(Skyrim) Standing Stones. Balancing a world building mechanic?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all. In addition to my new 5th ed campaign I am taking up with a new group next year, I will also be running my very first campaign for 3.5 with my regular group. So I am not going to deviate from the DMG much at all. The group tends to be over powered so I will be messing with CR encounters at their discretion, and I have a couple of random tables for certain things but thats about it. My first time should be slow and steady, so homeruling will basically be changing the names of the gods and banning a couple of things I am not too fond of/ruin the narrative.

That said, I want one big homeruled device. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced it will add a cool aspect to the gameplay.

How many of you have played Skyrim? Remember those standing stones (the warrior, the mage, the thief, the lovers)? I want those dotted around my map, less common near the highly populated areas, more common near the outer edges. They will be things not on the player maps and mostly unknown in location, but something the players can stumble upon and remember. Then if they need to power up for something they can travel to find their favourite stones again. The question is, how can I make them work without breaking the game?

My idea at the moment is having them confer buffs if you make an offering at them that remains with you for a week or until you activate another standing stone. These buffs I feel should be in the region of granting pluses to skills (maybe +2 at a time?) or perhaps granting res energy/DR 1, or maybe even allowing a single reroll of a failed save per day or maybe even a single temporary stat increase.

I kinda want your ideas on this. Its something I really, really want to do, and I think it could be fun for the community to help come up with stones and their buffs. And advice on not making it broken (maybe you think this is so powerful I should have fewer magic items?) would be appreciated.

The stones belong to a much older religion than the one worshipped in my world openly. I would like it to consist of about 6 "common" stones that do fairly direct buffs to one thing and are found more often, and maybe double the number of "uncommon" stones that give lower but more varied buffs and are found less often. For example

Perhaps there is a stone of the Bear, marked with a crude starsign, that when activated gives you 1 extra strength and +2 survival. He would be a common stone based around, well, a bear.

And then there may be the Lute stone, which gives you +2 diplomacy, +2 bluff and +1 listen, a more varied set of skills that is much more situational than the Bear.

So please help.

[Fouredged Sword]

Really, throwing around a +2 to a stat or +2 to two skills won't disrupt your game, and I would just go ahead and make the effect last until changed. I would avoid +1 stat bonuses, as they are wierd in that they effect some people, but not others.

Cool bonuses

Steed Stone - Grants +5ft move speed and you can move at full speed in medium armor or when carrying a medium load.
Iron Stone - Grants DR 2/magic
Dark Stone - Grants dark vision 30ft, +2 to hide checks in darkness.
Frost Stone - Grants cold resistance 5 and +2 to survival checks in cold climates
Bear Stone - Grants +2 strength and +1 natural armor
Boar Stone - Grants +3 and allows the user to rage as a barbarian 1/day, but only when at half or lower HP.
Snake Stone - Grants +2 dex and +2 to escape artist checks.
Knowledge Stone - Grants +2 int and you can retry a knowledge check 1/day as a free action
Void stone - Grants +2 wis and SR 0+Hd
Courtier Stone - Grants +2 charisma, and once per day you may reroll a first impression diplomacy check as a free action.

[Asrrin]

Look into Planar Touchstones. They work similarly to the Standing Stones in Skyrim and have already been statted up. they are supposed to be off in different inner and outer planes, but you could easily. have them in them in the Prime

[Kesnit]

homeruling will basically be changing the names of the gods and banning a couple of things I am not too fond of/ruin the narrative.

My wife ran a 3.5 game set in Skyrim that I took over when she decided that she would rather play than run. We made a list of Domains for the Nine Divines and the Daedric Princes. Let me know if you are interested and I can send them to you.


How many of you have played Skyrim? Remember those standing stones (the warrior, the mage, the thief, the lovers)? I want those dotted around my map, less common near the highly populated areas, more common near the outer edges. They will be things not on the player maps and mostly unknown in location, but something the players can stumble upon and remember.

My first question is how the players will find the stones, especially the uncommon ones. In the video game, they pop up on your map once you are close enough, but that would not work for a 3.5 based game. (Why would the players be randomly wandering off the road at just the right place at just the right angle to find them?)


Then if they need to power up for something they can travel to find their favourite stones again. The question is, how can I make them work without breaking the game?

Second question - how will you handle travel if the party each wants to go back to a different stone? If the stones are only active for a short period of time, or if a quest is time-limited, the first person to go to their stone could be out of time before the last person gets to theirs, or there may not be enough time for everyone to get to their chosen stone before the quest times out.


These buffs I feel should be in the region of granting pluses to skills (maybe +2 at a time?) or perhaps granting res energy/DR 1, or maybe even allowing a single reroll of a failed save per day or maybe even a single temporary stat increase.

Increasing stats or giving rerolls are a lot more powerful than a flat bonus to skills. Would DR stack with existing DR?


Perhaps there is a stone of the Bear, marked with a crude starsign, that when activated gives you 1 extra strength and +2 survival. He would be a common stone based around, well, a bear.

Third question - how will you handle the fact that some stones will only benefit some PCs? The Bear example would be good for a melee type, but an Archer Bard would not be terribly impressed. That also leads to the issue of what will you do if the party fails to find a stone that would be useful for a certain archetype? For example, the party finds a stone that increases INT, another that gives bonuses to social rolls, and a third that raises the DC of spells and spell-like abilities. The poor Barbarian's player looks at you and asks when (s)he will get a boost.

On that same subject, say the party finds a stone that boosts DEX, but the DEX-based PC is wearing armor that has a max DEX mod of their unaugmented DEX (i.e. DEX 20 wearing Studded Leather). In theory, the stone would work for them, but in reality it does nothing because they are limited by external circumstances.


I like the idea in theory, but am just not sure how it would work in practice.

[Spore]

This is a neat idea but it is very tedious for your group to always get buffs from stones for certain events. I preferred the "zodiac sign" mechanic from Oblivion and Morrowind a lot more. Also in my personal opinion, 1/day stuff allows for higher power and cuts down any major imbalanced synergy (like a stone that improves caster level by 1 but cuts a spell slot from your daily allotment, similar to the Atronach). But how you implement that is your choice. First let us try to convert existing stones and signs for D&D:

1) Warrior: +2 on attack rolls and damage, 1/day rage spell on self
2) Mage: Increase the caster level by 1 for the purposes of spell slots. You do not gain earlier access to spells that way.
3) Thief: +3 on Stealth, can always hide in plain sight
4) Serpent: +4 on saves vs. poison, can use a move action to poison weapon: Serpent Poison Type poison (injury), save Fort 1/2 HD plus character's con mod onset immediate, frequency 1/round for 4 rounds, effect: 1d3 con damage, Cure 1 save.
5) Lady: +3 on Cha skills 1 reroll per day on social skills, free Endurance feat
6) Steed: Double carrying capacity. +5 feet to all movement speeds
7) Lord: Fast Healing 1/4 the HD (minimum 1), vulnerability to fire.
8) Apprentice: Twice the daily spell slots but 50% spell failure chance (applying to even divine spells) once the normal spell slots are used up.
9) Atronach/Golem: Spell Resistance 11+HD, but you have trouble absorbing any kind of magic. Magic cast onto you (including your own magic) is automatically rendered useless. You can cast any spell you possess twice before the spell is expended (spont. casters have double the spell slots, idk about warlocks tbh). This one was quite hard to write and still feels very prone to powergaming
10) Ritual: Turn Undead 1+Charisma/day as a cleric of your character level. Not prerequisite for feats! Heal 10*HD once per day on self.
11) Lover: 1/day touch attack (kiss) to paralyze like Hold Person (except any creature), save DC 1/2HD + Cha. +2 on Dexterity skills
12) Shadow: 1/Day Greater Invisibility, invisibility at will in areas of dim light
13) Tower: 1/day Knock spell, Detect Animal, Detect Magic and Detect Object at will.

[Albions_Angel]

My wife ran a 3.5 game set in Skyrim that I took over when she decided that she would rather play than run. We made a list of Domains for the Nine Divines and the Daedric Princes. Let me know if you are interested and I can send them to you.

Thanks for the offer but my world is not Skyrim. Only the stones are (and really I thought of them after a documentary on standing stones, then went "Oh thats just like skyrim!").



In the video game, they pop up on your map once you are close enough, but that would not work for a 3.5 based game. (Why would the players be randomly wandering off the road at just the right place at just the right angle to find them?)

I was never happy with skyrims idea of "Lets hide away our standing stones". Ever seen standing stones in Europe? They are everywhere AND you can see them for miles. They are built on rises, ridges and hills, or near fords in rivers, or springs. Some are in towns or cities.

I plan to have the world be fairly large and travel along roads common. All the stones will either be visible from the roadside (on ridges or hills), in small boarder towns where the locals still hang on to the "old ways" and near particular dungeons (barrows and old temples would have them nearby). They will not have to look for them. By Common and Uncommon, I mean there may be 10 Bear stones in the world dotted around, but only 3 Spirit stones (because bears are common and spirits are fickle and you are just as likely to draw bad spirits to you as good ones, or so thought the ancient people). The players can then mark their location if they want. They will also be able to ask for their locations from tavern owners and shamans. That sort of thing.




how will you handle travel if the party each wants to go back to a different stone?

I wont. The stones will be optional bonuses. I will never build something the party cannot overcome on its own. But it may be quicker to travel for 3 days, hit up a stone, travel 3 back and then spend 4 days doing a series of related jobs than doing that same series of jobs over 2 weeks. There will also be random synergy (roadside stones may increase travel speed, cutting down on random encounter chances, or you may worship a stone to see what it does, increase your strength and run headlong into a random encounter by chance) and I can always drop in a stone if they are struggling (its my first time, I am likely to screw something up and with a team that min/maxes, I am more likely to overestimate their ability than underestimate). If they want to travel to the stones, they can. If not, thats fine too.

On that note, the party will not know what each stone does until they try it. No one will know. A Knowledge Religion roll may tell the party that Bears were worshipped for their strength and vitality, and they may guess that means +2 Str and +1 NA (see above) but until they try it, they wont know for sure. Its a little easter egg for them to work out (and maybe get bonus XP for if they "collect" them all!).




Increasing stats or giving rerolls are a lot more powerful than a flat bonus to skills. Would DR stack with existing DR?

I dont know, thats why I am asking.


how will you handle the fact that some stones will only benefit some PCs? [...] That also leads to the issue of what will you do if the party fails to find a stone that would be useful for a certain archetype?

Worship at the stones in personal. The whole party can choose to worship or only a few can. Only those that make offerings receive the benefit. That way the rogue doesnt give up their +dex or extra sneak attack dice or move silently (whatever) just so the battlemage can snag +2 str. As I said above though, using the stones is a nice boost, not an important aspect of the game. In regards to someone missing out, I hope to have the "common" type stones along main routes and evenly distributed and I would like the main ones to cover more or less every class. It would be pretty hard NOT to find one of each eventually. The uncommon ones they may never find depending on where they go and how they travel.


On that same subject, say the party finds a stone that boosts DEX, but the DEX-based PC is wearing armor that has a max DEX mod of their unaugmented DEX (i.e. DEX 20 wearing Studded Leather). In theory, the stone would work for them, but in reality it does nothing because they are limited by external circumstances.

It wouldnt work. And I am ok with that. The whole point of the stones is they enhance YOU. The armour still ****s with your movement. So the Dex player actually still gets the dex raise, and is welcome to take off their armour to perform tasks with their augment in play, but armour penalty is armour penalty. If you think about it, its not really any different from a pure caster activating a str stone. They can do it, but its useless.

I tackled your questions in terms of your post. I still have no idea how people feel balance wise about stat increases with these stones. Thats one of my biggest worries. In regards to the stones becoming redundant if I underpower them, the way to think about it is the party would probably still stop off at one they passed even if they didnt go back to one they already found. I think I will also provide extra story via the stones, visions and snippets of things going on ahead or behind or in another kingdom or the location of an artefact. Something the party can chase if they want or that may influence their decisions but that if they never encounter a single stone (unlikely) wouldnt really matter.

[Albions_Angel]

snip

I love the stones, and I accept that finding the stones may be tedious but they wont be necessary. The stones will be things they find on their travels but not things they NEED. They can go back and use them again if they want but they will (baring a screw up on my part) never face anything they need a stone for. So I love your ideas for stone powers but man are they powerful, especially when you consider the party will be level 1-6 ish (maybe we will reach the heady heights of 12!). Tone them down a little and suddenly you have something that you are thinking "Huh, glad I had that +1 NA there" or "Man I wish I had activated the dex stone, I missed by one!" or even "Yeah, Ill try this one. Who knows, maybe it will give me a healing aura!".

Thats why I went stones and not with my original idea of a "favour" system, where praying to the gods grants boons each week. I didnt want the party to basically have a free magic item of their choice that just sat there and then every week "I pray to Mardook again this week for my usual +4 spot +2 listen. Praise for the Eternal Hunter!". The old gods should be fickle and weak, displaced by the new pantheon, but also deeply powerful in a way the new gods are not, connected with the earth and rewarding of those who remember them.

[Spore]

In my opinion such marginal increases are tedious but if you are really aiming towards levels 1-6 I may have overshot the target a bit. (But after all, the stones in Skyrim DO really fling out much power. A warrior in heavy armor with the Steed Stone has vastly superior Stamina, a Wizard with the Atronach Stone has her gameplay changed dramatically, a Thief using Shadow escapes almost anything).

What power level are we aiming at?
Poor feat (+2/+ feats), strong feats (e.g. Power Attack), minor class features (+2 to spells of a certain school) or major class features (Turn Undead, Hide in Plain Sight/Camouflage)?

[Albions_Angel]

Poor feats for the most part I guess, but perhaps combining several effects in one stone. I like the "steed" increasing carry capacity and movement speed. Maybe certain stones could be better feat type effects but only do that one thing. I was thinking of a stone that grants an animal companion?

[Spore]

Poor feats for the most part I guess, but perhaps combining several effects in one stone. I like the "steed" increasing carry capacity and movement speed. Maybe certain stones could be better feat type effects but only do that one thing. I was thinking of a stone that grants an animal companion?

You're jumping from poor feat to defining class feature. Carrying capacity is fine, movement speed is something that gets overpowered very quickly (mainly for melees but still). I realize that you want to keep the flavor. Would your players be okay with drawbacks as in the Morrowind and Oblivion stones?

[Fouredged Sword]

+5ft to move speed is actually a trait, and it's not that great actually.

[Albions_Angel]

So I have some stones. Did some digging and found some similar homebrew items, made a few more. Think along the lines of magic items of the +2 - +4 range. I am also (as suggested) going to make them permanent until they are swapped out. I may limit the "charges" on a stone to 2 (typical party of 6-8 people) active auras. IE, 2 people can activate one stone, but a third person cant until one of the existing 2 swaps out theirs.

Common Stones (found most regularly, often together in 2s, 3s or 6s):


Bear - +2 Str, +2 Natural Armour
Hawk - +2 Spot, +2 Listen, +2 Survival
Ox - +2 Con, all loads count as one category lower
Horse - +5' Movement speed, medium armour does not impair movement
Hare - Res Cold 5, Grants Endure Elements
Owl - +2 Move Silently, Gain Low Light Vision (effects of existing Low Light Vision are doubled)


Less Common Stones (found singly or in 2s, and less frequently):


Auroch - DR 2/magic
Fox - +2 Bluff, +2 Sense Motive, +2 Gather Information
Badger - Tremor Sense out to 30'
Toad - Gain 1/day touch attack as Poison spell
Mouse - +2 Hide, +2 Move Silently, +2 Slight of Hand
Wolf - Gain Improved Trip even if you dont qualify for it
Snake - +2 Fortitude Bonus, +2 Diplomacy
Deer - +2 Reflex Bonus, +2 Initiative
Ass - +2 Will bonus, +2 Concentration


Rare Stones (always found together but only in 3 or 4 locations in the world. The party may never find these)


Hunter - +2 Dex, +2 Wis
Warrior - +2 Str, +2 Con
Shaman - +2 Int, +2 Cha


What do you think? Balanced? I dont like how powerful toad is, but I cant find another poison spell. Any suggestions for a creature with poison?

[Mr. Bitter]

I'd rather have them be a big, chunky, interesting bonus that some piddly little thing that hardly matters.

Some examples (assuming they last a week at a time):

•The Wanderer: You can walk through wooden doors (including the sort found in most dungeons). The doors are insubstantial to you, so you cannot open them even if you want to.

•The Shade: Mindless undead ignore you (no save) and you ignore them (also no save).

•The Cursed Cromlech: You gain +1 to your saves per cursed magic item that you equip.

•The Stag: You do not need to sleep and can run 24/7 without rest. At the end of the week, you will sleep for 72 hours straight.

•The Grim Fang: After touching this knifelike spur of obsidian, you are surrounded by a constantly generated wreathe of black smoke. Barring powerful wind, it fills all spaces adjacent to you. You cannot see beyond adjacent spaces, and creatures beyond those spaces cannot see you.

•The Absurdly Large Skull-Stone (think Mt. Rushmore but a skull): Your melee attacks inflict maximum damage. Others' melee attacks inflict maximum damage on you.

Just spitballing.

[Albions_Angel]

Interesting Bitter, but not what I am going for.

I want these to be there when the party doesnt have magic items at the start, be interesting and useful when they start to get items, and come into play again when they start running out of item slots. Not actually be the setting of the game.

[dascarletm]

Interesting Bitter, but not what I am going for.

I want these to be there when the party doesnt have magic items at the start, be interesting and useful when they start to get items, and come into play again when they start running out of item slots. Not actually be the setting of the game.

If you want them to be more worthwhile I suggest you set them to last until switched. Depending on how far characters will need to go and how much your group hand-waves travel I would expect them to be forgotten. I tend to find that ideas that sound really good in practice will end up being ignored if it distracts from the story. This will differ between players, but I'd think about it.

[Threadnaught]

9) Atronach/Golem: Spell Resistance 11+HD, but you have trouble absorbing any kind of magic. Magic cast onto you (including your own magic) is automatically rendered useless. You can cast any spell you possess twice before the spell is expended (spont. casters have double the spell slots, idk about warlocks tbh). This one was quite hard to write and still feels very prone to powergaming

Of course the most powerful one with the most obvious, yet meaningless weakness would be the hardest one to write. Atronach has been the most powerful option for three games now.

[Mr. Bitter]

Interesting Bitter, but not what I am going for.

I want these to be there when the party doesnt have magic items at the start, be interesting and useful when they start to get items, and come into play again when they start running out of item slots. Not actually be the setting of the game.

I'm inherently skeptical of small skill bonuses. For the vast majority of skills I feel like a +2 is going to matter only once or twice, tops, over an entire campaign. Plus, if a player is recounting the story of your campaign a year from now, I'm sure they'd be much more likely to remember the standing stone theme if it actually changed things instead of just sort of nudging the numbers a very slight amount. Just my thoughts.

[Banjoman42]

Instead of having all of the stones in plane sight, I would recommend having them hidden away. Use a random encounter table-esk thing to generate stones on the fly when they are meandering through the forest. When you generate stones, plop it down on your map.

As for the bonuses, I don't think the ideas Bitter suggested are appropriate, but neither are measly +2 to 2 skills. I would format them like this:
Common stones: +2 one ability, +2 two skills, one minor special ability. Ex: Bear= +2 con, +2 swim, climb, +1 natural armor
Uncommon stones: +4 one ability, +2 three skills, and a better special ability. Fox= +4 int, +2 move silently, hide, survival, and may move at full speed (but not run) while moving silently at no penalty.
Rare stones: +4 one ability, +2 another, +2 four skills, and two very good abilities. Hunter= +4 Dex, +2 Wis, +2 hide, spot, listen, survival. Once per day, may reroll all ranged attacks in a turn and take the better results for each attack. +4 damage on all ranged attacks.