quarta-feira, 18 de julho de 2018

Set and Setting - IV - Feat Acquisition and Elfsploitation

Set and Setting is a series of posts intended as aid in fleshing out a world by way of setting-specific rule design and reinterpretation.




Introduction

From coalescing some thoughts on how to manage levelling and feat acquisition to half-assing a list of racial feats, this post does it all.

Advancement

Accessorizing is important.

The process of levelling, as per the book, is much too calcified around unexciting numerical increases, every other level offering something amounting to a tired ol’+1 modifier, an enhanced number of uses on an already-unlocked feature or a feat whose parenthood has been thoroughly planned, all this made the worse by the premapped nature of the advancement pattern, which lends the whole package to optimization and builds, not to mention boredom. 

More interesting class progressions are a goal that is well served by sweeping aside the more monotonous aspects and injecting some spanish inquisition. Not content that the feats themselves be random, so too should be the instance of their acquisition, the better to contrast with the remaining class structure. I don’t really aim all of my steps to deliberately spite the fair-and-balanced point-buy paradigm, but boy do my feet ever find themselves repeatedly planted all over those lego pieces.

For those to whom the numbers are much too important, taking as given that we’re rolling for stats and Hp already, adding one more layer of variability will mean that to end up with a truly irredeemable character will be even more difficult, and the mechanic is also meant to implicitly add a convergence effect, so that the weaker characters will have an easier time upping their scores and earning their ticket out of suckdom.

Elfsploitation

To accordingly supplement the last post, the table had entries pointing to feats afforded by the player character’s race. I meant to use that design space to store certain capabilities of more or less apocryphal nature which I feel ought to manifest rarely and that would altogether unbalance or simply overburden the race profiles if used as standard features.

I pondered doing the same for “class feats” and for the longest time the 95-to-100 slot was filled with precisely that designation. The more I thought about it, though, the less sense it made. Classes are not really about waxing whimsical, rather more about structured and reliable abilities. And since I’d like for my revised classes to have something new to offer at most every level, I folded back that line of thinking.

It is useful that this embedded feat table approach affords me the space to add playable races to a setting roster at a later point, if I’m ever up for misguidingly notching up complexity for the sake of diminishing returns, something that I’m prone to do, so might as well clear the road of debris before the fact.

These following feats are about supernatural atavism and stark displays of a race’s underlying thematic. Men are extraversatile, Half-men are extra shifty, Dwarves are extra tough, Elves are extra snowflakey/better than you and Gnomes are extra magicky. Many of these are also utter bullshit, but I know I’ll get away with it because I took the care to warn you in advance.

The Crunch

— Whenever a character levels up the player rolls a d20 and chooses one among the applicable effects:

a) If the result is higher than any of the character’s attributes, the player may raise one of these scores by one. A given attribute score may not be increased twice in a row.

b) If the result is lower than the character’s level, the player may make a roll on the feat table.

Alternatively, the player may forgo the d20 roll to re-roll that level’s HD instead, the second result must stand.

The Racial Feats 

Racial Feats – Man
1.     Roll a second d20 every time you level. You still only get to choose one effect.
2.     Gain two extra uses on a class feature with limited uses.
3.     Roll twice on the mundane feat table.
4.     Choose any feat from the mundane table.
5.     You may multiclass.
6.     Acquire a feature from another class or subclass, up to a level below your proficiency modifier.

Racial Feats – Half-man
1.     May Hide as a bonus action.
2.     You can burrow into soft ground and have Advantage when digging.
3.     You can take Disadvantage to all rolls until the end of next turn to be able to Dodge as a bonus action.
4.     Can Disengage as bonus action.
5.     You gain +1 to AC against melee attacks per every size difference of the attacker.
6.     You don’t provoke opportunity attacks from large-sized (or larger) creatures. Avoid all incidental damage.

Racial Feats – Dwarf
1.    May roll on the Dismemberment table with 4d6 instead of 3d6; Advantage on Death Saving Throws.
2.    Rooted: While you don’t move and both your feet touch the ground you get a save against attempts to push, disarm or render you Prone.
3.      Can sniff precious metals (20’ radius, 10 mins, concentration).
4.      Resistant to Arcane Magic.
5.    Stone skin. Non-bludgeoning weapons can break or dull when you’re struck (attack rolls under CON mod).
6.   Gain proficiency with smith’s tools. Can forge or reforge metal weapons every level, granting or increasing enchantment by +1 a number of times equalling proficiency.

Racial Feats – Elf
1.     Your melee attacks always count as magical and their damage cannot be resisted.
2.     Your base number of attacks equals your proficiency bonus and you never drop your weapon from fumbling. Lose any feature granting accuracy or additional attacks.
3.   You don’t provoke attacks of opportunity. Your Dexterity saves against damage prevent all on a success and half on a miss and you may parry ranged attacks.
4.     Ignore all mundane difficult terrain and leave no scent or tracks. You are less likely to trigger traps.
5.     Roll a feat, receiving the improved version, as though you had rolled that result twice.
6.     Your Proficiency range is +3 to +7.

Racial Feats – Gnome
1.     Items magically resize to fit you while in your possession.
2.   Once per day, you can enlarge or shrink (but not your possessions) up to two size categories, shift lasts until a ‘1’ is rolled on the proficiency die, checked every minute.
3.     Your can attempt to Hide in the open (with Disadvantage).
4.    Odd copper pieces inexplicably find their way to you and you always find additional coins (proficiency die) on treasure troves, type as per most abundant on cache.
5.     You become Invisible as long as your eyes are closed.
6.     Once per running, you can turn a small object into red gold (worth Proficiency die gp).





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