Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Martryn 11-01-04, 07:56 PM	Okay. I think that I will be posting a lot of stuff here in the next few days, so look for me and please respond with positive criticism. I don't know if something like this is available, but I was thinking about it a lot. I have recently become a huge fan of Naruto, so much so that I am converting my Oriental region of my campaign world to something really similar to the show. I was thinking of designing a new core class, something that uses chakra to power their spells. And I want this class to have a lot of options on different things it can do with the chakra. Lets lay down some basics: First, I want to convey that the class is supposed to come off as a ninja type character. They will have skills similar to the rogue, and probably 6 skill points a level. And they have a very limited amount of chakra at low levels. They might not actually be able to use chakra techniques until level 2 or 3. It will be similar to a spell point system. The more levels you have, the higher number of chakra points you would have. This would be further modified by CON (I think that that would be best) and perhaps one other factor (haven't thought of it yet, but it would be like a bloodline thing or something) The class would use standard spells as techniques and I don't think that any spell would be barred. Each spell would be modified for the chakra system, and the system would end up where they can cast higher level spells quicker, but the point system will allow them less spells per day. The more chakra you use, the more tired you are. If a chakra user uses up all their chakra, they take penalties, or become fatigued, or something of the like. Alot of techniques can be improved by just channeling more chakra into it. Take a shocking grasp spell. It would take up a certain amount of chakra for the standard technique, but you can channel more into it to increase damage, up the damage dice, add bonuses to attack, and so forth. They could also take a spell like spider climb or mage armor and make it take up a certain amount of chakra per round instead of having a set duration. Geez, this is making it sound a lot like a psionist. So... They would also use the monk base attack bonus. Their good save would be reflex. They are proficient with monk weapons and no armor. If you take a level in another class, you can't continue advancing in this one, unless that other class is monk or another ninja type class. I want to balance this a little with suggestions from you guys, so I left alot of it vague. I'm hoping that this could be like a work in progress here on this board.
Nuntius128 11-01-04, 08:07 PM	I'd suggest that after each daily use of a Chakra ability, the user must make a Will save DC 5 to keep from becoming fatigued, unable to use Chakra until they are no longer fatigued. Each use after the first adds +2 to the DC of the saving throw, and they may use Chakra abilities a number of times each day equal to their Wisdom modifier without attempting the saving throw. Example: G'rresh, a Githzerai 7th level Monk has a Wisdom of 19, with a modifier of +4. He may use his Chakra abilities 4 times per day without making the saving throw. Also, the feat Tireless should not be allowed to make the character immune to this fatigue, for the sake of freebie Chakra uses, say if there were a Chakra healing ability. PS, if you want to work on Chakra abilities, I'd say to look up some info on the chakras, and heck them accordingly. My idea I was fiddling with was to add your wisdom modifier to other modifiers for a duration. I'll work some out if you want, I'm getting some ideas, but I must be running.
Nuntius128 11-01-04, 10:57 PM	OK I'm back. I'll go ahead and write up a few ideas for Chakra abilities that I've had. Keep in mind that I have no knowledge of Naruto, short of awareness of its existence, so I don't know how chakras are portrayed, I'm going by the holistic new age descriptions of the 7 chakras. Chakras: When each of the individual Chakras are activated, the Chakra user adds their Wisdom modifier to the given ability score for a number of minutes equal to their appropriate class level(dunno if you planned on making a seperate class/PrC). They also gain any extra abilities as listed while the Chakra is activated. Crown Chakra= Intelligence Brow Chakra= Wisdom Throat Chakra= Charisma Heart Chakra= Constitution Power Chakra= Strength Solar Plexus Chakra= Dexterity Base Chakra= For each minute the Chakra user stays in meditation, they may use one daily use of each Chakra to make a Concentration check with a DC 15. Every round that the Concentration is held, they gain Regeneration equal to their Wisdom modifier for every round. The Chakra duration does not change. Of course, those are only my off the top ideas. I don't know if that's anything that you're looking for, but feel free to incorporate and change as you see fit.
Martryn 11-02-04, 12:24 AM	What I had in mind was a base class available to those who have had some kind of training. Like I said, I am trying to base the idea off a popular anime in Japan that hasn't seen the states yet. In the show, the characters are actually ninjas who use chakra to produce things that look similar to DnD spells. Like one character has an ability to breath fire. They do this with a series of hand movements where they sign the chinese zodiac for different affects. Hence, a somatic component. The class would be akin to the monk, with a monk's base attack and weapon proficiencies. Probably use the monk movement rate and skill list. And I think even the AC bonus given by WIS and the regular AC bonus that monks get. However, the class would only have reflex as a good save, and have no bonus feats or special abilities. Their attack die would also not increase, at least not without chakra. The one thing that it has to balance out is the chakra techniques. Each technique would have to be learned, and the chakra user would only get one technique per level. Take a wizard spell like shocking grasp. In Naruto there is a character that uses a technique where lightning envelopes his hand. He then uses this to inflict some serious damage and can punch sheer holes through boulders and stuff. The spell shocking grasp obviously is not that powerful, but the more chakra devoted to it, the more powerful it becomes. Let's say that every level you get 3 + CON bonus + 1d8 worth of chakra points. For a 1st level spell, unmodified, it takes 3 chakra points to use as a technique, and you only know one or two techniques of your choice at 1st level. Now lets take that shocking grasp and use it as a ninja technique requiring chakra. 3 points used. Lets say that you can increase the attack die from a d6 to a d8 for the cost of the original technique. That's another three. Lets say that you can get a bonus to attack equal to the amount of chakra points you want to spend. Now something is shaping up. For something like mage armor, how about instead of a duration of an hour a level, how about a chakra point per round, activated by a free action. Because using chakra is draining to the body, dropping below 50% of your chakra value will cause fatigue and dropping below 25% will cause exhaustion. With suck steep penalties, let's have chakra regenerate itself at a rate of CON modifier per hour. Any strenuous activity including combat, running, skill checks requiring a physical ability score interrupts the hour. Does any of that sound balanced or is it too complicated or what do you guys think?
WihHizwind 11-02-04, 02:14 AM	Basic comments: A chakra user is sounding like a cross between a monk and a psionicist (I'm sorry if my views of Psionics are different to others, the only experience with Psi I've had was with Psionics Ascedant, so yeah), or rather a Monk who uses ki as a spellcasting ability, rather than an innate ability. The way I'd do it would be that there would 3 types of techniques: Abilities (ie, tree climbing, replacement technique etc. Make some sort of check, if you fail, it drains your chakra, and possibly doesn't work) Immediate Techniques (ie, a fireball technique. Make a roll of some form, most likely something to do with the chakras, or with your skill with the elements involved, if you succeed, it goes off. Drains chakra even if you fail.) Continious Techniques (ie, sharingan or a transformation technique. Drains chakra each round, perhaps a concentration check?) Rather than doing what was suggested with the less chakra left = fatigued etc, I'd make it that whenever a chakra point is expended, you take a point of subdual damage, or some amount, minus your CON modifier.
Martryn 11-02-04, 04:47 AM	Finally someone who knows what I'm talking about. I also got the impression of a monk psion when I started typing the details. But here is how I would address what you brought up: A technique like tree climbing is similar enough to the spider climb spell. Spider climb is a level two spell and I stand by what I said about the chakra user having to learn techniques instead of being able to just do them. I would say that to learn a technique you must be taught that technique or develop it on your own (represented by leveling up). I think I would give them spellcraft as a skill and have learning a technique a spellcraft check with a moderate to hard DC. Not saying that if you failed the check you would not learn the technique, but rather it would take much longer to learn because you have difficulty mastering it. Spider climb, even though a 2nd level spell, would probably take up one chakra point per round, representing a loss of chakra, but at a tolerable amount for the rate at which it regenerates. I also believe that it should require a check to use the technique, probably DC 10 + spell level, but without rolling a one counting as an automatic failure (I hate that rule anyways). Or maybe a technique like the spider climb would last for ten minutes per level per five chakra points spent. Or two minutes per level per single chakra point. Skill with an element is a good idea. I like the idea though of being able to further power your techniques if you wanted to by expending additional chakra. Bumping up a damage die or adding a metamagic feat or increasing the range or duration. Stuff like that can be worked out later. I think techniques like Sasuke's dragon element fire breath thing shouldn't require a roll, except maybe a concentration check as circumstances require. I've never seen something like that fail except when it is interrupted. The sharingan I would leave for something like a prestige class only available to those of a certain bloodline. Or a template for characters from certain famalies. I have given a lot of thought to Shino's bugs as well and how things like that could be translated. I really want to integrate this stuff into my game, much like anything else I have ever thought was cool, and so have been going over ideas in my head. I am certainly going to leave the fatigued stuff because it makes too much sense within the content of the show, but I was thinking about doing subdual damage as well. Maybe they have to make a CON check as they use the technique or suffer an amount of subdual damage equal to the amount of chakra expended. They would get a bonus equal to their check equal to their class level. The DC would be 10 + amount of chakra used. Still playing around with ideas in my head, but the feedback brought up a lot of good points I'm going to think about while trying to get to sleep.
Nuntius128 11-02-04, 08:04 AM	Finally someone who knows what I'm talking about. Hey, if you aren't going to be specific in what you want, don't ask for help. I gave you the outline of what the abilities would look like if you converted the real world interpretation of the chakras, you never said that you wanted it to be just another rip-off of anime. Fanboy.
Martryn 11-02-04, 03:02 PM	What I meant by that little comment was finally, someone else posting. I had expected more people to post on this thread, and now it is in danger of falling off the first page which I don't want to see happen. And I hadn't expected that anyone would know what I'm talking about because the show hasn't yet been released in America. Your second post is similar to a concept in the show called the chakra gates. Chakra gates allow for more chakra to be used in the body by increasing the flow of chakra from a trickle to a flood. And I do think there were seven of them. And I wasn't too specific in my first post and nor did I mean to be. I meant no offense with my comment. I guess you could call me a fanboy, but you are talking to a guy that watches Willow with his best friend and has a conversation with him about the alignment change Sorcia undergoes. Anything that I see that I can convert to DnD terms, I do, because I am a super geek. I'm sorry if it offends you. Like I said, I am designing a campaign world and my players are eventually going to go to the criental nations in the East, and I wanted something unique about my oriental nations than I have seen in other campaigns. Naruto seems to fit perfectly, so I'm going to give development a shot. Keep up the ideas, Nuntius. Having knowledge of the show is not required OR expected.
Shadowfoot 11-02-04, 03:22 PM	Since my suggestions were completely ignored, they're gone.
Nuntius128 11-02-04, 04:38 PM	Its cool, Martryn, I understand. I was just annoyed that you barely even responded to my ideas, and said they weren't what you were looking for, without really saying what you were looking for. And those are just some abilities I thought of. The erst of the class can have more stuff with it, more Ninja style things, as you see fit. For example, they could have the Spellcasting abilities of a Paladin, or maybe even a Wizard(the Chakras replacing a few spells or Feats/Familiar). An example for how the Chakra abilities can be attained might look like this: Level.....Ability 1..........Chakra Gate 1 2.......... 3..........Chakra Gate 2 4.......... 5.......... 6..........Chakra Gate 3 7.......... 8.......... 9..........Chakra Gate 4 10......... 11......... 12.........Chakra Gate 5 13......... 14......... 15.........Chakra Gate 6 16......... 17......... 18.........Chakra Gate 7 19......... 20......... And of course, there could be an amount of Spells that you want to add in. I was thinking of the Paladin's spells. Although, if you look at the Shaman progression(OA), they have a Cleric's spellcasting, as well as several other abilities. If you use Shaman as your structure, you can potentially still give them other abilities and spells. I only am not using the suggested point system because I find it to be more complicated than is worth it(at least, for me).
Martryn 11-02-04, 07:46 PM	Here's what I'm thinking now. Every other level the chakra user can choose one spell from any list and learn that spell and use it as a chakra technique. Any other techniques can be gained by training with another chakra user at the rate of one week of training per spell level learned. I've been thinking of the best way to put this, but use this example. He can only learn level one spells as techniques at 1st level. At third he can learn a level two spell as a technique, or another level one. At 5th it would be a level 3 or lower spell as a technique. And if he tried to learn something like hold person, it would count as the cleric spell because it is a level lower. And I like the chakra point system I developed, saying that a level 1 spell used as a technique would require 3 points. The spell's duration can be extended by doubling the chakra points. Or you can break it down round by round as I did with spider climb. If the spell uses dice, you can increase the dice up a step, i.e. d6<d8<d10<d12, by increasing the amount of chakra used by three a step per level of technique. So a fireball type technique would normally cost 7 points for a 3rd level, but you could throw it down as a 5d12 for 34 points (7+(9*3)). And you can pump up the number of dice for 4 chakra points. So a 6d6 fireball at fifth level would be 11 points. Okay, I like the idea of being able to open a certain number of chakra gates as you go up levels, but I don't seeing it as being a meditative type class. How about something where opening up a chakra gate requires three chakra per round per number of gates opened. And opening one gate will increase your ability scores by +2 each, and double your movement. But that sounds like too much. How about being able to take the ability to open a gate in place of learning a technique every other level? I need to think on what opening different gates might entail to the chakra user. Increased speed and ability scores for sure, but I don't like the bonuses to skills like diplomacy. Maybe spot, listen, climb, ect. And I think that the different affects at higher level don't fit with my character, and neither do the spell-like abilities obtained. That's what learning techniques is all about. I was worried that the point system I am developing is too complicated. Maybe they could acquire those abilities like metamagic feats. Empower spell might do this and require this much extra chakra, ect. That would tone down the character. I haven't seen the chaman class in a while, so I can't remember anything about them. I'm too poor to buy OA right now, but it is something I am getting ASAP. Like I said, I'm thinking of a modified monk class. It is slowly coming together. I might post a level advancement chart pretty soon. And then tinkering with abilities will be easier.
The Grinning Pint 11-02-04, 08:06 PM	Brow Chakra= Wisdom . So if they had a wis on 19, which is mod of 4, they could use this three times, then use any one. watch what happens. 4 wis gained first time 6 wis gained second time 9! wis gained the next time. And then... 14 any whatever. =( Mysterious.
Martryn 11-02-04, 09:33 PM	Maybe an ability gained at a higher level would be something that allowed them to convert chakra to an ability score increase for a round. Maybe something they get as a class ability at about level 7. Maybe for every 8 chakra points expended, they would gain +2 to a physical ability score for a round. And at the end of it, they take subdual damage equal to twice the increase of the score, representing physical exhaustion. I took a look at the paladin spell list and I'm leaning more to a modified assassin spell list if you think that having a spell list to choose techniques from is best. I would want to increase the capacity to allow 9th level spells because this is a spellcasting class. Just that their spells or techniques known should be almost nothing compared to that of a wizard or sorcerer. Tonight I'm going to work on my campaign and I'll try to develop what I've come up with so far and post.
Martryn 11-02-04, 09:38 PM	I think I'm repeating myself. I blame my rattled brain on the election. Sorry.