a question of balence [Archive] - Wizards Community

a question of balence [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
da'Loharon
11-04-04, 09:58 AM I am writing my own campane setting and i was wondering if i could get your opinion on a few things. Mostly my problem is finding balence when making rule or abilitiies.

First This is a list of feats i was thinking about adding and i was wondering what you thoght about them and i need help finishing a few of them.

Improved Planer Step
Prerequisites: Dodge, Mobility, Run, Planer Charge, Planer Step, Spring Attack, and Traveler
Benefits: As a move equivilated action a traveler may make a Planer Step equal to his full run speed

Improved Planer Walk
A more powerful form of Planer walk
Prerequisites: Dodge, Planer Walk, and Traveler
Benefits: Your dodge bonuses increase to 4 and miss chance to 50

Other Sight
The ability to see in to other planes
Prerequisites: Traveler and 6 ranks in spot
Benefits: you can see in to other plains without an opening to that plain
Note: This is a full round action
DC modifiers
5 if in Astral or Etheric
10 if in one of the inner plains
20 if in one of the outer plains
5-25 if conditions are bad. astral storms, plain shifts, ext..

Plain Sift
I wonted to alow the ability to pick up plain sift as a super natural ability and i dont know how to do this with out throwing of balence
Prerequisites: Reuse Gate, Traveler
Benefits: ??

Planer Charge
Prerequisites: Traveler
Benefits: when making a charge you can make turns of no more than 90 degrees, a number of times equal to his Wis. Modifier.

Planer Step
Prerequisites: Dodge, Mobility, Planer Charge, Spring Attack, and Traveler
Benefits: As a move equivilated action a traveler may move at his full walk speed and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If you encounter walls you may travel up them as if they where the ground but if you end your turn on a wall you will fall unless you have something to grab.

Planer Strike
The ability to strike creatures that are not fully present
Prerequisites: Power Attack and Traveler
Benefits: You may make attacks ignoring a creatures miss chance that is based one being in another plain ghost, things with shadow walk, ext..

Planer Walk
Do to the fact that the traveler is a creature of two plans they are able to partially shift between the two plains to defend themselves.
Prerequisites: Dodge and Traveler
Benefits: you get a 2 dodge bonus and a 20 miss chance.
Note: The dodge bonus form this feat stack with dodge. Ghost touch weapons ignore the miss chance

Reuse Gate
Prerequisites: Swift Return, Traveler, and 15 ranks of knowledge: Plans and Arcana
Benefits: you can sense old gate dc 15 search, like the elf sense secret doors, tell were they go dc 5+caster level+1/day ago it was cast (Knowledge: Planes) and reopen them dc 10+caster level+1/day ago it was cast (knowledge: Arcana)

Swift Return
When traveling to other plains you can always get back
Prerequisites: Traveler and 9 ranks of Knowledge: Plains
Benefits: when traveling to another a Traveler my at any time as a move equivilated action return to the plain they just came from.

Traveler
Born of an outsider your are destined to be a traveler of the plains
Prerequisites: Must be the non-outsider descendent of an outsider.
Benefits: Gain a 2 bonus to fort and 2 bonus to will for saves made to resist traveling spells
Special: Must be taken at first level

Secondly I made up a prestige class and i was wondering what poeple thought about it

Bone Mage Prestige Class

Hit Die: d6
Requirements
Feats: any 2 item creation feats
Skills: 8 ranks in Craft: Bonesmithing
Spells: ability to cast 3rd level arcane

Class Skills: Appraise(int), Concentration(con), Craft:any(int), Heal(wis), Intimidate(Cha), Knowlegde:any(int),Spellcraft(int)

Skill points: 2+ int modifier Per level

Bone Mage
Class Attack Fort Reflex Will
Level Bonus Save Save Save Special Spells
1 0 0 0 2 Scribe Bones 1 caster class
2 1 0 0 3 Craft Bone Arms and Armor, Bone Mastery 1 1 caster class
3 1 1 1 3 Carve Bones, Bone Shards 1 caster class
4 2 1 1 4 Craft bone items, Bone Mastery 2 1 caster class
5 2 1 1 4 Craft Bone Wands 1 caster class
6 3 2 2 5 Improved Animate Skeletons, Bone Mastery 3 1 caster class
7 3 2 2 5 Craft Bone rods, Bone Components 1 caster class
8 4 3 2 6 Animate Skeleton Mage, Bone Mastery4 1 caster class
9 4 3 3 6 Carve bone ring 1 caster class
10 5 3 3 7 Craft Bone Staff, Bone Mastery 5,Skeletal Cohort 1 caster class
(sorry i couldn't get it to come out right)

Class Features
Scribe Bones: as the feat scribe scroll
Craft Bone: as the feats Arms and Armor, wondrous items, wands, rods, rings, and staffs
Carve Bones: instead of brew potions you carve bones useable for allbreak bone to use
Bone Shards: ritual spell - imbues 4D6 bone shards that become skeletons

Bone Shard Ritual:
Take 4 skeletons or corpses and place them in a cross formation w/ their heads in the center. Place an onyx gem worth at least 150 GP into each skeletons eye or mouth. Take a fifth skeleton and break it into shards which you place in a bowl. Place the bowl in between the 4 skeletons and imbue the shards with the animate dead spellthis uses 2 castings of animate dead. This will provide you with 4D6 shards which when thrown on the ground create one skeleton per shard. The skeletons and gems are consumed in the ritual.

Bone Mastery: a bonus to your craft: bone check, and - x5 spell failure when wearing bone armor
Improved Animate Skeletons: your skeletons are raised with fighter levels per HD and keep their original number of HD, Your max number of controlled undead is now caster level x 6
Bone Components: spell components are replaced by bones expensive bits can be rare bones
Animate Skeleton Mage:The bone mage can grant a skeletons spell like abilitys when it is first animated. The skeleton can cast at will one spell the bone mage knows for every 2 hd the skeleton has, a single skeleton can never have more spell-like abilities than 1/2 of the bone mages caster level.
Skeletal Cohort: gain a cohort with the skeletal template
LukiLoki
11-04-04, 01:26 PM In general, these feats are too powerful.

In particular, Plane Shift and Gate are not powers that should be granted by a feat. A +4 dodge bonus AND a 50% miss chance (improved Planar Walk) is essentially as good as a permanent Mage Armor plus permanent Displacement, well beyond the power of a feat. Improved Planar Step is much better than Expeditious Retreat, and verges on a limited Dimension Door, cast as a move action to boot.

I would consider making these class abilities of another PrC, perhaps leaving Traveler as a feat and making it one of the prereqs for the class.

Your Bone Mage doesn't seem horribly broken. The one thing that jumps out is the d6 HD. Most of the arcane caster PrCs are d4.

Try a Traveler Prestige Class. These are interesting ideas, but they just don't hang on the "feat" peg very well.
Ilium
11-04-04, 02:08 PM I agree. A Prestige Class that requires you be Planetouched, have this Traveler feat, and maybe a skill requirement of some kind (Knowledge(Planes) probably) to ensure the character is at least "X" level before entering it.

My rule of thumb is that if a class ability mimics a spell, the character should be able to get it about the same time as (or a little earlier than) a dedicated spellcaster.

For example, Lesser Planar Ally can be cast by a 7th-level cleric, so when I gave that as an ability for a new core class, they got it at 7th level. If it was a prestige class that couldn't be started until 6th character level, I would allow the ability at 1st or 2nd class level.
da'Loharon
11-04-04, 08:09 PM thanks for the crit
how ablout this, it's not done but thats mostly because i couldn't think what to do for skills and first level

Traveler (Feat)
Born of an outsider you are destined to be a traveler of the plains
Prerequisites: Must be the non-outsider descendent of an outsider.
Benefits: Gain a +2 bonus to fort and +2 bonus to will for saves made to resist traveling spells
Special: Must be taken at first level

Traveler (Prestige Class)
Hit Die: d6

Requirements
Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Power Attack and Traveler
Skills: Knowledge: the plains 9 ranks
Spells: ???????

Class Skills: ???????
Skill points per level 6 + int modifier

Traveler
Class Attack Fort Reflex Will
Level Bonus Save Save Save Special Spells
1 0 0 2 2 ???????? +1 caster Level
2 1 0 3 3 Planer Walk -
3 2 1 3 3 Other Sight +1 caster Level
4 3 1 4 4 Planer Step -
5 3 1 4 4 Planer Strike +1 caster Level
6 4 2 5 5 Swift Return -
7 5 2 5 5 Improved Planer Walk +1 caster Level
8 6 3 6 6 Reuse gate -
9 6 3 6 6 Improved Planer Step +1 caster Level
10 7 3 7 7 Plain Shift 1/day -

Class Features

First level ??????????

Planer Walk (Su):At 2nd level the traveler gains to partial phase out of reality gaining a +2 dodge bonus and a 20% miss chance. The dodge bonus form this ability stack with all other dodge bonuses. Ghost touch weapons ignore the miss chance
Other Sight (Su): At 3rd level the traveler Gains the ability to see in to other plans without entering them. As a full round action the traveler concentrates and then opens his eyes in to another plane. To see anything you have to make a spot check (DC by chart below)

DCs
5 to see in to the Astral or Etheric
5 to see in to the Material plane
10 to see in to the shadow plan
15 to see in to one of the outer plans

DC modifiers
+5 if in Astral or Etheric
+10 if in the Shadow Plane
+15 if in one of the outer planes
+5-25 if conditions are bad. ( astral storms, plain shifts, ext.….)
(also the gm may add any appropriate modifiers)

Planer Step (Su): At 4th level the traveler gains the ability to phase though the dividers of reality allowing him to defy part of the rules of space time. He may as a move equivalent action move at his full walk speed and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If you encounter walls he may travel up them as if they where the ground but if he end his turn on a wall he will fall unless he has something to grab.
Planer Strike (Su): At 5th level the travel gains the ability to make attacks as if his melee weapons were ghost touch and ignoring a creature’s miss chance from dimension shifting powers (blink, displacement, ex…)
Swift Return (Su): At 6th level a traveler gains the ability to at any time with in 1day/traveler class level return to the plan that he came from as a move equivalent action. One he has use this ability it cannot be used again until he has traveled to another plane.
Improved Planer Walk (Su): At 7th level the traveler’s dodge bonuses from planer walk increase to +4 and miss chance to 50%
Ruse Gate (Su): At 8th level the traveler gains the to sense, recognize and reopen old gates. He can sense old gate (dc 15 search, like the elf sense secret doors), tell were they go (dc 5+caster level+1/day ago it was cast , Knowledge Planes ) and reopen them (dc 10+caster level+1/day ago it was cast)
Improved Planer Step (Su): At 9th level the traveler ability to planer step increases from his walk to his full run speed.
Plane Shift ( Sp): At 10th level the traveler gains the spell Plane Shift as a spell-like ability usable 1/day
LukiLoki
11-04-04, 08:27 PM It's looking good.
I'd ease up on the feat requirements, though. I think you're keeping them because you had them as prereqs. for the abilities when you were conceiving them as feats.
But if you look at it, the requirement of 9 ranks in Know(planes) means a 6th level Wizard, Bard, or Rogue is your "target" character (the character that can take it at the lowest level). But a 6th level (non-fighter) character only has 3 feats, 4 if he's human, but in this case he can't be human because of the Traveler feat prereq. And ALL a character's feats is kinda steep for a PrC requirement anyway.
I'd say the traveler feat and maybe one other or another skill requirement in addition to Know(planes) ought to be enough. Class skills, I'll think on it, but it's not that big of a deal for a skills-light class like this.
da'Loharon
11-05-04, 01:23 PM Actual a 20th level human munk is an outsider and can have non-outsider human children

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
da'Loharon 11-04-04, 09:58 AM	I am writing my own campane setting and i was wondering if i could get your opinion on a few things. Mostly my problem is finding balence when making rule or abilitiies. First This is a list of feats i was thinking about adding and i was wondering what you thoght about them and i need help finishing a few of them. Improved Planer Step Prerequisites: Dodge, Mobility, Run, Planer Charge, Planer Step, Spring Attack, and Traveler Benefits: As a move equivilated action a traveler may make a Planer Step equal to his full run speed Improved Planer Walk A more powerful form of Planer walk Prerequisites: Dodge, Planer Walk, and Traveler Benefits: Your dodge bonuses increase to 4 and miss chance to 50 Other Sight The ability to see in to other planes Prerequisites: Traveler and 6 ranks in spot Benefits: you can see in to other plains without an opening to that plain Note: This is a full round action DC modifiers 5 if in Astral or Etheric 10 if in one of the inner plains 20 if in one of the outer plains 5-25 if conditions are bad. astral storms, plain shifts, ext.. Plain Sift I wonted to alow the ability to pick up plain sift as a super natural ability and i dont know how to do this with out throwing of balence Prerequisites: Reuse Gate, Traveler Benefits: ?? Planer Charge Prerequisites: Traveler Benefits: when making a charge you can make turns of no more than 90 degrees, a number of times equal to his Wis. Modifier. Planer Step Prerequisites: Dodge, Mobility, Planer Charge, Spring Attack, and Traveler Benefits: As a move equivilated action a traveler may move at his full walk speed and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If you encounter walls you may travel up them as if they where the ground but if you end your turn on a wall you will fall unless you have something to grab. Planer Strike The ability to strike creatures that are not fully present Prerequisites: Power Attack and Traveler Benefits: You may make attacks ignoring a creatures miss chance that is based one being in another plain ghost, things with shadow walk, ext.. Planer Walk Do to the fact that the traveler is a creature of two plans they are able to partially shift between the two plains to defend themselves. Prerequisites: Dodge and Traveler Benefits: you get a 2 dodge bonus and a 20 miss chance. Note: The dodge bonus form this feat stack with dodge. Ghost touch weapons ignore the miss chance Reuse Gate Prerequisites: Swift Return, Traveler, and 15 ranks of knowledge: Plans and Arcana Benefits: you can sense old gate dc 15 search, like the elf sense secret doors, tell were they go dc 5+caster level+1/day ago it was cast (Knowledge: Planes) and reopen them dc 10+caster level+1/day ago it was cast (knowledge: Arcana) Swift Return When traveling to other plains you can always get back Prerequisites: Traveler and 9 ranks of Knowledge: Plains Benefits: when traveling to another a Traveler my at any time as a move equivilated action return to the plain they just came from. Traveler Born of an outsider your are destined to be a traveler of the plains Prerequisites: Must be the non-outsider descendent of an outsider. Benefits: Gain a 2 bonus to fort and 2 bonus to will for saves made to resist traveling spells Special: Must be taken at first level Secondly I made up a prestige class and i was wondering what poeple thought about it Bone Mage Prestige Class Hit Die: d6 Requirements Feats: any 2 item creation feats Skills: 8 ranks in Craft: Bonesmithing Spells: ability to cast 3rd level arcane Class Skills: Appraise(int), Concentration(con), Craft:any(int), Heal(wis), Intimidate(Cha), Knowlegde:any(int),Spellcraft(int) Skill points: 2+ int modifier Per level Bone Mage Class Attack Fort Reflex Will Level Bonus Save Save Save Special Spells 1 0 0 0 2 Scribe Bones 1 caster class 2 1 0 0 3 Craft Bone Arms and Armor, Bone Mastery 1 1 caster class 3 1 1 1 3 Carve Bones, Bone Shards 1 caster class 4 2 1 1 4 Craft bone items, Bone Mastery 2 1 caster class 5 2 1 1 4 Craft Bone Wands 1 caster class 6 3 2 2 5 Improved Animate Skeletons, Bone Mastery 3 1 caster class 7 3 2 2 5 Craft Bone rods, Bone Components 1 caster class 8 4 3 2 6 Animate Skeleton Mage, Bone Mastery4 1 caster class 9 4 3 3 6 Carve bone ring 1 caster class 10 5 3 3 7 Craft Bone Staff, Bone Mastery 5,Skeletal Cohort 1 caster class (sorry i couldn't get it to come out right) Class Features Scribe Bones: as the feat scribe scroll Craft Bone: as the feats Arms and Armor, wondrous items, wands, rods, rings, and staffs Carve Bones: instead of brew potions you carve bones useable for allbreak bone to use Bone Shards: ritual spell - imbues 4D6 bone shards that become skeletons Bone Shard Ritual: Take 4 skeletons or corpses and place them in a cross formation w/ their heads in the center. Place an onyx gem worth at least 150 GP into each skeletons eye or mouth. Take a fifth skeleton and break it into shards which you place in a bowl. Place the bowl in between the 4 skeletons and imbue the shards with the animate dead spellthis uses 2 castings of animate dead. This will provide you with 4D6 shards which when thrown on the ground create one skeleton per shard. The skeletons and gems are consumed in the ritual. Bone Mastery: a bonus to your craft: bone check, and - x5 spell failure when wearing bone armor Improved Animate Skeletons: your skeletons are raised with fighter levels per HD and keep their original number of HD, Your max number of controlled undead is now caster level x 6 Bone Components: spell components are replaced by bones expensive bits can be rare bones Animate Skeleton Mage:The bone mage can grant a skeletons spell like abilitys when it is first animated. The skeleton can cast at will one spell the bone mage knows for every 2 hd the skeleton has, a single skeleton can never have more spell-like abilities than 1/2 of the bone mages caster level. Skeletal Cohort: gain a cohort with the skeletal template
LukiLoki 11-04-04, 01:26 PM	In general, these feats are too powerful. In particular, Plane Shift and Gate are not powers that should be granted by a feat. A +4 dodge bonus AND a 50% miss chance (improved Planar Walk) is essentially as good as a permanent Mage Armor plus permanent Displacement, well beyond the power of a feat. Improved Planar Step is much better than Expeditious Retreat, and verges on a limited Dimension Door, cast as a move action to boot. I would consider making these class abilities of another PrC, perhaps leaving Traveler as a feat and making it one of the prereqs for the class. Your Bone Mage doesn't seem horribly broken. The one thing that jumps out is the d6 HD. Most of the arcane caster PrCs are d4. Try a Traveler Prestige Class. These are interesting ideas, but they just don't hang on the "feat" peg very well.
Ilium 11-04-04, 02:08 PM	I agree. A Prestige Class that requires you be Planetouched, have this Traveler feat, and maybe a skill requirement of some kind (Knowledge(Planes) probably) to ensure the character is at least "X" level before entering it. My rule of thumb is that if a class ability mimics a spell, the character should be able to get it about the same time as (or a little earlier than) a dedicated spellcaster. For example, Lesser Planar Ally can be cast by a 7th-level cleric, so when I gave that as an ability for a new core class, they got it at 7th level. If it was a prestige class that couldn't be started until 6th character level, I would allow the ability at 1st or 2nd class level.
da'Loharon 11-04-04, 08:09 PM	thanks for the crit how ablout this, it's not done but thats mostly because i couldn't think what to do for skills and first level Traveler (Feat) Born of an outsider you are destined to be a traveler of the plains Prerequisites: Must be the non-outsider descendent of an outsider. Benefits: Gain a +2 bonus to fort and +2 bonus to will for saves made to resist traveling spells Special: Must be taken at first level Traveler (Prestige Class) Hit Die: d6 Requirements Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Power Attack and Traveler Skills: Knowledge: the plains 9 ranks Spells: ??????? Class Skills: ??????? Skill points per level 6 + int modifier Traveler Class Attack Fort Reflex Will Level Bonus Save Save Save Special Spells 1 0 0 2 2 ???????? +1 caster Level 2 1 0 3 3 Planer Walk - 3 2 1 3 3 Other Sight +1 caster Level 4 3 1 4 4 Planer Step - 5 3 1 4 4 Planer Strike +1 caster Level 6 4 2 5 5 Swift Return - 7 5 2 5 5 Improved Planer Walk +1 caster Level 8 6 3 6 6 Reuse gate - 9 6 3 6 6 Improved Planer Step +1 caster Level 10 7 3 7 7 Plain Shift 1/day - Class Features First level ?????????? Planer Walk (Su):At 2nd level the traveler gains to partial phase out of reality gaining a +2 dodge bonus and a 20% miss chance. The dodge bonus form this ability stack with all other dodge bonuses. Ghost touch weapons ignore the miss chance Other Sight (Su): At 3rd level the traveler Gains the ability to see in to other plans without entering them. As a full round action the traveler concentrates and then opens his eyes in to another plane. To see anything you have to make a spot check (DC by chart below) DCs 5 to see in to the Astral or Etheric 5 to see in to the Material plane 10 to see in to the shadow plan 15 to see in to one of the outer plans DC modifiers +5 if in Astral or Etheric +10 if in the Shadow Plane +15 if in one of the outer planes +5-25 if conditions are bad. ( astral storms, plain shifts, ext.….) (also the gm may add any appropriate modifiers) Planer Step (Su): At 4th level the traveler gains the ability to phase though the dividers of reality allowing him to defy part of the rules of space time. He may as a move equivalent action move at his full walk speed and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If you encounter walls he may travel up them as if they where the ground but if he end his turn on a wall he will fall unless he has something to grab. Planer Strike (Su): At 5th level the travel gains the ability to make attacks as if his melee weapons were ghost touch and ignoring a creature’s miss chance from dimension shifting powers (blink, displacement, ex…) Swift Return (Su): At 6th level a traveler gains the ability to at any time with in 1day/traveler class level return to the plan that he came from as a move equivalent action. One he has use this ability it cannot be used again until he has traveled to another plane. Improved Planer Walk (Su): At 7th level the traveler’s dodge bonuses from planer walk increase to +4 and miss chance to 50% Ruse Gate (Su): At 8th level the traveler gains the to sense, recognize and reopen old gates. He can sense old gate (dc 15 search, like the elf sense secret doors), tell were they go (dc 5+caster level+1/day ago it was cast , Knowledge Planes ) and reopen them (dc 10+caster level+1/day ago it was cast) Improved Planer Step (Su): At 9th level the traveler ability to planer step increases from his walk to his full run speed. Plane Shift ( Sp): At 10th level the traveler gains the spell Plane Shift as a spell-like ability usable 1/day
LukiLoki 11-04-04, 08:27 PM	It's looking good. I'd ease up on the feat requirements, though. I think you're keeping them because you had them as prereqs. for the abilities when you were conceiving them as feats. But if you look at it, the requirement of 9 ranks in Know(planes) means a 6th level Wizard, Bard, or Rogue is your "target" character (the character that can take it at the lowest level). But a 6th level (non-fighter) character only has 3 feats, 4 if he's human, but in this case he can't be human because of the Traveler feat prereq. And ALL a character's feats is kinda steep for a PrC requirement anyway. I'd say the traveler feat and maybe one other or another skill requirement in addition to Know(planes) ought to be enough. Class skills, I'll think on it, but it's not that big of a deal for a skills-light class like this.
da'Loharon 11-05-04, 01:23 PM	Actual a 20th level human munk is an outsider and can have non-outsider human children