff than this (e.g., it's okay for round 8 to give you more money than defeating a CR8+CR7+CR6+CR5+CR4+CR3+CR2+CR1 creature would), for various reasons, including: you'd have to start incredibly small to also adhere to the "more than double each round" rule; by that time the players are probably getting a little fatigued by such constant combat; increased risk (you stand to lose not just the treasure for the current encounter, but the treasure for the 7 previous encounters, too); and at least one more reasons which may become clear when I bring up the possibility of PC-on-PC combat in round 4+.
The numbers I came up with, based on the above principles:
Round : Treasure Value for Equivalent Monsters : Arena Payoff
1 : 300 : 80
2 : 900 : 200
3 : 1,800 : 500
4 : 3,000 : 1,200
5 : 4,600 : 3,200
6 : 6,600 : 8,000
7 : 9,200 : 20,000
8 : 12,600 : 50,000
In each round, foes of appropriate level are determined from a predetermined table of what the arena guys are likely to have on hand.
I've also added a bounty issued by the Church of Kord for any rare and unusual creatures, to be used as arena foes; if the PCs bring back anything that's not on the list, it'll be added. It also occurs to me now that I should decrease the probability of each foe after it's faced, but only if the gladiators kill it - the Church doesn't have an infinite number of each creature on hand, after all. Dynamic lists are fun!
At round 4, I introduce the possibility of making half the PCs fight the other half of the PCs. At round 5, I introduce the possibility of a PC free-for-all, every man for himself. These possibilities remain until the last round, but they're never particularly likely. Only the PCs who are victorious in this round get to go on and collect more winnings in subsequent rounds. This is potentially problematic, but I foresee "Crap, the party's strength is halved/4thed/5thed/6thed, let's just take our winnings and go, we won't be able to beat the next round". If half the party does decide to go on, I'll probably let their players play the monsters, let them try to get revenge on the players that beat them. This portion of the idea has not been really thoroughly thought out, but it's the kind of thing I'd rather refine after playtesting.
In each round, to switch it up a bit and make it exciting, I also set conditions or restrictions for the PCs. My current list is as follows:
Normal
No weapons
No spells
No magic (including magic weapons and magic items)
No weapons or magic (unarmed strikes only)
Ranged attacks/spells only
Melee attacks/spells only
To first blood (a participant is defeated if they take any damage at all; this is super-easy)
PCs are chained together in pairs (must remain within 5' of one another)
PCs are all chained together in a line
PCs are blindfolded.
Ring match (a 30' radius circle is drawn in the center of the arena; if any participant crosses the line, they are defeated)
PCs have one arm tied behind their backs
Arena is flooded 6" deep with water (difficult terrain)
PCs are chained in place and cannot move
More foes enter the arena each round; you only need to survive for 5 rounds (I anticipate this will be super-hard).
The "chained together" options are only really workable if you're using a group initiative system.
If you can think of any more fight conditions I could add (note that this is distinct from foes to fight, which are a different list entirely), let me know in the comments. I don't consider this list complete, it wants more entries.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Updated Myconid Monster Class
So, looking back on my myconid monster class, it really looks like the level adjustment given by WotC is preposterously high. Let's recalculate it from scratch and come up with a new, more reasonable monster class.
Consider this ECL calculator. It seems acceptable, so let's use it.
---
I don't know if this calculator automatically applies Type traits, but as it asks for Type, we can only assume it does. Except it pretty clearly doesn't. Plant traits are pretty awesome, and it only partially accounts for that when it takes into account how much a plant HD is worth. You get awesome immunities for being a plant even if you don't have any plant HD. But then, their immunities aren't really much more than warforged get at (the high end of) +0LA, so maybe it's cool anyway.
I count two minor weaknesses common to all myconids - inability to speak without rapport spores or Drow Sign Language, and weird body shape that makes armor more expensive.
The only special good things myconids get are their various spores and the Sovereign's potion making:
Distress and reproduction spores effectively do nothing for a PC, and should have no effect on ECL.
Rapport spores are a telepathy effect as a single target ranged touch or area effect. Expanded Psionics Handbook offers the level 1 power mindlink, which is similar but single-target only and unlimited in range. Call it the equivalent of a minor spell-like ability.
Pacification spores are a single-target ranged touch slightly-less-bad-than-dazed for 10 rounds. daze, daze monster, and psionic daze are level 0 and 2 spells and a level 1 power, respectively, but only last for 1 round. Call this the equivalent of a level 2 spell-like ability, so medium.
Hallucination spores are a single-target ranged touch confusion spell for 1 hour. Confusion is a level 3 or 4 spell, which lasts for 1 round/level. Hallucination spores last an order of magnitude longer than confusion does, so let's call that the equivalent of at least a level 5 spell-like ability, qualifying as a major power.
Animation spores are a free zombie-only animate dead (a level 3 spell) which takes 1d4 days to take effect, and the zombies last only 1d6 weeks, but with no limit to creatures commanded. Let's call it roughly equivalent to animate dead. The sovereign already gets the hallucination spores, though, so it still has major powers.
Potion making is a little weird. I'm not sure why I counted it as "not a bonus feat" the first time 'round, given that a 6HD creature gets 3 feats, the Myconid Sovereign has 4, and "Brew Potion" clearly has a (B) next to it. This is obviously a bonus feat, so we should count it as such.
---
So, plugging in the numbers, we get the following results:
Myconid : ECL : LA
Junior Worker : 1.1 : +0.1
Average Worker : 1.4 : -0.6
Elder Worker : 2.2 : -0.8
Guard : 3.3 : -0.7
Circle Leader : 5.4 : +0.4
Sovereign : 6.4 : +0.4
Which is to say, for most of its progression, the myconid is slightly weaker than a creature with class levels instead of racial hit dice, and even those levels where it's stronger, it's only very slightly stronger. Myconids are weak enough that they should have no level adjustment at all. Yes, even at level 6, with a combined +30 to stats.
...huh. I find this peculiar, and this estimate is probably low by a level or two. But I'll go with it anyway.
A pretty good stepping-stone into any melee class, particularly a tanky one: 6 levels for +8 str, +2 dex, +6 con, 2 slam attacks, and Large size. Not as good a stepping-stone into cleric, druid, or sorcerer, sacrificing 6 caster levels for a mere +6 wis and cha. A terrible stepping-stone into wizard, sacrificing 6 caster levels for +2 int.
I'm okay with that.
So let's monster class up the joint.
This is actually really easy. There are no more empty LA-levels. Each level of the myconid monster class simply advances you to the next kind of myconid.
---
HD: d8
Skill Points: 2+INT (x4 at first level)
Class Skills: Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Profession (farmer), Profession (herbalist), Sense Motive, Spot, Survival.
Racial Traits:
Tiny Plant
Land speed 20 feet.
Plant Traits:
Low-Light vision.
Immunity to all mand-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning.
Not subject to critical hits.
Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.
Proficiencies: Myconids are proficient with their slam attack only. They are not proficient with any armor (and armor they wear is more expensive due to their unusual shape - a myconid is nonhumanoid).
Ability Scores: A myconid begins with racial ability modifiers of -2 Str, +4 Dex, -2 Int, +2 Wis, and +2 Cha.
A myconid's strength increases by +2 at level 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Its dexterity is reduced by -2 at level 3.
Its constitution increases by +2 at levels 2, 4, and 5.
Its wisdom increases by +2 at levels 3 and 5.
Its charisma increases by +2 at levels 3 and 6.
Slam Attack: At 1st level, a myconid has two slam attacks which deal 1d3 damage. This damage increases to 1d4 at 2nd level, 1d6 at 3rd level, and 1d8 at 5th level.
Size: At 1st level, a myconid is Tiny, with a space/reach of 2.5/2.5, a size bonus of +2 to attacks and AC, a size bonus of +8 to Hide checks, and a penalty of -8 to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts.
At 2nd level, the myconid grows to Small. Its space/reach increases to 5/5, its size bonus to attacks and AC drops to +1, its size bonus to Hide checks drops to +4, and its penalty to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts drops to -4.
At 3rd level, the myconid grows to Medium. Its size bonuses to attacks and AC, Hide checks, and penalty to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts are all reduced to 0.
At 5th level, the myconid grows to Large. Its space/reach increases to 10/10, it gains a size bonus of +4 to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts, a penalty of -1 to attack and AC, and a penalty of -4 to Hide checks.
Natural Armor: A myconid gains a +1 natural armor bonus to AC at level 3. This bonus increases to +2 at level 5.
Spores: As a standard action, a myconid of 2nd level or higher can release a cloud of spores. Every level, a myconid gains a new variety of spore but does not lose access to the previous varieties. Each type of spore can be used a number of times per day equal to the myconid’s total Hit Dice (including class levels). A level 6 myconid, for example, has the first three spores (distress, reproduction, and rapport), and it can use each variety three times per day. The DC for saves to resist the effect of spores is equal to 10 + the myconid’s wisdom modifier.
Spores can be released either in a 120-foot spread or as a 40-foot ranged touch attack against a single target, as noted in the individual descriptions.
Distress: These spores alert all other myconids within the area that danger is near. They are released in a 120-foot spread.
Reproduction: These spores eventually germinate into new infant myconids. They are released as a 120-foot spread and have no detrimental effects on nonmyconids. A dying myconid of 2nd level or higher will automatically release reproduction spores.
Rapport: Myconids do not speak, but these spores enable them to establish telepathic communication with each other and with outsiders. A successful Fortitude saving throw negates the effect, but it is harmless. Rapport last for 30 to 60 minutes with outsiders, but for 8 hours with other myconids. Rapport spores can be released as either a 120-foot spread or a 40-foot ranged touch attack. Regardless of the release area, communication range is 120 feet once rapport is established.
Pacification: These spores are released as a 40-foot ranged touch attack. The target must make a Fortitude saving throw or become passive for 1 minute. Being passive is similar to being dazed, except that the target can take partial actions that don’t involve attacking. This is a mind-affecting compulsion effect.
Hallucination: These spores are released as a 40-foot ray. The target must make a Fortitude saving throw or suffer powerful hallucinations that duplicate the effects of a confusion spell for 1 hour.
Animation: When released over a dead body, animation spores begin a process that covers the corpse with purple fungus. After 1d4 days, the corpse reanimates as a servant under the control of the myconid. A servant has all the characteristics of a zombie of the same size, except that it retains its previous creature type and it cannot be turned or otherwise affected as an undead. Over the course of 1d6 weeks a myconid-animated corpse slowly decays. At the end of that period it simply disintegrates into dust.
Potion Making: A myconid of 6th level gains Brew Potion as a bonus feat. It can duplicate the following effects as a cleric or druid once per day (but only for the purpose of brewing potions): bull’s strength, cure light wounds, cure moderate wounds, cure serious wounds, delay poison, endurance, endure elements, greater magic fang, invisibility to animals, lesser restoration, magic fang, negative energy protection, neutralize poison, protection from elements, remove blindness/deafness, remove disease, remove paralysis, resist elements.
Age Range: Myconids are unlike other monster classes in that they advance through hit dice by age.
If a character’s age is below the lower age limit for a level in the myconid monster class, they may not take that level, and must take a player class level instead.
If a character’s age is over the upper age limit for their current myconid level, they may not take levels in any class other than the myconid class.
Automatic languages: none.
Bonus languages: common, terran, undercommon, drow sign language.
Myconids communicate with one another using rapport spores. They have no mouths and so cannot speak any language that requires speech, but they can understand, read, and write any language they know. Some take the time to learn drow sign language, to communicate with outsiders without using rapport spores.
Consider this ECL calculator. It seems acceptable, so let's use it.
---
I don't know if this calculator automatically applies Type traits, but as it asks for Type, we can only assume it does. Except it pretty clearly doesn't. Plant traits are pretty awesome, and it only partially accounts for that when it takes into account how much a plant HD is worth. You get awesome immunities for being a plant even if you don't have any plant HD. But then, their immunities aren't really much more than warforged get at (the high end of) +0LA, so maybe it's cool anyway.
I count two minor weaknesses common to all myconids - inability to speak without rapport spores or Drow Sign Language, and weird body shape that makes armor more expensive.
The only special good things myconids get are their various spores and the Sovereign's potion making:
Distress and reproduction spores effectively do nothing for a PC, and should have no effect on ECL.
Rapport spores are a telepathy effect as a single target ranged touch or area effect. Expanded Psionics Handbook offers the level 1 power mindlink, which is similar but single-target only and unlimited in range. Call it the equivalent of a minor spell-like ability.
Pacification spores are a single-target ranged touch slightly-less-bad-than-dazed for 10 rounds. daze, daze monster, and psionic daze are level 0 and 2 spells and a level 1 power, respectively, but only last for 1 round. Call this the equivalent of a level 2 spell-like ability, so medium.
Hallucination spores are a single-target ranged touch confusion spell for 1 hour. Confusion is a level 3 or 4 spell, which lasts for 1 round/level. Hallucination spores last an order of magnitude longer than confusion does, so let's call that the equivalent of at least a level 5 spell-like ability, qualifying as a major power.
Animation spores are a free zombie-only animate dead (a level 3 spell) which takes 1d4 days to take effect, and the zombies last only 1d6 weeks, but with no limit to creatures commanded. Let's call it roughly equivalent to animate dead. The sovereign already gets the hallucination spores, though, so it still has major powers.
Potion making is a little weird. I'm not sure why I counted it as "not a bonus feat" the first time 'round, given that a 6HD creature gets 3 feats, the Myconid Sovereign has 4, and "Brew Potion" clearly has a (B) next to it. This is obviously a bonus feat, so we should count it as such.
---
So, plugging in the numbers, we get the following results:
Myconid : ECL : LA
Junior Worker : 1.1 : +0.1
Average Worker : 1.4 : -0.6
Elder Worker : 2.2 : -0.8
Guard : 3.3 : -0.7
Circle Leader : 5.4 : +0.4
Sovereign : 6.4 : +0.4
Which is to say, for most of its progression, the myconid is slightly weaker than a creature with class levels instead of racial hit dice, and even those levels where it's stronger, it's only very slightly stronger. Myconids are weak enough that they should have no level adjustment at all. Yes, even at level 6, with a combined +30 to stats.
...huh. I find this peculiar, and this estimate is probably low by a level or two. But I'll go with it anyway.
A pretty good stepping-stone into any melee class, particularly a tanky one: 6 levels for +8 str, +2 dex, +6 con, 2 slam attacks, and Large size. Not as good a stepping-stone into cleric, druid, or sorcerer, sacrificing 6 caster levels for a mere +6 wis and cha. A terrible stepping-stone into wizard, sacrificing 6 caster levels for +2 int.
I'm okay with that.
So let's monster class up the joint.
This is actually really easy. There are no more empty LA-levels. Each level of the myconid monster class simply advances you to the next kind of myconid.
---
| Level | BAB | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Age Range | Special |
| 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4-8 | tiny, slam 1d3, distress spores |
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 8-12 | +2 str, +2 con, +2 int, small, slam 1d4, reproduction spores |
| 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 12-16 | +2 str, -2 dex, +2 wis, +2 cha, +1 natural armor, medium, slam 1d6, rapport spores |
| 4 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 16-20 | +2 str, +2 con, pacification spores |
| 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 20-24 | +2 str, +2 con, +2 wis, natural armor +2, large, slam 1d6, hallucination spores |
| 6 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 24+ | +2 str, +2 int, +2 cha, animation spores, potion making |
HD: d8
Skill Points: 2+INT (x4 at first level)
Class Skills: Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Profession (farmer), Profession (herbalist), Sense Motive, Spot, Survival.
Racial Traits:
Tiny Plant
Land speed 20 feet.
Plant Traits:
Low-Light vision.
Immunity to all mand-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning.
Not subject to critical hits.
Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.
Proficiencies: Myconids are proficient with their slam attack only. They are not proficient with any armor (and armor they wear is more expensive due to their unusual shape - a myconid is nonhumanoid).
Ability Scores: A myconid begins with racial ability modifiers of -2 Str, +4 Dex, -2 Int, +2 Wis, and +2 Cha.
A myconid's strength increases by +2 at level 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Its dexterity is reduced by -2 at level 3.
Its constitution increases by +2 at levels 2, 4, and 5.
Its wisdom increases by +2 at levels 3 and 5.
Its charisma increases by +2 at levels 3 and 6.
Slam Attack: At 1st level, a myconid has two slam attacks which deal 1d3 damage. This damage increases to 1d4 at 2nd level, 1d6 at 3rd level, and 1d8 at 5th level.
Size: At 1st level, a myconid is Tiny, with a space/reach of 2.5/2.5, a size bonus of +2 to attacks and AC, a size bonus of +8 to Hide checks, and a penalty of -8 to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts.
At 2nd level, the myconid grows to Small. Its space/reach increases to 5/5, its size bonus to attacks and AC drops to +1, its size bonus to Hide checks drops to +4, and its penalty to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts drops to -4.
At 3rd level, the myconid grows to Medium. Its size bonuses to attacks and AC, Hide checks, and penalty to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts are all reduced to 0.
At 5th level, the myconid grows to Large. Its space/reach increases to 10/10, it gains a size bonus of +4 to bull rush, grapple, overrun, and trip attempts, a penalty of -1 to attack and AC, and a penalty of -4 to Hide checks.
Natural Armor: A myconid gains a +1 natural armor bonus to AC at level 3. This bonus increases to +2 at level 5.
Spores: As a standard action, a myconid of 2nd level or higher can release a cloud of spores. Every level, a myconid gains a new variety of spore but does not lose access to the previous varieties. Each type of spore can be used a number of times per day equal to the myconid’s total Hit Dice (including class levels). A level 6 myconid, for example, has the first three spores (distress, reproduction, and rapport), and it can use each variety three times per day. The DC for saves to resist the effect of spores is equal to 10 + the myconid’s wisdom modifier.
Spores can be released either in a 120-foot spread or as a 40-foot ranged touch attack against a single target, as noted in the individual descriptions.
Distress: These spores alert all other myconids within the area that danger is near. They are released in a 120-foot spread.
Reproduction: These spores eventually germinate into new infant myconids. They are released as a 120-foot spread and have no detrimental effects on nonmyconids. A dying myconid of 2nd level or higher will automatically release reproduction spores.
Rapport: Myconids do not speak, but these spores enable them to establish telepathic communication with each other and with outsiders. A successful Fortitude saving throw negates the effect, but it is harmless. Rapport last for 30 to 60 minutes with outsiders, but for 8 hours with other myconids. Rapport spores can be released as either a 120-foot spread or a 40-foot ranged touch attack. Regardless of the release area, communication range is 120 feet once rapport is established.
Pacification: These spores are released as a 40-foot ranged touch attack. The target must make a Fortitude saving throw or become passive for 1 minute. Being passive is similar to being dazed, except that the target can take partial actions that don’t involve attacking. This is a mind-affecting compulsion effect.
Hallucination: These spores are released as a 40-foot ray. The target must make a Fortitude saving throw or suffer powerful hallucinations that duplicate the effects of a confusion spell for 1 hour.
Animation: When released over a dead body, animation spores begin a process that covers the corpse with purple fungus. After 1d4 days, the corpse reanimates as a servant under the control of the myconid. A servant has all the characteristics of a zombie of the same size, except that it retains its previous creature type and it cannot be turned or otherwise affected as an undead. Over the course of 1d6 weeks a myconid-animated corpse slowly decays. At the end of that period it simply disintegrates into dust.
Potion Making: A myconid of 6th level gains Brew Potion as a bonus feat. It can duplicate the following effects as a cleric or druid once per day (but only for the purpose of brewing potions): bull’s strength, cure light wounds, cure moderate wounds, cure serious wounds, delay poison, endurance, endure elements, greater magic fang, invisibility to animals, lesser restoration, magic fang, negative energy protection, neutralize poison, protection from elements, remove blindness/deafness, remove disease, remove paralysis, resist elements.
Age Range: Myconids are unlike other monster classes in that they advance through hit dice by age.
If a character’s age is below the lower age limit for a level in the myconid monster class, they may not take that level, and must take a player class level instead.
If a character’s age is over the upper age limit for their current myconid level, they may not take levels in any class other than the myconid class.
Automatic languages: none.
Bonus languages: common, terran, undercommon, drow sign language.
Myconids communicate with one another using rapport spores. They have no mouths and so cannot speak any language that requires speech, but they can understand, read, and write any language they know. Some take the time to learn drow sign language, to communicate with outsiders without using rapport spores.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Substitution Ciphers as Clues
It turned out, near the end of the second session of my open gaming table, that the healer had actually solved the substitution cipher bounty I had provided!
The duskblade's player facepalmed about ten times in a row because the bounty turned out to be one long reference to the previous campaign, and to his last character (the elf wizard) in particular.
I gave the healer a bunch of extra experience for solving the puzzle, tempered with a slight penalty for doing it at the expense of paying attention to the goings-on of the game. Although I'm not sure what I expected - maybe for people to work on it before the game starts and after it finishes? But at least he was playing his character well - figuring out this puzzle was much more interesting to the character than anything else. Though why he took it to the mine with him rather than just solve it at the adventurer's guild, I don't know. High intelligence, low wisdom, I guess.
Incidentally, the substitution cipher I actually used was in fact the Standard Galactic alphabet. Incidentally, this is an instance where I halfheartedly, and with a modicum of success, adhered to the Three Clue Rule, which says that "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues." Or, more loosely, provide at least three different ways to get to any given plot point.
I allowed for at least three ways to solve the cipher (with the possibility of more if the players had been clever enough):
1.) Brute force it the old-fashioned way (using observations like: "e" is the most common letter; "the" is the most common three-letter word; "a" and "I" are the only possible one-letter words; etc.) This was how the player wound up doing it.
2.) Roll well enough on your Decipher Script check that I give you some free letters, which makes (1) substantially easier.
3.) Have played enough Commander Keen that you recognize it as the Standard Galactic Alphabet, and consult the wikipedia page or other places that give the complete alphabet.
I can think of at least one other thing that could have partially helped, involving being familiar enough with the story to fill in gaps. (It involved a +1 Frost Dagger that the wizard had taken from the body of the High Priest of Vecna, then loaned to the swashbuckler/knight, then the vampire Baron Rogan took it off the swashbuckler/knight's body, then King Terek II had inherited it from him, and it's currently in the royal treasury and some relative of its original owner wants it back.)
The duskblade's player facepalmed about ten times in a row because the bounty turned out to be one long reference to the previous campaign, and to his last character (the elf wizard) in particular.
I gave the healer a bunch of extra experience for solving the puzzle, tempered with a slight penalty for doing it at the expense of paying attention to the goings-on of the game. Although I'm not sure what I expected - maybe for people to work on it before the game starts and after it finishes? But at least he was playing his character well - figuring out this puzzle was much more interesting to the character than anything else. Though why he took it to the mine with him rather than just solve it at the adventurer's guild, I don't know. High intelligence, low wisdom, I guess.
Incidentally, the substitution cipher I actually used was in fact the Standard Galactic alphabet. Incidentally, this is an instance where I halfheartedly, and with a modicum of success, adhered to the Three Clue Rule, which says that "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues." Or, more loosely, provide at least three different ways to get to any given plot point.
I allowed for at least three ways to solve the cipher (with the possibility of more if the players had been clever enough):
1.) Brute force it the old-fashioned way (using observations like: "e" is the most common letter; "the" is the most common three-letter word; "a" and "I" are the only possible one-letter words; etc.) This was how the player wound up doing it.
2.) Roll well enough on your Decipher Script check that I give you some free letters, which makes (1) substantially easier.
3.) Have played enough Commander Keen that you recognize it as the Standard Galactic Alphabet, and consult the wikipedia page or other places that give the complete alphabet.
I can think of at least one other thing that could have partially helped, involving being familiar enough with the story to fill in gaps. (It involved a +1 Frost Dagger that the wizard had taken from the body of the High Priest of Vecna, then loaned to the swashbuckler/knight, then the vampire Baron Rogan took it off the swashbuckler/knight's body, then King Terek II had inherited it from him, and it's currently in the royal treasury and some relative of its original owner wants it back.)
Monday, May 30, 2011
What Kind Of Balance Matters?
As I've said before, a properly-implemented open gaming table or similar system can auto-solve the problem of encounter balance. If you provide a variety of encounters, and a choice for the players of which encounters to engage, the problem of encounter balance solves itself. Your players, if they have any capacity for learning, will fight whatever creatures they feel comfortable fighting. If they would prefer to fight ECL-2 foes and accrue experience slowly but risklessly, they can do that. If they would prefer to fight ECL+2 foes and accrue experience quickly but at great risk to themselves, they can do that, too. This is basically the same principle espoused in the Dungeon Master's Guide, except it involves less need for the GM to be good at reading his players. (It's probably inaccurate and offensive to say that D&D players are less likely to be good at social skills like reading people than your average person, so instead I'll just imply it. Though D&D players are certainly more likely to be good at such skills than, say, pure video gamers.)
---
So with that problem neatly and tidily solved, what other potential balance issues do we need to think about?
Well, the obvious: intra-party power balance. Consider a party consisting of a wizard played by a skilled player, a druid played by an unskilled player, a fighter played by a skilled player, and a monk played by an unskilled player. It is well accepted that wizards and druids are tier 1 while fighters and monks are tier 5. Which is to say, a well-designed, well-played wizard or druid will always be orders of magnitude more useful in a party than a well-designed, well-played fighter or monk.
Well, it has been my experience that low-optimization parties are better balanced than high-optimization parties. A poorly-designed, poorly-played wizard is probably worse than a poorly-designed, poorly-played fighter. Wizards have so many options that if you make poor spell choices, you can't contribute anything, while fighters can always hit things with sticks. The difference between a good fighter and a bad fighter is smaller than the difference between a fighter with a d20 that tends to roll well and a fighter with a d20 that tends to roll poorly. So that's one option: play only with newbies.
A high-optimization party, similarly, will usually have players who avoid tiers lower than 2 on principle, and will auto-balance. They will also break any encounter you throw at them and ask for more, so you want to avoid this situation unless you're running the aptly-named Tomb of Horrors.
So, returning to the good wizard / bad cleric / good fighter / bad monk example. Here, the cleric, fighter, and monk will all be roughly on par with one another, with the wizard the odd one out. The other three will always feel useless. The wizard may, depending on his player's personality, become tired of constantly being in the spotlight, or constantly needing to carry a disproportionate amount of weight. How do we fix this?
---
The tier system provides four suggestions:
#1: Alter point buy. The wizard has fewer ability points to spend than the monk. This helps to balance them a little, because the tier 1 classes tend to be strongly Single Ability Dependent and the tier 5 classes tend to be strongly Multiple Ability Dependent. But what if the monk multiclasses into druid for his second and subsequent levels? A one-level dip into monk is probably worth 16 extra points. You can solve this, but the solution will always be messy.
#2: Gestalt. Tier 1 and 2 can't gestalt, tier 3 and 4 may gestalt with tier 6, tier 5 and 6 may gestalt with other tier 5 and 6. This also gets weird when multiclassing comes into the picture. You get bizarre and undescribable things like (fighter 1 || knight 1) / cleric. It's possible, but messy.
#3: Ban the top few tiers. If you ban tier 1 and 2, great, you just banned 90% of the dedicated spellcasters. Hope you're in a low-magic setting!
The above suggestions also penalize the bad cleric just as much as they penalize the good wizard. We don't want a situation where that happens, the crappy cleric needs as much help as he can get. On the other hand, we also don't want to have a situation where we say "You're an optimizer, so you get penalized; You're incompetent, so you get rewarded", if for no other reason than because that's so subjective.
#4: Go through, find the reasons why the tiers 1 are so good, and nerf them. Find the reasons why the tier 5s are so bad, and improve them. Ban Polymorph. Ban Natural Spell. Give monks full BaB. Give fighters a feat every level. This? This is a butt-ton of work.
---
The above methods are all clunky yet potentially workable. But I like two alternate methods, one also clunky, one more subtle:
#A: You need to take a certain number of levels of low-tier classes before you can take a high-tier class. For example: you can start only with a tier 3, 4, or 5 class. You can't multiclass into tier 2 unless you're already at least third level, and you can't multiclass into tier 1 unless you're already at least sixth level.
You can, of course, apply this with more steps. For example: At first level, you must take a tier 5 or 6 character (so no dedicated spellcasters other than Healer). At level 2, you may take a tier 4, 5, or 6 class. At level 3, you may take a tier 3-6 class. At level 4, you may take a class of any tier except 1. At level 5, you may take any class.
Similarly, you could simply give high tiers a level adjustment. For example, assign Tier 1 LA+2 and Tier 2 LA+1. It might occur to one to give Tier 6 classes a negative level adjustment, though that's tantamount to saying, "taking a level in this class is exactly as good as not taking a level in anything at all" - even Warrior has full BaB and a good Fort save, so everybody can have +1 BaB and +2 Fort for free. This option does not, however, work with multiclassing (a Commoner 19/Wizard 1 would have to have much the same LA as a Wizard 19/Commoner 1, barring liberal application of weird math).
This works because, generally, the best way to improve a spellcasting character is to give him more levels in his spellcasting class. Conversely, the best way to nerf a spellcasting build is to include non-spellcaster levels. Effectively, this puts a spellcaster a certain number of levels behind where he might normally be at any given level. Getting Polymorph at level 7 is a complete game-breaker. Getting Polymorph at, say, level 13 (but still casting with a CL of 7, unless you take the Practiced Spellcaster feat) is much more in line with the sorts of things other characters can do at level 13. A certain kind of gish character might be inclined to take those non-spellcasting levels anyway, and is thereby not penalized any more than they're already penalizing themselves with their choice of build, which is probably fine.
#B: Drastically limit the kinds of items players can buy in stores, and distribute magic items with care. Be generous with things like magical weapons and armor, Belts of Ogre Strength, Monk's Belts, Potions of Bull's Strength, and other things the tier 5s can use better than the tier 1s. Be sparing with scrolls for the wizard or artificer to copy, metamagic rods, Headbands of Intellect, and other things the tier 1s can use better than the tier 5s. This depends on which particular classes you have in the party. If you've got a monk but no cleric or druid, go ahead and give them a Periapt of Wisdom. If you've got a swashbuckler or rogue and no wizard or archivist, go ahead with the Headbands of Intellect.
Similarly, tailor encounters to the strengths of your tier 5s. Golems are good for this, though don't go too overboard with them (the goal is to make the tier 5s as useful as the tier 1s, not to make the tier 1s completely useless forever). If there's a cleric, don't use too many undead, especially if there's also a rogue or a fighter with a +1 Keen Rapier.
---
There is a more general point here, though: when you make any alterations to or interpretations of any rules, try to make sure you're not making tier 1-2 classes more powerful and you're not making tier 4-5 classes weaker.
I myself have broken this rule of thumb on occasion (engineers make great wizards; the list of scrolls wizards can scribe is longer if you allow them to copy non-Sorcerer/Wizard scrolls; mongrelfolk wizards/sorcerers/druids can get water elementals as familiars/animal companions with two feats). But at least I haven't nerfed monks.
---
So with that problem neatly and tidily solved, what other potential balance issues do we need to think about?
Well, the obvious: intra-party power balance. Consider a party consisting of a wizard played by a skilled player, a druid played by an unskilled player, a fighter played by a skilled player, and a monk played by an unskilled player. It is well accepted that wizards and druids are tier 1 while fighters and monks are tier 5. Which is to say, a well-designed, well-played wizard or druid will always be orders of magnitude more useful in a party than a well-designed, well-played fighter or monk.
Well, it has been my experience that low-optimization parties are better balanced than high-optimization parties. A poorly-designed, poorly-played wizard is probably worse than a poorly-designed, poorly-played fighter. Wizards have so many options that if you make poor spell choices, you can't contribute anything, while fighters can always hit things with sticks. The difference between a good fighter and a bad fighter is smaller than the difference between a fighter with a d20 that tends to roll well and a fighter with a d20 that tends to roll poorly. So that's one option: play only with newbies.
A high-optimization party, similarly, will usually have players who avoid tiers lower than 2 on principle, and will auto-balance. They will also break any encounter you throw at them and ask for more, so you want to avoid this situation unless you're running the aptly-named Tomb of Horrors.
So, returning to the good wizard / bad cleric / good fighter / bad monk example. Here, the cleric, fighter, and monk will all be roughly on par with one another, with the wizard the odd one out. The other three will always feel useless. The wizard may, depending on his player's personality, become tired of constantly being in the spotlight, or constantly needing to carry a disproportionate amount of weight. How do we fix this?
---
The tier system provides four suggestions:
#1: Alter point buy. The wizard has fewer ability points to spend than the monk. This helps to balance them a little, because the tier 1 classes tend to be strongly Single Ability Dependent and the tier 5 classes tend to be strongly Multiple Ability Dependent. But what if the monk multiclasses into druid for his second and subsequent levels? A one-level dip into monk is probably worth 16 extra points. You can solve this, but the solution will always be messy.
#2: Gestalt. Tier 1 and 2 can't gestalt, tier 3 and 4 may gestalt with tier 6, tier 5 and 6 may gestalt with other tier 5 and 6. This also gets weird when multiclassing comes into the picture. You get bizarre and undescribable things like (fighter 1 || knight 1) / cleric. It's possible, but messy.
#3: Ban the top few tiers. If you ban tier 1 and 2, great, you just banned 90% of the dedicated spellcasters. Hope you're in a low-magic setting!
The above suggestions also penalize the bad cleric just as much as they penalize the good wizard. We don't want a situation where that happens, the crappy cleric needs as much help as he can get. On the other hand, we also don't want to have a situation where we say "You're an optimizer, so you get penalized; You're incompetent, so you get rewarded", if for no other reason than because that's so subjective.
#4: Go through, find the reasons why the tiers 1 are so good, and nerf them. Find the reasons why the tier 5s are so bad, and improve them. Ban Polymorph. Ban Natural Spell. Give monks full BaB. Give fighters a feat every level. This? This is a butt-ton of work.
---
The above methods are all clunky yet potentially workable. But I like two alternate methods, one also clunky, one more subtle:
#A: You need to take a certain number of levels of low-tier classes before you can take a high-tier class. For example: you can start only with a tier 3, 4, or 5 class. You can't multiclass into tier 2 unless you're already at least third level, and you can't multiclass into tier 1 unless you're already at least sixth level.
You can, of course, apply this with more steps. For example: At first level, you must take a tier 5 or 6 character (so no dedicated spellcasters other than Healer). At level 2, you may take a tier 4, 5, or 6 class. At level 3, you may take a tier 3-6 class. At level 4, you may take a class of any tier except 1. At level 5, you may take any class.
Similarly, you could simply give high tiers a level adjustment. For example, assign Tier 1 LA+2 and Tier 2 LA+1. It might occur to one to give Tier 6 classes a negative level adjustment, though that's tantamount to saying, "taking a level in this class is exactly as good as not taking a level in anything at all" - even Warrior has full BaB and a good Fort save, so everybody can have +1 BaB and +2 Fort for free. This option does not, however, work with multiclassing (a Commoner 19/Wizard 1 would have to have much the same LA as a Wizard 19/Commoner 1, barring liberal application of weird math).
This works because, generally, the best way to improve a spellcasting character is to give him more levels in his spellcasting class. Conversely, the best way to nerf a spellcasting build is to include non-spellcaster levels. Effectively, this puts a spellcaster a certain number of levels behind where he might normally be at any given level. Getting Polymorph at level 7 is a complete game-breaker. Getting Polymorph at, say, level 13 (but still casting with a CL of 7, unless you take the Practiced Spellcaster feat) is much more in line with the sorts of things other characters can do at level 13. A certain kind of gish character might be inclined to take those non-spellcasting levels anyway, and is thereby not penalized any more than they're already penalizing themselves with their choice of build, which is probably fine.
#B: Drastically limit the kinds of items players can buy in stores, and distribute magic items with care. Be generous with things like magical weapons and armor, Belts of Ogre Strength, Monk's Belts, Potions of Bull's Strength, and other things the tier 5s can use better than the tier 1s. Be sparing with scrolls for the wizard or artificer to copy, metamagic rods, Headbands of Intellect, and other things the tier 1s can use better than the tier 5s. This depends on which particular classes you have in the party. If you've got a monk but no cleric or druid, go ahead and give them a Periapt of Wisdom. If you've got a swashbuckler or rogue and no wizard or archivist, go ahead with the Headbands of Intellect.
Similarly, tailor encounters to the strengths of your tier 5s. Golems are good for this, though don't go too overboard with them (the goal is to make the tier 5s as useful as the tier 1s, not to make the tier 1s completely useless forever). If there's a cleric, don't use too many undead, especially if there's also a rogue or a fighter with a +1 Keen Rapier.
---
There is a more general point here, though: when you make any alterations to or interpretations of any rules, try to make sure you're not making tier 1-2 classes more powerful and you're not making tier 4-5 classes weaker.
I myself have broken this rule of thumb on occasion (engineers make great wizards; the list of scrolls wizards can scribe is longer if you allow them to copy non-Sorcerer/Wizard scrolls; mongrelfolk wizards/sorcerers/druids can get water elementals as familiars/animal companions with two feats). But at least I haven't nerfed monks.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Complete Deck Of Many Things
So randomness is fun, and powerful artifacts are fun. One might naturally be tempted to combine these fun things with a Deck Of Many Things. But the Deck of Many Things has something of a reputation as a campaign-killer. Plus, check it out: that "Deck" of Many Things only has 22 cards! What a ripoff!
So perhaps there's some way to simultaneously solve both problems. Consider: expand the deck to a full 54 cards.
We make sure the deck is roughly evenly balanced between bad things and good things, and between major effects and minor effects. We can leave in the terribly bad or terribly good things from the original deck, because they're each less than half as likely as they used to be, and we'll balance them out with piddling minor effects like alterations to hair colour.
All effects are permanent, reversible only by divine intervention or the Fates card. Rules are otherwise the same as for the standard Deck Of Many Things.
Drawn Card - In-Game Name - Effect
Ace of Spades - Fates - Stop some bad thing from happening to you, even retroactively.
2 of Spades - Donjon - Lose all gear and magic effects, immediately imprisoned
3 of Spades - Balance - Change alignment or lose a level
4 of Spades - Patient Zero - Afflicted with random contagion, save DC35
5 of Spades - Metamorphosis - Change to a random new Type without otherwise changing race
6 of Spades - Frog - Polymorphed to a random race of the same type
7 of Spades - Dwarf - Decrease one size category
8 of Spades - Crone - Age 1d20 years
9 of Spades - Tongue - Your languages known is reduced to a single language, randomly chosen (not necessarily a language you knew).
10 of Spades - Coin - -4 penalty to the skill in which you have the most ranks
Jack of Spades - Rogue - An NPC friend or ally is forever hostile
Queen of Spades - Euryale - -1 to all saving throws
King of Spades - Ruin - All nonmagical possessions are permanently lost
Ace of Clubs - Talons - All magical possessions are permanently lost
2 of Clubs - Idiot - 1d4+1 permanent Int drain
3 of Clubs - Burdened Man - 1d4+1 permanent Str drain
4 of Clubs - Bleeding Man - 1d4+1 permanent Con drain
5 of Clubs - Cripple - 1d4+1 permanent Dex drain
6 of Clubs - Nymph - 1d4+1 permanent Wis drain
7 of Clubs - Leper - 1d4+1 permanent Cha drain
8 of Clubs - Acid - -1 natural armor
9 of Clubs - Blind Man - -1 to all attack rolls
10 of Clubs - Hermaphrodite - Gender inverted
Jack of Clubs - Skull - An unturnable dread wraith attacks, must be defeated alone
Queen of Clubs - Flames - Earn the enmity of a random outsider
King of Clubs - Void - Body functions, but soul is trapped elsewhere
Black Joker - Fool - Lose 10,000xp and draw again
Ace of Hearts - God-King - Random race considers you their leader
2 of Hearts - Wizard - 1d4+1 permanent Int gain
3 of Hearts - Titan - 1d4+1 permanent Str gain
4 of Hearts - Chicken Soup - 1d4+1 permanent Con gain
5 of Hearts - Ballerina - 1d4+1 permanent Dex gain
6 of Hearts - Sage - 1d4+1 permanent Wis gain
7 of Hearts - Demagogue - 1d4+1 permanent Cha gain
8 of Hearts - Armor - +1 natural armor
9 of Hearts - Guide - +1 to all attack rolls
10 of Hearts - Heart - Fall in love with the next person you see
Jack of Hearts - Knight - Gain the services of a 4th-level fighter
Queen of Hearts - Moon - Granted 1d4 wishes
King of Hearts - Throne - Gain a title, a small keep, and +6 to all diplomacy checks
Ace of Diamonds - Vizier - Know the answer to your next dilemma
2 of Diamonds - Gem - Gain 25 jewelries worth 2000gp each or 50 gems worth 1000gp each
3 of Diamonds - Envy - Eyes randomly change color
4 of Diamonds - Sea - Hair randomly changes color
5 of Diamonds - Shoes - Gain a bonus feat
6 of Diamonds - Nose - Gain breath attack with rod of wonder effect, usable 1/day
7 of Diamonds - Giant - Increase one size category
8 of Diamonds - Maiden - Youthen 1d20 years
9 of Diamonds - Gift - Gain random major magic item
10 of Diamonds - Comet - If you defeat the next enemy you meet alone, you gain a level
Jack of Diamonds - Star - +4 to skill in which you have the most ranks
Queen of Diamonds - Key - Gain a minor magic weapon
King of Diamonds - Sun - Gain a medium wondrous item and 50,000xp
Red Joker - Jester - Gain 10,000xp or 2 more draws
So perhaps there's some way to simultaneously solve both problems. Consider: expand the deck to a full 54 cards.
We make sure the deck is roughly evenly balanced between bad things and good things, and between major effects and minor effects. We can leave in the terribly bad or terribly good things from the original deck, because they're each less than half as likely as they used to be, and we'll balance them out with piddling minor effects like alterations to hair colour.
All effects are permanent, reversible only by divine intervention or the Fates card. Rules are otherwise the same as for the standard Deck Of Many Things.
Drawn Card - In-Game Name - Effect
Ace of Spades - Fates - Stop some bad thing from happening to you, even retroactively.
2 of Spades - Donjon - Lose all gear and magic effects, immediately imprisoned
3 of Spades - Balance - Change alignment or lose a level
4 of Spades - Patient Zero - Afflicted with random contagion, save DC35
5 of Spades - Metamorphosis - Change to a random new Type without otherwise changing race
6 of Spades - Frog - Polymorphed to a random race of the same type
7 of Spades - Dwarf - Decrease one size category
8 of Spades - Crone - Age 1d20 years
9 of Spades - Tongue - Your languages known is reduced to a single language, randomly chosen (not necessarily a language you knew).
10 of Spades - Coin - -4 penalty to the skill in which you have the most ranks
Jack of Spades - Rogue - An NPC friend or ally is forever hostile
Queen of Spades - Euryale - -1 to all saving throws
King of Spades - Ruin - All nonmagical possessions are permanently lost
Ace of Clubs - Talons - All magical possessions are permanently lost
2 of Clubs - Idiot - 1d4+1 permanent Int drain
3 of Clubs - Burdened Man - 1d4+1 permanent Str drain
4 of Clubs - Bleeding Man - 1d4+1 permanent Con drain
5 of Clubs - Cripple - 1d4+1 permanent Dex drain
6 of Clubs - Nymph - 1d4+1 permanent Wis drain
7 of Clubs - Leper - 1d4+1 permanent Cha drain
8 of Clubs - Acid - -1 natural armor
9 of Clubs - Blind Man - -1 to all attack rolls
10 of Clubs - Hermaphrodite - Gender inverted
Jack of Clubs - Skull - An unturnable dread wraith attacks, must be defeated alone
Queen of Clubs - Flames - Earn the enmity of a random outsider
King of Clubs - Void - Body functions, but soul is trapped elsewhere
Black Joker - Fool - Lose 10,000xp and draw again
Ace of Hearts - God-King - Random race considers you their leader
2 of Hearts - Wizard - 1d4+1 permanent Int gain
3 of Hearts - Titan - 1d4+1 permanent Str gain
4 of Hearts - Chicken Soup - 1d4+1 permanent Con gain
5 of Hearts - Ballerina - 1d4+1 permanent Dex gain
6 of Hearts - Sage - 1d4+1 permanent Wis gain
7 of Hearts - Demagogue - 1d4+1 permanent Cha gain
8 of Hearts - Armor - +1 natural armor
9 of Hearts - Guide - +1 to all attack rolls
10 of Hearts - Heart - Fall in love with the next person you see
Jack of Hearts - Knight - Gain the services of a 4th-level fighter
Queen of Hearts - Moon - Granted 1d4 wishes
King of Hearts - Throne - Gain a title, a small keep, and +6 to all diplomacy checks
Ace of Diamonds - Vizier - Know the answer to your next dilemma
2 of Diamonds - Gem - Gain 25 jewelries worth 2000gp each or 50 gems worth 1000gp each
3 of Diamonds - Envy - Eyes randomly change color
4 of Diamonds - Sea - Hair randomly changes color
5 of Diamonds - Shoes - Gain a bonus feat
6 of Diamonds - Nose - Gain breath attack with rod of wonder effect, usable 1/day
7 of Diamonds - Giant - Increase one size category
8 of Diamonds - Maiden - Youthen 1d20 years
9 of Diamonds - Gift - Gain random major magic item
10 of Diamonds - Comet - If you defeat the next enemy you meet alone, you gain a level
Jack of Diamonds - Star - +4 to skill in which you have the most ranks
Queen of Diamonds - Key - Gain a minor magic weapon
King of Diamonds - Sun - Gain a medium wondrous item and 50,000xp
Red Joker - Jester - Gain 10,000xp or 2 more draws
Thursday, May 26, 2011
High Seas System Reference Document
I have copied most of the pamphlet I provide to my players and released it here as the High Seas System Reference Document. This is partially for the curious, and partially so I can point my players to it for reference when they're not proximate to me or when I don't have the pamphlet.
You may notice that it's a little light on certain kinds of information. This is because if I'm using something WotC created, it's not legal to distribute it unless it's covered under the d20 SRD. This is perhaps particularly noticeable in the Religion section, where I provide a list of the deities I'm using, how they relate to the world, and what book to consult to find them, because no deities are in the d20 SRD.
You may notice that it's a little light on certain kinds of information. This is because if I'm using something WotC created, it's not legal to distribute it unless it's covered under the d20 SRD. This is perhaps particularly noticeable in the Religion section, where I provide a list of the deities I'm using, how they relate to the world, and what book to consult to find them, because no deities are in the d20 SRD.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Reworking Mongrelfolk 2
In a previous post, I updated the mongrelfolk and gave them a bunch of new feats. Players don't generally like to play mongrelfolk, which is fine; I can still use these things for NPCs, because mongrelfolk are such very common NPCs.
Today, I would like to give them more feats. Effectively, I've gone through the list of types and subtypes, and given the mongrelfolk the ability to take feats to acquire any of the types or subtypes it would make sense for them to acquire.
Some of them are not powerful, or even effectively do nothing, and you would only take them to meet prerequisites. Some of them (mostly the specific races of Outsider: Angel, Baatezu, Tanar'ri, etc.) would be overpowered if they were just one feat, so I provide a number of extra feat chains to collect all the abilities of these subtypes.
The immunities are particularly powerful, but note that you need four feats before you can even get one immunity. Let's take acid immunity, for example:
1 - Outsider Mongrel, Celestial Heritage, Monstrous Mongrel, or something along those lines, to add an angel to your general heritage, to qualify for Angel Mongrel
2 - Angel Mongrel, to qualify for Mongrel Acid Resistance
3 - Mongrel Acid Resistance, to qualify for Mongrel Acid Immunity
4 - Mongrel Acid Immunity
Probably not worth it; I'm sure there are much easier ways to get these things. But I'd rather introduce weak options that nobody takes than introduce strong options that completely break the game.
---
Aberrant Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, level 1 only
Benefit: Pick any any aberration. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the Aberration type and the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype. You gain darkvision 60.
Air Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Air] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Air] subtype. You gain a fly speed of 10 feet, with Clumsy maneuverability.
Angel Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Angel] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Angel] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Archon Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Archon] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Archon] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Baatezu Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Baatezu] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Baatezu] subtype. You can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, even that created by a deeper darkness spell. You do not gain any other traits.
Chaotic Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Chaotic] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Chaotic] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have a chaotic alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are chaotic-aligned.
Cold Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Cold] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Cold] subtype. You gain immunity to cold and vulnerability to fire.
Dragonblood Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any dragon. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the [Dragonblood] subtype.
Earth Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Earth] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Earth] subtype. You gain a burrow speed of 5 feet. You can burrow only through substances with the consistency of loose dirt.
Eladrin Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Eladrin] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Eladrin] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Evil Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Evil] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Evil] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have an evil alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are evil-aligned.
Fey Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any Fey. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, your type changes to Fey, and you gain the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype.
Fire Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Fire] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Fire] subtype. You gain immunity to fire and vulnerability to cold.
Fully Aquatic Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Seafolk Heritage
Benefit: Your racial bonus to Swim checks is +8 (this replaces your bonus from Seafolk Heritage). You gain the [aquatic] subtype and a swim speed of 10 feet. You can breathe both air and water.
Goblinoid Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any creature with the [goblinoid] subtype. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the [Goblinoid] subtype.
Good Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Good] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Good] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have a good alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are good-aligned.
Guardinal Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Guardinal] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Guardinal] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Lawful Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Lawful] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Lawful] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have a lawful alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are lawful-aligned.
Mongrel Acid Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Baatezu Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: You gain Resist 10 against acid.
Mongrel Acid Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel and Mongrel Acid Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to acid.
Mongrel Cold Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Baatezu Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against cold.
Mongrel Cold Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel and Mongrel Cold Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to cold.
Mongrel Electricity Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel or Angel Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against electricity.
Mongrel Electricity Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel, and Mongrel Electricity Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to electricity.
Mongrel Fiendsummons [Racial]
Prerequisite: Baatezu Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: 1/day, as a standard action, you may attempt to summon a Baatezu (if you have the [Baatezu] subtype) or a Tanar'ri (if you have the [Tanar'ri] subtype).
Each time you summon a creature, they will give you the opportunity to strike a deal with them. Devils are scrupulous about honouring their deals; demons are not. If the offered deal is not to the summoned creature's liking, they may counteroffer, leave, or attack you, so it is wise to be cautious about summoning creatures much stronger than you.
Each time you attempt to summon a creature, there is a limited probability that they will even appear.
Baatezu : chance of success
Lemure : 100%
Advespa : 33%
Bearded Devil (Barbazu) : 20%
Amnizu : 14%
Erinyes : 13%
Bone Devil (Osyluth) : 11%
Malebranche : 11%
Barbed Devil (Hamatula) : 9%
Ice Devil (Gelugon) : 8%
Horned Devil (Cornugon) : 6%
Xerfilstyx : 6%
Pit Fiend : 5%
Paeliryon : 5%
Tanar'ri : chance of success
Dretch : 50%
Jovoc : 20%
Babau : 17%
Arrow Demon : 14%
Succubus : 14%
Palrethee : 13%
Vrock : 11%
Hezrou : 9%
Kastighur : 9%
Glabrezu : 8%
Jarilith : 8%
Alkilith : 7%
Nalfeshnee : 7%
Marilith : 6%
Sorrowsworn Demon : 6%
Kelvezu : 6%
Balor : 5%
Myrmyxicus : 5%
Klurichir : 4%
Mongrel Fire Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Baatezu Mongrel or Angel Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against fire.
Mongrel Fire Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Baatezu Mongrel and Mongrel Fire Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to fire.
Mongrel Lay On Hands [Racial]
Prerequisite: Guardinal Mongrel, Cha 12
Benefit: You gain the Lay On Hands ability as if you were a paladin whose level equal your HD.
Mongrel Magic Circle Against Evil [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel, character level 5
Benefit: A magic circle against evil effect always surrounds you (caster level equal to your Hit Dice).
Mongrel Petrification Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You gain +4 on all saves against petrification effects.
Mongrel Petrification Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel, and Mongrel Petrification Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to petrification effects.
Mongrel Poison Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Tanar'ri Mongrel or Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You gain +4 on all saves against poison.
Mongrel Poison Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Tanar'ri Mongrel and Mongrel Poison Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to poison.
Mongrel Sonic Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against sonic.
Mongrel Speak With Animals [Racial]
Prerequisite: Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You may cast speak with animals at will.
Mongrel Teleportation [Racial]
Prerequisite: Archon Mongrel, character level 13
Benefit: You can use greater teleport at will, as the spell (caster level equal to your Hit Dice), except that you can transport only yourself and up to 50 pounds of objects.
Mongrel Tongues [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel, character level 5
Benefit: You can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell (caster level equal to your Hit Dice). This ability is always active.
Monstrous Mongrel [Racial]
Your blood contains traces of something weird. There is no need to speculate on the exact mechanics of how it got there.
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, level 1 only
Benefit: Pick any any aberration, animal, elemental, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, outsider, plant, undead, or vermin. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, your type changes to Monstrous Humanoid, and you gain the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype. You gain no new traits or features.
Outsider Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, level 1 only
Benefit: Pick any any Outsider. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, your type changes to Outsider, and you gain the [Augmented Humanoid] and [Native] subtypes. You gain Darkvision 60. You can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected as other living creatures can be. You still need to breathe, eat and sleep.
Reptilian Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any reptile or creature with the [reptilian] subtype. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the [Reptilian] subtype.
Tanar'ri Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Tanar'ri] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Tanar'ri] subtype. You do not gain any traits.
Water Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Water] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Water] subtype. You can breathe both air and water. You gain a swim speed of 10 feet.
Today, I would like to give them more feats. Effectively, I've gone through the list of types and subtypes, and given the mongrelfolk the ability to take feats to acquire any of the types or subtypes it would make sense for them to acquire.
Some of them are not powerful, or even effectively do nothing, and you would only take them to meet prerequisites. Some of them (mostly the specific races of Outsider: Angel, Baatezu, Tanar'ri, etc.) would be overpowered if they were just one feat, so I provide a number of extra feat chains to collect all the abilities of these subtypes.
The immunities are particularly powerful, but note that you need four feats before you can even get one immunity. Let's take acid immunity, for example:
1 - Outsider Mongrel, Celestial Heritage, Monstrous Mongrel, or something along those lines, to add an angel to your general heritage, to qualify for Angel Mongrel
2 - Angel Mongrel, to qualify for Mongrel Acid Resistance
3 - Mongrel Acid Resistance, to qualify for Mongrel Acid Immunity
4 - Mongrel Acid Immunity
Probably not worth it; I'm sure there are much easier ways to get these things. But I'd rather introduce weak options that nobody takes than introduce strong options that completely break the game.
---
Aberrant Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, level 1 only
Benefit: Pick any any aberration. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the Aberration type and the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype. You gain darkvision 60.
Air Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Air] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Air] subtype. You gain a fly speed of 10 feet, with Clumsy maneuverability.
Angel Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Angel] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Angel] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Archon Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Archon] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Archon] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Baatezu Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Baatezu] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Baatezu] subtype. You can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, even that created by a deeper darkness spell. You do not gain any other traits.
Chaotic Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Chaotic] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Chaotic] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have a chaotic alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are chaotic-aligned.
Cold Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Cold] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Cold] subtype. You gain immunity to cold and vulnerability to fire.
Dragonblood Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any dragon. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the [Dragonblood] subtype.
Earth Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Earth] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Earth] subtype. You gain a burrow speed of 5 feet. You can burrow only through substances with the consistency of loose dirt.
Eladrin Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Eladrin] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Eladrin] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Evil Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Evil] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Evil] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have an evil alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are evil-aligned.
Fey Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any Fey. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, your type changes to Fey, and you gain the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype.
Fire Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Fire] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Fire] subtype. You gain immunity to fire and vulnerability to cold.
Fully Aquatic Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Seafolk Heritage
Benefit: Your racial bonus to Swim checks is +8 (this replaces your bonus from Seafolk Heritage). You gain the [aquatic] subtype and a swim speed of 10 feet. You can breathe both air and water.
Goblinoid Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any creature with the [goblinoid] subtype. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the [Goblinoid] subtype.
Good Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Good] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Good] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have a good alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are good-aligned.
Guardinal Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Guardinal] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Guardinal] subtype. You gain darkvision 60. You do not gain any other traits.
Lawful Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Lawful] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Lawful] subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects you as though you have a lawful alignment, no matter what your alignment actually is. You also suffer effects according to your actual alignment. You overcome damage reduction as if your natural weapons and any weapons you wield are lawful-aligned.
Mongrel Acid Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Baatezu Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: You gain Resist 10 against acid.
Mongrel Acid Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel and Mongrel Acid Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to acid.
Mongrel Cold Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Baatezu Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against cold.
Mongrel Cold Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel and Mongrel Cold Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to cold.
Mongrel Electricity Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel or Angel Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against electricity.
Mongrel Electricity Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel, and Mongrel Electricity Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to electricity.
Mongrel Fiendsummons [Racial]
Prerequisite: Baatezu Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: 1/day, as a standard action, you may attempt to summon a Baatezu (if you have the [Baatezu] subtype) or a Tanar'ri (if you have the [Tanar'ri] subtype).
Each time you summon a creature, they will give you the opportunity to strike a deal with them. Devils are scrupulous about honouring their deals; demons are not. If the offered deal is not to the summoned creature's liking, they may counteroffer, leave, or attack you, so it is wise to be cautious about summoning creatures much stronger than you.
Each time you attempt to summon a creature, there is a limited probability that they will even appear.
Baatezu : chance of success
Lemure : 100%
Advespa : 33%
Bearded Devil (Barbazu) : 20%
Amnizu : 14%
Erinyes : 13%
Bone Devil (Osyluth) : 11%
Malebranche : 11%
Barbed Devil (Hamatula) : 9%
Ice Devil (Gelugon) : 8%
Horned Devil (Cornugon) : 6%
Xerfilstyx : 6%
Pit Fiend : 5%
Paeliryon : 5%
Tanar'ri : chance of success
Dretch : 50%
Jovoc : 20%
Babau : 17%
Arrow Demon : 14%
Succubus : 14%
Palrethee : 13%
Vrock : 11%
Hezrou : 9%
Kastighur : 9%
Glabrezu : 8%
Jarilith : 8%
Alkilith : 7%
Nalfeshnee : 7%
Marilith : 6%
Sorrowsworn Demon : 6%
Kelvezu : 6%
Balor : 5%
Myrmyxicus : 5%
Klurichir : 4%
Mongrel Fire Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Baatezu Mongrel or Angel Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Tanar'ri Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against fire.
Mongrel Fire Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Baatezu Mongrel and Mongrel Fire Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to fire.
Mongrel Lay On Hands [Racial]
Prerequisite: Guardinal Mongrel, Cha 12
Benefit: You gain the Lay On Hands ability as if you were a paladin whose level equal your HD.
Mongrel Magic Circle Against Evil [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel, character level 5
Benefit: A magic circle against evil effect always surrounds you (caster level equal to your Hit Dice).
Mongrel Petrification Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You gain +4 on all saves against petrification effects.
Mongrel Petrification Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel, and Mongrel Petrification Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to petrification effects.
Mongrel Poison Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Tanar'ri Mongrel or Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You gain +4 on all saves against poison.
Mongrel Poison Immunity [Racial]
Prerequisite: Tanar'ri Mongrel and Mongrel Poison Resistance
Benefit: You gain immunity to poison.
Mongrel Sonic Resistance [Racial]
Prerequisite: Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You gain resist 10 against sonic.
Mongrel Speak With Animals [Racial]
Prerequisite: Guardinal Mongrel
Benefit: You may cast speak with animals at will.
Mongrel Teleportation [Racial]
Prerequisite: Archon Mongrel, character level 13
Benefit: You can use greater teleport at will, as the spell (caster level equal to your Hit Dice), except that you can transport only yourself and up to 50 pounds of objects.
Mongrel Tongues [Racial]
Prerequisite: Angel Mongrel or Archon Mongrel or Eladrin Mongrel, character level 5
Benefit: You can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell (caster level equal to your Hit Dice). This ability is always active.
Monstrous Mongrel [Racial]
Your blood contains traces of something weird. There is no need to speculate on the exact mechanics of how it got there.
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, level 1 only
Benefit: Pick any any aberration, animal, elemental, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, outsider, plant, undead, or vermin. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, your type changes to Monstrous Humanoid, and you gain the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype. You gain no new traits or features.
Outsider Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, level 1 only
Benefit: Pick any any Outsider. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, your type changes to Outsider, and you gain the [Augmented Humanoid] and [Native] subtypes. You gain Darkvision 60. You can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected as other living creatures can be. You still need to breathe, eat and sleep.
Reptilian Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race
Benefit: Pick any any reptile or creature with the [reptilian] subtype. You are descended from that race for the purposes of your Emulate Race and Diffuse Blood racial traits.
In addition, you gain the [Reptilian] subtype.
Tanar'ri Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Tanar'ri] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Tanar'ri] subtype. You do not gain any traits.
Water Mongrel [Racial]
Prerequisite: Mongrelfolk race, descended from a creature with the [Water] subtype
Benefit: You gain the [Water] subtype. You can breathe both air and water. You gain a swim speed of 10 feet.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Chicken Infested
If you surf D&D boards long enough, you're likely to come upon a reference to the Chicken Infested feat from a long-ago April Fool's issue (specifically, #330) of Dragon magazine. It was one of several joke feats for the NPC-only Commoner class, but it was the only one that was actually funny. (Okay, maybe "Corpse" was a little funny, too.)
This is an excellent and hilarious flaw (I picture the person with this flaw is simply followed around by a bunch of chickens at all times, and they sometimes get into his equipment; maybe it's a curse that we can build into a campaign hook), but it's commonly mentioned as being, supposedly, blatantly abusable. How could we render it un-abusable?
---
Most abuses hinge on the supposed ability to produce an infinite number of chickens as a free action, which hinge on two of three things:
1.) It's a free action to drop a held object;
and
2.) If you have Quick Draw, it's a free action to draw a weapon. If you have n weapons on you, you can, as a free action, draw approximately n chickens (draw weapons until you run out of weapons, and there's a 50% chance each weapon will be a chicken);
or
3.) It's a free action to draw a spell component from a spell component pouch, and spell component pouches contain an indefinite amount of spell components (this is also the trick behind the "infinite bat poop as a free action" trick).
It seems to miss most people that a chicken is neither a weapon nor a spell component, so drawing one will never be a free action, and you still use up one of your move actions every time you draw one, so you can still only draw at most two chickens per round. Though a case could be made that a chicken could be a weapon, particularly if you took Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Chicken), so let's just add a clause to the flaw that "Drawing a chicken is always a move action" to clear up any confusion.
---
It's still possible to produce n chickens, it just takes at least n/2 rounds (you can produce 20 chickens a minute). However, unless you kill or otherwise keep track of them, it should be noted, most of these chickens should just be cycling in from the crowd of chickens around you. You draw a chicken, drop it, and the next round it finds its way back into your pack, as chickens do. So at any given time, you should only really have a few chickens, rather than an indefinite number. But if you kill each chicken as you draw it, where do the new chickens come from? A good question, with no good answer, on the same lines as "where do all my socks go when they vanish from the dryer?"
---
At this point, let's take a slight digression and determine the exact stats of the chickens.
Well, the monster entry for the raven says "The statistics presented here can describe most nonpredatory birds of similar size." The chicken is indeed a nonpredatory bird of similar size to the raven, although chickens cannot fly.
That's easy enough to fix: let's treat chickens as ravens, but replace Fly 40 with Glide 20 (so a chicken never takes falling damage, and it can travel 20 feet sideways for every 10 feet it falls).
---
Other possible abuses:
Infinite food. This is not a problem if you've got a 5th level cleric, which, to be fair, you probably shouldn't. It's not really a problem in any other game, either, unless you're really paying attention to resource management.
Infinite cash, if you sell the chickens. But the law of supply and demand means you'll swiftly get diminishing returns on your chickens, and eventually will be unable to find anyone to take your chickens.
Things which deal damage to creatures in a radius and which give you a corresponding buff for each one. This is, yes, a little problematic, though in combat you'll only be able to get the benefit from 2 chickens per round, which is hardly an effective use of your action economy at the level you get that ability.
Things which animate all corpses in a radius. Particularly combined with the former. In combat, you'll still only be able to produce 2 chicken skeletons a round, which, again, hardly an effective use of your actions. Out of combat, given some time to prepare, you can freely produce chicken skeletons up to your maximum number of HD of undead controlled. You can then turn them all into bombs. At this point, you're getting into so much effort that I'm willing to just allow it. (Especially as I'm disinclined to allow the sort of Divine Metamagic abuse that makes it feasible.)
These can all be solved with a blanket clause: If you pull too many chickens in an attempt to abuse your curse, some of them may be more powerful, hostile chickens. I'm thinking some combination of Titanic, Monster of Legend, and Fiendish.
---
And the one which I don't think I've ever seen mentioned, but which is still of concern: you could simply kill the chickens for experience. They're not summoned or conjured or created or any of the other standard terms, they're just there, so none of the limits on XP for summoned creatures apply. The whole party could automatically level up to level 8 (especially with the above tricks like automatic damage in a radius), at which point you abruptly stop getting experience from the CR1/6 chickens.
This is easily solved: add a clause specifying that these chickens are worth no experience points.
Chicken Infested
You’ve got chickens.
Effect: Whenever you draw a weapon or pull an item out of a container, you have a 50% chance of drawing a live chicken instead. No, we don't know where the chickens come from; it's your character.
This is an excellent and hilarious flaw (I picture the person with this flaw is simply followed around by a bunch of chickens at all times, and they sometimes get into his equipment; maybe it's a curse that we can build into a campaign hook), but it's commonly mentioned as being, supposedly, blatantly abusable. How could we render it un-abusable?
---
Most abuses hinge on the supposed ability to produce an infinite number of chickens as a free action, which hinge on two of three things:
1.) It's a free action to drop a held object;
and
2.) If you have Quick Draw, it's a free action to draw a weapon. If you have n weapons on you, you can, as a free action, draw approximately n chickens (draw weapons until you run out of weapons, and there's a 50% chance each weapon will be a chicken);
or
3.) It's a free action to draw a spell component from a spell component pouch, and spell component pouches contain an indefinite amount of spell components (this is also the trick behind the "infinite bat poop as a free action" trick).
It seems to miss most people that a chicken is neither a weapon nor a spell component, so drawing one will never be a free action, and you still use up one of your move actions every time you draw one, so you can still only draw at most two chickens per round. Though a case could be made that a chicken could be a weapon, particularly if you took Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Chicken), so let's just add a clause to the flaw that "Drawing a chicken is always a move action" to clear up any confusion.
---
It's still possible to produce n chickens, it just takes at least n/2 rounds (you can produce 20 chickens a minute). However, unless you kill or otherwise keep track of them, it should be noted, most of these chickens should just be cycling in from the crowd of chickens around you. You draw a chicken, drop it, and the next round it finds its way back into your pack, as chickens do. So at any given time, you should only really have a few chickens, rather than an indefinite number. But if you kill each chicken as you draw it, where do the new chickens come from? A good question, with no good answer, on the same lines as "where do all my socks go when they vanish from the dryer?"
---
At this point, let's take a slight digression and determine the exact stats of the chickens.
Well, the monster entry for the raven says "The statistics presented here can describe most nonpredatory birds of similar size." The chicken is indeed a nonpredatory bird of similar size to the raven, although chickens cannot fly.
That's easy enough to fix: let's treat chickens as ravens, but replace Fly 40 with Glide 20 (so a chicken never takes falling damage, and it can travel 20 feet sideways for every 10 feet it falls).
---
Other possible abuses:
Infinite food. This is not a problem if you've got a 5th level cleric, which, to be fair, you probably shouldn't. It's not really a problem in any other game, either, unless you're really paying attention to resource management.
Infinite cash, if you sell the chickens. But the law of supply and demand means you'll swiftly get diminishing returns on your chickens, and eventually will be unable to find anyone to take your chickens.
Things which deal damage to creatures in a radius and which give you a corresponding buff for each one. This is, yes, a little problematic, though in combat you'll only be able to get the benefit from 2 chickens per round, which is hardly an effective use of your action economy at the level you get that ability.
Things which animate all corpses in a radius. Particularly combined with the former. In combat, you'll still only be able to produce 2 chicken skeletons a round, which, again, hardly an effective use of your actions. Out of combat, given some time to prepare, you can freely produce chicken skeletons up to your maximum number of HD of undead controlled. You can then turn them all into bombs. At this point, you're getting into so much effort that I'm willing to just allow it. (Especially as I'm disinclined to allow the sort of Divine Metamagic abuse that makes it feasible.)
These can all be solved with a blanket clause: If you pull too many chickens in an attempt to abuse your curse, some of them may be more powerful, hostile chickens. I'm thinking some combination of Titanic, Monster of Legend, and Fiendish.
---
And the one which I don't think I've ever seen mentioned, but which is still of concern: you could simply kill the chickens for experience. They're not summoned or conjured or created or any of the other standard terms, they're just there, so none of the limits on XP for summoned creatures apply. The whole party could automatically level up to level 8 (especially with the above tricks like automatic damage in a radius), at which point you abruptly stop getting experience from the CR1/6 chickens.
This is easily solved: add a clause specifying that these chickens are worth no experience points.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Bloodlines, Monster Classes, and Level Adjustment
As mentioned in earlier posts, I sometimes use the bloodline levels from Unearthed Arcana. I also disapprove of too much unnecessary cruft dragging characters down. Particularly in the case of the nearly-useless minor bloodlines - the only good reason to take them is RP.
So I use them slightly differently. In my game, each bloodline level isn't a level so much as it is a level adjustment. At certain intervals, instead of taking a bloodline level, you increase your level adjustment by one. It doesn't count as a class level for any purpose. However, because this is level adjustment, it can be reduced like any level adjustment.
Say you have a minor bloodline. When you ding 12th level, you need to increase your level adjustment instead of gaining a class level. But, since minor bloodlines count as a +1 LA, you may then spend 3,000, 6,000, or 11,000 experience (depending which LA reduction system you're using) to pay it off.
If you have an intermediate bloodline, then when you ding 6th and 12th levels, you need to take a level adjustment. At any time, you may reduce these level adjustments as if you were an LA+2 creature. Same goes for major bloodlines, except you gain LA at 3rd, 6th, and 12th level, and you may reduce them as if you were an LA+3 creature.
You may not, however, ever reduce your LA below +0.
---
I also allow monster classes, as from Savage Species, Libris Mortis, and some of the Races of books.
Monster classes for creatures that have level adjustment include empty levels, where your effective character level increases and you gain some powers, but you gain no hit dice or skill points. HeroForge even represents these empty levels straightforwardly as level adjustment.
I allow these, too, to be reduced as level adjustment. The experience cost is determined by the total number of empty levels of the monster class, which is to say, the total LA of the final creature.
For example, take the myconid monster class I posted some time ago. The full progression includes 6 HD and 6 empty levels. Put another way, a full-power myconid sovereign has 6 HD and +6 LA. At any point, a myconid character may pay off its empty levels, reducing its ECL but losing no abilities, as if it were already a +6 LA creature.
Again, you may never reduce your LA below +0.
So I use them slightly differently. In my game, each bloodline level isn't a level so much as it is a level adjustment. At certain intervals, instead of taking a bloodline level, you increase your level adjustment by one. It doesn't count as a class level for any purpose. However, because this is level adjustment, it can be reduced like any level adjustment.
Say you have a minor bloodline. When you ding 12th level, you need to increase your level adjustment instead of gaining a class level. But, since minor bloodlines count as a +1 LA, you may then spend 3,000, 6,000, or 11,000 experience (depending which LA reduction system you're using) to pay it off.
If you have an intermediate bloodline, then when you ding 6th and 12th levels, you need to take a level adjustment. At any time, you may reduce these level adjustments as if you were an LA+2 creature. Same goes for major bloodlines, except you gain LA at 3rd, 6th, and 12th level, and you may reduce them as if you were an LA+3 creature.
You may not, however, ever reduce your LA below +0.
---
I also allow monster classes, as from Savage Species, Libris Mortis, and some of the Races of books.
Monster classes for creatures that have level adjustment include empty levels, where your effective character level increases and you gain some powers, but you gain no hit dice or skill points. HeroForge even represents these empty levels straightforwardly as level adjustment.
I allow these, too, to be reduced as level adjustment. The experience cost is determined by the total number of empty levels of the monster class, which is to say, the total LA of the final creature.
For example, take the myconid monster class I posted some time ago. The full progression includes 6 HD and 6 empty levels. Put another way, a full-power myconid sovereign has 6 HD and +6 LA. At any point, a myconid character may pay off its empty levels, reducing its ECL but losing no abilities, as if it were already a +6 LA creature.
Again, you may never reduce your LA below +0.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Epic Feats as Regular Feats
It was brought to my attention that most of the so-called "[Epic]" feats are not actually particularly epic at all. When I examined the list, I found several which later supplements had introduced as non-[Epic] feats, and several which are simply bad when compared to available non-[Epic] feats.
So I went through and picked out all the epic feats that a.) didn't have epic prerequisites outside of being [Epic] (eg, if it requires more than 23 ranks in a skill, it does no good to allow it as a non-epic feat) and b.) weren't too overpowered for lower-level play.
Some of them call for class features you won't be getting until the very high teens, but at least there's no more arbitrary "must be level 21+" restrictions.
You still need extraordinarily high ability scores for many of them, but that's possible, especially if you're a monster with LA or take a few of the "Great [Ability Score]" feats, which may be the most controversial [Epic] feats to allow.
So here are my new houserules for [Epic] feats:
---
You may take the following [Epic] feats as normal feats even if you are not an epic-level character, provided you meet all the other prerequisites:
Additional Magic Item Space
Blinding Speed
Bonus Domain
Bulwark of Defense
Chaotic Rage
Colossal Wild Shape
Combat Archery
Damage Reduction
Devastating Critical
Dexterous Fortitude
Dexterous Will
Diminutive Wild Shape
Dire Charge
Distant Shot
Energy Resistance
Enhance Spell
Epic Endurance
Epic Skill Focus
Epic Speed
Epic Spell Focus
Epic Spell Penetration
Exceptional Deflection
Extended Life Span
Familiar Spell
Fast Healing
Fine Wild Shape
Gargantuan Wild Shape
Great Charisma
Great Constitution
Great Dexterity
Great Intelligence
Great Smiting
Great Strength
Great Wisdom
Holy Strike
Improved Alignment-Based Casting
Improved Arrow of Death
Improved Aura of Courage
Improved Aura of Despair
Improved Combat Casting
Improved Combat Reflexes
Improved Darkvision
Improved Death Attack
Improved Elemental Wild Shape
Improved Favored Enemy
Improved Heighten Spell
Improved Ki Strike
Improved Low-Light Vision
Improved Manifestation
Improved Sneak Attack
Improved Spell Capacity
Improved Spell Resistance
Improved Stunning Fist
Improved Whirlwind Attack
Incite Rage
Infinite Deflection
Instant Reload
Keen Strike
Legendary Wrestler
Lingering Damage
Master Staff
Master Wand
Mighty Rage
Mobile Defense
Multispell
Multiweapon Rend
Negative Energy Burst
Overwhelming Critical
Perfect Health
Perfect Multiweapon Fighting
Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting
Planar Turning
Polyglot
Positive Energy Aura
Reflect Arrows
Righteous Strike
Ruinous Rage
Shattering Strike
Sneak Attack of Opportunity
Spectral Strike
Spell Knowledge
Spellcasting Harrier
Storm of Throws
Superior Initiative
Swarm of Arrows
Tenacious Magic
Thundering Rage
Two-Weapon Rend
Uncanny Accuracy
Undead Mastery
Unholy Strike
Vorpal Strike
Widen Aura of Courage
Widen Aura of Despair
Zone of Animation
Additionally, you may take the following [Epic] feats, provided you meet the new prerequisites given here:
Feat - Prerequisite
Armor Skin - Improved Toughness, Con 21
Epic Fortitude - Great Fortitude
Epic Prowess - Greater Weapon Focus with any weapon, proficient with any Exotic weapon
Epic Reflexes - Lightning Reflexes
Epic Reputation - Negotiator, Persuasive, Cha 21
Epic Toughness - Improved Toughness
Epic Will - Iron Will
So I went through and picked out all the epic feats that a.) didn't have epic prerequisites outside of being [Epic] (eg, if it requires more than 23 ranks in a skill, it does no good to allow it as a non-epic feat) and b.) weren't too overpowered for lower-level play.
Some of them call for class features you won't be getting until the very high teens, but at least there's no more arbitrary "must be level 21+" restrictions.
You still need extraordinarily high ability scores for many of them, but that's possible, especially if you're a monster with LA or take a few of the "Great [Ability Score]" feats, which may be the most controversial [Epic] feats to allow.
So here are my new houserules for [Epic] feats:
---
You may take the following [Epic] feats as normal feats even if you are not an epic-level character, provided you meet all the other prerequisites:
Additional Magic Item Space
Blinding Speed
Bonus Domain
Bulwark of Defense
Chaotic Rage
Colossal Wild Shape
Combat Archery
Damage Reduction
Devastating Critical
Dexterous Fortitude
Dexterous Will
Diminutive Wild Shape
Dire Charge
Distant Shot
Energy Resistance
Enhance Spell
Epic Endurance
Epic Skill Focus
Epic Speed
Epic Spell Focus
Epic Spell Penetration
Exceptional Deflection
Extended Life Span
Familiar Spell
Fast Healing
Fine Wild Shape
Gargantuan Wild Shape
Great Charisma
Great Constitution
Great Dexterity
Great Intelligence
Great Smiting
Great Strength
Great Wisdom
Holy Strike
Improved Alignment-Based Casting
Improved Arrow of Death
Improved Aura of Courage
Improved Aura of Despair
Improved Combat Casting
Improved Combat Reflexes
Improved Darkvision
Improved Death Attack
Improved Elemental Wild Shape
Improved Favored Enemy
Improved Heighten Spell
Improved Ki Strike
Improved Low-Light Vision
Improved Manifestation
Improved Sneak Attack
Improved Spell Capacity
Improved Spell Resistance
Improved Stunning Fist
Improved Whirlwind Attack
Incite Rage
Infinite Deflection
Instant Reload
Keen Strike
Legendary Wrestler
Lingering Damage
Master Staff
Master Wand
Mighty Rage
Mobile Defense
Multispell
Multiweapon Rend
Negative Energy Burst
Overwhelming Critical
Perfect Health
Perfect Multiweapon Fighting
Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting
Planar Turning
Polyglot
Positive Energy Aura
Reflect Arrows
Righteous Strike
Ruinous Rage
Shattering Strike
Sneak Attack of Opportunity
Spectral Strike
Spell Knowledge
Spellcasting Harrier
Storm of Throws
Superior Initiative
Swarm of Arrows
Tenacious Magic
Thundering Rage
Two-Weapon Rend
Uncanny Accuracy
Undead Mastery
Unholy Strike
Vorpal Strike
Widen Aura of Courage
Widen Aura of Despair
Zone of Animation
Additionally, you may take the following [Epic] feats, provided you meet the new prerequisites given here:
Feat - Prerequisite
Armor Skin - Improved Toughness, Con 21
Epic Fortitude - Great Fortitude
Epic Prowess - Greater Weapon Focus with any weapon, proficient with any Exotic weapon
Epic Reflexes - Lightning Reflexes
Epic Reputation - Negotiator, Persuasive, Cha 21
Epic Toughness - Improved Toughness
Epic Will - Iron Will
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)