BerzerkerUnit
2018-08-02, 08:45 PM
Thanks so much for having a look, you can choose to comment directly in the document if you're a google user or just post responses here.
A Collection of Accursed Archetypes (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RhxunHtp66Ij9zMbPXERqoWa21uoYG6UNNRW4FnTajU/edit?usp=sharing)
Here's the breakdown:
Accursed Archetypes are supposed to be pick, choose, plug, play. So if you are a Champion that gets a Cursed Weapon or vampire bite, etc at level 5, you might choose the Accursed Warrior feature at 7 instead of the normal Champion feature. Then you can RP being wary of the dark power and keep going Champion at 10 and up, only using your dark power sparingly, If you instead want to go whole hog you can "lose some downtime" to rampage and swap out your earlier archetype features for their Accursed counterpart. From there you might continue being cursed or RP you're trying to break it and have it removed, a few downtime days later, you can get your Champion features back.
Obviously I don't think you should flip flop every other level, but if there's a good story, like if you find out your lover is a Succubus and you backslide a few times, or the Cursed Dagger Soul-Biter is the only magic item you ever found so you have to keep using it when you meet seemingly invincible monsters, that's a different story.
Accursed Warrior- I think does a fair job of being a possible cross between Vampire and Were-creature. At 3 it modifies Second Wind to make you really tough, 6 keeps a small pool of temp hp on you at the cost of slightly lower damage (but the damage scales), 10 you can AoE fear when you hit (paralyzing much weaker creatures), 15 lets you assume a monstrous form with OK natural attacks and either a fancy movement or Resistance to normal damage and 18 kind of makes you Strahd-ish.
(I'm considering making this almost "warrior class neutral" so you can sub in the abilities for Barbarians and Monks as well).
Accursed Mage- You get some metamagicky effects right off the bat at the cost of becoming "sinister or repugnant (your choice)" for hours and hours kind of forcing you to be a bad guy. You get a hardwired upgraded familiar at 6 (there's a Cantrip I wrote for Wizards some time ago, it's good with an upgraded familiar, I'll include it in the doc). At 10 you learn how to sacrifice creatures to buff spells with long casting times, at 14 you can become a Warlock Patron for a couple of weak Warlock pets that you can use as scapegoats.
Accursed Rogue- Ended up being my favorite which is a shock. First you kind of become an ooze when you hide making it possible to hide in absurd places (note, the form isn't dependent on being hidden, it's dependent on you hiding), at 9 you can steal souls when you kill a creature and use them in different ways, at 13 you can Mark for Death, at 17 you can Shadowstep, Teleport, and Planeshift.
Note: while I will appreciate all efforts to help me improve these options I'd like you know I skew a little more powerful, so if your critique is that something is too strong, please give me an example of how you think it will or could break. Like I don't know jack about fighter damage numbers, so if Battlemaster 3 and Accursed 7 can deal 1000 damage a round, that's something I need to address, so please be as specific as you can and provide any examples you can think of.
A Collection of Accursed Archetypes (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RhxunHtp66Ij9zMbPXERqoWa21uoYG6UNNRW4FnTajU/edit?usp=sharing)
Here's the breakdown:
Accursed Archetypes are supposed to be pick, choose, plug, play. So if you are a Champion that gets a Cursed Weapon or vampire bite, etc at level 5, you might choose the Accursed Warrior feature at 7 instead of the normal Champion feature. Then you can RP being wary of the dark power and keep going Champion at 10 and up, only using your dark power sparingly, If you instead want to go whole hog you can "lose some downtime" to rampage and swap out your earlier archetype features for their Accursed counterpart. From there you might continue being cursed or RP you're trying to break it and have it removed, a few downtime days later, you can get your Champion features back.
Obviously I don't think you should flip flop every other level, but if there's a good story, like if you find out your lover is a Succubus and you backslide a few times, or the Cursed Dagger Soul-Biter is the only magic item you ever found so you have to keep using it when you meet seemingly invincible monsters, that's a different story.
Accursed Warrior- I think does a fair job of being a possible cross between Vampire and Were-creature. At 3 it modifies Second Wind to make you really tough, 6 keeps a small pool of temp hp on you at the cost of slightly lower damage (but the damage scales), 10 you can AoE fear when you hit (paralyzing much weaker creatures), 15 lets you assume a monstrous form with OK natural attacks and either a fancy movement or Resistance to normal damage and 18 kind of makes you Strahd-ish.
(I'm considering making this almost "warrior class neutral" so you can sub in the abilities for Barbarians and Monks as well).
Accursed Mage- You get some metamagicky effects right off the bat at the cost of becoming "sinister or repugnant (your choice)" for hours and hours kind of forcing you to be a bad guy. You get a hardwired upgraded familiar at 6 (there's a Cantrip I wrote for Wizards some time ago, it's good with an upgraded familiar, I'll include it in the doc). At 10 you learn how to sacrifice creatures to buff spells with long casting times, at 14 you can become a Warlock Patron for a couple of weak Warlock pets that you can use as scapegoats.
Accursed Rogue- Ended up being my favorite which is a shock. First you kind of become an ooze when you hide making it possible to hide in absurd places (note, the form isn't dependent on being hidden, it's dependent on you hiding), at 9 you can steal souls when you kill a creature and use them in different ways, at 13 you can Mark for Death, at 17 you can Shadowstep, Teleport, and Planeshift.
Note: while I will appreciate all efforts to help me improve these options I'd like you know I skew a little more powerful, so if your critique is that something is too strong, please give me an example of how you think it will or could break. Like I don't know jack about fighter damage numbers, so if Battlemaster 3 and Accursed 7 can deal 1000 damage a round, that's something I need to address, so please be as specific as you can and provide any examples you can think of.