[3.5 Feats] Fell Heritage

[Pyromancer999]

Background- Let me tell you a tale. Once, there was a little boy who was reading the Monster Manual for the first time. He came across the Aasimar and Tiefling.

"Oh my gosh! These sound really cool!", he said. "I can't wait to see what cool abilities they have! Like.....Darkness 1/day!?!?!?!?"

That's child was me. Tieflings and Aasimars are descendants of beings of the Heavens and Hells of the universe. And all they get is a 1/day ability to make things go dark for a little or bring in a teeny bit of artificial sunlight, and a reduced Outsider(Native Outsider type)? AND for an LA of +1? Horrible. Just horrible. Also, this only covers humans. What if my elf, dwarf, or (insert race here) wants to be descended from a celestial or hellish being? Looks like they're out of luck. As such, in order to rectify this mistake. As such, I plan to set things right by giving the people everything these two races should have been... in feat form. Here's the first half: Fell feats for the Tiefling. Enjoy!

Fell Heritage[Fell]
Benefit: You are descended from a being from below. Demon or Devil or both, it makes little difference at this point. You were born with a teeny bit of what makes up the worst beings in the universe. This grants multiple benefits. Firstly, you gain low-light vision. Secondly, you gain a bonus to Hide, Bluff, and Intimidate checks equal to 1 + 1/2 the number of Fell feats you have. Thirdly, you gain the ability to Fall. This represents a process where you, for a time, become closer in nature to your original fiendish ancestor. You may Fall for a number of rounds per day equal to 2 + the number of Fell feats you have. You must select one feat when you Fall, and during that time, gain the feat's Fallen effect. During rounds when you fall, you look more like a being from hell than an actual mortal. When you Fall, this feat doubles the bonuses to the skills that it grants. The DC for any Fell feat ability that would require a save is always equal to 10 + 1/2 your HD + the number of Fell feats you have.

Fell Hide[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage
Benefit: Your skin becomes thicker and scales may start to grow in some places. You gain a +1 Natural Armor bonus to AC for every two Fell feats you have. When you Fall, this feat's bonus doubles.

Fell Resistance[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage
Benefit: You become resistant to the principle energies of demons and devils. You gain resistance to acid and fire equal to 3 x the number of Fell feats you have. When you Fall, this bonus increases to 5 x the number of Fell feats you have. If this resistance would exceed 30 when Falling, you instead gain immunity to either acid or fire, chosen when Falling.

Fell Enhancement[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, 3rd level
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to any ability score of your choice for each Fell feat you have. Each +1 bonus can go to any ability score you like. When you Fall, you gain a +2 bonus to each ability score enhanced by this feat.

Fell Energy Manipulator[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage
Benefit: You gain the ability to manipulate the raw energy of the Hells. You gain a Fell Energy pool that contains a number of Fell Points equal to the number of Fell feats you have x 3. This may be used in two ways: 1) You may add these points to an attack you make or as a melee touch attack that takes a standard action, deal (1d6 + 1d6 per two Fell feats you have) + the number of Fell Points you choose to expend damage. Damage dealt using Fell Points is treated as unholy damage. 2) You can also use Fell Energy to heal your body. You may, as a swift action, spend Fell Points on a 1:1 basis to heal your body. When you Fall, the melee touch attack deals 1d6 per Fell feat you have + number of Fell points expended damage, and you gain an additional amount of Fell Points equal to 1/2 your Fell Point pool's max capacity.

Fell Energy Adept[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Energy Manipulator, 6th level
Benefit: You become more adept at using Fell Energy. Your Fell Point Pool increases to 4 x number of Fell feats you have. Also, you may expend two Fell Points to change your melee touch attack's range to a target within 10 ft per Fell feat you have, and three Fell Points to change the range to a 5 ft per Fell feat cone or a 10 ft per Fell feat line. Lastly, you may now heal on a 2:3 basis when it comes to expending Fell Points to heal yourself. When you Fall, you may heal yourself on a 1:2 basis when it comes to Fell Points, and area enhancements to the melee touch attack granted by Fell Energy Manipulator cost 2 less Fell Points than they actually do.

Summon Fell Kin[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage
Benefit: You know how to summon demons or devils related to your fell ancestor. Upon gaining this feat, choose demons or devils. You may summon creatures of that type upon gaining this feat. You may summon creatures of the chosen type once per day per two Fell feats you have as a standard action. When summoning, you may summon up to 1 + 1 per Fell feat you have in HD of creatures of the chosen type. These remain for two rounds per Fell feat you have. When you Fall, you may summon twice as much HD of creatures as you normally could. You must expend two rounds of Fall in order to use this feats Falling ability.

Fell Weapon[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage
Benefit: You have a natural attack similar to that of your Fell Ancestor. You gain one natural attack of your choice, that deals damage as appropriate for a creature of your size. This attack deals an additional amount of damage equal to twice the number of Fell feats you have. Damage dealt through this feat is half unholy and half fire. When you fall, this weapon deals an additional die of damage per Fell feat you have(Ex. For a creature with three Fell feats, a natural weapon that would normally deal 1d6 + 6 (2 x 3 Fell feats) damage would deal 4d6(1 die naturally + 1 per Fell feat) + 6 damage).
Special: This feat may be selected multiple times, each time choosing a different weapon. This feats Falling ability extends to all such natural weapons gained this way.

Fell Shape[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, one other Fell feat, 6th level
Benefit: You learn how to assume other shapes. You gain 1 + 1 per two Fell feat shapes. These shapes may not exceed 1/2 your level + number of Fell feats you have in HD, and cannot have more HD than your natural form. Also, these shapes must be of either the Animal, Humanoid, or Monstrous Humanoid type. You may shift into these creatures' forms as a full-round action, and change back as a free action, being able to remain in these forms for 1 minute per Fell feat you have in combat, and 1 hour per Fell feat outside of combat. You may treat this as the Alternate Form ability. When you Fall, you may assume the shape of any Outsider with the Evil subtype that has up to the requisite HD for a form granted by this feat.

Fell Awe[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, one other Fell feat
Benefit: You inspire the only kind of awe that Fell creatures can instill in other beings: Fear. You gain the Frightening Presence ability out to 5 ft + 5 ft per Fell feat you have, except that it can affect creatures with equal or up to 1 HD per three Fell feats you have greater than you, and also affects all creatures that can be affected by it upon them first coming into line of sight of you. When you Fall, your Frightening presence affects all creatures, regardless of HD.

Descending[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, two other Fell Feats, 9th level
Benefit: When Falling, you may gain the Falling benefits of two Fell feats instead of one.

Extensive Fall[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, one other Fell feat
Benefit: You may Fall for an additional number of rounds equal to 1 + 1/2 the number of Fell feats you have per day.
Special: You may select this feat again to be able to Fall for an additional 2 rounds.

Fell Speech[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, 3rd level
Benefit: You gain the ability to communicate in the same way as your Fell ancestors. You gain telepathy out to 10 ft + 5 ft per Fell feat you have. When you Fall, you may put one creature you are able to telepathically communicate with under an effect similar to Charm Person as a standard action, with your caster level being treated equal to 1/4 your level + the number of Fell feats you have. Alternatively when Falling, you may implant one Suggestion, as per the spell, in one target you are able to communicate telepathically with, with your caster level being equal to the Charm Person ability.

Fell Scion[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, three other Fell feats, 12th level
Benefit: You have fully embraced your Fell heritage, becoming more of a Fell creature than a mortal. This grants multiple benefits. Firstly, you gain the ability to see normally in the dark. Secondly, you learn how to unleash the power of your Fell Heritage for brief instants, whenever you wish. You may Fall for one round at-will, except that once done, you cannot make use of this particular ability again for 1 minute. Thirdly, you learn how to make a True Descent. You gain a number of True Descent rounds equal to 1/2 the number of Fell feats you have. When undergoing True Descent, you gain all of the Falling benefits of the Fell feats you have. You may sacrifice three rounds of Falling to gain one additional round of True Descent.

That's all for now. Please PEACH.

[Pyromancer999]

Anyone want to comment/PEACH these?

[Vauron]

I'm not particularly good about noting balance concerns but I do have a question.



Fell Shape[Fell]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, one other Fell feat, 6th level
Benefit: You learn how to assume other shapes. You gain 1 + 1 per two Fell feat shapes. These shapes may not exceed 1/2 your level + number of Fell feats you have in HD, and cannot have more HD than your natural form. Also, these shapes must be of either the Animal, Humanoid, or Monstrous Humanoid type. You may shift into these creatures' forms as a full-round action, and change back as a free action, being able to remain in these forms for 1 minute per Fell feat you have in combat, and 1 hour per Fell feat outside of combat. You may treat this as the Alternate Form ability. When you Fall, you may assume the shape of any Outsider with the Evil subtype that has up to the requisite HD for a form granted by this feat.


Query: From the sound of things, you pick the forms you can take when you first take this feat and you pick new ones when you gain enough Fell feats. My question is is there some way to change the shapes you have? A sixth level character isn't always going to be interested in the same shapes as a level 15 character.

[Qwertystop]

Looks pretty awesome.

[Amechra]

Looks rather good; needs something that will allow it to mesh with your Vampire Heritage feats...

And then Fell Energy Manipulator has to have a way to cross over to be a Mage or Ki feat.

Just saying; it is up to you, after all...

[Pyromancer999]

I'm not particularly good about noting balance concerns but I do have a question.



Query: From the sound of things, you pick the forms you can take when you first take this feat and you pick new ones when you gain enough Fell feats. My question is is there some way to change the shapes you have? A sixth level character isn't always going to be interested in the same shapes as a level 15 character.

The idea is interesting, but given the forms you're able to assume, there's not much reason to choose a new form, or at least so it would appear to me.


Looks pretty awesome.

Thanks.


Looks rather good; needs something that will allow it to mesh with your Vampire Heritage feats...

Here:

Unholy Union[Fell, Vampiric]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, Vampiric Heritage
Benefit: Your Fell and Vampiric feats stack for the purposes of Fell and Vampiric feat effects that depend on the number of Fell or Vampiric feats you have, respectively. Also, you may use Awakening and Fall rounds interchangeably, allowing you to use Awakening rounds to Fall, and Falling rounds to Awaken. If you have this feat upon selecting the Descending feat, you can select to activate one Fell feat's Falling effect and one Vampiric feat's Awakening effect instead of two Fell feats' Falling effects.


And then Fell Energy Manipulator has to have a way to cross over to be a Mage or Ki feat.


Just that? Nah. Whole feat chain mesh!

Dark Magic[Fell, Mage]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, Magic's Child
Benefit: Your Fell and Mage feats stack for the purposes of Fell and Mage feat effects that depend on the number of Fell or Mage feats you have, respectively. Also, you may use Magic Points and Fall rounds interchangeably, allowing you to expend 1 Magic Point to Fall for 1 round, and expend 1 Fall round to gain 1 Magic Point. Lastly, when you Fall, you may choose to treat Mage feat effects as though you had two more Mage feats than you actually do, instead of activating a Fell feat's Falling effect.


Darkened Karma[Fell, Ki]
Prerequisites: Fell Heritage, Ki Disciple
Benefit: Your Fell and Ki feats stack for the purposes of Fell and Ki feat effects that depend on the number of Fell or Ki feats you have, respectively. Also, you may use Ki uses and Fall rounds interchangeably, allowing you to expend one daily Ki use to Fall for 1 round, and expend 1 Fall round to gain one daily Ki use. Lastly, when you Fall, you may choose to treat Ki feat effects as though you had two more Ki feats than you actually do, instead of activating a Fell feat's Falling effect.

How's that?

[flabort]

So... If you took both Dark Magic and Darkened Karma, would you be able to use a "Fall Round", which is actually a Magic Point, to gain a Ki use? :smalltongue:

If you took all three feats, would taking one Fell feat after that give you a point/round/use in each of them, making it so you effectively gained 4 Fall Rounds? Sure, you spent ~6 feats doing so, but they count, too. And since a Vampiric or Mage or Ki feat effectively counts as a fell feat now, too, and taking one of them increases your Fall rounds, does taking one of those three increase the other two, as well as Fall rounds?
Does that even make sense?

[Pyromancer999]

So... If you took both Dark Magic and Darkened Karma, would you be able to use a "Fall Round", which is actually a Magic Point, to gain a Ki use? :smalltongue:

Technically you could, as you could convert Magic Point -> Fall Round -> Ki use.


If you took all three feats, would taking one Fell feat after that give you a point/round/use in each of them, making it so you effectively gained 4 Fall Rounds?

I suppose so. Still, taking all three feats + all four base feats(1 for each: Fell, Mage, Vampiric, Ki), means you've expended pretty much all feat slots, so the only thing you'd be getting a bonus to would be skills, basically, and access to a cantrip. So, I think it'd all be good.
Sure, you spent ~6 feats doing so, but they count, too. And since a Vampiric or Mage or Ki feat effectively counts as a fell feat now, too, and taking one of them increases your Fall rounds, does taking one of those three increase the other two, as well as Fall rounds?
Does that even make sense?[/QUOTE]

I believe I understand what you're trying to say, like: If you take all those feats, then somehow get another feat(say Mage), would that increase the benefits of the other feats(Vampiric and Ki)? The answer is no. It'd only apply to the Fell and Mage feats. Technically, you'd gain another 2 converted rounds/points/uses of whatever, but it would not increase the feat-dependent effects of those two kinds of feats.

[flabort]

'kay, that's what I wanted to know. Hmm. Seven feats... For a human, all that would be left is the 18th level feat. (And any fighter feats, which they can't fit these into).
You'd have 2 each of Vampiric, Mage, and Ki feats, and 4 Fell feats (Fell heritage, + the overlaps).
You'd be able to fall for 36 rounds (2 + 4 fell feats + 2 vampiric feats + 2 mage feats + 2 ki feats + 8 awaken rounds (2 + 2 vampiric feats + 4 fell feats) + 8 Ki uses (2 + 2 Ki feats + 4 fell feats) + 8 Magic Points (2 + 2 mage feats + 4 fell feats)), plus 4 more if your free feat was used for a fell feat (1 fell feat + 1 Awaken Round + 1 Ki use + 1 magic point). Which is ~ 30 more than if you just took fell feats. (you'd get 10 rounds)
But you're right that you'd only get a few skill bonuses. Falling for 40 rounds is pointless if you don't get any effect from it.

My current concern is the Inherent bloodline (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213704), which, since these overlap feats would ALL qualify for the Fell Lineage, since their ALL Fell Feats, you'd possibly get them all as bonus feats :smalleek:. Perhaps add a clause to prevent gaining them as bonus feats from any source? A player would still add them in the main feat slots, but that would be scary. Or... wait, there's no Fell Lineage yet. Good, for now... But when it's updated with this chain, too.... :smalleek:

[Pyromancer999]

'kay, that's what I wanted to know. Hmm. Seven feats... For a human, all that would be left is the 18th level feat. (And any fighter feats, which they can't fit these into).
You'd have 2 each of Vampiric, Mage, and Ki feats, and 4 Fell feats (Fell heritage, + the overlaps).
You'd be able to fall for 36 rounds (2 + 4 fell feats + 2 vampiric feats + 2 mage feats + 2 ki feats + 8 awaken rounds (2 + 2 vampiric feats + 4 fell feats) + 8 Ki uses (2 + 2 Ki feats + 4 fell feats) + 8 Magic Points (2 + 2 mage feats + 4 fell feats)), plus 4 more if your free feat was used for a fell feat (1 fell feat + 1 Awaken Round + 1 Ki use + 1 magic point). Which is ~ 30 more than if you just took fell feats. (you'd get 10 rounds)
But you're right that you'd only get a few skill bonuses. Falling for 40 rounds is pointless if you don't get any effect from it.

Yeah, that would be the case.


My current concern is the Inherent bloodline (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213704), which, since these overlap feats would ALL qualify for the Fell Lineage, since their ALL Fell Feats, you'd possibly get them all as bonus feats :smalleek:. Perhaps add a clause to prevent gaining them as bonus feats from any source? A player would still add them in the main feat slots, but that would be scary. Or... wait, there's no Fell Lineage yet. Good, for now... But when it's updated with this chain, too.... :smalleek:

It seems you're misunderstanding something. Dark Magic, Unholy Union, and Darkened Karma only have feats from the associated feat chain count as Fell feats for the purpose of feat number-based effects. So, say you had three Fell feats, Unholy Union, and three Vampiric feats. You'd be treated as having 7 Fell feats or 7 Vampiric feats for the purpose of feat number-based effects, as appropriate, but you would not actually select a Vampiric feat as a Fell feat.

[flabort]

Yeah, that would be the case.


It seems you're misunderstanding something. Dark Magic, Unholy Union, and Darkened Karma only have feats from the associated feat chain count as Fell feats for the purpose of feat number-based effects. So, say you had three Fell feats, Unholy Union, and three Vampiric feats. You'd be treated as having 7 Fell feats or 7 Vampiric feats for the purpose of feat number-based effects, as appropriate, but you would not actually select a Vampiric feat as a Fell feat.
:smallconfused: Why couldn't I take Unholy Union as a bonus feat for a Fell feat? I unsderstood I couldn't take the others, but I'd meant those three specific feats were still elegible candidates for bonus feats for the bloodline.

So you use your First level, human bonus, and 3rd level to pick up Vampiric Heritage, Ki disipline, and Magic's Child, and use the rest of your normal feats for feats from the Fell chain, while your first bonus Fell feats from the bloodline are Fell heritage and those three specific feats, Unholy Union, ect., and once you've got those three, you use the rest for fell feats. Reaping you a honking huge amount of Fall rounds, and skill bonuses. And a cantrip. Since you get 11 bonus feats (10 from Inherent, 1 from human), and 7 from levels, you've got the 36 Fall rounds from taking those specific 7 feats (Base + overlap feats for the chains), plus 11x4=44 extra fall rounds (assuming you take everything from the other three chains and convert them all into fall rounds).

So any additional feats from the other chains aren't eligible for the bonus feats. So, that's not what I was saying. I was saying those three were, and it scared me.

Sorry if that sounded angry or like flaming or anything, wasn't meant to be.

[flabort]

Sorry for double post (bar ninja/swordsage), I just wanted to put up an example.
{table=head]Level|Normal feats|Bonus feats|#fell feats|#vampiric feats|#ki feats|#mage feats|#Fall rounds
1|Vampiric Heritage|(Human) Ki disipline|0|1|1|0|0
2||(Chain 1) Fell Heritage|1|1|1|0|3
3|Magic's Child||1|1|1|1|3
4||(Chain 2) Unholy Union|4|4|1|1|12
5|||4|4|1|1|12
6|Darkened Karma|(Chain 3) Dark Magic|10|6|6|6|36
7|||10|6|6|6|36
8||(Chain 4)Fell Enhancement|11|7|7|7|40
9|Fell Resistance||12|8|8|8|44
10||(Chain 5) Fell Energy Manipulator|13|9|9|9|48
11|||13|9|9|9|48
12|Fell Energy Adept|(Chain 6) Summon Fell Kin|15|11|11|11|56
13|||15|11|11|11|56
14||(Chain 7) Fell Shape|16|12|12|12|60
15|Fell Awe||17|13|13|13|64
16||(Chain 8) Descending|18|14|14|14|68
17|||18|14|14|14|68
18|Fell Scion|(Chain 9) Fell Weapon|20|16|16|16|76
19|||20|16|16|16|76
20||(Chain 10) Fell Speech|21|17|17|17|80[/table]
Granted, because there is no Fell Lineage for that bloodline yet, this build can't happen. But I assume it's MORE than easy enough to make.
Replacing one of the other Fell Feats (Like Fell Speech, or Descending) with Extensive Fall would increase the number of Fall Rounds in this build to 91.

[Pyromancer999]

:smallconfused: Why couldn't I take Unholy Union as a bonus feat for a Fell feat? I unsderstood I couldn't take the others, but I'd meant those three specific feats were still elegible candidates for bonus feats for the bloodline.

You could take it as a Fell feat. Those are legitimate bonus feats.


So you use your First level, human bonus, and 3rd level to pick up Vampiric Heritage, Ki disipline, and Magic's Child, and use the rest of your normal feats for feats from the Fell chain, while your first bonus Fell feats from the bloodline are Fell heritage and those three specific feats, Unholy Union, ect., and once you've got those three, you use the rest for fell feats. Reaping you a honking huge amount of Fall rounds, and skill bonuses. And a cantrip. Since you get 11 bonus feats (10 from Inherent, 1 from human), and 7 from levels, you've got the 36 Fall rounds from taking those specific 7 feats (Base + overlap feats for the chains), plus 11x4=44 extra fall rounds (assuming you take everything from the other three chains and convert them all into fall rounds).

So any additional feats from the other chains aren't eligible for the bonus feats. So, that's not what I was saying. I was saying those three were, and it scared me.

Sorry if that sounded angry or like flaming or anything, wasn't meant to be.

It did sound a tad bitter. Still, the build you seem to have made is very focused, and remember that the rounds are also Mage Points, Awakening rounds, etc. Overall, I see no problem with it, considering that all the "rounds" are to be distributed amongst different kinds of feats, and also that there's still the 3 Bloodline levels you need to take. Also, I'm thinking I may be seeing your build wrong, as there's only 18 feats listed, but you have it going up to 19, even.

[flabort]

Yeah... notice how "Fell" bumps from 1 to 4 when I take Unholy Union?
Then from 4 to 10 when I take the other two?

that's effective Fell feats, those that count towards abilities.

Fell Heritage (Fell)
Unholy union (Fell)
Vampiric Heritage (Vampiric)
Unholy union (Vampiric)
Because all Vampiric feats count towards the number of Fell feats after taking Unholy Union, and Fell Feats still count towards the same, Unholy Union has the odd quirk (unintended?) of counting twice, once because it is Fell, and once because it is Vampiric.
Adding Darkened Karma adds three to the effective Fell Feats number, twice for itself and once for Ki discipline. And the same for Dark magic, +3.

Looking at it, I made a typo anyways, but to leave out effective Fell feats, not to add extra. I made a mistake at level 12, and one at 18, by only increasing the effective fell feats by 1. that's supposed to be 21 effective fell feats at 18 actual feats.

Again, sorry if it sounds bitter or mean, not intended. (It's meant to sound instructive)

Edit: Fixed table.

[Pyromancer999]

All in all, these feats, as are all my feat chains, are meant to be regarded in the traditional sense, as in, you get 7 feats, or maybe 8 if you're a human, not in the sense of Bloodlines(No disrespect towards them) or super-optimization.

[Pyromancer999]

All in all, these feats, as are all my feat chains, are meant to be regarded in the traditional sense, as in, you get 7 feats, or maybe 8 if you're a human, not in the sense of Bloodlines(No disrespect towards them) or super-optimization.

[flabort]

Yeah, just some Theoretical Optimization, using two peoples (relatively) balanced work, one based on the other. I could break it even further were I to bring the Bloodking class into it. :smallwink: :smalltongue:

It's one of those "Not broken unless you try" things, that leaves you with a one trick pony should you try. I'll leave you to making sure the rest of the feats are balanced, and stop trying to completely screw the feat economy over. :smallbiggrin:

[Pyromancer999]

Yeah, just some Theoretical Optimization, using two peoples (relatively) balanced work, one based on the other. I could break it even further were I to bring the Bloodking class into it. :smallwink: :smalltongue:

It's one of those "Not broken unless you try" things, that leaves you with a one trick pony should you try. I'll leave you to making sure the rest of the feats are balanced, and stop trying to completely screw the feat economy over. :smallbiggrin:

Soooooooooo mean! T.T Just kidding. I can take some hate. Still, the Unholy Union feat and the like really aren't part of this group of feats. I really intend the Fell feats in the first post to be used. It's more of a Hey-DM-Can-I-do-this? sort of thing. And if I were the DM, I'd probably say no. Which I usually am. If used at all and allowed by the DM, I'd recommend only allowing one of those, and making sure that the DM makes sure the player takes roughly equal amounts of each kind of feat. Also, not sure what you mean by"the rest of the feats", as the feats as they are now are pretty balanced.