A request large enough to deserve its own thread (this thread, obviously)

[enderlord99]

Basically, a subsystem dealing with "Leylines." (you know... the metaphorical veins (and arteries) of the multiverse)

I would especially like: 1-3 full base class(es) using the subsystem; a template called "Cosmic Vampire" which drains the energy flowing through the leylines instead of the blood flowing within living creatures; a prestige class that acts as a theurge for Arcane spellcasting and the aforementioned base class(es), and which has a capstone of gaining the Cosmic Vampire template; and a few other prestige classes based on the base class(es) mentioned earlier.

One aspect of leylines should be that, when they flow through a plane, they gradually exchange energies with the rest of the plane, but don't do so immediately; for example, if someone knew how, they could tap into a leyline "from" the Positive Energy Plane (though they're technically bidirectional) while in Pandemonium and use the energy from it to defeat an odivia (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5129122&postcount=9), but only if the leyline came from the P.E.P. recently (likely a rare occurance)

[Zale]

This should probably be in the homebrew section.

[enderlord99]

This should probably be in the homebrew section.

Yeah, I already asked the mods to move it.

[toapat]

I think the problem with this is 2fold:

Leylines: Ive never seen a formal agreement to what they are exactly and how they work with magic.

Scale: This seems to be a request for a highly problematic and DM relyable magic system that has a caster and maybe a Holy warrior to itself.

[Trodon]

Well, I might be able to help out on this, assuming I can come up with a core mechanic for it. I can't promise anything right now, It's late for me and I need to get to bed soon-ish. But I'll come back tomorrow and see what I can come up with, with a little more information from you on your general idea/feel for it. For instance, how common are these leylines? For it to be practical it'd need to be reasonably close to each other, or have to ability to tap into them from a great distance.

[enderlord99]

Well, I might be able to help out on this, assuming I can come up with a core mechanic for it. I can't promise anything right now, It's late for me and I need to get to bed soon-ish. But I'll come back tomorrow and see what I can come up with, with a little more information from you on your general idea/feel for it. For instance, how common are these leylines? For it to be practical it'd need to be reasonably close to each other, or have to ability to tap into them from a great distance.

Technically, the network of leylines goes everywhere in a very tight mesh: there are short portions of thousands, if not millions, of leylines in almost any given cubic inch of air. Or rock. Or... geometric space, really. Particularly big leylines (which are sometimes miles across), on the other hand, are quite rare... but you can access them from a distance by "pulling" energy from them through smaller leylines that connect between them and your location; this can occasionally "stretch" the width of the connecting leyline, and make it, itself, slightly larger. You cannot access a leyline directly if you aren't overlapping it in space (which is fine, as you'll almost always have billions of tiny leylines (or even more) "inside" you, though each individual one provides nigh-incalculably small amounts of power).

[BladeTempest]

Ok. No offense but (from my view point anyways) what you are asking the community to do is you come up with a concept and they do the mechanical work. Just saying. Not trying to be rude but some may view your first post as that way pokemon.

Secondly, (again from my perspective) the way that you are asking the community to develop the system is in reverse order. (base classes, template, PrC. i see no mention of the base system itself. maybe i'm just misunderstanding your question but blah.)

So, as such I am willing to help pokeman but I need to ask some questions first ok?

1) What is the purpose of the subsystem you are asking to be made for? a personal homebrew game? a setting you are trying to create. just dont like all the current "magic" systems? (normal magic, psionics, arcanum, truenames, shadow magic... etc and so forth.)

2) The other thing that i think needs to be asked is how leylines are going to be "fluffed". There are dozens of different leyline "lores" which exist out there. There are also some other printed materials that use them. grantedmost of them aren't directly d20 printed rules but comparing and contrasting is not a bad place to start. for example wheenver anyone wants to intoduce ley line magic to a game i generally go to my "rifts" core rule book and go LOLOL here you go we can just change the mechanics a bit, throw out mdc (mega damage capacity) fluff in some ley lines that "existed" but very few people knew about them then play

3) If this is for a campaign setting you are trying to make what "era" is the game in. It doesn't have to be specific as say "the 17-18 hundreds". but are there any "modern" technologies being developed? (guns, x-bows, stone age ish, standard "midevil" setting?)

4) how prevalent is leyline magic?

[Acanous]

RIFTS already has this, in spades. Ley Line Walker is a base class.

[BladeTempest]

2) The other thing that i think needs to be asked is how leylines are going to be "fluffed". There are dozens of different leyline "lores" which exist out there. There are also some other printed materials that use them. granted most of them aren't directly d20 printed rules but comparing and contrasting is not a bad place to start. for example whenever anyone wants to introduce ley line magic to a game i generally go to my "rifts" core rule book and go LOLOL here you go we can just change the mechanics a bit, throw out mdc (mega damage capacity) fluff in some ley lines that "existed" but very few people knew about them then play

^*cough cough*^

[enderlord99]

Ok. No offense but (from my view point anyways) what you are asking the community to do is you come up with a concept and they do the mechanical work. Just saying. Not trying to be rude but some may view your first post as that way pokemon.

That is, indeed, pretty much what I'm asking.


Secondly, (again from my perspective) the way that you are asking the community to develop the system is in reverse order. (base classes, template, PrC. i see no mention of the base system itself. maybe i'm just misunderstanding your question but blah.)

I don't particularly care what order it's made in, though having all of that stuff, plus overall rules, would be awesome.


1) What is the purpose of the subsystem you are asking to be made for? a personal homebrew game? a setting you are trying to create. just dont like all the current "magic" systems? (normal magic, psionics, arcanum, truenames, shadow magic... etc and so forth.)

Honestly, the main reason I want it is for the template part, though I intend to eventually make an unofficial setting for it (it will likely be quite similar to Planescape, but the canon will probably be at least somewhat different)


2) The other thing that i think needs to be asked is how leylines are going to be "fluffed". There are dozens of different leyline "lores" which exist out there. There are also some other printed materials that use them. grantedmost of them aren't directly d20 printed rules but comparing and contrasting is not a bad place to start. for example wheenver anyone wants to intoduce ley line magic to a game i generally go to my "rifts" core rule book and go LOLOL here you go we can just change the mechanics a bit, throw out mdc (mega damage capacity) fluff in some ley lines that "existed" but very few people knew about them then play

Leylines are just invisible streams of energy that flow through and between planes. The rest of the fluff I've come up with so far is in previous posts.


3) If this is for a campaign setting you are trying to make what "era" is the game in. It doesn't have to be specific as say "the 17-18 hundreds". but are there any "modern" technologies being developed? (guns, x-bows, stone age ish, standard "midevil" setting?)

Standard medieval, for the most part, but some areas have way more or way less technology (meaning: futuristic, stone age, and plenty of places in between.)


4) how prevalent is leyline magic?

Slightly less common than "regular" arcane magic, which, in turn, is used in small amounts for just about everything, but has very few "major" practitioners.

[Trodon]

I'm sorry I'm going to have to decline this. I've got my own setting to write up and I'm not spending enough time on it as it is. Best of luck to you though.

[toapat]

Leylines are just invisible streams of energy that flow through and between planes. The rest of the fluff I've come up with so far is in previous posts.

Leylines are not hard to understand from a conceptual standpoint, they are typically some form of Mana Superhighway formed through <insert phenomonon here>.

The problem is, the exact nature of what such a thing is, makes it basically impossible to say "Here is your mechanic, hold the fries."

[4th number]

I've always loved ley lines as a core magical concept. One key to making this work (I think) is a random-ish mechanic to see if a specific location contains certain lines. Since we don't want a character to be useless even if there are no lines nearby, the class must function at least as well as a half caster even if they're denied the line they want.

Perhaps there are different kinds of lines (one for each school of magic?) crossing each location, and a skilled caster can tap into them as appropriate. There might be just one line of a specific type nearby, and you must be standing in a certain square (or squares) to gain a benefit from it.

This seems like very cool concept for homebrew, even if some people are ****ting on it. I might work something up when I'm sober. :smallcool:

[Strormer]

Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought of the weave from FR to be a sort of ley line system. Manipulating the ley lines would be creating things like dead magic or wild magic zones. Just a thought really.

As for the request, I'd love to help, really I would, but I barely get any work done on my own setting so I really don't have the time. Good luck, though.

[Ashtagon]

This sounds like a recipe for DM fiat saying "sorry, this adventure is far from your leylines. You can't regain and/or use your magic here".

[Morrolan]

Hmmm, maybe a prestige class called the Linedancer

[Eldan]

I think the first question to ask is:
Why a new class? What should it be able to achieve you can't by refluffing existing classes? Can't a standard wizard be a geographer who studies leylines and has formulae for drawing specific energies from them? Can't a sorcerer be a leyline caster? What about a psion? A binder? A warlock? Pretty much any existing class, really.

[Ashtagon]

You could create one or more feats that give benefits similar to the sand/snow/city magic feats from various source books, replacing the material component (sand/snow) or location component (city) with a new location component (ley line).

Quite which spells count as "ley spells" for such a feat is a big question however. Reading around the background (which starts in 1921; no history of the concept before then), it seems to be fociused primarily on overland travel, with minor aspects in dawn/dusk, and dowsing (basic detection) magic.

Another very big question is how the class interacts with extra-planar travel.

[enderlord99]

I think the first question to ask is:
Why a new class? What should it be able to achieve you can't by refluffing existing classes? Can't a standard wizard be a geographer who studies leylines and has formulae for drawing specific energies from them? Can't a sorcerer be a leyline caster? What about a psion? A binder? A warlock? Pretty much any existing class, really.

You make some good points. Honestly, I suppose all I really need is the template.


You could create one or more feats that give benefits similar to the sand/snow/city magic feats from various source books, replacing the material component (sand/snow) or location component (city) with a new location component (ley line).

Quite which spells count as "ley spells" for such a feat is a big question however. Reading around the background (which starts in 1921; no history of the concept before then), it seems to be fociused primarily on overland travel, with minor aspects in dawn/dusk, and dowsing (basic detection) magic.

Another very big question is how the class interacts with extra-planar travel.

Leylines are associated with most forms of magic (in differing amounts based on the leylines' origins), and they take energy from one location through another. I suppose they could let you count as being in a location when you aren't exactly there (because the energy flowing between there and your real location might be high).

There are two known leylines large enough to actually use for travel, and both are, indeed, multi-planar. Both are in the outer planes, and both are very wet.:smallamused:

[Ashtagon]

Leylines are associated with most forms of magic (in differing amounts based on the leylines' origins), and they take energy from one location through another. I suppose they could let you count as being in a location when you aren't exactly there (because the energy flowing between there and your real location might be high).

There are two known leylines large enough to actually use for travel, and both are, indeed, multi-planar. Both are in the outer planes, and both are very wet.:smallamused:

You are obviously using a definition of ley lines that is very different from the real world definition.

If you are alluding to the Styx and Oceanus of Planescape, they are termed planar pathwaterways (http://www.mimir.net/pathways/index.shtml) in game terminology, never as ley lines.

[enderlord99]

You are obviously using a definition of ley lines that is very different from the real world definition.

Maybe. I didn't know there was a consistent "real world definition."


If you are alluding to the Styx and Oceanus of Planescape, they are termed planar pathwaterways (http://www.mimir.net/pathways/index.shtml) in game terminology, never as ley lines.

While this isn't canon, I like to think they are rivers that happen to lie exactly along leylines, which give them their transdimensional properties.:smallsmile:

[Ashtagon]

The original consistent real-world definition is surprisingly mundane. They were lines that could be drawn between place names that ended in -ley, -lee, or -leigh (all pronounced the same and etymologically the same). Their original modern-day "re-discoverer" had a vision of sorts while standing on one.

Within months of the original discovery, they got associated with the ancient celts and druids, and described as ancient pre-Roman roads.

[sirpercival]

Maybe my Ley Engineer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13969514) can help with part of this? It's in the process of being updated, but is playable as-is.