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hymer
2014-11-18, 03:54 PM
I'm trying to come up with a set of medium-sized boons to offer to PCs in an impending campaign. The idea is mostly to spruce things up a bit and ideally to give the players a feeling of coolness to their PCs. My questions to you are:
Are any of these obviously superior or inferior?
Do you foresee problems with any of these?
Any other comments?

Player characters may choose one from a group of special abilities, which are partially tied to their race. Each ability has an active and a passive use. The active use takes a swift action, and can be done a number of times per day depending on character level. The passive use is always ‘on’ as it were.

1/day from level 1, 2/day from level 3, 3 from 5, 4 from 7, 5 from 10, 6 from 13 and 7 from 17.

Edit: Agility and Vigor are skills, amalgamations of some Dex and Str skills, respectively.

Agility
Requirement: Elf or half-elf
Active: Move up to 30’ provoking no attacks of opportunity. This may include jumping, balancing and tumbling to get to the intended place, but cannot include squeezing. Enemy-occupied squares can be traversed, but count as two squares each. Can be done while prone, and you need not end up prone unless you wish to be so.
Passive: Reduce all falling damage by 3d6, +1 competence to Agility* and Vigor* checks.

*: See edit above

Grace
Requirement: Elf or half-elf
Active: Recover a spent spell slot or expended spell of level 1 or 0, reroll a Diplomacy check, or become immune to mind-affecting spells and effects for one round.
Passive: +2 competence to Concentration checks.

Inspiration
Requirement: Dwarf, half-elf or human
Active: Recover 1hp per character level.
Passive: +1 bonus to Will saves

Precision Strike
Requirement: Elf, half-elf, human
Active: For the rest of the round, ignore immunities and resistances to critical hits, and you fulfil the requirement for Skirmish, Sneak Attack and Sudden Strike as long as you are within 30’ of your target and have no miss chance.
Passive: Weapon criticals at x2 damage add your level to the final damage. x3 adds 1.5 times your level. And x4 adds 2 times your level.

Shield Bash
Requirement: Dwarf, human, half-elf, half-orc
Active: Make a trip attack by shoving with your shield, provoking no attack of opportunity and with no risk of being tripped in return. You can use the shield’s enhancement bonus as a bonus on your attack roll and strength check.
Passive: +1 dodge bonus to AC when using a shield

Edit: There will be house rules in effect to make shield use more effective than usual in 3.5

Tall
Requirement: Half-orc, human
Active: For the rest of your turn you gain +5’ reach, double the distance of your five-foot step and increase your speed by 10’
Passive: +2 competence to Intimidate checks, limit to AoOs per round is increased by one.

Extra Anchovies
2014-11-18, 04:03 PM
Do these require expenditure of character resources to acquire, or are they automatically granted? How many can a character have?

Agility is wicked strong. Swift-action movement is very good, especially when it doesn't provoke. The reduced falling damage is nice too. I'd take if it were a feat. To balance it with the others, I'd recommend removing the ability to move through enemies, and reduce the falling damage negation to 2d6.

Also, the "Agility" passive benefit references Agility and Vigor checks, neither of which exist in 3.5. Are these ported from another system?

Grace is only useful for the Diplomacy reroll, and even then it's not great. Gaining immunity to mind-affecting things for 1 round is nice, but since it's swift rather than immediate it can't be used to counter, so you're taking a big gamble (if you aren't targeted, it's wasted). If the spell slot scaled character level/5 (rounded up), up to a 4th-level slot at levels 16-20?

Precision Strike is nice.

Shield Bash is good for S&B users, and they need all the support they can get.

Tall is quite powerful, probably the strongest of the bunch after Agility. Great for AoO builds, cuz 1 free AoO is one more opponent you can keep on the ground.

hymer
2014-11-18, 04:10 PM
Do these require expenditure of character resources to acquire, or are they automatically granted? How many can a character have?

Each PC gets one for nuthin from level 1 and that's it. They expend no character resources beyond the swift action for the active uses.


"Agility" passive benefit references Agility and Vigor checks, neither of which exist in 3.5. Are these ported from another system?

I've added an edit to explain. Thanks for the thoughts, I'll keep quiet for now on my opinion on your opinion. :smallbiggrin: At least until more people weigh in.

GreyBlack
2014-11-19, 03:42 PM
Agility (as worded) is a 30 foot jump for free. Add leap attack. Profit.

ETA: Also, you switch from feet to squares in the same entry. Perhaps wording should be more, "moving through a location occupied by an enemy costs twice as much movement as usual."