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Somensjev
2013-05-11, 05:32 AM
ok, i'm posting this coz i designed it a while ago, and i want some criticism, be as honest and/or brutal as you want


Half wraith (template)


Medium humanoid

Hit die: 1d12

Speed: 30ft walk, 60ft fly

Attack: Incorporeal touch +5 melee (1d4 plus 1d6 constitution drain)

Special qualities: dark vision 60ft, daylight weakness (-2 to all rolls), incorporeal traits, life sense 120ft, undead traits, unnatural aura 15ft

Racial modifiers: +3 dex, +2 int, +2 wis, +2 cha

Automatic languages: Common and infernal.

Ecl: 1

Level adjustment: +0


i may need help making it look better to, it was my first template, so i have no idea if i did it right or not..

Ossian
2013-05-11, 05:44 AM
ok, i'm posting this coz i designed it a while ago, and i want some criticism, be as honest and/or brutal as you want


Half wraith (template)


Medium humanoid

Hit die: 1d12

Speed: 30ft walk, 60ft fly

Attack: Incorporeal touch +5 melee (1d4 plus 1d6 constitution drain)

Special qualities: dark vision 60ft, daylight weakness (-2 to all rolls), incorporeal traits, life sense 120ft, undead traits, unnatural aura 15ft

Racial modifiers: +3 dex, +2 int, +2 wis, +2 cha

Automatic languages: Common and infernal.

Ecl: 1

Level adjustment: +0


i may need help making it look better to, it was my first template, so i have no idea if i did it right or not..

Hi, can you give us something more to work on? It helps fine tune the mechanics if the thinking behind is sharper. Say, what makes a half wraith? Is it sometimes corporeal and sometimes not? Is it like a Nazgul (but less powerful)?

In general, if you just add extra HD, abilities and skills boosts, there should be a little LA, at least +1.

Somensjev
2013-05-11, 06:05 AM
Hi, can you give us something more to work on? It helps fine tune the mechanics if the thinking behind is sharper. Say, what makes a half wraith? Is it sometimes corporeal and sometimes not? Is it like a Nazgul (but less powerful)?

In general, if you just add extra HD, abilities and skills boosts, there should be a little LA, at least +1.

well, i didnt make any fluff for it, but i think i wanted something that was created by high magical powers, so it's an inherit template, because the ritual to become one would kill people over a certain age, or something
and they choose to be either corporeal or incorporeal at will, probably swapping between them as a half-round action

i'm not really sure, but i think that's sort of what i wanted

i've heard the word nazgul before, but i cant recall it >< stupid memory

Draconi Redfir
2013-05-11, 06:10 AM
i had the same problem awhile ago too, making undead races for a game i wanted to but never to the chance to DM, and i wound up making them pretty bad to begin with.


For starters i doubt that's LA+0 with all those bonuses and abilities, +4 maybe, but if you want +0 you will need to remove some stat bonuses and either remove or change some of those special abilities.

In the case of ability modifiers, the best thing to do with them is either make the total amount of them all combined together either +0, or +2 if you are in pathfinder.

For example, +2 Str, -2 Con. 2 + -2 =0.
or +2 Str, +2 Int, -2 Con, 2+ 2 + -2 =+2.


for the special abilities, it seems you are focusing a lot on the wraith-half of this creature, when it's supposed to be half human or something else too right? So assuming this was caused post-birth due to some wacky shenanigans and not due to a wraith and a human somehow spending the night together, you'll want to remember that this thing is still Marjory corporeal, think Danny Phantom, he's still pretty solid with exception to the times where he turns invisible. But that's a TV show not a D&D character, so I’d imagine you'd want this thing to be pretty fair-ish in regards to other people.


my recommendations would beee... limit the "fly" a bit, such as only being accessible after the character reaches a certain level, such as fly 30 at level 10, and fly 60 at level 15.

The constitution drain will most likely have to go, or at least be severely nerfed. Perhaps it can only occur as a 10% chance on critical hits, and with a 1d4 instead of a 1d6? as with the flight the D# could go up at higher levels, perhaps even the percentile chance of the minor con drain as well. so perhaps from level one to five the incorporeal touch just does straight damage, at six it has a 10% chance of doing 1d2/1d3 con damage on a critical hit, at level 10 it's a 10% chance of 1d4 con damage on crit, at level 15 or 18 you get either a 1d4 con damage at 20% chance on crit, or a 1d6 on a 10% chance on crit?



Might want to remove the incorporeal and undead traits as well, this is of course assuming the person became half-wraith due to an event rather then due to birth, so I’d imagine they would still be largely alive. The unnatural aura i don't see a problem with, seems fair enough given the circumstances, Life sense... not sure. maybe it's okay, maybe limit it to 60ft just in case, could still be handy for detecting foes through walls or something.


The ability modifiers definitely need to undergo some changes. i don't know if your guy has a constitution score or not, as if he didn't he would be completely dead and not alive in the slightest, which would probably just make him a straight wraith rather then half, but either way undead use their charisma as a constitution score, so a +2 to Cha sounds fair. Ghosts generally don't have strength scores either, so if your character has one then i would assume a -2 Str would work as well, if not then you might need to take a -2 Dex to make up for it.

if you're in pathfinder you can add one more +2 on top of those for a total of +2, that could be either the +2 intelligence or the +2 wisdom. I’m not a master on wraiths so i'm not sure which fits better.

Somensjev
2013-05-11, 06:53 AM
thanks alot for that, and i dont think i'm using pathfinder, not sure, but if the modifiers equall +0 then it sounds about right

and i'm pretty sure i gave it a lower LA because of sunlight weakness, but it probably still needs to be nerfed a bit

the constitution drain being only on criticals, and 10% chance sounds fair

Draconi Redfir
2013-05-11, 07:19 AM
how strong or weak it is ultimately boils down to how much LA you/your DM wants to put up with. you can have some pretty powerful abilities if you don't mind missing out on a few class levels later on and progressing at a slower rate then everybody else.

Somensjev
2013-05-11, 07:34 AM
how strong or weak it is ultimately boils down to how much LA you/your DM wants to put up with. you can have some pretty powerful abilities if you don't mind missing out on a few class levels later on and progressing at a slower rate then everybody else.

well, the guy that normally DM's we go around on a rota, but that kinda screwed over my campaing, since they finished the first dungeon then swapped to the next DM and he's going to make us do his entire campain doesn't like homebrew, no matter what, so i'd only use it if i was DMing, and i dont like characters with positive LA's

Draconi Redfir
2013-05-11, 05:58 PM
*shrugs* Well best of luck to you then i guess. hope you get some better help then i can provide.

Eldan
2013-05-11, 06:40 PM
Incorporeal, fly, and life sense are probably already worth a level adjustment each. All very powerful abilities. Then you have very good ability scores on top and even the racial HD ( I assume it is one) doesn't help much.

Somensjev
2013-05-11, 08:47 PM
Incorporeal, fly, and life sense are probably already worth a level adjustment each. All very powerful abilities. Then you have very good ability scores on top and even the racial HD ( I assume it is one) doesn't help much.

i guess i could try to acid test it and put up with the LA that i think it deserves, but you're probably right, it's not looking good for my idea of LA +0

Thugorp
2013-05-11, 10:05 PM
O.K. well I would say as a general rule, any time you are adding flying ability to a race at start of game you are adding L.A. +1. You didn't say what maneuverability the fly speed was, but I am going to assume perfect, I would say that a 60ft(perfect) fly speed boarders on +2L.A.(but not quite) but when pared with the VERY powerful natural attack, it pushes it over into +3 range, the fat that it has to take a racial hit die, does mitigate I would say 1 L.A. but you must then remember to note what the class skills for that racial H.D. are and what feats it is eligible to take for that Racial H.D. Otherwise just get rid of the H.D. and make it an L.A. +3 - +4 template.

So, Eitehr an L.A.+2 with 1 racial H.D.(with skills and feats still needing to be stated)

Or

an L.A. + 3 or 4 creator

I want to say, I hope I haven't been too hard on you. I remember making my first playable creature, it was a fox folk I took the idea from someone else and found out it was based on Inuyash later. In any case, I tried to fit WAY to much into +0 or +1 L.A., so don't feel bad. Although, it is a very dirty meathod, perhaps come up with some offsets, like no incorporiality or being damaged by both positive and negative energy, only being able to heal naturally and then only at half normal speed.(that would bring down the L.A. FOR SURE) though I think all told by only 1, losing the fly speed would also go along way. Don't forget the thing is only HALF wraith.

There is no such thing as a half-round action, but you might want to look up the spell, Improved blink. It is basically being incorporeal half the time. :-) and would help bring down the LA to maybe just a +3

Somensjev
2013-05-13, 07:20 AM
O.K. well I would say as a general rule, any time you are adding flying ability to a race at start of game you are adding L.A. +1. You didn't say what maneuverability the fly speed was, but I am going to assume perfect i'd probably give it average or good flight speed, but i forgot it when i wrote the template, I would say that a 60ft(perfect) fly speed boarders on +2L.A.(but not quite) but when pared with the VERY powerful natural attack, it pushes it over into +3 range, the fat that it has to take a racial hit die, does mitigate I would say 1 L.A. but you must then remember to note what the class skills for that racial H.D. are and what feats it is eligible to take for that Racial H.D. Otherwise just get rid of the H.D. and make it an L.A. +3 - +4 template. the hit die would replace racial hit die, say for a monster or something, but it gets replaced by class hit die

So, Eitehr an L.A.+2 with 1 racial H.D.(with skills and feats still needing to be stated)

Or

an L.A. + 3 or 4 creator

I want to say, I hope I haven't been too hard on you. I remember making my first playable creature, it was a fox folk I took the idea from someone else and found out it was based on Inuyash later. In any case, I tried to fit WAY to much into +0 or +1 L.A., so don't feel bad. Although, it is a very dirty meathod, perhaps come up with some offsets, like no incorporiality or being damaged by both positive and negative energy, only being able to heal naturally and then only at half normal speed.(that would bring down the L.A. FOR SURE) though I think all told by only 1, losing the fly speed would also go along way. Don't forget the thing is only HALF wraith.

There is no such thing as a half-round action read half-round as movement, we call it half round coz my DM's weird, i'm pretty sure it's a movement action i'm thinking of, but you might want to look up the spell, Improved blink. It is basically being incorporeal half the time. :-) and would help bring down the LA to maybe just a +3

you havent been hard or anything, every comment was quite useful

Ossian
2013-05-13, 07:44 AM
well, i didnt make any fluff for it, but i think i wanted something that was created by high magical powers, so it's an inherit template, because the ritual to become one would kill people over a certain age, or something
and they choose to be either corporeal or incorporeal at will, probably swapping between them as a half-round action

i'm not really sure, but i think that's sort of what i wanted

i've heard the word nazgul before, but i cant recall it >< stupid memory


A lot of useful tips have been posted already, so all I can do (Unless you have already googled it) is to tell you something about the Nazgul.

They are t-800 (terminators) of Tolkien's Middle Earth. They were nine Men who succumbed to Sauron's (Dark Lord) power and attained near-immortality as wraiths, servants bound to the power of the One Ring. They are first mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, originally published in 1954–1955. The book calls the Nazgûl Sauron's "most terrible servants".

To quote Kyle Reese:


Kyle Reese Aragorn: Listen, and understand [Frodo]. That terminator Nazgul is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

They can interact with the world, but they are rather incorporeal, wearing their physical bodies much like you would wear a cape. Their weapons though, are quite real, and so are their steeds (winged or not). They see us as if through a thick curtain of water, but they smell and hear all right (actually, way better than humans).

Weapons don't harm them, save those forged in the old Numenore, or eleven ones (so, in short, weapons with a powerful enchantment, made of special alloys, and with centuries of history). Even then, they just slow them down, and when they croak, it is just temporary. Much like Pacman's ghosts after you eat one of the 4 big dots, if you eat one, it just goes as a pair of floating eyes back to Mordor to put on a new disguise.

They can stalk and ride invisible, announced only by a wave front of fear that is probably immune to the Doppler effect (has anyone thought of that before?).

The ONLY way to undo them for good, is to undo the One Ring.

There are, however, hints in the lore of many lesser rings, probably tests made by the dark lord, minor copies, gifted to men who would dominate and subjugate others. These too fell to the shadows, yet were re born as much lesser wraiths, far from immortal, and bound to become, one day, dim and barely conscious shadows of their former selves, utterly enthralled to the Dark Lord.

Somensjev
2013-05-14, 08:02 AM
i knew i had heard nazgul before :smallbiggrin: i just completely forgot about it >< but yeah, it'd be something like that