Spreading Creep?

[Hanuman]

I was wondering if there was any known mechanics (source or homebrew) that involve changing terrain such as spreading plants and trees or any manner of terrain change really.

The goal would be to find a balancepoint for spreading creep starctaft style, essentially creating a different form of terrain that mechanics would specifically interact with.

Any input about these concepts, references, hangups and inspirations are all appreciated.

[SamBurke]

I was wondering if there was any known mechanics (source or homebrew) that involve changing terrain such as spreading plants and trees or any manner of terrain change really.

The goal would be to find a balancepoint for spreading creep starctaft style, essentially creating a different form of terrain that mechanics would specifically interact with.

Any input about these concepts, references, hangups and inspirations are all appreciated.

What would the creep do? I'm ignorant of starcraft, sorry...

[Veklim]

As loathe as I usually am to suggest much from it, there's always the shadowlands/taint stuff from Rokugan which might actually put you in the right path.

[Allnightmask]

Only thing that jumps to mind is to have a Gramarie set up of HEUR 302 that prepares itself and another that HEUR 302 that prepares BIOY 101. It would be SLOW though.

[Zaydos]

To plug myself Doomsayer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?368342-Doomsayer-%283-5-Base-Class%29) gets some invocations for the purpose of terrain change. They get Cursed Lands which Taints an area (see Heroes of Horror) which makes it so the area slowly gives other creatures venturing into the area corruption. They get Wither Plants which renders an area infertile for a year and can be used for terrain change (not so much what you seem to be looking for). Freeze the World is a dark invocation which makes a region icy cold and gives you weather control within it. And at 20th level they can instill a plague into a region (again not so much what you're looking for).

Relevant/Mentioned Abilities:
Lv 6:
Cursed Lands
Effective Level: 4th
School: Evocation [Evil].
Path: Waste (Taint).
Casting Time: 1 minute.
Range: 120-ft.
Area: 120-ft radius centered on you.
Duration: Permanent.
Saving Throw: No.
Spell Resistance: No.
Truename: Yes.
You invoke corrupt energies which mutate anything which remains overly long in the area, creating an area of twisted life and desolate waste.
The area becomes tainted by accursed energies. Any creature other than the creator entering an area under this effect must make a Fortitude save or gain 1 point of Corruption and they must make another such save every 24 hours spent within an affected area. This effect can only be dispelled or removed at the center of the effect. If the areas of multiple uses of this invocation overlap the areas merge, their center becoming the new central point of the tainted region, the saving throw DC becoming the higher of the two effects’, and the caster level for the effect becoming the higher of the two as well; any character which has contributed to this gestalt spell effect either increasing its area, increasing its save DC or increasing its CL is considered its creator for the purposes of immunity.
Truename Effect: If you include a creature's personal truename into this invocation they gain immunity to its effects as if they were its creator as well. This is not retained in a gestalt effect unless the effect is tied for or the highest for both save DC and CL in the gestalt. A doomsayer could, however, give all their allies immunity by creating a large enough corrupted lands (which isn't all that large for less than massive armies) which includes a different truename in each casting.

Wither Plants
Effective Level: 4th.
School: Necromancy.
Path: Necrosis, Waste (Modal).
Casting Time: Standard action.
Range: Long or 1 mile or Medium.
Area or Target: 100-ft radius or 1/2 mile radius or 1 plant.
Duration: Instantaneous.
Saving Throw: No or No or Fort halves.
Spell Resistance: No or No or Yes.
Truename: No.
You utter a curse which sweep across the land blighting it. Infusing death and waste into the land you cause plants in the region to die, and shrivel away, or simply stop growing.
This spell has three modes:
In the first you cause normal vegetation within the area (100-ft radius within long range) to shrink to about one-third of their normal size, becoming untangled and less bushy. The affected vegetation appears to have been carefully pruned and trimmed.
In the second it targets plants within the area causing all normal plants within the region to stop growing for 1 year.
In the third it targets a single plant within close range. If it is a normal plant it dies instantly. A plant creature takes 1d6 damage per caster level with a Fortitude save for half.

Lv 16:
Freeze the World
Effective Level: 8th.
School: Transmutation.
Path: Fimbulwinter (Modal).
Casting Time: 1 minute or standard.
Range: 1 mile or special.
Area: 1 mile radius centered on you or special.
Duration: 1 day/caster level or special.
Saving Throw: No.
Spell Resistance: No.
Truename: No.
You speak the word of winter calling it onto the area. The area chills, as you invoke the icy weather upon it, a cold that blasts away even the heat of summer, leaving a fell chill to kill the unprotected.
This invocation has two modes.

In the first mode you bring frigid cold to the area. The area is cloaked in winter conditions, the weather becoming the norm for the area in such conditions. This invocation drops the temperature to a harsh winter for the region or your choice between 0 and -30 degrees, whichever is colder. If you use the 1st mode of this invocation in an area already covered by an iteration of this effect created by you it resets the duration of any iterations of this effect which overlaps your current location. You may create overlapping copies of this effect by using it from 1 square outside of the other effect. Control Weather and other similar effects cannot restore normal weather in the area but can manipulate the weather as if it were winter. This effect may only be dispelled at its center.

In the second mode you alter the weather of an area created by the first mode of this effect. This lets you call down or quell any winter weather possible within the area, such as calling forth or quelling a blizzard, gale or hurricane force winds, or rolling cloud of thick fog. You select a single weather condition when you use this invocation and it lasts 1 hour or however long it normally would (whichever is longer) beginning one round after you use the invocation. If other magical effects to control the weather (such as Control Weather or Control Winds) would oppose or change this effect during the first hour the casters of the two effects must make opposed caster level checks, whichever one winning gaining control of the weather in the area and a failure indicates that use of that weather altering spell or effect is wasted.

Lv 20:
5th Sign (Plague): You may infect a region 1 mile in radius. Any creature spending more than 10 minutes in the region must make a Fort save or be infected with a disease (chosen by you when you activate this ability). The region remains infected until removed by a Wish or Miracle spell or a CL 21+ Remove Curse cast in its center. A creature only needs to make a saving throw against this effect once every 8 hours. You may use this ability only 1/week. 1/year you increase its area to 10 miles.

The following dragons might have something that could stir some ideas: AM Dragon (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18023869&postcount=981) an evil dragon AI which can "infest" an area giving it control over the terrain; and Nightmare Dragon (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=9486908&postcount=285) which mostly has flavor based twisting of the region.

I will also second looking at the Taint rules in Heroes of Horror and Oriental Adventures, HoH is the 3.5 updated version, but OA fluffs it out a little more and if you have access to both I'd say read over it in both. You might also want to look at Genius Loci (ELH) and Spirit of the Land (MMIII) I don't recall if they have abilities that might help with this or not. Also there's a PrC in Dungeonscape I wish I had looked at while making AM Dragons which might have something I don't really remember for sure (Dungeon Keeper or something like that).

Questions, though:

Is this for a class or a creature or as its own "hazard"?
What kind of abilities?


The balance of things matter a lot based upon those two questions. If the abilities are minor (+1 to hit and damage when in an area of creep) creep can expand easily and quickly, if the abilities are major question one comes up again (if it's treated as a full adventure/hazard you can do whatever you want and it's more "what CR should this count as/how should this influence CRs".

[qazzquimby]

Only thing that jumps to mind is to have a Gramarie set up of HEUR 302 that prepares itself and another that HEUR 302 that prepares BIOY 101. It would be SLOW though.
This was fixed I believe. HEUR 302 can no longer prepare HEUR 302. I believe infinite spreading is possible another way, but it's considerably harder.

[Debihuman]

An area with a permanent entangle spell?

There is the Deadfall spell from WotC's archive: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a

Earth Devotion feat also lets you change the terrain but not permanently.

Debby

[sirpercival]

The Ley Engineer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?330060-Instant-fortress-just-add-water!-3-5-base) might interest you...?

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

I was wondering if there was any known mechanics (source or homebrew) that involve changing terrain such as spreading plants and trees or any manner of terrain change really.

The goal would be to find a balancepoint for spreading creep starctaft style, essentially creating a different form of terrain that mechanics would specifically interact with.

Any input about these concepts, references, hangups and inspirations are all appreciated.

Most of the mechanics you would want would be with monsters. Faster movement on creep is an obvious one.

However, you want the PCs to have counterplay. Perhaps when they're wounded they absorb the creep from the squares they stand in and walk through to heal, and fire burns the creep away to prevent that. Having the creep impede PC movement would also make its presence on the combat grid important if there are patches of creep and patches of bare rock or soil.

[Hanuman]

Thanks for the feedback!

Those are some pretty heavy classes to work through, I'll need to read them over quite well to understand how to simplify the mechanics down.

Here's a rough draft, keep in mind that Worldskin, Den and Field all cost about 1 feat equivalent, and that Strange Movement is a nonmagical teleport as a standard action and is normally limited to 5'/level moved per day, it's also used as a buffer for the ozodrin's ability to cast spells and powers which otherwise consume 1hp/1' so strange movement conservation can be quite beneficial.

Essentially "Field" functions as a part of the players body, it's an aura template.
Worldskin would be the creep, if the creep is within 100' of the player the creep's square is considered in her aura.
Den is just a way of changing terrain to come alive and attack when it's in the players aura, which is expanded by the creep.

---------------
Field Feature
Appearance

This feature is a field of energy or distortion that is a part of the ozodrin's body, it is invisible whenever it is not creating a mechanical effect.

Benefits


You gain a field with a 5' radius.
Using strange movement to move to a square within your field costs 5' of strange movement regardless of distance traveled.


Special


As a Move Action you may extend your field's area to 30' or 50' (?)




Augments

Worldskin Augment

Any squares with Worldskin in them up to 100' away from you are considered to be within your field.


Worldskin is an augmented terrain type, squares with worldskin have a very thin layer of biological matter covering them, this does not add or change the mechanics of the terrain nor conceal or inhibit other things. You may choose the texture, color and shape of worldskin whenever forming it.
As Swift Action you may change the terrain type of all the squares you occupy (or a portion of) into Worldskin.
Whenever sleeping or otherwise resting on worldskin you expand it's radius out from you 5' per minute to a maximum radius of 10 times your stomach's maximum length.
If the ozodrin does not contact or if in her the worldskin physically every 24 hours it receeds at a rate between 5'/round and 5'/hour, to player and DM discression.
To remove worldskin from terrain treat it as a 1" thick layer of that terrain.
Worldskin terrain acts as though you have the Worldskin augment even when you don't, it is not supressed by your guise nor is the terrain removed when your augment is.



Den Augment


As a Full-Round action you may add one feature to terrain within your field.
You must meet the requirements to add this feature such as level and free form points.
This feature is by default dormant and suppressed, it does not consume Form Points nor does it count towards the Ozodrin's maximums.
Until activated this feature appears to be just an unnerving detail of the terrain, such as a still stone eye carving on a cave wall, a tentacle pattern on a tree or a gaping maw on a patch of worldskin. They may be removed by dealing 10 damage to the terrain.
As a Standard action you may activate any number of these features within your field by spending unused form points on them. Activated features are visually and mechanically identical to normal features except they are affixed to a square of terrain as if it were your body.
Active Features made in this way require you to be in your true form, for you to have the Den augment and for the features to be within your field to stay activated, deactive features become dormant again and your FP is refunded.