Afgncaap5
2017-11-17, 10:52 PM
tl;dr - Any thoughts on recreating the Jade Golems from Hearthstone using d20 mechanics? Generally with 3.5 instead of Pathfinder, but I'm fine with Spheres of Power.
Long version:
I've got an Eberron game that's using a dummied-out pulp hero named The Beholder, and I want my players to get a little in over their heads by accidentally getting a little too involved in some of the crime families and things that she deals with. A lot of my players also play Hearthstone, and while trying to come up with larger-than-life crime families that didn't get too cartoonish, I remembered the gangs from Hearthstone's Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion. They felt just cartoonish enough without loosing the bite that I want to maintain.
While I'll be changing the names, the three gangs are easy enough to create custom rules for. The Grimy Goons can have superior weapons and armor (probably using plenty of elementally bound pieces or Cannith tech with strange but beneficial results), and the Kabal have more mad alchemy than they know what to do with to help their mages, divine casters, and people who consort with dark powers. The Emerald Lotus, though...
Well, ninjas and rogues and martial artists are easy to handle, and summoning nature spirits or primal elements are easy enough, but the jade golems are tricky, being rooted very firmly in the rules of CCG mechanics. My best comparison to how the Jade Golems work might be to give them rules similar to the Echo Bats from the Spheres of Power beastiary. Make the basic model be something like an Iron Defender (if not weaker) in power, but have them each grant a CL-boosting "aura" that causes the next one summoned to have a higher CL.
A further complication comes from the "style" of the jade golems. You're not just being overwhelmed by more and more golems, you're being overwhelmed by more and more golems who show up because that guy suddenly armed an impressive weapon or that other guy issued a war cry while charging at you or because that one puny guy died. There's a kind of cruel efficiency to them. I feel like some sort of limited-usage SoP spellcraft wouldn't be bad for combining effects like these, but it's just a theory.
So, yeah. If anyone has suggestions for improvements to some of my current ideas, or has experience with gradually building swarms of increasingly powerful enemies, I'm all ears.
Long version:
I've got an Eberron game that's using a dummied-out pulp hero named The Beholder, and I want my players to get a little in over their heads by accidentally getting a little too involved in some of the crime families and things that she deals with. A lot of my players also play Hearthstone, and while trying to come up with larger-than-life crime families that didn't get too cartoonish, I remembered the gangs from Hearthstone's Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion. They felt just cartoonish enough without loosing the bite that I want to maintain.
While I'll be changing the names, the three gangs are easy enough to create custom rules for. The Grimy Goons can have superior weapons and armor (probably using plenty of elementally bound pieces or Cannith tech with strange but beneficial results), and the Kabal have more mad alchemy than they know what to do with to help their mages, divine casters, and people who consort with dark powers. The Emerald Lotus, though...
Well, ninjas and rogues and martial artists are easy to handle, and summoning nature spirits or primal elements are easy enough, but the jade golems are tricky, being rooted very firmly in the rules of CCG mechanics. My best comparison to how the Jade Golems work might be to give them rules similar to the Echo Bats from the Spheres of Power beastiary. Make the basic model be something like an Iron Defender (if not weaker) in power, but have them each grant a CL-boosting "aura" that causes the next one summoned to have a higher CL.
A further complication comes from the "style" of the jade golems. You're not just being overwhelmed by more and more golems, you're being overwhelmed by more and more golems who show up because that guy suddenly armed an impressive weapon or that other guy issued a war cry while charging at you or because that one puny guy died. There's a kind of cruel efficiency to them. I feel like some sort of limited-usage SoP spellcraft wouldn't be bad for combining effects like these, but it's just a theory.
So, yeah. If anyone has suggestions for improvements to some of my current ideas, or has experience with gradually building swarms of increasingly powerful enemies, I'm all ears.