Libertad
2012-08-12, 03:13 PM
Achievement Feats, Revised
Pathfinder’s Achievement Feats (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/achievement-feats) were a neat idea, but their execution was badly done. The point of video game achievements is that they benefit you once you meet their prerequisites. Killing 50 gnolls to get that Gnoll Hunter feat isn’t worth the time and effort if you have to spend one of your slots to receive the benefits. Additionally, the feats as written require a massive amount of book-keeping on the part of the PCs and DM of damage dealt/monsters killed/etc. An achievement feat in a tabletop game should require minimal book-keeping and have prerequisites more interesting than acting as a score-keeper.
Revised Rules: [Achievement] feats are like normal feats, except that you immediately gain the feat as a bonus feat as soon as you meet the prerequisites. There is no limit to how many achievement feats that you can have.
And here, I bring to you my Revised Achievement Feats:
Abolitionist
“I apologize, slaver, but I can’t hear your protests over the sound of my freedom!”
Prerequisites: Must successfully hinder the efforts of a major slave ring. It’s up to the DM what scale of magnitude this implies.
Benefits: You automatically sunder all non-magical ropes, manacles, chains, and other devices used to constrain people if you deal any lethal damage at all to the object. Additionally, you and all allies within 30 feet of you gain a +2 morale bonus against fear-based effects and mind-affecting effects.
Acrobatic Flair
"You may have me outnumbered, but I’m on a chandelier, and I’ve got a rapier. I strongly suggest you reconsider your options."
Prerequisites: You must have successfully jumped from a higher vantage point into a square adjacent to an enemy without taking damage; or tumbled past an enemy to land in a square adjacent to another enemy. After fulfilling one of these prerequisites, you must then successfully hit an opponent with a melee attack within 1 round.
Benefits: You ignore penalties on Tumble checks in difficult terrain equal to your Hit Dice, can tumble up to your base land speed without penalty, and are always considered running for the purposes of Jump checks. You also ignore armor check penalties on all Jump and Tumble checks.
BioWare Romance Subplot
Like slash fiction, but with dice and grid maps!
Prerequisites: Must have successfully reached a “climactic” point in a romantic relationship with a PC or NPC which has lasted at least 3 game sessions.
Benefits: You have an instinctual feeling as to your beloved’s welfare and can cast locate creature 1/day as a spell-like ability (Caster Level equals HD) in regards to them. Additionally, while fighting and within 10 feet of each other, you and your beloved gain a +4 shield bonus to Armor Class and can switch places as an immediate action when one is faced with an incoming attack. Your beloved also gains this feat as well.
Cirno’s Perfect Magic Class
You’re the smartest wizard there is, regardless of what the professionals say.
Prerequisites: Must not be an arcane spellcaster, must successfully replicate the appearance of arcane spellcasting to a character trained in Spellcraft (usually an opposed Bluff versus Spellcraft check).
Benefits: You’re treated as an arcane spellcaster of a level equal to your Hit Dice for the purposes of activating magic items and divination spells targeted on you. You also can cast Prestidigitation as a spell-like ability at will, with a Caster Level equal to your Hit Dice. The spell-like ability always accomplishes its intended task in the silliest and most inconvenient way possible.
Déjà vu
You get the strange feeling that you’ve seen this dungeon before…
Prerequisites: Play two different edition versions of the same adventure module.
Benefits: Your uncanny insight into alternate realities means that you can foresee danger easily and formulate alternate plans. Once per day, you can negate all effects and events in a combat round, starting over from the person who got the highest on initiative.
I Survived the Tomb of Horrors
You just beat D&D on Hard Mode with no extra lives.
Prerequisites: Must have ventured into the Tomb of Horrors, destroyed Acerak’s look-alike construct, and escaped without dying.
Benefit: You’re immune to all forms of fear, magic and otherwise. You also gain Trapfinding as a Rogue. Finally, you can reroll any Disable Device, Listen, Search, or Spot check before success or failure is declared. You must keep the results of the second roll, even if it’s worse than the original roll.
Knocked the Wind Out of Him
Even if your blow can’t penetrate armored defenses, it can still leave a nasty bruise.
Prerequisites: Must have successfully dropped an opponent suffering from penalties to attack rolls, skill checks, or saving throws with a bludgeoning weapon.
Benefits: Once per day per 2 Hit Dice as a standard action, you can make a special attack. If you miss an opponent’s normal armor class but hit his touch armor class with a bludgeoning weapon, you resolve the damage normally except that you deal non-lethal damage instead of normal damage. If you hit an opponent’s normal armor class, you resolve damage normally and the opponent must succeed on a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ HD + Str mod) or become dazed for one round.
Metal Golem Solid
Your cloak-and-dagger methods closely mirror the tactics of a renowned corporeal serpent.
Prerequisites: While the PCs are engaged in combat with an equal or greater number of foes, you must dispatch at least two of them while remaining undetected throughout the combat encounter (must not fail a Hide check against them, must not be detected via magic, etc).
Benefits: You gain the Hide in Plain Sight ability. Additionally, you can negate the automatic detection of blindsight, blindsense, and tremorsense by taking a -5 penalty on your Move Silently checks. Opponents with these special qualities can still detect you on a successful Listen check.
Revolutionary
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants.
Prerequisites: Must successfully depose a corrupt ruler of a town, city, or nation through force of arms.
Benefits: You gain Favored Enemy +2 against soldiers, government officials, and adherents to certain authoritarian ideologies (DM’s discretion for the last one). This bonus improves by +2 at 7th level and every six levels thereafter, and does not stack with other Favored Enemy if the opponent matches both categories.
Sword and Board
Sword, meet Shield. Shield, meet Sword.
Prerequisites: While fighting with a weapon in one hand a shield in the other, you must damage an opponent with the weapon and a shield bash in any order within a one round interval between each attack.
Benefits: While wielding a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, you treat your weapon as two-handed for the purposes of Strength modifier to damage and Power Attack. Additionally, while wielding a shield, you can grant yourself concealment (20%) against all attacks for one round a number of times per day equal to Hit Dice.
Wishing For More Wishes
It’s not rules-lawyering if it’s Rules as Written!
Prerequisites: Must cast Planar Binding or Greater Planar Binding on a noble djinni or efreet, and then use least one wish to get a magic item which grants more than one wish.
Benefits: Every noble djinni and efreeti in the Multiverse goes into panic mode and assembles at a Grand Council of Djinn leaders. They revise the rules of geniekind to count wish-granting as an “unreasonable request” for the purposes of Planar Binding. Hereafter, the genies are afraid of your power and give you a magic item worth 12,000 gp or less once per month to appease you. You stop receiving free items if you take any hostile actions against a noble djinni or efreet.
Adventure Path Achievement Feats
Adventure Path Achievement Feats can only be gained by PCs in a particular series of adventures. The prerequisites are usually specific to the adventures’ events and circumstances.
Dragonlance Chronicles Achievement Feats
Relevant Adventures: Dragons of Autumn, Dragons of Winter, Dragons of Spring
As If You Wouldn’t Have Done It!
This is why Kender PCs are banned in my games!
Prerequisites: Must have successfully inflicted violence on a Kender who has “borrowed” an object from you.
Benefits: All objects in your pockets, backpacks, scabbards, and in other containers on your person deal 1d6 points of electricity damage/2 Hit Dice to people who touch them without your permission.
Sunder Plot Armor
The PCs just installed a railroad switch on the plot.
Prerequisites: Must have killed Fewmaster Toede or another recurring villain meant to show up later in the adventure.
Benefits: Opponents within your threatened square who withdraw threaten an attack of opportunity from you.
I Miss the 1st Edition Fighter
Back in the good old days, you didn’t need a feat to get free attacks on hordes of mooks!
Prerequisites: Base Attack +3, Must have at least 4 levels in Fighter or Warblade OR used Cleave on at least 4 different opponents in the same encounter.
Benefits: Once per encounter per 3 points of Base Attack Bonus (rounded down), you can attack all opponents in a radius equal to your land speed (you bound across the battlefield in a whirlwind of fury). Opponents within the radius must succeed on a Reflex Save (DC 10 + ½ HD + Str or Dex mod) or take normal weapon damage from you. A successful save halves the damage.
Notes: The Dragonlance Chronicles heavily rely on the Zerg Rush technique for encounters. Spellcasters with Area of Effect spells rule, while noncasters will feel weak and useless in comparison. This achievement feat is meant to give Fighters a chance to shine a little.
Divine Sacrifice
Taste the power of religion, dragon bitch!
Prerequisites: Must have at least 1 level in Cleric, must have successfully killed Onyx with the Blue Crystal Staff.
Benefits: You can turn evil creatures of the dragon type as a good cleric turns undead. If your patron deity is Paladine/Bahamut, you gain the greater turning ability of the Sun domain, except that it only works on evil creatures of the dragon type.
Professor Fizban’s School of Whimsical Magic
“I’m so glad that you place your complete and total trust my arcane talents to help you in your adventure! Now where did I put that spellbook?”
Prerequisites: Successfully convinced Fizban the Fabulous to cast a 4th-level or higher spell to further the goals of the adventure (Diplomacy DC 30).
Benefits: Three times per day, you can apply the [Fizban] descriptor to any spell that you can cast. Spells with the [Fizban] descriptor appear harmless and cast by an incompetent magic-user, causing unobservant opponents to lower their guard. Enemies suffer a -2 penalty to their Armor Class and Saving Throws to resist spells with the [Fizban] descriptor unless they succeed on a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spellcaster’s key ability modifier + spell level). If you don’t have spellcasting ability, you can cast the daze, flare, and color spray spells once per day each with the [Fizban] descriptor.
Wielder of the Dragonlance
“This legendary weapon, this artifact of the Age of Dreams, dealt the killing blow to Takhisis in the First Dragonwar. With the Dragonlance, we will pierce the heart of the Dragon Empire and kill her once again!”
Prerequisites: Must present the Dragonlance to the assembled leaders of the Whitestone Council in a suitably dramatic fashion. Good examples include using it to destroy the Orb of Dragonkind or splitting the Whitestone in half.
Benefits: You gain proficiency with the Lance. When wielding a Dragonlance or Greater Dragonlance, you use its base enhancement bonus or an enhancement bonus equal to your character level divided by 3 (rounded UP), whichever is greater. Finally, you can attack adjacent opponents with a Lance at no penalty.
Pathfinder’s Achievement Feats (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/achievement-feats) were a neat idea, but their execution was badly done. The point of video game achievements is that they benefit you once you meet their prerequisites. Killing 50 gnolls to get that Gnoll Hunter feat isn’t worth the time and effort if you have to spend one of your slots to receive the benefits. Additionally, the feats as written require a massive amount of book-keeping on the part of the PCs and DM of damage dealt/monsters killed/etc. An achievement feat in a tabletop game should require minimal book-keeping and have prerequisites more interesting than acting as a score-keeper.
Revised Rules: [Achievement] feats are like normal feats, except that you immediately gain the feat as a bonus feat as soon as you meet the prerequisites. There is no limit to how many achievement feats that you can have.
And here, I bring to you my Revised Achievement Feats:
Abolitionist
“I apologize, slaver, but I can’t hear your protests over the sound of my freedom!”
Prerequisites: Must successfully hinder the efforts of a major slave ring. It’s up to the DM what scale of magnitude this implies.
Benefits: You automatically sunder all non-magical ropes, manacles, chains, and other devices used to constrain people if you deal any lethal damage at all to the object. Additionally, you and all allies within 30 feet of you gain a +2 morale bonus against fear-based effects and mind-affecting effects.
Acrobatic Flair
"You may have me outnumbered, but I’m on a chandelier, and I’ve got a rapier. I strongly suggest you reconsider your options."
Prerequisites: You must have successfully jumped from a higher vantage point into a square adjacent to an enemy without taking damage; or tumbled past an enemy to land in a square adjacent to another enemy. After fulfilling one of these prerequisites, you must then successfully hit an opponent with a melee attack within 1 round.
Benefits: You ignore penalties on Tumble checks in difficult terrain equal to your Hit Dice, can tumble up to your base land speed without penalty, and are always considered running for the purposes of Jump checks. You also ignore armor check penalties on all Jump and Tumble checks.
BioWare Romance Subplot
Like slash fiction, but with dice and grid maps!
Prerequisites: Must have successfully reached a “climactic” point in a romantic relationship with a PC or NPC which has lasted at least 3 game sessions.
Benefits: You have an instinctual feeling as to your beloved’s welfare and can cast locate creature 1/day as a spell-like ability (Caster Level equals HD) in regards to them. Additionally, while fighting and within 10 feet of each other, you and your beloved gain a +4 shield bonus to Armor Class and can switch places as an immediate action when one is faced with an incoming attack. Your beloved also gains this feat as well.
Cirno’s Perfect Magic Class
You’re the smartest wizard there is, regardless of what the professionals say.
Prerequisites: Must not be an arcane spellcaster, must successfully replicate the appearance of arcane spellcasting to a character trained in Spellcraft (usually an opposed Bluff versus Spellcraft check).
Benefits: You’re treated as an arcane spellcaster of a level equal to your Hit Dice for the purposes of activating magic items and divination spells targeted on you. You also can cast Prestidigitation as a spell-like ability at will, with a Caster Level equal to your Hit Dice. The spell-like ability always accomplishes its intended task in the silliest and most inconvenient way possible.
Déjà vu
You get the strange feeling that you’ve seen this dungeon before…
Prerequisites: Play two different edition versions of the same adventure module.
Benefits: Your uncanny insight into alternate realities means that you can foresee danger easily and formulate alternate plans. Once per day, you can negate all effects and events in a combat round, starting over from the person who got the highest on initiative.
I Survived the Tomb of Horrors
You just beat D&D on Hard Mode with no extra lives.
Prerequisites: Must have ventured into the Tomb of Horrors, destroyed Acerak’s look-alike construct, and escaped without dying.
Benefit: You’re immune to all forms of fear, magic and otherwise. You also gain Trapfinding as a Rogue. Finally, you can reroll any Disable Device, Listen, Search, or Spot check before success or failure is declared. You must keep the results of the second roll, even if it’s worse than the original roll.
Knocked the Wind Out of Him
Even if your blow can’t penetrate armored defenses, it can still leave a nasty bruise.
Prerequisites: Must have successfully dropped an opponent suffering from penalties to attack rolls, skill checks, or saving throws with a bludgeoning weapon.
Benefits: Once per day per 2 Hit Dice as a standard action, you can make a special attack. If you miss an opponent’s normal armor class but hit his touch armor class with a bludgeoning weapon, you resolve the damage normally except that you deal non-lethal damage instead of normal damage. If you hit an opponent’s normal armor class, you resolve damage normally and the opponent must succeed on a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ HD + Str mod) or become dazed for one round.
Metal Golem Solid
Your cloak-and-dagger methods closely mirror the tactics of a renowned corporeal serpent.
Prerequisites: While the PCs are engaged in combat with an equal or greater number of foes, you must dispatch at least two of them while remaining undetected throughout the combat encounter (must not fail a Hide check against them, must not be detected via magic, etc).
Benefits: You gain the Hide in Plain Sight ability. Additionally, you can negate the automatic detection of blindsight, blindsense, and tremorsense by taking a -5 penalty on your Move Silently checks. Opponents with these special qualities can still detect you on a successful Listen check.
Revolutionary
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants.
Prerequisites: Must successfully depose a corrupt ruler of a town, city, or nation through force of arms.
Benefits: You gain Favored Enemy +2 against soldiers, government officials, and adherents to certain authoritarian ideologies (DM’s discretion for the last one). This bonus improves by +2 at 7th level and every six levels thereafter, and does not stack with other Favored Enemy if the opponent matches both categories.
Sword and Board
Sword, meet Shield. Shield, meet Sword.
Prerequisites: While fighting with a weapon in one hand a shield in the other, you must damage an opponent with the weapon and a shield bash in any order within a one round interval between each attack.
Benefits: While wielding a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, you treat your weapon as two-handed for the purposes of Strength modifier to damage and Power Attack. Additionally, while wielding a shield, you can grant yourself concealment (20%) against all attacks for one round a number of times per day equal to Hit Dice.
Wishing For More Wishes
It’s not rules-lawyering if it’s Rules as Written!
Prerequisites: Must cast Planar Binding or Greater Planar Binding on a noble djinni or efreet, and then use least one wish to get a magic item which grants more than one wish.
Benefits: Every noble djinni and efreeti in the Multiverse goes into panic mode and assembles at a Grand Council of Djinn leaders. They revise the rules of geniekind to count wish-granting as an “unreasonable request” for the purposes of Planar Binding. Hereafter, the genies are afraid of your power and give you a magic item worth 12,000 gp or less once per month to appease you. You stop receiving free items if you take any hostile actions against a noble djinni or efreet.
Adventure Path Achievement Feats
Adventure Path Achievement Feats can only be gained by PCs in a particular series of adventures. The prerequisites are usually specific to the adventures’ events and circumstances.
Dragonlance Chronicles Achievement Feats
Relevant Adventures: Dragons of Autumn, Dragons of Winter, Dragons of Spring
As If You Wouldn’t Have Done It!
This is why Kender PCs are banned in my games!
Prerequisites: Must have successfully inflicted violence on a Kender who has “borrowed” an object from you.
Benefits: All objects in your pockets, backpacks, scabbards, and in other containers on your person deal 1d6 points of electricity damage/2 Hit Dice to people who touch them without your permission.
Sunder Plot Armor
The PCs just installed a railroad switch on the plot.
Prerequisites: Must have killed Fewmaster Toede or another recurring villain meant to show up later in the adventure.
Benefits: Opponents within your threatened square who withdraw threaten an attack of opportunity from you.
I Miss the 1st Edition Fighter
Back in the good old days, you didn’t need a feat to get free attacks on hordes of mooks!
Prerequisites: Base Attack +3, Must have at least 4 levels in Fighter or Warblade OR used Cleave on at least 4 different opponents in the same encounter.
Benefits: Once per encounter per 3 points of Base Attack Bonus (rounded down), you can attack all opponents in a radius equal to your land speed (you bound across the battlefield in a whirlwind of fury). Opponents within the radius must succeed on a Reflex Save (DC 10 + ½ HD + Str or Dex mod) or take normal weapon damage from you. A successful save halves the damage.
Notes: The Dragonlance Chronicles heavily rely on the Zerg Rush technique for encounters. Spellcasters with Area of Effect spells rule, while noncasters will feel weak and useless in comparison. This achievement feat is meant to give Fighters a chance to shine a little.
Divine Sacrifice
Taste the power of religion, dragon bitch!
Prerequisites: Must have at least 1 level in Cleric, must have successfully killed Onyx with the Blue Crystal Staff.
Benefits: You can turn evil creatures of the dragon type as a good cleric turns undead. If your patron deity is Paladine/Bahamut, you gain the greater turning ability of the Sun domain, except that it only works on evil creatures of the dragon type.
Professor Fizban’s School of Whimsical Magic
“I’m so glad that you place your complete and total trust my arcane talents to help you in your adventure! Now where did I put that spellbook?”
Prerequisites: Successfully convinced Fizban the Fabulous to cast a 4th-level or higher spell to further the goals of the adventure (Diplomacy DC 30).
Benefits: Three times per day, you can apply the [Fizban] descriptor to any spell that you can cast. Spells with the [Fizban] descriptor appear harmless and cast by an incompetent magic-user, causing unobservant opponents to lower their guard. Enemies suffer a -2 penalty to their Armor Class and Saving Throws to resist spells with the [Fizban] descriptor unless they succeed on a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spellcaster’s key ability modifier + spell level). If you don’t have spellcasting ability, you can cast the daze, flare, and color spray spells once per day each with the [Fizban] descriptor.
Wielder of the Dragonlance
“This legendary weapon, this artifact of the Age of Dreams, dealt the killing blow to Takhisis in the First Dragonwar. With the Dragonlance, we will pierce the heart of the Dragon Empire and kill her once again!”
Prerequisites: Must present the Dragonlance to the assembled leaders of the Whitestone Council in a suitably dramatic fashion. Good examples include using it to destroy the Orb of Dragonkind or splitting the Whitestone in half.
Benefits: You gain proficiency with the Lance. When wielding a Dragonlance or Greater Dragonlance, you use its base enhancement bonus or an enhancement bonus equal to your character level divided by 3 (rounded UP), whichever is greater. Finally, you can attack adjacent opponents with a Lance at no penalty.