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View Full Version : I want to start homebrewing, but..



Inhuman Bot
2009-10-23, 12:02 AM
I've recently gotten a desire to come up with a presteige class and monsters for a campaign I'm planning on doing, but I have absolutely no idea as to how to go about it, as I haven't done any homebrewing before.

Does anyone have advice for a noob about starting out?

@v Thanks.

DanielLC
2009-10-23, 12:07 AM
Yes. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10313)

Tavar
2009-10-23, 12:37 AM
What do you want the class to do? Also, it's a good idea to look at the class teir list when making it: generally you want it around teir 3, though depending on the class that may be difficult(arcane casters with access to the Wiz/Sorc list are pretty much Teir 1 by default).

Violet Octopus
2009-10-23, 01:14 AM
I found Kellus's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4935759) class tutorial to be really interesting, though it's on base classes. Though there's no best way to approach the creative process.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2009-10-23, 09:35 AM
Happy to help if you want it. Just drop me a line. :smallbiggrin:

DracoDei
2009-10-23, 12:14 PM
The assistance in the thread DanielLC linked to is an absolute must. I am less familiar with the one that Violet Octopus linked to, but it is probably a VERY good starting place at the LEAST. The one DanielLC linked will help you make sure things are relatively sane with your monsters, and that the formatting is such that people will be more likely to read it, and thus more likely both to use it, and to give you feed-back on it.


But there is another aspect here... and until I see a few homebrews from you I will have no way of advising you on this part: "Know the rules, then know when to break them." Don't be afraid to innovate HARD(at least once you have a little bit of practice). I once had a friend whose degree was in literature or English or something and he said that up through the end of high-school composition classes teach one standard the rules of the language... after that it is all about when knowing when and how to break those standard rules to good effect. It IS good however (as my discussions with the honorable Debihuman have taught me), to show your work. Call out the variations from the usual formulae as special abilities or put in footnotes if that doesn't seem appropriate.

As examples from my own experience:
I myself do odd things with Lore DCs to keep them reasonable to the skill-checks CR appropriate PCs can make. Otherwise you end up with nobody being able to recognize a blue whale. But that is so standard of a change that it is almost a house rule...
What is less standard are my "semi-template" concepts, such as my rolling eyeballs... which are perfectly standard undead, EXCEPT if they come from something that had a gaze attack or eye-rays, in which case they take on a FEW of the aspects of a template in that they inherit a slightly nerfed version of the gaze attack. This makes calculating the CRs even more of a challenge than it normally is, but it is worth it to me. And that is nothing compared to my upcoming silly "Zooming Brain" concept... a lot (but not even close to ALL) of whom's more critical statistics vary wildly based on the HD, and mental ability scores of the creature it is taken from. Yet its own HD and ability scores are not usually related to those things.
My Beige Dragons have an aura of mundanity instead of a aura of fear, because their racial make-up is all about being as BORING as possible, so scaring people would just ruin the feel of the monster completely. For similar reasons I gave them spellcasting based on a highly modified Adept, rather than on the Sorcerer (which is standard for non-Planar dragons). It is BECAUSE they are so "boring" that people found that monster REALLY funny and interesting.

So don't be afraid to give a race a +10 racial bonus to reflex saves but a Dexterity of 1 and 5 HD if that is what it takes to give your critter the feel that you want it to have... or to just dip your toe in the water, look up the very rarely used "average" saving throw progression, and try it out on one of your PrCs.

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-24, 11:00 AM
Another excellent and usually overlooked resource is the 3.5 DMG.

It has a basic guide based on swapping class features around and building classes that way. It also works through the Witch's design in a manner similar to Kellus' guid but it's simpler to follow because we all already know the Sorcerer.

My own advice is to start small but strong; think of an idea you really like, like a say, a trohy taking magical beast hunter and adjust something to fit the idea.

From there, you get more of a feel as you work and without too much effort, you'll end up able to put your thoughts on paper.

One other piece of advice is to choose your 'control class' carefully for the theme you want. By control class, i mean the class that you balance everything against. I work to a slightly modified Fighter as my baseline, some work to tHE ToB standards [i find that a little skewed because the Warblade is up front more powerful than the other two...] and others work to balance power against wizards.

Your choice here should be based on the power level you want in your games and whether you're expecting to be using a lot of spellcasters as the badguys...

Temotei
2009-10-26, 09:11 PM
May I ask what the modified version of the fighter you use is? I want to see what you balance to. I'm thinking of making a martial class.

Anonymouswizard
2009-10-27, 03:32 AM
What I did was scan the forums befor I even thought about homebrewing. However, with prestige classes it is pretty much balancing with high rrequirements or low abilities. Base classes, use the idea in the DMG.

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-27, 06:42 AM
May I ask what the modified version of the fighter you use is? I want to see what you balance to. I'm thinking of making a martial class.

I run a unique OGL game i made myself called Mecha Victoriana [even for non-steampunk settings because i prefer my magic system]. The Trooper is basically a fighter with the following changes:

Class skills added: Hide, Move Silently, Listen, Spot
Skill Points: 4+Int per level

Level 3: Uncanny Dodge
Level 3, 5, odd numbered levels: Veteran - The Trooper gains 2 skill points for which he may consider all skills as Class Skills for the purposes of selecting.


This may not fix the problems inherent in 3.5 but since i went to the trouble of balancing the magic system against this rather than trying to bring fighters/whatever up to that standard, i don't really have to worry about them.

If you want a copy of MV, PM me with your email address.

Martial Adepts other than the Warblade do kind of balance with the normal ones if you implement a few modifications but i haven't included that in the core rules because most of the nine styles are too magical to fit in with the core setting...

Tavar
2009-10-27, 10:11 AM
Martial Adepts other than the Warblade do kind of balance with the normal ones if you implement a few modifications but i haven't included that in the core rules because most of the nine styles are too magical to fit in with the core setting...
Really? I wasn't aware hitting people really hard, hitting people alot, and quickly and carefully hitting people were really magical. Or that being an inspiring leader was. Or that Judo/martial arts in general is.

Yes, Desert wind, Shadow Hand, and to a lesser extent Devoted spirit are magical, but the latter is effectively doing what the Paladin does, and the first 2 are only for the explicitly magical class: the swordsage. And even then, depending on your mages, I have a hard time seeing how it's too magical.

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-27, 11:48 AM
Really? I wasn't aware hitting people really hard, hitting people alot, and quickly and carefully hitting people were really magical. Or that being an inspiring leader was. Or that Judo/martial arts in general is.

Yes, Desert wind, Shadow Hand, and to a lesser extent Devoted spirit are magical, but the latter is effectively doing what the Paladin does, and the first 2 are only for the explicitly magical class: the swordsage. And even then, depending on your mages, I have a hard time seeing how it's too magical.

It's a steampunk setting build, so for core design, the majority of abilities from Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, Stone Dragon, Shadow Hand and even White Raven seem somewhat magical or at least fantastical.

Magic has a specific role in the setting, divine power is pretty tightly regulated by the gods in question and Psionics is actually a very specific form of brain damage so I wasn't exactly in a hurry to try and shoehorn it in.

The other thing being that White Raven makes no sense whatsoever in the setting as it's a melee leadership style and short range blistering firefights are usually the order of the day in MV.

Temotei
2009-10-28, 05:29 PM
Level 3, 5, odd numbered levels: Veteran - The Trooper gains 2 skill points for which he may consider all skills as Class Skills for the purposes of selecting.

Om nom nom. Use Magic Device--DELICIOUS! :smallbiggrin:

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-28, 06:38 PM
Nothing wrong with that, though the setting has no wands or the like that so that's a little irrelivant in-setting.

Never really understood the rational that rogues were pragmatic and learned to use the things but fighters didn't

Debihuman
2009-10-28, 09:02 PM
I'm very flattered by Draco's kind words. I believe he is absolutely correct about lore checks making no sense for well-known creatures that have lots of hit dice. However, the rules are clear: "In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster." The key is the words "in general" that leaves a lot of leeway for a homebrewer. You can decide that your creature is more or less common and deviate from there.

Regardless of your decision, it is always wise to state when you are deviating from a standard rule. Especially if you say you want feedback. Nobody can read your mind. Nobody can tell the difference between your purposeful deviation from a norm and the fact that you failed a Knowledge (Homebrewing) check without it. :smallwink:

Nobody can catch every nuance. Look at how many 3rd party publishers make terrible monsters and you'll see just how difficult monster creation can be. Don't ever be down on yourself because you neglected some obscure stuff. Heck, I forgot size bonuses and penalties to Hide checks for ages. Getting it wrong is inevitable. Besides, you only learn from your mistakes.

The biggest mistake I see in homebrewing monsters is the low hit die/high challenge rating monster. It's not a good design feaure because whoever gets in the first lucky strike survives. The loser dies and the game kinda stops being fun.

And yes, every novice homebrewer wants to make that unkillable beast to sic on his unsuspecting players. I agree, they're a lot of fun to make. But the danger is in actually using one of these things in an actual game. You'll have the players calling "foul" in no time.

With monsters, you can make up all sorts of wild and crazy special abilities. It's a good idea to check to see if there already exists a special abilty that does what you want. Cite to it and use freely. Open Game Content is fair game. Another good rule of thumb is that the monster should only have 1 special abilty per HD, not including those from Type or Subtype. Another good rule is to not give out bonus feats like candy. 2 max. If you need more feats add the appropriate number of hit dice.

I'm much better at eyeballing monsters than I am anything else. I still can't figure out how to assign gp value to magic items. I'm still figuring out prestige classes.

In general, prestige classes will be campaign specific. You'll be making it to fit an organization you want or one you want the PCs to possibly join. That said, it's easy to let power creep sneak in your game. If a special ability is too powerful, it can eventually backfire as one PC will advance more quickly. It is in the interest of fairness that Prestige Classes be balanced. Of course, you may be playing in that over the top game and want to go full-tilt at windmills. There's nothing to stop you. Just warn the rest of us.

One thing I've noticed is that novice homebrewers often try to give feats as special abilities. I thoroughly advise against this. Either give the feat as a bonus feat or replace with a different special ability.

Another problem with novice homebrewers is that they often try to give out too much without thought to balace against other prestige classes. You can restrict classes in many ways to help offset overly powerful gains.

Beyond that, have fun. It should be fun to make stuff up. It was also be frustrating.

Sorry about the length of this post. I was trying to get everything down at once before I forgot it.

Debby

Cyanidesoul
2009-10-29, 01:35 AM
I've recently gotten a desire to come up with a presteige class and monsters for a campaign I'm planning on doing, but I have absolutely no idea as to how to go about it, as I haven't done any homebrewing before.

Does anyone have advice for a noob about starting out?

@v Thanks.

You sound like me... I want to create monsters and races for 3.5 and previous editions of D&D but I have no idea how.:smallsigh:

Debihuman
2009-10-29, 04:23 AM
Monsters all the numbers are based on Size, Type and Abilities. Decide what you want and then assign those. Feats and Skills you choose but the numbers will depend on the previously mentioned things. Monsters get a feat for their 1st HD and then gain a feat at 3, 6, 9, 12, etc. The type of hit dice and the number of skills a monster gets depends on its type. I recommend that you read through the homebrewing threads and the SRD online. The rules are there, just not all in one place. If you get stuck, ask for help.

Debby