Balancing supernatural abilities.

[AroubasHOHO]

Hi guys,

I am running a campaign and I am thinking of giving my players some cool supernatural abilities.
For the lvl 3 monk, I am thinking of giving him a lightning-like ability, that involves two actions: a standard action which is infusing his fists with lightning and thus getting +1d6 lightning dmg per hit and a full-round action which is infusing his body with lightning, thus getting +2 AC and 1 extra attack per round.
For the lvl 3 barbarian, I am thinking of something having to do with ice that involves a standard action: 3 balls of ice surround him and deal 1d4 dmg to all the (melee) attackers and a full round action that involves "icing" his body, thus getting +2 AC and 1d10 extra temporary hit points.

I would like to hear your opinions concerning whether these two "supernatural" abilities are balanced. Any suggestions are more than welcome. Also keep in mind that I do not want to give the barbarian any extra dmg per hit, since he already has tons of it.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Are those two your only players? Because if there are more members of the party they might feel a little cheated if you don't offer something for them too. Now to the actual SU abilities, at low levels they might be a little powerful as things usually have low HP and thus would die very, very easily, but they do taper in usefulness as the game progresses. Personally I would switch the "minor" ability to a swift action and the "major" one to a standard or maybe even move action, but that depends on how long they last; combats in D&D are quite fast most of the time, so spending a full round action for a buff is usually a lost round where you could instead be doing something fun, but I digress. What is the duration of each buff? I'm assuming it rounds equal to CL (which should be equal to HD as they are Su abilities).

[AroubasHOHO]

Yes, these are my only players. I am thinking of something like 2d4 or 2d6 rounds for each buff.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Fair enough, but if you are going with the random durations I say making them swift actions is even more important.

[Sacrieur]

For the lvl 3 monk, I am thinking of giving him a lightning-like ability, that involves two actions: a standard action which is infusing his fists with lightning and thus getting +1d6 lightning dmg per hit

Swift action.


and a full-round action which is infusing his body with lightning, thus getting +2 AC and 1 extra attack per round.

So like the haste spell? This should be a free action and he should be able to stay in it for as long as he wishes. But there's a catch, every round he takes one point of nonlethal electric damage.

An alternative would be to make it a swift action as well, but have it last a number of rounds equal to his Constitution modifier.

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I've talked a lot about design paradigms, and I'm following the same one created by maneuvers and stances in ToB. You've basically created a boost and a stance. By following the paradigm, you can easily balance it, like I just did (:

Let's try this with the Barbarian one:


For the lvl 3 barbarian, I am thinking of something having to do with ice that involves a standard action: 3 balls of ice surround him and deal 1d4 dmg to all the (melee) attackers

Yes, this should be a standard action because it's a strike; however, consider adding an ability modifier to the damage.



and a full round action that involves "icing" his body, thus getting +2 AC and 1d10 extra temporary hit points.

Temporary hit points makes sense, but instead consider making it DR 2/Fire.

And you can either copy the same design as above and make it a stance which he suffers one point of nonlethal cold damage every round he's in it or swift action for a number of rounds equal to his ability modifier.

[Curmudgeon]

Unarmed strikes aren't specific to any body part.
Strike, Unarmed: A Medium character deals 1d3 points of nonlethal damage with an unarmed strike, which may be a punch, kick, head butt, or other type of attack.
If you're infusing an unarmed strike with energy, you're necessarily infusing all striking surfaces of the body. Having separate modes for fists and body doesn't work with the unarmed strike rules.