urkthegurk
2012-09-04, 01:01 PM
What I would like to do is compile a list of overpowered, optimized, and excellent spells, feats and abilities. This is for my campaign. This is for ROLEplaying. That's the idea; to actually roleplay in a broken world.
Not broken so much as shattered. I like the post apocalyptic feel of all this rocket tag. I'm not much of an optimizer myself, but I'm certainly versed enough in the theory to follow the threads. Its just something I like to steal as a tactic for the ultimate archmages of my world. A reason why they haven't been unseated from their halls of power. And players have learned it can be... brutal to play a wizard in my games. Because thing just really want to KILL them. Diabolical DM'ing is perfect for the egoist atmosphere of most power-happy wizard players. They love the challenge, right?
So I'm starting a new campaign with new players, and I want a list of feats and so on that are the sort of things a society of power-gamers would use (in character), but aren't so confusing that new players won't know what to do with them. Basically, a partially assembled kit to show them how to make a character without having to troll through every supplement ever. Spells like Ice Assassin, feats like Earth Spell... and others. You all know what I'm talking about more than me. Submissions are open!
List Requirements
Feats: 111 feats. This mirrors the number in the Players Handbook. Some of them can be from the players handbook, but we should borrow liberally from other sources.
Spells: 605. Players Handbook again.
Prestige Classes: I'm thinking 5-8. They'll be chosen based on how well they work for the world, not just power, and I'm deliberately limiting the number, so if your fav doesn't make it don't be sad. I may reflavour some canon OP ones so they can make it in.
OP that (partially) inspired me to make this thread:
Anyone can steal a combination of broken feats to create an almighty god. Why not experiment with something new? See who can make the best merchant, build the best castle, lay the most bar maids. I just want to see something new rather than these glass cannon one round rocket matches. You know how DM of the Rings pointed out how lame of a D&D campaign lord of the rings would be? Imagine if you watched a movie based off D&D where everyone was a power gamer like that, every fight lasts six seconds, the villain can't be defeated without the DM missing something really obvious, and the whole campaign revolves around looking into crystal balls and trying to scry on each other to teleport in, and when someone in a blue moon finally manages to kill the other. OOPS it's an astral projection and the audience just wasted watching 2 hours of POINTLESS STUFF.
Actually, I'm watching all these threads and making notes for storytelling using rocket-tag type magics. You're imagining Harry Potter style magic fights, I'm imagining Bleach. Or even that the Wizards aren't protagonists or even antagonists so much as extremely powerful forces caught up in their own insane wars, ripping open huge chunks of reality and depleting the very forces of magic itself so they can have their little contests. In my game, Hell isn't ruled by demons anymore, its ruled by a wizard. Sure, the Archdevils are there too, and they're probably wiser than the arcanist factions, but they keep out of the way of the paranoid spaz with the seventeen layers of contingency.
And writing fight scenes based on this wouldn't be impossible. You just have to slow everything down. Sure, to outside perception the battle only lasts eight seconds, but to the wizards themselves, once that time stop goes down and all of their spells start to trigger, and they get sucked out of astral form, and their enemy steals their legs and starts dangling them over the abyss, so they have to use magic to keep their limbs alive... That sounds hilarious. Fights among wizards don't last one round. They last their entire career. Wizards are ALWAYS fighting. Because when they sense that super-intelligent creature hurtling towards them at 600 mph, they don't have much time to respond. Is it an assassin? Or is it some deva merely passing through?
This is why I start my campaigns, though, at level one. Level one wizards have some nice tricks, to be sure. But elder wizards, even 'good' ones, have every reason to want to limit the number of wizards that make it to eighth level. The guilds in my world actively hunt unaffiliated, unregistered wizards that progress past level four on their own. They are jealous of passing secrets even to their own apprentices. They keep themselves locked inside towers for a reason. Can you see why someone might want to say 'screw it' and opt to be a warrior instead? I mean, someone living in this world, not necessarily a player. There's a much lower chance you'll have your soul ripped out. Having a wizard in the party is great if you know you're going to have to fight a wizard (poor you) but otherwise its just a liability. You might as well paint a big target on your back.
Clerics and Druids are also very hostile to Wizards as well, for obvious reasons. You have to look at the assumptions laid forth in the rules, imagine a world (or set of worlds) where that's how things work, and then tweak them. Maybe players should be encouraged to play Warlocks instead, so they don't get in over their head.
Not broken so much as shattered. I like the post apocalyptic feel of all this rocket tag. I'm not much of an optimizer myself, but I'm certainly versed enough in the theory to follow the threads. Its just something I like to steal as a tactic for the ultimate archmages of my world. A reason why they haven't been unseated from their halls of power. And players have learned it can be... brutal to play a wizard in my games. Because thing just really want to KILL them. Diabolical DM'ing is perfect for the egoist atmosphere of most power-happy wizard players. They love the challenge, right?
So I'm starting a new campaign with new players, and I want a list of feats and so on that are the sort of things a society of power-gamers would use (in character), but aren't so confusing that new players won't know what to do with them. Basically, a partially assembled kit to show them how to make a character without having to troll through every supplement ever. Spells like Ice Assassin, feats like Earth Spell... and others. You all know what I'm talking about more than me. Submissions are open!
List Requirements
Feats: 111 feats. This mirrors the number in the Players Handbook. Some of them can be from the players handbook, but we should borrow liberally from other sources.
Spells: 605. Players Handbook again.
Prestige Classes: I'm thinking 5-8. They'll be chosen based on how well they work for the world, not just power, and I'm deliberately limiting the number, so if your fav doesn't make it don't be sad. I may reflavour some canon OP ones so they can make it in.
OP that (partially) inspired me to make this thread:
Anyone can steal a combination of broken feats to create an almighty god. Why not experiment with something new? See who can make the best merchant, build the best castle, lay the most bar maids. I just want to see something new rather than these glass cannon one round rocket matches. You know how DM of the Rings pointed out how lame of a D&D campaign lord of the rings would be? Imagine if you watched a movie based off D&D where everyone was a power gamer like that, every fight lasts six seconds, the villain can't be defeated without the DM missing something really obvious, and the whole campaign revolves around looking into crystal balls and trying to scry on each other to teleport in, and when someone in a blue moon finally manages to kill the other. OOPS it's an astral projection and the audience just wasted watching 2 hours of POINTLESS STUFF.
Actually, I'm watching all these threads and making notes for storytelling using rocket-tag type magics. You're imagining Harry Potter style magic fights, I'm imagining Bleach. Or even that the Wizards aren't protagonists or even antagonists so much as extremely powerful forces caught up in their own insane wars, ripping open huge chunks of reality and depleting the very forces of magic itself so they can have their little contests. In my game, Hell isn't ruled by demons anymore, its ruled by a wizard. Sure, the Archdevils are there too, and they're probably wiser than the arcanist factions, but they keep out of the way of the paranoid spaz with the seventeen layers of contingency.
And writing fight scenes based on this wouldn't be impossible. You just have to slow everything down. Sure, to outside perception the battle only lasts eight seconds, but to the wizards themselves, once that time stop goes down and all of their spells start to trigger, and they get sucked out of astral form, and their enemy steals their legs and starts dangling them over the abyss, so they have to use magic to keep their limbs alive... That sounds hilarious. Fights among wizards don't last one round. They last their entire career. Wizards are ALWAYS fighting. Because when they sense that super-intelligent creature hurtling towards them at 600 mph, they don't have much time to respond. Is it an assassin? Or is it some deva merely passing through?
This is why I start my campaigns, though, at level one. Level one wizards have some nice tricks, to be sure. But elder wizards, even 'good' ones, have every reason to want to limit the number of wizards that make it to eighth level. The guilds in my world actively hunt unaffiliated, unregistered wizards that progress past level four on their own. They are jealous of passing secrets even to their own apprentices. They keep themselves locked inside towers for a reason. Can you see why someone might want to say 'screw it' and opt to be a warrior instead? I mean, someone living in this world, not necessarily a player. There's a much lower chance you'll have your soul ripped out. Having a wizard in the party is great if you know you're going to have to fight a wizard (poor you) but otherwise its just a liability. You might as well paint a big target on your back.
Clerics and Druids are also very hostile to Wizards as well, for obvious reasons. You have to look at the assumptions laid forth in the rules, imagine a world (or set of worlds) where that's how things work, and then tweak them. Maybe players should be encouraged to play Warlocks instead, so they don't get in over their head.