Paying the ultimate price [Feats 3.5]

[The Mentalist]

I sort of like the idea of being able to spend XP for things other than item crafting. I think the idea is balanced but I'm not sure if the numbers themselves are balanced. These are mostly casting feats so far but I will be working on more.


Soul Magic
You're willing to pay the ultimate price for your magic
Pre Reqs: None
Benefits: You may spend experience points to fuel a spell gaining a +1 Caster Level bonus for per 50 points spent spent

Improved Soul Magic
Pre Reqs: Soul Magic
Benefits: You may spend XP to fuel metamagic. You are drained of 250 experience points per level of metamagic.

Violent Soul Magic
Pre Reqs: Soul Magic
Benefits: You may spend 50 experience points to add an addition die of damage (not ability damage) to a spell, this damage may be in excess of Caster Level caps

Penetrating Soul Magic
Pre Reqs: Soul Magic
Benefits: You may spend 100 experience points to add +1 to the DC of any spell

Sacrifical Binding
You give a little bit of your soul to the powers you're binding
Pre Reqs: Ability to cast Lesser Planar Binding
Benefits: You may spend 100 experience points to call 1 additional HD with a calling spell or to gain a +2 when negotiating with them.

Grease the Wheels of Fate
Life seems to go your way, but it costs you
Pre Reqs: None
Benefits: You may spend 20 experience points to add a +1 to any roll.

[Milskidasith]

This concept is fundamentally unsound and impossible to balance. I'd scrap this idea entirely.

Problems: EXP Novaing.

The feats get exponentially more powerful (by being exponentially easier to use) as you level up. 500 EXP for +10 CL is a half level burned at level 1, but nothing major at level 20.

Messing with calling spells: Seriously, don't raise the caps on them. They already rock.

[The Mentalist]

The feats get exponentially more powerful (by being exponentially easier to use) as you level up. 500 EXP for +10 CL is a half level burned at level 1, but nothing major at level 20.

I see your point, Possibly a scaling system. Something like the item crafting rules.

For example

Grease the Wheels of Fate
Pre Reqs: None
Benefits: You may spend 10 experience points per HD to add a +1 to any roll.

I think that swings too far the other way though, 200 for a +1 is too much even at 20. Adding that and a scaling bonus could work though.



Messing with calling spells: Seriously, don't raise the caps on them. They already rock.
True enough.

[Milskidasith]

This is still incredibly, incredibly, incredibly hard to balance and I still say this shouldn't be done at all.

Also: 200 EXP at level 20 is the exact same proportion (1/100th a level) that 10 would be at level 1. Still not a good idea.

[Jota]

Holy word, blasphemy, dictum, and word of chaos say hello.

Besides the obvious fact that you're empowering casters and not offering any concessions to the other side, I will further add this excerpt from the Book of Gears (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Gears_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29):


The problem with XP costs isn't just that they don't really cost anything "in the long run" (which they don't), the problem is that they are bad for the game. Like Age increases before them, an XP cost is essentially running up a credit card bill. You get whatever it is that you were buying with the XP cost now, and you pay later (by death from old age or not going up in level when you otherwise would). That's never balanced, because there's no guarantee that the character in question will still be being played when that credit card comes due.

[Zhalath]

Maybe something like 5% of your total XP per boost of CL for Soul Magic. Even then, that's a sinkable cost.

Personally, I've always removed XP costs, so I wouldn't use these. An XP cost seems to be more of a "um, ow?" sort of thing, that seems like it should hurt, but doesn't, really. If your party levels up before you, and you take on encounters, sure, you're a level behind, but they aren't, and you gain more XP when they win. More XP to burn...

[The Mentalist]

Holy word, blasphemy, dictum, and word of chaos say hello.

There are easier ways to raise those but I see your point.



Besides the obvious fact that you're empowering casters and not offering any concessions to the other side

I'm working on some feats for meleers and such I'm just not sure what to give them just yet.

[DueceEsMachine]

It's fairly obvious, but an issue that jumped out at me was thought bottle abuse.

Granted, a simple "you can't have those" by the dm would fix that, but say a caster uses the thought bottle, gets in a series of fights and burns through xp like it's going out of style.

Party levels up, gets gold, caster restores xp to former level. he just got a ton of spell-boosts for free, and now has more money and higher-level friends.

[The Mentalist]

Okay, as much as I love this idea I think that Milskidasith was right as usual and this idea is doomed to failure.... I SHALL RETURN WITH NEW MECHANICS!

[The Tygre]

Good try, though. Looking forward to the revision. :smallsmile:

[DracoDei]

Some caps would have helped some (IE no more that +50% CL, no more than double damage dice, no more that +5 DC)... but I can see this being "very difficult to balance".
Version at the time of my saying this preserved below for posterity.

I sort of like the idea of being able to spend XP for things other than item crafting. I think the idea is balanced but I'm not sure if the numbers themselves are balanced. These are mostly casting feats so far but I will be working on more.


Soul Magic
You're willing to pay the ultimate price for your magic
Pre Reqs: None
Benefits: You may spend experience points to fuel a spell gaining a +1 Caster Level bonus for per 50 points spent spent

Improved Soul Magic
Pre Reqs: Soul Magic
Benefits: You may spend XP to fuel metamagic. You are drained of 250 experience points per level of metamagic.

Violent Soul Magic
Pre Reqs: Soul Magic
Benefits: You may spend 50 experience points to add an addition die of damage (not ability damage) to a spell, this damage may be in excess of Caster Level caps

Penetrating Soul Magic
Pre Reqs: Soul Magic
Benefits: You may spend 100 experience points to add +1 to the DC of any spell

Sacrifical Binding
You give a little bit of your soul to the powers you're binding
Pre Reqs: Ability to cast Lesser Planar Binding
Benefits: You may spend 100 experience points to call 1 additional HD with a calling spell or to gain a +2 when negotiating with them.

Grease the Wheels of Fate
Life seems to go your way, but it costs you
Pre Reqs: None
Benefits: You may spend 20 experience points to add a +1 to any roll.

[Starbuck_II]

I think Negative Level might work better.

By accepting a Negative level after casting, you gain X bonus to Caster, DC, etc (whatever feat says).

You could make it 1d4 or just a set number.

Make sure the feats requires you to gain the negative level to gain the benefit (no Death Ward to ignore it if want benefit).

Negative levels are a way to using life force. You can make them like Enervation or Energy drain (permanent at end of day or not).

[The Mentalist]

I think Negative Level might work better.


I'm re-working it with negative levels, ability burn, and penalties to checks and saves. Depending on the size of the bonus.

Edit: Possibly unhealable damage too.