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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class Binder and Vestige Fixes (PEACH)



mesc
2021-01-14, 05:53 AM
The binder is a really cool class with such an interesting concept, but then in actual play its a bit meh, since a lot of the original vestiges have really bad granted abilities. You would also often just end up with a character with highly situational abilities and long ability cooldowns, preventing you from being that useful. Most of the binder builds also often focus on incorporating the style of another class instead, like a fighter or spellcaster, which just feels sad.

So to fix the binder, I was thinking of implementing 3 things: fix the vestiges themselves, increase the number of vestiges from 4 to 5, and implement a completely new ability: Soul Embodiment

Beginning at 7th level, you can ask a vestige for more power, drawing in more of that vestige’s essence and taking on a form more resembling that vestige. Once per day, as a swift action, while you are bound to a vestige, you may embody that vestige.

When you embody a vestige, you must make a binding check. This will determine how long you stay in this form. While embodying a vestige, you gain a new otherworldly form which cannot be concealed by the suppress sign feat. In addition, upon embodying a vestige, you are considered to be under their influence, and must also adhere to the vestige’s greater influence. Both normal and greater influence cannot be ignored even with a good pact while embodying the vestige. Furthermore, while embodying a vestige, failure to adhere to the vestige’s influence deals 1d6 damage to you in addition to applying the penalty.

After the duration of which you stay in the vestige’s form, you suffer from backlash, the specifics of which are detailed in the descriptions of each individual vestige. Each vestige gives you different powers and abilities when you embody them, which are detailed in the individual vestige descriptions. In addition, when embodying a vestige, all supernatural abilities you gained from being bound to that vestige are used as if you had an EBL of 4 binder levels higher. You can only embody one vestige at a time.


My reasoning behind the necessity of that additional ability is that binder are decent, but lack a powerful ability that can decide a battle. An improved vestige form should be able to help give them the strength in dire situations, without making the binder have to sacrifice their versatility.


So far I have just reworked the vestiges in Tome of Magic, except Geryon, Zagan, and Eligor, who I don't really know what to change (suggestions are appreciated), and developed the Embodiments of the 1st level vestiges and some of the 2nd level vestiges.

Also I am wondering of what to do with the number of vestiges that can be bound. At first my plan was to increase the number by 1 at 5th, 9th, 13th, 17th level (5 vestiges). But after fixing the vestiges, I worry that 5 vestiges may be too much. Any suggestion on what to do?

mesc
2021-01-14, 05:53 AM
1st Level Vestiges



Special Requirement: Amon particularly despises four other vestiges: Chupoclops, Eurynome, Karsus, and Leraje. If you have hosted one of these spirits within the last 24 hours, Amon refuses to answer your call. Similarly, these spirits will not answer your call if you are already bound to Amon. The reason for Amon’s displeasure with these vestiges is unclear, but the enmity is as old as anyone can remember. Binder scholars theorize that it might stem from the time when Amon was a god and the other four were normal mortal or immortal beings.

Sign: You grow a ram’s curling horns.

Influence: Amon’s influence makes you surly and irritable. In addition, since Amon despises living deities of fire, sun, and law, he forces you to resist even beneficial spells cast by those devoted to such powers. You must make a saving throw to resist such a spell if one is allowed; failure allows you to gain the benefit.

Granted Abilities: Amon grants you his sight and his breath, as well as the deadly use of his horns.

Darkvision: You gain darkvision out to 60 feet. If you already have darkvision, the range of your dark vision increases by 30 ft instead.

Furious Retaliation: When you attack a creature that successfully attacked and dealt damage to you in the last round, your first successful attack or fire breath (see below) against them deals an additional 1d6 points of damage.
At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th EBL, the damage increases by 1d6.

Fire Breath: You can vomit forth a 30 feet line of fire as a standard action. The line deals 1d6 points of fire damage per binder level to every creature in its area. A successful Reflex save halves this damage. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.
At 4th EBL and every EBL thereafter, the range of the line increases by 10 feet (up to a maximum of 120ft).

Ram Attack: You can use the ram’s horns that you gain from Amon’s sign as a natural weapon that deals 1d6 points of damage (plus 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus). When you charge a foe with your ram attack, you deal an extra 1d8 points of damage on a successful hit. You cannot use this ability if you do not show Amon’s sign.
At 5th EBL and every 5 EBL thereafter, the damage of the horns increases by 1d6, and the bonus damage from making a charge increases by 1d8.



Darkvision: Instead of just granting darkvision, it also increases your darkvision if you previously had it already.
New Ability: Fiery Retribution
Fire Breath: Changed the length of the fire breath of Amon. Reduced the cooldown from 5 rounds to 3 rounds.
Ram Attack: Increased the base damage of the ability at higher EBLs.
Amon originally only gave 3 abilities, with only the fire breath being useful (but with a short range), so I just added more damage to actually make them useful and a new offensive ability.




Sign: While you host Aym, you bear a starshaped brand on the palm of your left hand or on your forehead, as you choose at the time you make the pact.

Influence: Under Aym’s influence, you become stingy and greedy, begrudging every coin or item of value that you or your group must give to another. At the same time, she requires that you give a coin (copper, silver, gold, or platinum, as you choose) to every dwarf you meet within 10 rounds of learning his name.

Granted Abilities: Aym grants you powers that reflect her dwarven heritage and the ruin she brought to her kingdom.

Armor Proficiency: You gain proficiency with medium armor. If you are already proficient with medium armor, you instead gain proficiency with heavy armor.
At 6th EBL you gain proficiency with heavy armor instead

Dwarven Step: You can move at normal speed (without the usual reduction) while wearing medium or heavy armor.

Halo of Fire: At will, you can shroud yourself in a wreath of flame. Any opponent that strikes you in melee takes 1d6 points of fire damage, unless it is using a weapon with exceptional reach. You can also deal 1d6 points of fire damage with each melee attack you make. Your own flame does not harm you, nor does it harm objects unless you will it to do so.
At 8th EBL, both the damage opponents receive when striking you and the damage you deal when striking opponents increases to 2d6 fire damage. Both of these damage values increase to 3d6 at EBL 15.

Greedy Sunder: You gain the benefit of the Improved Sunder feat. Furthermore, whenever you successfully destroy an object, you can choose to have it become supernaturally repaired a minute after its destruction, as if it was never destroyed in the first place.

Resistance to Fire: You have resistance to fire 10. At 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th EBL the fire resistance increases by 5.

Ruinous Attack: Your melee attacks deal double damage to objects and constructs. If your effective binder level is at least 10th, your melee attacks are treated as adamantine for the purpose of overcoming hardness and damage reduction.



Medium Armor Proficiency -> Armor Proficiency: Now at 6th EBL you also gain heavy armor proficiency
Halo of Fire: Damage now increases at 8th and 15th EBL instead of just being a flat 1d6.
Improved Sunder -> Greedy Sunder: You can now make items you destroy magically repair themselves after 1 minute. Nobody wants destroyed treasures.
Resistance to Fire: The resistance now increases with your EBL
Aym was ok, she just had some issues and was bad at higher levels, so I just made her abilities scale.




Sign: You look sickly and diseased, and your skin becomes sallow and pockmarked.

Influence: While influenced by Leraje, you become quiet and unassuming. Leraje still feels considerable guilt about the actions that led her to become a vestige, so she requires that you not attack any elf or creature of elven blood, including half-elves and members of the various elf subraces, such as drow.

Granted Abilities: You gain supernatural powers related to Leraje’s skills in life, as well as the ability to fire arrows that literally wound your target’s pride.

Hide Bonus: You gain a bonus on Hide checks equal to 4 + ⅓ your EBL

Low-Light Vision: You gain low-light vision. If you already have it naturally, you gain superior low-light vision and can see three times as far as your light source would normally illuminate. Thus, a torch that illuminates a 20-foot radius would allow you to see clearly up to 60 feet and provide you with shadowy illumination to a distance of 120 feet.

Piercing Shot: Once per round, when one of your ranged attacks hit a creature, you can make it continue its flight in a straight line, possibly letting it hit another creature. You use the same attack roll (but not necessarily the same modifiers) if so. All distance traveled counts towards the weapon’s range.
At 6th EBL, and every 5 EBL thereafter, you can use Piercing Shot one additional time per round.

Point Blank Shot: You gain the benefit of the Point Blank Shot feat, if you already have the feat, you gain an additional +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at ranges of up to 30 ft.

Ricochet Shot: As a standard action, you can make a single ranged attack, and if the projectile would hit a wall, or a hard solid object, you may redirect its momentum up to 180 degrees, allowing it to continue its path as if it were shot in that new direction. Each time you do, you impose a -2 penalty on the weapon’s attack rolls and damage rolls. You may even recover from missed attacks this way: if a failed attack would also miss a creature’s touch AC, it continues past the creature, potentially rebounding off of another wall for another attempt to hit. All distance traveled, regardless of direction, counts towards the weapon’s range. You may attempt a number of redirections equal to 1 + ¼ your EBL .

Weapon Proficiency: While bound to Leraje, you are proficient with the composite longbow, composite shortbow, longbow, and shortbow. If you were already proficient with one of those weapons, you instead gain a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls and a +2 competence bonus on damage rolls with that weapon.


Hide Bonus: It now increases with ⅓ your EBL
New Ability: Piercing Shot
Precise Shot -> Point Blank Shot
Ricochet: Total ability makeover
Leraje had a cool legend, but none of her abilities showcased it. Her given abilities were bad so I made the new piercing shot and ricochet shot. My idea was to let a character use only one arrow, maybe a special one like an arrow of sleep, to be able to attack a large amount enemies, or possibly even just hit a single one multiple times.





Special Requirement: Naberius values knowledge, industry, and the willingness to deceive. He manifests only for a summoner with at least 4 ranks in Bluff or in any Knowledge or Profession skill.

Sign: Your voice deepens and acquires a gravelly, growling tone.

Influence: While you are influenced by Naberius, you love the sound of your own voice and are constantly pleased by your cleverness. Whenever you are presented with a pulpit, a stage, a talking stick, or any other place or object designed to give a speaker the floor, Naberius requires that you immediately seize the opportunity to speak. Any topic will do, but since Naberius resents others taking control of the discourse, he requires that you either shout them down or mock them. Your speech must last a number of rounds equal to your effective binder level to satisfy Naberius.

Granted Abilities: Naberius grants you the power to wear any face, swiftly regain lost ability points, use skills of which you have no knowledge, and talk your way through danger.

Disguise Self: You can alter the appearance of your form as a standard action. This effect works like the disguise self spell.

Faster Ability Healing: You heal 1 point in each damaged ability score every round, and 1 point in all drained ability scores every hour.

Naberius’s Skills: At the time you make your pact, you can choose a number of skills equal to your Constitution bonus (if any). Your choices must be skills that can’t be used untrained and in which you have no ranks. For the duration of the binding, you can make skill checks with your chosen skills even though you are untrained. If your Constitution modifier decreases after you make the pact, you lose the ability to make untrained checks with an equal number of the chosen skills. Lost skills are chosen randomly, and they remain inaccessible to you until you make another pact with Naberius.

Persuasive Words: You can direct a verbal command at a single living target within 30 feet as if using the command spell. A successful Will save negates the effect. When your effective binder level reaches 14th, your words become even more persuasive and this ability functions like the suggestion spell. At 7th, 13th, and 19th level, you can target an additional creature with each use of this ability. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Silver Tongue: You can take 10 on Diplomacy and Bluff checks even if distracted or threatened. In addition, you can make a rushed Diplomacy check as a standard action and take no penalty. (Normally, a rushed Diplomacy check requires a full-round action and imposes a –10 penalty on the check.)

Vicious Mockery: You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature. If the target can hear you, is within 60 feet of you, and can understand you, it must succeed on a will saving throw or take 1d6 damage per 2 EBL, and a -2 penalty on attack rolls or a -4 penalty to skill checks (your choice), for 1 round.
At 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th EBL, you can target an additional creature with each use of this ability.
At 6th, 11th, and 16th EBL, the penalty to attack rolls increases by 1, and the penalty to skill checks increases by 2.
You can also choose to forgo dealing damage when using this ability. This is a mind-affecting ability. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.


Persuasive Words: You can target additional creatures at higher EBL
New Ability: Vicious Mockery
Narberius is great, but he is too niche with barely any combat skills. Vicious mockery and the multi target persuasive words should help nicely with that.




Special Requirement: Ronove’s seal must be drawn in the soil under the sky.

Sign: The flesh of your face settles into a frown or a smile (a frown if you succeeded on your binding check, or a smile if you did not) and retains that general expression regardless of your actual feelings.

Influence: Ronove’s influence makes you think that others doubt your abilities and competence. Despite what anyone says, you feel the constant need to prove your worth.
In addition, Ronove requires that you consume neither food nor beverages (including potions) for the entire time you remain bound to her.

Granted Abilities: Ronove gives you the power to fall any distance without harm, lift objects without touching them, run like the wind, and to deny the needs of the flesh.

Ascetics: You do not need to eat food or drinks while bound to Ronove.
At 4th EBL, you gain the benefits of the Endure Elements spell.
At 8th EBL, you can meditate for 2 hours in place of sleeping for 8 hours. While meditating, you are immobile, but remain fully aware of your surroundings. You can cease meditating at any time.
At 12th EBL, you gain the benefits of the Attune Form spell.
At 16th EBL, you do not need to breathe either.

Far Hand: As a swift action, you can lift and move an unattended object to which you have line of effect, as long as it is within 30 feet + 10 feet per effective binder level of your position.
The force manipulating the object is considered Medium in size, and it has a Strength score equal to your effective binder level. During the swift action, you can move the object up to 5 feet per effective binder level.
If the object weighs enough to constitute a medium or heavy load for an individual of the force’s Strength, you can move it only half the normal distance. If the object to be moved would constitute a medium or heavy load for you, activating this ability is a move action.
If the item could only be pushed or dragged by such a person (that is, it weighs up to five times the maximum load), you can move it just 5 feet per move action. The force cannot lift the object more than 5 feet off the ground.
In any round during which you do not use a swift action to manipulate the object, you lose control of it. You can never move an object outside the range of this ability, and you lose control of the object if you move too far away from it or if a creature touches it. You can move only one object at a time in this fashion.
Alternatively, you can thrust the telekinetic force all in one go as standard action. If so, the strength score of the force instead becomes 10 + your EBL. Additionally you can choose to push a creature instead of moving an object, making a ranged touch attack against the creature. If it hits, the force deals 1d6 points of damage per two EBL you possess to the target. You then immediately initiate a bull rush using the force’s Strength modifier, and you gain a bonus to the opposing strength check equal to your EBL. If the bull rush is successful, the target moves in the direction you indicate. If you force an opponent to move into a wall or other solid object, they stop as normal. However, your momentum crushes them against it, dealing 1d6 points of damage per 5 feet distance they were pushed. Once you have used your Far Hand in this way, it dissipates, and you cannot use this ability again for 3 rounds.

Feather Fall: You automatically fall as though under the influence of a feather fall spell. You can suppress or activate this ability as a free action (even outside your turn).

Overcome Materiality: Your melee attacks count as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction, and are considered incorporeal for the purposes of hitting incorporeal creatures.
When you attain an effective binder level of 5th, your melee attacks also count as cold iron for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
At 9th level, your melee attacks also count as silver for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
At 13th level, your melee attacks are also treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of dealing overcoming damage reduction and hardness.
At 17th level, your melee attacks are also aligned based on your alignment for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. For example if you are lawful evil, then your melee attacks will be both lawfully and evil aligned.

Ronove’s Fists: You gain the benefit of the Improved Unarmed Strike feat. Your unarmed strikes deal damage as those of a monk of a level equal to your effective binder level. This ability does not grant you any other abilities of a monk, such as flurry of blows. Furthermore, you employ a variety of unarmed fighting styles, allowing you to alter the type of damage your attacks deal. You can opt for your unarmed strikes to deal your choice of bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage

Sprint: You gain a +10-foot enhancement bonus to your base land speed. As a swift action, you can increase the enhancement bonus by 10 feet + 10 feet per 5 EBL for 1 round. Once you have activated this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds (you still retain the base +10 foot enhancement bonus)


New Ability: Ascetics
Far Hand: Range change, and the standard action version’s Str score now increases by 10, deals additional damage at higher EBL, and grants a bonus to bullrush check equal to EBL. Furthermore if you bull rush them into a solid surface, they take extra damage.
Cold iron and Magic attacks -> Overcome Materiality: Increased amount of what types your melee attacks are treated as for overcoming damage reduction, incorporeal miss chance, or hardness.
Sprint: You can now gain additional speed for 1 round as a swift action. Cooldown of 3 rounds.
Ronove’s far hand is cool, but its standard action version is underwhelming. Now it deals a lot more damage and can push enemies farther. Using it to drag a flying enemy down should make them hurt a lot too.

mesc
2021-01-14, 05:54 AM
2nd Level Vestiges



Sign: Several teeth grow from your scalp. Though they are small enough to be hidden by a large quantity of hair or a hat, a touch reveals them immediately.

Influence: You shift quickly from distraction to extreme focus and back again. Sometimes you stare blankly off into space, and at other times you gaze intently at the person or task at hand. Since Dahlver-Nar dislikes any task that requires more than 1 round of concentration (such as some spellcasting, concentration on an effect, or any action that requires a Concentration check), he requires that you undertake no such activities while under his influence.

Granted Abilities: Dahlver-Nar armors you and blends his madness with your sanity, lending you some of his selfish powers.

Mad Soul: Binding to Dahlver-Nar grants you immunity to Wisdom damage, Wisdom drain, madness, insanity, and confusion effects. Furthermore, anyone targeting you with a thought detection, mind control, or telepathic ability also makes contact with Dahlver-Nar’s tortured mind and takes 1d4 points of Wisdom damage. If they do not immediately end the effect, they take 1 point of wisdom damage per round for as long as they continue it.

Maddening Moan: You can emit a frightful moan as a standard action. Every creature within a 30-foot spread must succeed on a Will save or be dazed for 1 round. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. Maddening moan is a mind-affecting sonic ability.

Maddening Touch: You can cause others to go mad with a touch. The target of your touch attack must succeed on a Will saving throw or take 1d4 points of wisdom damage. This ability instead deals 1d6 damage at 5th EBL, 1d8 damage at 10th EBL, 1d10 damage at 15th EBL, and 1d12 damage at 20th EBL.

Natural Armor: You gain an enhancement bonus to your natural armor equal to one-half your Constitution bonus (if any). At EBL 7, the enhancement bonus instead becomes equal to your full Constitution bonus. At 13th and 19th EBL, the bonus increases by 1.

Shield Self: At will as a standard action, you can designate one creature within 10 feet per effective binder level to share the damage you take. As long as the subject creature remains within range, you take only half damage from all effects that deal hit point damage, and it takes the rest. The effect ends immediately if you designate another creature or if either you or the subject dies. Any damage dealt to you after the effect ends is no longer split between you and the subject, but damage already split is not reassigned to you. You can affect one creature at a time with this ability. An unwilling target of this ability can attempt a Will save to negate the effect.


Mad Soul: You now deal wisdom damage against people who try to intrude into your mind
Natural Armor: The bonus now increases as your EBL increases, instead of just being stuck at half con bonus
New Ability: Maddening Touch
Dahlver was pretty solid, but it felt like it lacked something so I just made minor improvements to some abilities and added a new offensive ability.





Sign: Your teeth and tongue turn black.

Influence: While influenced by Malphas, you fall in love too easily. A kind word or a friendly gesture can cause you to devote yourself entirely to another person. Should that person reject your affection, your broken heart mends the moment another attractive person shows you some kindness. In addition, if you have access to poison, Mal-phas requires that you employ it against your foes at every opportunity.

Granted Abilities: Malphas grants you the ability to spy without detection, to disappear, to use poison safely, and to strike vicious blows against vulnerable foes.

Bird’s Eye Viewing: At will, you can summon a dove or a raven to aid your powers of observation. (Use the statistics for a raven regardless of the creature’s form.) The bird appears perched on your shoulder. You have complete control over its actions, and you can see what it sees and hear what it hears. You use the bird’s skill checks, or your own, whichever are higher, to determine the results of its actions and observations (for example, Bluff, Search, Spot, Listen), but you must use your own skill bonuses to derive information from its observations (for example, Knowledge, Sense Motive, or Spellcraft to identify a spell).
If you have the Trapfinding ability, you can use the bird to find traps so long as doing so doesn’t require it to manipulate an object. The bird cannot talk. You can have only one bird summoned at a time. It remains until you summon another dove or raven, mentally dismiss it (a standard action), or stop binding with Malphas.

Invisibility: As a standard action, you can make yourself invisible (as with the invisibility spell). Making an attack ends the invisibility (as normal), but otherwise, the effect lasts a number of rounds equal to your effective binder level. You can invoke this ability as a move action at 5th level, as a swift action at 10th level, and as an immediate action at 15th level. Once you return to visibility, you cannot use this ability again for 3 rounds.

Poison Use (Homebrew ver. that replaces all Poison Use): You can apply a poison or oil to a weapon as a move action, without provoking attacks of opportunity. In addition, you never risk accidentally poisoning yourself when applying or delivering poison.
If a character gains Poison Use from a second class, the character automatically gains Improved Poison Use.

Sudden Strike: With your melee attack, you deal an extra 1d6 points of damage plus 1d6 points per four EBL anytime your target would be denied its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class. This extra damage applies to ranged attacks only if the opponent is within 30 feet. The extra damage from sudden strike stacks with that from sneak attack whenever both would apply to the same target.
Furthermore, when attacking a surprised target in the surprise round, your first attack against the target is automatically a critical hit, and the amount of extra damage dice from Sudden Strike is tripled. (Homebrew addition added to all Sudden Strike).




Bird’s Eye Viewing: You can now use your own observation skills instead of just the bird’s.
Invisibility: Lowered the activation time by 1 for each of the levels (full-round -> standard, standard -> move, move -> swift, swift -> immediate). Cooldown reduced from 5 rounds to 3 rounds
Poison Use: Replaced poison use with a homebrew version applied to all poison use.
Sudden Strike: Replaced sudden strike with a homebrew version applied to all sudden strike.
Malphas was pretty decent. I just made some changes to make him more effective.






Special Requirement: To summon Haagenti, you must be either Large or able to speak Giant.

Sign: You possess the same features as you always did, but they somehow make you more ugly than before. Others easily recognize you, but small differences make you less appealing to look upon. In addition, your bulk expands until you weigh half again as much as you did before.

Influence: You feel ashamed and occasionally bashful in the presence of beautiful creatures. In addition, Haagenti requires that you give deference to any creature you perceive as more attractive or charismatic than yourself. This deference might take the form of a bow, a salute, opening a door for the creature in question, not speaking until spoken to, or any other gesture that acknowledges the creature as superior to you. In any case, you must constantly treat any such creature with respect or suffer the penalty for defying Haagenti’s influence.

Granted Abilities: Haagenti grants you the strength of a minotaur, some of Thrym’s skill with arms and armor, plus her own aversion to transformation and the ability to inflict a state of confusion upon others.

Confusion: You can confuse a target within 30 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Will save or become confused for 1 round per three effective binder levels you possess. When you attain an effective binder level of 19th, this ability functions as a maze spell. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Immunity to Transformation: No mortal magic can permanently affect your form while you are bound to Haagenti. Effects such as polymorph or petrification might force you into a new shape, but at the start of your next turn, you can immediately resume your normal form as a free action. You remain affected by such effects only when you choose to do so.

Powerful Build: You gain the Powerful Build trait. Your physical stature lets you function in many ways as if you were one size category larger. Whenever a goliath is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as during grapple checks, bull rush attempts, and trip attempts), you are treated as one size larger if doing so is advantageous to you. You are also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as improved grab or swallow whole) can affect you. You can also use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, your space and reach remain those of a creature of your actual size. The benefits of this ability stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change your size category.

Powerful Charge: When you charge, if your melee attack hits, it deals an extra 1d8 points of damage. If you choose to perform a bullrush instead, then you gain a +5 bonus to the strength check.
At 4th EBL and every 4 EBL thereafter, this ability deals an additional 1d8 points of damage, and increases the bonus to the strength check by 5.

Shield Proficiency: You are proficient with shields, including tower shields. If you are already proficient with one of those shields, you instead increase the shield AC bonus of that shield by 1 when you wield that shield.

Weapons of the Minotaur Mother: You are proficient with the battleaxe, greataxe, handaxe, and throwing axe. Furthermore, you gain a +1 competence bonus to attack rolls and a +2 competence bonus to damage rolls using any of those weapons. If you are already proficient with one of those weapons, you instead gain a +2 competence bonus to attack rolls and a +4 competence bonus to damage rolls using that weapon.




New Ability: Powerful Build
New Ability: Powerful Charge
Shield Proficiency: You now gain an AC bonus when using a shield you were previously already proficient with.
Weapon Proficiency -> Weapons of the Minotaur Mother: You can gain proficiencies and bonus to attack and damage rolls with them, which increases if you were previously already proficient with them.
Haagenti was pretty bad. She didn’t really give any good abilities aside from the confusing touch, but the vestige is clearly focused into a fighter path. Therefore I just gave her some of the characters often associated with minotaurs.




Special Requirement: To summon Savnok, you must have stolen something and made neither reparations nor apology for that act.

Sign: A piece of an arrow appears under your skin somewhere on your body. It looks as though your skin has healed over a broken-off arrow that had previously wounded you. The arrow deals no damage, but at times it causes you some discomfort. If removed, it disintegrates immediately, and another appears somewhere else on your body.

Influence: Savnok’s influence makes you headstrong and recalcitrant. Once you make up your mind about a particular issue, very little can change your thoughts on the matter. In addition, whenever you don armor, employ a shield, or wear any other item that improves your AC, Savnok requires that you not remove that protection for any reason.

Granted Abilities: Savnok grants you abilities associated with his death and the command of allies’ positions.

Call Armor: At will as a full-round action, you can summon a suit of full plate armor, which appears about your body. As you attain higher effective binder levels, the armor’s quality improves, as given on the following table. You can dismiss the armor with another full-round action. If you remove the armor it disappears.


EBL
Armor Summoned


4th or Lower
Full Plate


5th - 7th
+1 Light Fortification Full Plate


8th - 10th
+2 Moderate Fortification Full Plate


11th - 13th
+3 Heavy Fortification Full Plate


14th - 16th
+4 Heavy Fortification Full Plate


17th or higher
+5 Heavy Fortification Full Plate



Heavy Armor Proficiency: You are proficient with heavy armor.

Instigating Taunts: Your actions and words taunt your enemies, infuriating them and preventing them from focusing on your allies. As a swift action, you can taunt an enemy. A taunted enemy takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls and a -2 penalty to damage rolls when attacking creatures other than you. Furthermore, all of your allies also gain a +1 morale bonus to saving throws and spell resistance against the abilities (su, ex, sl) and spells of taunted foes.
You can only taunt 1 creature at time. Using this ability on a new creature will end the effects on the first enemy.
At 5th EBL and every 5 EBL thereafter, the penalty to attack rolls increases by 1, while the penalty to damage rolls increases by 2, and the morale bonus to saving throws and spell resistance increases by 1.
At 9th and 17th EBL, the maximum number of creatures you can taunt and the amount of creatures you can taunt with each use of this ability increases by 1.

Move Ally: You can instantly swap positions with any visible willing ally within 10 feet + 5 feet per EBL of your position. Objects carried by you or your ally (up to the maximum load for each) go along, but creatures do not. The movement is instantaneous and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Using this ability is a standard action at first, though at 6th level you can use it as a move action, at 11th level you can use it as a swift action, and at 16th level you can use it as an immediate action. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.

Savnok’s Armor: While wearing your called armor, you can ignore some of the damage from attacks by non-piercing weapons. This ability gives you Damage Reduction / piercing, equal to 2 + half your EBL.
When your effective binder level reaches 7th, your damage reduction can be overcome only by attacks that are both magic and piercing.

Bloody Wounds: Savnok has paid for letting Hextor go and will never make the same mistake again. You can make 2 additional attacks of opportunity each round. Furthermore, when you make an attack of opportunity against an opponent who left a square you threaten, your attack will deal an extra 1d6 points of damage. Any damage that attack deals cannot be healed for 1 day.
For every 4 effective binder levels you possess, you deal an extra 1d6 points of damage.

Change Log:

Call Armor: Changed the scaling and bonuses of the called armor, and also added that you can’t remove the armor or it will disappear.
New Ability: Instigating Taunts
Move Ally: Changed the range to 10 + 5 feet per EBL instead of 5 per 2 EBL. Changed the activation scaling and it can now also be used as an intermediate action. Cool down reduced from 5 rounds to 3 rounds.
Savnok’s Armor: Increased the DR from 1 per 4 EBL into 2 + ½ EBL
New Ability: Bloody Wounds
Savnok originally had pretty limited abilities, and like most tanks in d&d, lacked an ability that can at least deter enemies from attacking allies, which instigating taunts and Bloody Wounds can do. Also the initial description of Savnok said it can grant his summoners the power to cause wounds that do not heal… which was a lie.

mesc
2021-01-14, 05:54 AM
3rd Level Vestiges


Special Requirement: Focalor’s seal must be drawn with a liquid medium.

Influence: While influenced by Focalor, you feel some of his inestimable grief and act morose, rarely smiling or finding cause to laugh. Whenever you kill a creature, Focalor demands that as soon as you have a peaceful moment, you take a round to say a few words of sorrow and regret for the life cut short by your actions.

Granted Abilities: Focalor gives you the ability to breathe water, strike foes down with lightning, blind enemies with a puff of your breath, and cause creatures to be stricken with grief in your presence.

Aura of Sadness: You emit an aura of depression and anguish that overtakes even the strongest-willed creatures. Every adjacent creature is overcome with grief, which manifests as a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks, for as long as it remains adjacent to you. You can suppress or activate this ability as a standard action. Aura of sadness is a mind-affecting ability.

Focalor’s Breath: As a standard action, you can exhale toward a single living target within sight. That target is blinded and unable to perceive the location of creatures for 1 round (no save). All other creatures are effectively invisible to the target, even if the target possesses scent, tremorsense, blindsense, blindsight, detect spells, etc. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Lightning Strike: Once per round as a standard action, you can call down a bolt of lightning that strikes any target you designate, as long as it is within 10 feet per effective binder level of your position. The lightning bolt deals 3d6 points of electricity damage, plus an additional 1d6 points of electricity damage for every two effective binder levels you possess above 5th. A successful Reflex save halves this damage. Furthermore, the lightning spreads after impact, dealing 1 point of electricity damage for every dice of damage the lightning deals, to all creatures within 10 feet of the target (including the target but excluding you), with no save. This ability functions outdoors, indoors, underground, and even underwater.
At 8th and 15th EBL, you can call down an additional bolt of lightning, but each lightning bolt must target a different creature.

Water Breathing: You can breathe both water and air easily.


Focalor’s Breath: No more range limit, just has to be within sight. Does not allow a save anymore. Instead of normal blindness, it also blinds any other form of sight or means to perceive creatures.
Lightning Strike: It now adds +1d6 damage every 2 EBL instead of 3. Deals a small amount of extra unavoidable damage to the target and nearby creatures. At higher EBLs you can target multiple creatures.
Focalor seemed decent to me so I only provided him a few improvements.




Special Requirement : Karsus refuses to answer the call of a binder who attempts to summon him within the area of an active spell. In addition, he appears only to a summoner who has at least 5 ranks in either Knowledge (arcana) or Spellcraft. He also hates Amon for some unknown reason and will not answer your call if you are already bound to that vestige.

Sign : You bleed more than normal from wounds. Even a small scratch releases a sanguine flood. This effect does not deal extra damage.

Influence: You take on some of the arrogance for which Karsus was famous in his mortal life. He requires that you make Bluff or Intimidate checks rather than Diplomacy checks to influence others.

Granted Abilities: In life, Karsus was obsessed with magic, and his obsession continues unabated in his current state. He grants you the ability to see magic, destroy it with a touch, and use any magic item with ease. He even provides a limited amount of spellcasting.

Spellcasting : You can cast and prepare a limited amount of wizard spells. After you have binded to Karsus, you can prepare and cast spells as a wizard of half your EBL, except your spells per day are the following. You do not gain any bonus spells per day even if you have a high intelligence score. Furthermore, after casting a spell, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.



EBL
0th
1st
2nd
3rd
4th


5th or Lower
3
1
-
-
-


6th - 8th
4
2
1
-
-


9th-12th
5
3
2
1
-


13th-15th
5
3
2
2
1


16th-18th
5
3
3
2
1


19th or higher
5
4
3
3
2



Heavy Magic: The save DC for each effect of every magic item you use increases by 2. At 8th, 11th, 15th and 18th EBL, the save DC further increases by 1.

Karsus’s Senses: You can sense magic auras as easily as others can detect odors, and concentrating on them reveals them to your sight. You are always aware of the presence or absence of magical auras. When you concentrate as a standard action, you automatically detect the number of different magical auras within 30 feet, and the power of the most potent aura within 30 feet, as though you had cast detect magic on the area and concentrated for 2 rounds. You do not need to concentrate to maintain this effect, but concentrating for 1 additional round reveals the location and strength of the auras in the area. A third round of concentration allows you to determine the school of all magical auras automatically.
You cannot use this ability if you are blinded, but otherwise it functions as detect magic for the purposes of concealment and the materials pierced. If you encounter an aura of overwhelming strength, however, you are dazzled so long as it remains within range of Karsus’s senses.
Furthermore, you gain the benefits of Read Magic while bound to Karsus.

Karsus’s Touch: You can produce a dispel magic effect with a touch. To do so, you must make a successful melee touch attack against a creature or an object as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. You can then make a dispel check (1d20 + your effective binder level) against each ongoing spell currently in effect on the object or creature. The DC for this check is 11 + the spell’s caster level. If you succeed on a particular check, that spell is dispelled; if you fail, it remains in effect.
If you target an object or creature that is the effect of an ongoing spell (such as a summoned monster or a conjured object), you must touch the target and make a dispel check to end the spell that brought it into being.
If you are able to target a spell effect, such as the flames of a wall of fire, you can make a dispel check to dispel the spell effect.
If the touched object is a magic item, you must make a dispel check (the DC is the item’s caster level). If you succeed, all the item’s magical properties are suppressed for 1d4 rounds, after which the item recovers on its own. An interdimensional interface (such as a bag of holding) is temporarily closed by this effect. A suppressed item becomes non-magical for the duration, but its physical properties are unchanged, so a suppressed magic sword is still a masterwork sword.
You can use Karsus’s touch a number of times per day equal to your effective binder level. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Karsus’s Will: You can use spell trigger and spell activation items, such as scrolls, wands and staves, as if you were a wizard of your effective binder level.



Heavy Magic: The bonus to DC increases with your EBL
Karsus’s senses: It now grants read magic as well
Karsus’s Touch: You can now dispel spell effects as well, assuming they could be touched.
Karsus is too niche, so adding some low level spells will make him more versatile and a good choice for a utility vestige.





Sign: One side of your mouth becomes wider than the other, as though it were being stretched or pulled. That side of your mouth has a tendency to remain slightly open, causing you to drool.

Influence: Paimon’s influence makes you lascivious and bold. In addition, Paimon requires that you dance (moving at half speed) whenever you hear music.

Granted Abilities: Paimon gives you the ability to dance in and out of combat, and to make whirling attacks against multiple foes.

Dance of Death: When you use this ability, you can move up to your speed and make a single attack against any creature you move past, provoking attacks of opportunity normally. When you use your dance of death, you forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats or abilities (such as the Cleave feat or the haste spell), and you cannot attack any single creature more than once.
At 8th EBL and every 4 levels thereafter, your movement speed for the purposes of Dance of Death increases by 10 feet.
Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.

Paimon’s Blades: You gain proficiency with the rapier and short sword, and you may use your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier for attack rolls and damage rolls when using those weapons. If you are already proficient with one of those weapons, you instead gain a +1 competence bonus to attack rolls and a +2 competence bonus to damage rolls using that weapon. Furthermore, whenever you wield such weapons in both your primary and offhand, you gain the benefit of the Two-Weapon Fighting feat.
At BAB +6, you also gain the benefit of the Improved Two-Weapon Fighting feat when wielding those weapons.
At BAB +11, you also gain the benefit of the Greater Two-Weapon Fighting feat when wielding those weapons.

Paimon’s Dexterity: You gain a +4 bonus to Dexterity.

Paimon’s Skills: You can use the Tumble skill untrained. You gain a +4 bonus on Tumble checks and Perform (dance) checks.

Uncanny Dodge: You retain your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. If you have uncanny dodge from another source, you gain improved uncanny dodge instead. See the rogue class features on page 50 of the Player’s Handbook.

Whirlwind Attack: You gain the benefit of the Whirlwind Attack feat.
At 6th EBL, you can use Whirlwind Attack as a standard action.
At 11th EBL, you can make a second attack at a -5 penalty against all creatures within reach, but only as a full-round action.
At 16th EBL, you can use Whirlwind Attack with a second attack also as a standard action.



Dance of Death: You now gain bonus movement speed when using the ability at higher EBL. Cooldown reduced from 5 rounds to 3 rounds.
Paimon’s Blades: Instead gain bonuses if you were already proficient with weapons before. Instead of just weapon finesse, you can now also use your dex mod instead of str for attack and damage rolls. You also gain two-weapon fighting feats, based on your BAB, not EBL.
Whirlwind Attack: Extra attacks or faster activation at higher levels.
Paimon lacked things it could do while dance of death is on cooldown. Providing two weapon fighting feats for more attacks and damage, or a more versatile and stronger whirlwind attack should help.

mesc
2021-01-14, 05:55 AM
4th Level Vestiges


Special Requirement: You must draw Agares’s seal upon either the earth or an expanse of unworked stone.

Sign: You gain a wracking cough that spews dust and small stones from your mouth. This coughing prevents you from casting any spells that have verbal components. While bound to Agares, you can resist the urge to cough for a number of rounds equal your Constitution score. Thereafter, you cough for a round and then can try to resist the urge again.

Influence: Agares’s loyalty in life and his anger at the betrayal perpetrated by his lieutenants has become a hatred of falsehood. When influenced by Agares, you speak forthrightly and with confidence. You cannot use the Bluff skill, and when asked a direct question, you must answer truthfully and directly.

Granted Abilities: Agares gives you the power to exalt yourself and your allies, to make the earth tremble beneath your feet, to render foes weak, and to speak the truth to all peoples.

Earth and Air Mastery: You gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls and a +2 bonus to weapon damage rolls if both you and your foe are touching the ground. Any airborne foe takes a –1 penalty on attack rolls and a -2 penalty on weapon damage rolls against you.

Earthshaking Step: As a standard action, you can stomp on the ground, causing every creature within up to 5 feet per EBL of you that is either standing or climbing on a surface connected with the ground to make a Reflex save or fall prone. You can select certain creatures to be unaffected by this. In addition, the ground cracks and shatters, transforming every square within half the range of this ability into difficult terrain. You are unaffected by this and can walk normally across the broken ground. After 5 rounds the ground will return to normal as if nothing happened to it. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Elemental Companion: You can summon an earth elemental to accompany you and fight for you, for up to 1 minute per EBL, after which the elemental vanishes. This creature obeys your commands to the best of its ability. After the duration ends or if you lose your elemental to destruction, you cannot summon it again for 1 hour.
The size of the earth elemental you can summon depends on your effective binder level, as given on the following table.



EBL
Elemental Size


9th or Lower
Medium


10th-12th
Large


13th-15th
Huge


16th-18th
Greater


19th or Higher
Elder



Great Bravery: No matter the circumstances, you are never afraid, and instead embrace challenges. You have immunity to fear from both magical and mundane sources. Furthermore for each of the following conditions below that are satisfied, you gain a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, AC, and saving throws.

There are more opponents than allies within 120 feet of you
You were surprised at the start of the encounter
You are below half your maximum number of hit points
You have already been brought down to 0 or negative hit points once during this encounter
For each ally within 120 feet of you that is currently at 0 or negative hit points
For each enemy with a CR greater your character level + 4, that is within 120 feet of you

The morale bonus gained from each condition stacks, however the maximum bonus you can achieve is equal to +1 per 5 effective binder levels.

Tactical Aid: As a standard action, you can coordinate and aid your allies against a single opponent that is within 60 feet of you. First choose whether the nature of your aid is offense or defensive.
If you choose offensive, then all allies that can hear you will gain a +2 circumstance bonus to their attack and damage roll on their next attack against that opponent, for as long as the attack is made before your next turn. If this attack successfully hits and injures the opponent, then that ally gains a +1 morale bonus to attack and damage rolls against that opponent, which lasts until the end of combat.
If you choose defensive, then all allies that can hear you will gain a +2 circumstance bonus to AC and saving throws against the opponent's next attack, spell, or ability, for as long as the attack is made before your next turn. If the opponent’s attack, spell, or ability misses or resisted (saving throw succeeded), then that ally gains a +1 morale bonus to AC and saving throws against that opponent.
At 11th, 15th, and 19th EBL, the circumstance bonuses increase by 1.
At 13th, and 17th EBL, the morale bonuses increase by 1.

True Speech: You can speak, understand, read, and write all languages spoken by creatures within 100 feet of you. To use an unfamiliar language, you must hear it spoken and see the speaker. Once you have used it, you can continue to do so for as long as your pact with Agares lasts. When speaking or writing in a language with which you are not familiar, you cannot lie.


Sign: You sprout two useless, gray-feathered wings from your back. The wings are small enough to be hidden beneath a shirt or cloak, but doing so makes you appear hunchbacked.

Influence: Andras’s influence causes you to become listless and emotionally remote. Because Andras wearies of combat quickly, you must drop any items in hand and withdraw from melee after only 10 rounds of battle. You may not take any offensive action for 1d4 rounds thereafter.

Granted Abilities: Andras lends you some of the skills he had in life, making you a strong combatant with or without a mount.

Weapon Proficiency: You are proficient with the greatsword, lance, longsword, and rapier. If you are already proficient with one of those weapons, you instead gain a +1 competence bonus to attack rolls and a +2 competence bonus to damage rolls using that weapon.

Mount: As a full-round action, you can summon a heavy warhorse, complete with saddle and heavy lance. The warhorses uses its own maximum hit points and saving throws, or half of your maximum hit points and your own saving throws, whichever is better.
At 9th EBL, the mount can ride over sandy, muddy, or even swampy ground without difficulty or decrease in speed.
At 11th EBL, the mount can use water walk at will (as the spell, no action required to activate this ability)
At 15th EBL, the mount gains a +10 foot enhancement bonus to speed.
At 17th EBL, the mount can use air walk at will (as the spell, no action required to activate this ability) for up to 1 round at a time, after which it falls to the ground
This creature serves you as a trained mount for up to 1 hour per effective binder level, or until it is killed, you dismiss it, or your pact with Andras ends. You can use this ability once per day. At 13th and 19th EBL, you can use this ability one additional time per day.

Saddle Sure: You gain a +8 bonus on Ride checks.

Smite Good or Evil: You can attempt to smite an evil or good creature with a single melee attack. You add your Charisma bonus (if any) to the attack roll and deal 1 extra point of damage per effective binder level. If you accidentally smite a creature that is neither good nor evil, the attempt has no effect. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. Smite evil and smite good attempts per day obtained from multiple sources stack.

Sow Discord: Andras grants you the ability to sow discord among your enemies. As a standard action, you can force an enemy to attack a randomly determined ally within 30 feet of him on his next action, and he must do so as his first attack. The target must be within 5 feet per two binder levels you possess, and a successful Will save negates the effect. The affected foe must strike for lethal damage with a primary attack and use whatever melee weapon is in hand (or an unarmed strike or natural attack if no weapon is at the ready). If the target is not within reach of the ally, they must move until they are within reach to attack. If the target spends their whole turn moving towards the ally, this ability ends without the target being forced to make an attack.
If the target manages to attack the ally (whether the attack hits or misses), the target and their allies are filled with a sense of unease. Until the end of the encounter, the target and any ally within 30 feet of them take a -1 penalty to AC and saving throws. Allies that move away from 30 feet of the target will no longer be affected by the penalty, but will regain it if they are within 30 feet of the target again. The penalty stacks with multiple uses of sow discord.
Sow discord is a mind-affecting compulsion ability. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.

Sure Blows: You gain the benefit of the Improved Critical feat with any weapon you wield. If you already have the Improved Critical feat with a weapon, you gain a +4 bonus on the roll to confirm a threat made with that weapon. This bonus stacks with that provided by the Power Critical feat (see Complete Divine, page 103). Furthermore, you are immune to any effect that would force you to reroll one of your attack rolls. Lastly, every time you miss because of concealment, you can reroll your miss chance percentile roll one time to see if you actually hit.



Weapon proficiency instead grants bonuses to attack roll and damage roll if you are already proficient with them
The summoned Mount is no longer just a standard warhorse, but improves with your EBL.
Sow Discord can now force the target to not just target adjacent allies, but up to those 30 feet away, forcing the target to move if necessary. Furthermore there is an additional debuff effect if it is successful. Cool down reduced from 5 rounds to 3 rounds
2 Additional effects added to Sure Blow
Andras felt too much just like a fighter but wasn’t that bad, so I just added minor situational improvements to the abilities. Sow discord was originally far too limited, so I made it less constricting and added a secondary effect.





Special Requirement: Buer requires that her seal be drawn out- doors.

Sign: Your feet turn into satyr’s hooves, giving you a curi- ous tip-toeing gait. These hooves prevent you from wearing normal boots or shoes, but magic footwear reshapes to fit you.

Influence: Under Buer’s influence, you are plagued by momentary memory lapses. For an instant, you might forget even a piece of information as familiar as the name of a friend or family member. Furthermore, since Buer abhors the need- less death of living creatures other than animals and vermin, the first melee attack you make against such a foe must be for nonlethal damage. In addition, Buer requires that you not make any coup de grace attacks.

Granted Abilities: Buer grants you healing powers, the ability to ignore toxins and ailments, as well as skills that help you navigate the natural world and track foes.

Buer’s Knowledge: You gain a +6 bonus on Heal, Knowledge (Geography), Knowledge (nature), and Survival checks, and you can make Knowledge (nature) and Knowledge (geography) checks as if you were trained, even if you have no ranks in that skill.
Furthermore, you are always aware of your bearings, including the distance you have already travelled, the direction of north, and your altitude or depth to the surface. No magical effect short of epic level or divine intervention, can confuse these senses and information.

Buer’s Purity: You have immunity to disease and poison, and making a pact with Buer removes any existing disease and neutralizes any poison that afflicts you.

Delay Diseases and Poisons: Each ally within 30 feet of you gains temporary immunity to poison and disease. Allies within the area make saving throws against disease and poison effects normally, but they do not incur the effects of failure as long as they stay within 30 feet of you. An ally that leaves the area immediately suffers all the effects for any missed saves.

Fast Healing: You gain fast healing 1, and the rate of healing increases by 1 for every 5 effective binder levels you possess.

Healing Gift: As a swift action, you can cure 1 point of damage per EBL to yourself or another creature within 30 feet of you. As a standard action, you can instead cure 4 points of damage per effective binder level. If you use the standard action cure ability, you cannot use your healing gift again for 5 rounds. The other version is usable at will. Both uses of the ability channel positive energy and deal a corresponding amount of damage to undead (no save).

Tree Striding: You gain the ability to enter and move through trees. You can only enter living trees that have a girth that is at least equal to yours. While inside a tree, you are aware of the location of all other trees within 500 feet that also meet the requirements, and as a move action you can transport yourself into one of those trees. On your turn, you can exit into any square adjacent to the tree you reside in as a free action.
You can also choose to remain inside a tree instead of transporting yourself or exiting. While inside a tree, your vision and hearing is reduced to only 120 feet, and others cannot spot you through normal mundane means. If the tree in which you are concealed is chopped down or burned, you are slain if you do not exit before the process is complete.
After transporting yourself over one tree per EBL, you cannot use this ability again for 1 hour.

Buer’s Tracking: Firstly, you can track foes as though you possessed the Track feat. Secondly, as an intermediate action, you can mark a creature within 120 feet of you. They must succeed on a will save or become marked for 1 day. You are always aware of the precise location of marked targets, your distance to them, and in which plane they are residing in. Furthermore, you gain a +1 insight bonus to attack rolls and AC against marked targets.
At 13th and 19th EBL, you can attempt to mark one additional creature with each use of this ability, and the insight bonuses increase by 1 as well. After using the marking ability, you cannot do so again for 1 hour.


Buer's knowledge changed from +4 to +6, and now includes knowledge geography, not just nature. You also now gain knowledge of your current position in the world.
Changed the fast healing progression but the cap is still the same
The healing damage of Healing Gift is increased, and the minor version is now a swift action.
New Ability: Tree Striding
Track - > Buer's Tracking
A lot of changes. Buer just felt too much like a situational utility vestige, so I just added even more situational abilities to make it seem better. Also the healing of Buer wasn't even high and is mostly just useful for outside of combat, but a wand of CLW could do the same. Buer should now be a solid defense + utility vestige choice.




Special Requirement: You must draw Tenebrous’s seal at night or in an area of deep shadow with little or no daylight exposure.

Sign: You seem to be standing in shadow even on the brightest day. Furthermore, your own shadow never extends more than a few feet from your body, even if the ambient light suggests that it should be much longer. This effect does not grant you concealment.

Influence: While influenced by Tenebrous, you are filled with a sense of detachment and an aching feeling of loss and abandonment. Tenebrous requires that you never be the first to act in combat. If your initiative check result is the highest, you must delay until someone else takes a turn.

Granted Abilities: Tenebrous grants you power over undead and shadows. He gives you the ability to chill your foes.

Deeper Darkness: You can cloak an area in shadows as though using the deeper darkness spell (caster level equals your effective binder level), with the following exceptions. The effect is always centered on you, it has an unlimited duration, and you can shift the range of the emanation (within the normal range) up or down 10 feet as a move action. You can suppress or activate this ability as a standard action.

See in Darkness: You can see perfectly through darkness of any kind, even that created by a deeper darkness spell (or your deeper darkness ability).

Touch of the Void: As a swift action, you can charge one of your weapons with cold energy for an entire round. Melee attacks made with the weapon deal an extra 2d6 points of cold damage. At 10th, 13th, 16th, and 19th EBL, the cold damage increases by 1d6.
Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.

Turn/Rebuke Undead: You can turn or rebuke undead as a cleric of your effective binder level. As with a cleric, you turn if you are good and rebuke if you are evil. If you are neutral, you choose whether to turn or rebuke upon binding with Tenebrous and cannot later change your mind. If you have the ability to turn or rebuke undead from other classes, your levels in those classes stack with your effective binder level for the purpose of determining your turning ability. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Vessel of Emptiness: You can use the flicker shadow magic mystery (see page 146) as a supernatural ability once per day. At 13th level, you can use this ability two times per day, and at 19th level, you can use it three times per day.


Touch of the void: The ability already charges the weapon for the whole round instead of doing so only at 11th EBL. The damage is increased by turning it to d6 with better scaling. Cooldown is reduced from 5 rounds to 3 rounds.
Not much changes, Tenebrous is pretty solid. I just thought its main damaging ability, touch of the void, needed a boost and have a lower cooldown.

mesc
2021-01-14, 05:56 AM
5th Level Vestiges


Special Requirement: You must place a gem about the size of a human tooth or eye in the center of Acererak’s seal. This gem is not used up in the summoning process, nor does it move from where you placed it, despite the manner in which Acererak manifests (see Manifestation, below).

Sign: A gem replaces one of your teeth. If removed, the gem reverts to a normal tooth, and a new gem appears in its place.

Influence: As a vestige, Acererak possesses the immortality he desired but none of the power that should accompany it. If you fall under his influence, you evince a strong hunger for influ- ence and primacy. If you are presented with an opportunity to fill a void in power over a group of creatures, Acererak requires that you attempt to seize that power. You might impersonate a missing city official, take command of a leaderless unit of soldiers, or even grab the reins of runaway horses to establish your supremacy.

Granted Abilities: While bound to Acererak, you gain powers that the great lich held in his legendary unlife.

Detect Undead: You can use detect undead as the spell at will (caster level equals your effective binder level).

Devour Essence: As a standard action, you can make a ranged touch attack to drain the life of a living foe within 120 feet of you. If the attack hits, they take 1d8 points of damage for every two effective binder levels you possess, and you regain hit points equal to the same amount of damage dealt.
If the healing would bring you to your maximum hit points, any remaining amount of damage that is to be healed is converted into temporary hit points instead. These temporary hit points last for 1 minute.
If this ability would reduce the creature to -1 hit points or below, they must succeed on a Fortitude saving throw or die.
If this ability kills the target, you gain a +1 bonus to your effective binder level. This bonus lasts for 1 minute per HD of the slain creature.
Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Hide from Undead: At will as a standard action, you can become undetectable to undead. This ability functions like the hide from undead spell, except that the DC for intelligent undead to ignore the effect and notice you is 10 + ½ your effective binder level + your Cha modifier.

Lich’s Energy Immunities: You gain immunity to cold and electricity damage.

Paralyzing Touch: As a standard action, you can make a touch attack to paralyze a living foe. The touched creature must succeed on a Fortitude save or be paralyzed for a number of rounds equal to one-half your effective binder level. Each round on its turn, the paralyzed creature can attempt a new saving throw as a full-round action, with success ending the effect immediately. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Speak with Dead: You can question the dead at will as though using the speak with dead spell (caster level equals your effective binder level; save DC 10 + ½ your effective binder level + your Cha modifier).

Undead Healing: Negative energy (such as that of an inflict spell) heals you rather than damaging you. If you are a living creature, positive energy (such as a cure spell) still heals you as well.


New ability: Devour Essence.
Acererak has a lot of useful situational abilities but seemed too passive, so adding the new ranged ability should make it more useful in combat, and also solidify acererak as a defensive and utility oriented vestige.




Special Requirement: Balam requires a sacrifice of her summoner. In the process of calling her, you must deal 1 point of slashing damage to yourself or another sentient creature (one with Int 3 or higher) and place a drop of blood from the wound within Balam’s completed seal.

Sign: Your voice gains a peculiar quality, becoming both hollow and guttural.

Influence: Balam’s influence causes you to distrust clerics, paladins, and other devotees of deities. Whenever you enter a temple or some other holy or unholy site, Balam requires that you spit on the floor and utter an invective about the place.

Granted Abilities: Balam grants you the power to predict future events. She also teaches cunning and finesse, and gives you a freezing cold aura.

Balam’s Cunning: You can reroll one attack, saving throw, or skill check you have just made. You must accept the result of the reroll, even if it is worse than the original. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Frigid Aura: You radiate a 30 feet aura of freezing cold that deals 3 points of cold damage per four effective binder levels to any creature that ends its turn within the area. You can choose not to affect specific creatures within range of the aura, such as your allies, if desired. You can suppress or activate this ability as a standard action.

Halting Gaze: As an immediate action, you can immobilize a creature within 30 feet of you. The target must succeed on a will saving throw or be immobilized for 1 round. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Prescience: You get a glimpse of the future a moment before it happens. This knowledge manifests as an insight bonus equal to +1 per five effective binder levels on initiative checks, Reflex saves, and AC.

Weapon Finesse: You gain the benefit of the Weapon Finesse feat.


Changed Icy Gaze into Frigid Aura, which basically turned the gaze attack into an aura that does damage over time.
New ability: Halting Gaze
Lowered the Prescience bonus from +1 per four EBL to +1 per five EBL




Sign: While bound to Otiax, you are surrounded by thin wisps of light blue fog even in the strongest wind.

Influence: Otiax’s motives remain a mystery, but its influence is clear. When confronted with unopened doors or gates, you become agitated and nervous. This emotional state lasts until the door or gate has opened, or until you can no longer see it. Doors or gates which were originally unopened, but you have recently seen being opened will no longer bother you. Furthermore, Otiax cannot stand a lock that he has not unlocked recently. Thus, whenever you see a lock, Otiax requires that you use all means possible to unlock it.

Granted Abilities: Otiax opens or closes doors for you, lets you batter opponents with wind, and cloaks you in a protective fog that can actually lash out at foes.

Air Blast: You can focus the air around you into a concentrated blast that batters opponents. You can use your air blast as a melee touch attack against an adjacent opponent or one that is up to 10 feet away (as though you were using a reach weapon). This attack deals 2d6 points of bludgeoning damage, but you do not add your Strength bonus to the damage roll. If your base attack bonus is high enough, you might be entitled to additional air blast attacks each round when you make a full attack. You can also make attacks of opportunity with your air blast. You cannot use this ability if you do not show Otiax’s sign.

Combat Reflexes: You gain the benefit of the Combat Reflexes feat. You cannot use this ability if you do not show Otiax’s sign.

Concealing Mist: You can whip the mist that constantly surrounds you into a concealing screen that grants you concealment (foes’ melee and ranged attacks have a 20% miss chance). You cannot use this concealment to hide. You can suppress or activate this ability as a full-round action. A severe wind (either natural or magical, such as a gust of wind spell) suppresses your concealing mist. You cannot use this ability if you do not show Otiax’s sign.

Open/Close Portal: Once per round, as a free action, you can open or close a door, chest, box, window, bag, pouch, bottle, barrel, or other container as though using the open/close spell. You can also choose to let the object automatically close after a certain period of time (up to 1 minute per effective binder level). This ability has a range of 10 feet per effective binder level you possess.

Unlock: As a free action, you can unlock a single lock that is within 5 feet per effective binder level you possess, provided that its Open Lock DC is less than or equal to 10 + twice your effective binder level. For example, a 10th-level binder can use this ability to open any lock with a DC of 30 or lower, and a 15th-level binder could open a lock with a DC of 40 or lower. This ability grants you no protection from any traps that might be associated with the lock.
Furthermore, if you successfully unlocked the lock, you can choose to let it automatically lock itself again after a certain period of time (up to 1 minute per effective binder level).
You can also use this ability to open up doors with arcane lock cast on them. You first make a binder level check (1d20 + effective binder level) with a DC of 10 + the caster level of the spellcaster who cast arcane lock. If you beat the DC, you can suppress the effects of arcane lock by up to 10 minutes.
Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

mesc
2021-01-14, 05:56 AM
6th Level Vestiges

Special Requirement: You must draw Shax’s seal within sight of a pond, stream, or larger body of water.

Sign: A scar appears around the circumference of your neck, as though your head had been lopped off and then returned to your body to heal.

Influence: While under Shax’s influence, you become possessive and stingy, particularly about territory—be it actual land or simply a room in an inn. In addition, her influence requires you to demand compensation for any service rendered and to tax any use of your territory. However, you can accept nearly any item of value—be it material goods or a service—as payment.

Granted Abilities: Shax grants you the swimming skill of a fish, the ability to strike foes with sonic force and electricity, and the power to call forth storms. She also gives you immunities to the elements of a storm and allows you to move freely despite restraints.

Call Storm: You gain the ability to use a control weather effect, but can only create a windstorm, thunderstorm, or hurricane-force winds (see page 214 of the Player’s Handbook and pages 94–95 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide). You are treated as a druid when using this ability for the purpose of duration and area of the spell. After using this ability, you cannot use it again for 1 hour.

Freedom of Movement: As an immediate action, you can give yourself the ability to ignore restraints. This effect functions like the freedom of movement spell, except that it lasts only 1 round. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 3 rounds.

My Territory: Opponents provoke attacks of opportunity when entering a square you threaten, unless they left a square you threatened when doing so.

Storm Resistance: You are immune to electricity damage and sonic damage. You are immune to being blown away, knocked down, or checked by high winds (whether natural or magical). You gain a +2 competence bonus on saves against spells with the air or water descriptor.

Storm Strike: As a swift action, you can charge your next attack with electricity and sonic power. Your next attack within the round deals an extra 1d6 points of electricity damage and 1d6 points of sonic damage. If the attack misses, that use of storm strike is wasted.
For every 4 effective binder levels you possess, the electricity and sonic damage increases by 1d6 each.

Swim Speed: You gain a swim speed equal to your land speed. You can move through water at your swim speed without making Swim checks, and you gain a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check made to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. You can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. You can also use the run action while swimming, provided you swim in a straight line.
You also gain the ability to breathe underwater.

mesc
2021-01-14, 05:57 AM
7th Level Vestiges

Special Requirement: To summon Marchosias, you must at some point in your life have committed an evil act for which you have not apologized, atoned, or made reparations. Lying or breaking a confidence doesn’t count, but other small acts of evil—such as theft, infidelity, or vandalism—do fulfill the requirement.

Sign: While you are bound to Marchosias, the pupils of your eyes glow with a red-orange light. Anyone looking at your face can make a DC 12 Spot check each round to notice this effect. This light is not strong enough to illuminate the area, and it does not make you any easier to see in the dark, but it can be disturbing to look upon.

Influence: Marchosias’s influence makes you debonair and sly, as though you have some trick up your sleeve and the knowledge of it makes you confident. In addition, Marchosias requires that you use the death attack he grants you against any foe you catch unawares.

Granted Abilities: Marchosias gives you an assassin’s skill at killing, plus the ability to assume gaseous form and the power to charm foes.

Assassinate: Marchosias grants you the power to kill foes that are unable to defend themselves in a single attack. To attempt to assassinate a target, you must first study your target for 1 round. During this time you must concentrate, and the ability can be distrubbed, possibly ending if you fail your concentration check. On the following round, if the first melee attack you make against the target successfully hits and deals damage, and the target is denied its dexterity bonus to AC, then the attack is automatically considered a critical hit and can possibly kill them or paralyze them (your choice).
If the victim of such an attack fails a Fortitude save against the kill effect, the target is brought down to - 1 hit points. If the target fails against the paralysis effect, they are rendered helpless and unable to act for 1d6 minutes per effective binder level (you are unaware of the duration, the DM makes the roll in secret). Furthermore, while paralyzed, the target appears to be dead, requiring a DC 10 + your EBL heal check to determine that they are not actually dead. If the target’s saving throw succeeds, the attack is just a normal critical hit.
If you attempt to assassinate and fail (the first attack misses or deals no damage), or if you do not launch the attack within the next round of completing the study, a new round of study is required before you can attempt another death attack.

Fiery Retribution: You deal an extra 2d6 points of fire damage when you strike an opponent who dealt lethal damage to another creature in the current or previous round. This extra damage applies to ranged attacks only if the opponent is within 30 feet. The extra fire damage increases by 1d6 for every 5 effective binder levels you possess above 15th EBL.

Regal Execution: You gain a semblance of the regality and perfection Marchosias had over the art of killing. When you have successfully slain or brought an enemy down to negative hit points, as an immediate action, you can enthrall all enemies within 60 feet of you who were able to see the act. Affected creatures must succeed on a will saving throw or become spellbound to the act and their thoughts, becoming completely unaware of their surroundings, for 1 round. They take no actions on their turn and instead contemplate and praise the sight they have witnessed. However, after an affected creature gets affected by a hostile act, like an attack or spell, the effect immediately ends and they are no longer spellbound.
Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Sense Hostile Intent: You gain the ability to detect and pinpoint the locations of non-mindless creatures (anything with an int score of 1 or higher), that are hostile to you and within 120 feet of you. This works much like blindsense--the creature knows what square each hostile being is in, but it does not see the being, and the being still has total concealment unless the creature can see it by some other means. Furthermore you cannot be caught surprised or flat-footed by non-mindless creatures, even by those outside the area of this ability.

Smoke Form: You gain the ability to assume the form of a smoke cloud for up to one minute per EBL. This ability functions like the gaseous form spell, except with the following exceptions:

You have a fly speed of 30 feet instead of 10.
You can alter your translucency as a move action, choosing between translucent white smoke, thick grey smoke, or opaque black smoke. When you first activate this ability you immediately choose which type of smoke you first transform into. The thick grey smoke provides concealment, while opaque black smoke provides total concealment.
You can alter your size as a move action, from anywhere up to 6 times your original size. For example, the gaseous form of a medium size creature usually occupies only a 5 feet square area, but you can expand it up to a 30 feet square.
Transforming into your gaseous form or back into your normal form is a swift action. When you transform back into your normal form, you can choose to reform in any square occupied by your expanded gaseous form.
When reforming, you can also choose to keep the smoke cloud formed by your gaseous form in place. The smoke cloud disperses after 1 minute. A moderate wind (11+ mph), such as from a gust of wind spell, disperses the fog in 4 rounds. A strong wind (21+ mph) disperses the fog in 1 round.


Although you lose your supernatural abilities while gaseous, you do not lose the ability to remain in gaseous form. Vestiges you have bound remain so for the normal duration. Since you lose your supernatural assassinate ability, however, you cannot study an opponent for the purpose of making your assassinate attempt while in smoke form. Once you have reformed back into your normal form, you cannot use this ability again for 3 rounds.

Silent and Sure: You gain a +16 competence bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks, and a +8 bonus on initiative checks.


Death Attack -> Assassinate: A lot of changes. 3 rounds of study are now 1 round of study, no need for the attack to be a sneak attack, but the attack must still be against a creature who is denied their dex to AC. You no longer fail if the target recognizes you as an enemy. Even if the enemy makes the save the attack becomes a critical hit. House rule of save or die effects leave the target at -1 hp instead. The paralysis effect is now 1d6 minutes per EBL instead of 1d6 rounds +1 round per EBL, and makes the victim appear dead.
Fiery Retribution now deals a starting damage 2d6 fire damage instead of a flat 3d6, but now affects enemies who dealt lethal damage to other creatures in the current or the previous round.
New Ability: Regal Execution
New ability: Sense Hostile Intent
Smoke Form: A lot of additions to make it more versatile and cooldown decreased to 3 from 5, but there is now a duration instead of it being limitless.
Silent and Sure also grants a +8 bonus to initiative now.
The legend of Marchosias seemed really cool for me honestly, but the actual abilities were pretty bad, and the granted abilities even said it grants the ability to charm foes but there were none!





8th Level Vestiges

Special Requirement: You must summon Orthos within an area of bright illumination.

Sign: You always seem to be buffeted by a breeze that no one else can feel, even when you’re indoors. The eerie wind makes no noise, but it tousles your hair and belongings, frequently changing direction.

Influence: While influenced by Orthos, you are averse to darkened areas and loud noises. Although you can endure such conditions, they give you a sense of panic and make you short of breath. Orthos requires that you always carry an active light source with a brightness at least equal to that of a candle, and that you not cover it or allow it to be darkened for more than 1 round. Additionally, Orthos requires that you speak only in a whisper.

Granted Abilities: Orthos gives you blindsight, displacement, a breath weapon, and the power to deliver messages through the wind.

Blindsight: You gain blindsight out to 30 feet.

Displacement: At will, you can surround yourself with a light-bending glamour that makes it difficult for others to surmise your true location. Any melee or ranged attack directed at you has a 50% miss chance unless the attacker can locate you by some means other than sight. A true seeing effect allows the user to determine your position, but see invisibility has no effect. You can suppress or activate this ability as a standard action.

Gale Scythe: As a swift action, you can create a focused arc of furiously whirling air within 60 feet of you, which you can direct against your enemies. The gale scythe is visible as a blur of shearing winds. It occupies the same space as a Medium creature and can grant soft cover against ranged attacks (+4 AC), but does not threaten spaces around it. As a standard action, you can concentrate on the gale scythe and move it up to 60 feet. You provoke attacks of opportunities while concentrating on the gale scythe. If you do not concentrate on the gale scythe on your turn, you can instead move the gale scythe by 5 feet.
When the gale scythe enters a creature’s square, or when a creature enters the gale scythe’s square, or when a creature ends it turn on the gale scythe’s square, that creature takes 1d6 slashing damage per 2 effective binder levels you possess. A successful reflex saving throw halves this damage. A creature can only receive this damage once per turn.
A gale scythe lasts for up to 1 round per EBL, or you can dismiss it anytime as a free action. Once the duration ends, you cannot use this ability again for 5 rounds.

Whirlwind Breath: As a standard action, you can exhale a scouring blast of wind in a 60-foot cone. Your whirlwind breath deals 1d6 points of damage per binder level you possess. Every creature in the area can attempt a Reflex save to halve the damage, and must also succeed on a Fortitude save or be knocked prone and moved 1d4×10 feet away from you (or just outside the cone, whichever is a shorter distance). Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Whispering Wind: Any message you speak can be carried by the wind as though using the whispering wind spell (caster level equals your effective binder level). This ability uses no action.


New Ability: Gale Scythe
Whispering wind changed from standard action to no action
Orthos is good, but I felt it needed something more active other than it’s breath, so I added gale scythe.

Deepbluediver
2021-01-14, 01:24 PM
Bookmarking this, so I can come back and loot it for ideas later, particularly with regards to the fixed vestiges.

I've had similar thoughts myself about the Binder, and here's some of the stuff I've been toying with.

(1) Reduce the different classifications of binds.
Instead of 1st through 8th level, I've got Lesser (available at level 1), Moderate (available at level 8), and Greater (available at level 15). This isn't just for simplicity, but so that player's have have more choices at each level. If you agree that 9 is to many but think that 3 is not enough, feel free to play around with other combinations of power-curves, like the Least/Lesser/Moderate/Dark distribution for Warlocks.
And then speaking of choices....

(2) I would make binders choose binds to learn, like a sorcerer chooses spells.
I've never actually played a Binder, and it was never quite clear to me if they have access to every single vestige at all times, like the Cleric spell-list, but that seems to be the intent. While popular for classes without much splat-support, the issue with this is that different Binders feel very similar, and there's not a lot of incentive for replayability (since ToM was late in the development cycle for 3.5 though, I don't think that was a high priority). How many different Binds a Binder can learn at each level depends on how exactly you fix each one, but IMO since each bind grants multiple abilities, I think ~15 binds across all 20 levels is not unreasonable. Plus, it serves as another tool to limit any given players power at a particular moment.

(3) Frontload how many binds you can have at a time as a function of level.
What I mean is, my current layout has 1 Bind at first level, 2 at 3rd, 3 at 6th, 4 at 10th, and 5 at 15th. By making it non-linear, you can give more variety to a low-level character without letting high-level characters go completely off the charts.

(4) Change how binding attempts work.
I don't like how the limitations on certain binds not working with other binds were implemented. As anyone who's studied decision-modeling [hyuck nerd hyuck :smalltongue: ]will tell you, when you start putting hard restrictions on a multi-choice systems it can force a surprising level of restriction really quickly. For example, if you want to bind A, B, & C, but B & C don't play nice together. So you swap out C for D; but then you realize that A & D don't work out, so you swap A for E. But E doesn't want to be paired with B, and all of a sudden your build doesn't work and you've made yourself crazy. Now, in the RAW there weren't a lot of these restrictions so it wasn't an insurmountable problem AFAIK, but instead it just feels random and arbitrary.
I would alter how it works so that binds that don't like one another are more common but can always be bound, and doing so makes the binding-check harder. Which leads me to my next point....
(4b) The penalties for the binding check seem relatively inconsequential. I would alter it so that 1 ability or passive buff from every bind was tied to making a good bind-check, and if you didn't, you didn't get/couldn't use that ability.
That way, players who are willing to pick binds that "cooperate" from a fluff-standpoint are free to do so with relatively few drawbacks, but if you want some very specific selection of binds then you may be forced to optimize in other ways so that you can reliably get the most out of your build.
(4c) I would keep the bind-vs-bind restrictions as simple as possible, either just back-and-forth or at most 3-way limitations.
So basically A & B don't like each other and C & D don't like each other, or A, B, & C all hate each other. If you start doing stuff like A hates B but B is alright with A, or A hates B who hates C who hates D who hates.... then it can get difficult for a player to tell when a check gets harder or what can and can't be bound, and it gets harder for the creator to double-check that all the restrictions are working-as-intended. If altering the order of binds changes how many limitations there are or what kind of checks you have to make, then a player may be able to math-out a perfect sequence and circumvent intended limitations. Just something to keep in mind.

(5) I've got a few thoughts about the Pact Augmentations feature, too, but that's really just sprinkles on top of the sunday, so I don't really feel the need to go into it right now.

mesc
2021-01-14, 11:31 PM
(1) Reduce the different classifications of binds.
Instead of 1st through 8th level, I've got Lesser (available at level 1), Moderate (available at level 8), and Greater (available at level 15). This isn't just for simplicity, but so that players have have more choices at each level. If you agree that 9 is to many but think that 3 is not enough, feel free to play around with other combinations of power-curves, like the Least/Lesser/Moderate/Dark distribution for Warlocks.
And then speaking of choices....


I feel like reducing the classification of binds will introduce some new problems though. There are issues with the abilities of higher level vestiges being made available earlier on, for example getting paimon's dexterity bonus at level 1 or something. Furthermore, while it will improve a player's choices when they unlock that vestige level, it will also mean that they won't get anything new anymore when gaining levels of binder for a while.



(2) I would make binders choose binds to learn, like a sorcerer chooses spells.
I've never actually played a Binder, and it was never quite clear to me if they have access to every single vestige at all times, like the Cleric spell-list, but that seems to be the intent. While popular for classes without much splat-support, the issue with this is that different Binders feel very similar, and there's not a lot of incentive for replayability (since ToM was late in the development cycle for 3.5 though, I don't think that was a high priority). How many different Binds a Binder can learn at each level depends on how exactly you fix each one, but IMO since each bind grants multiple abilities, I think ~15 binds across all 20 levels is not unreasonable. Plus, it serves as another tool to limit any given players power at a particular moment.

(3) Frontload how many binds you can have at a time as a function of level.
What I mean is, my current layout has 1 Bind at first level, 2 at 3rd, 3 at 6th, 4 at 10th, and 5 at 15th. By making it non-linear, you can give more variety to a low-level character without letting high-level characters go completely off the charts.


I like these ideas



(4) Change how binding attempts work.
I don't like how the limitations on certain binds not working with other binds were implemented. As anyone who's studied decision-modeling [hyuck nerd hyuck :smalltongue: ]will tell you, when you start putting hard restrictions on a multi-choice systems it can force a surprising level of restriction really quickly. For example, if you want to bind A, B, & C, but B & C don't play nice together. So you swap out C for D; but then you realize that A & D don't work out, so you swap A for E. But E doesn't want to be paired with B, and all of a sudden your build doesn't work and you've made yourself crazy. Now, in the RAW there weren't a lot of these restrictions so it wasn't an insurmountable problem AFAIK, but instead it just feels random and arbitrary.
I would alter how it works so that binds that don't like one another are more common but can always be bound, and doing so makes the binding-check harder. Which leads me to my next point....
(4b) The penalties for the binding check seem relatively inconsequential. I would alter it so that 1 ability or passive buff from every bind was tied to making a good bind-check, and if you didn't, you didn't get/couldn't use that ability.
That way, players who are willing to pick binds that "cooperate" from a fluff-standpoint are free to do so with relatively few drawbacks, but if you want some very specific selection of binds then you may be forced to optimize in other ways so that you can reliably get the most out of your build.
(4c) I would keep the bind-vs-bind restrictions as simple as possible, either just back-and-forth or at most 3-way limitations.
So basically A & B don't like each other and C & D don't like each other, or A, B, & C all hate each other. If you start doing stuff like A hates B but B is alright with A, or A hates B who hates C who hates D who hates.... then it can get difficult for a player to tell when a check gets harder or what can and can't be bound, and it gets harder for the creator to double-check that all the restrictions are working-as-intended. If altering the order of binds changes how many limitations there are or what kind of checks you have to make, then a player may be able to math-out a perfect sequence and circumvent intended limitations. Just something to keep in mind.


Interesting, but maybe instead of locking out a whole ability, maybe put a more meaningful penalty like a -1 to EBL or something similar instead.

Elves
2021-01-15, 05:09 AM
-I would make binders choose binds to learn, like a sorcerer chooses spells.
Agree with most of what you said but this makes their already underpowered ability suite even more limited.

My solution would be to instead create binder "subclasses" where there are several themed suites of vestiges and you only get to access one, chosen at 1st level (then maybe you could have a second choice at xth level out of another set of suites). This creates variety between binders while also solving the problem you note with the restrictions:


As anyone who's studied decision-modeling [hyuck nerd hyuck ]will tell you, when you start putting hard restrictions on a multi-choice systems it can force a surprising level of restriction really quickly.
with my suggestion above you instead design specific sets of vestiges to play nice with each other instead of doing it on a case by case basis.


my overall rewrite of the class would be to compote it with warlock. the vestige "suites" could be themed around warlock pact/patron: so you would have one set of demon vestiges, one set of lovecraftian vestiges and so on.

Deepbluediver
2021-01-15, 08:30 AM
I feel like reducing the classification of binds will introduce some new problems though. There are issues with the abilities of higher level vestiges being made available earlier on, for example getting paimon's dexterity bonus at level 1 or something.
I've never liked flat bonuses- I prefer things that scale. And since you're fixing all the vestiges anyway, you can tweak any specific bonuses or abilities to be level-appropriate. Plus, like I said, you can use other power-curves as well- you could do new vestige-tiers at 1st and then every third level after that, so 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, & 16th. That's kinda like the levels at which a Bard learns new spells.


Furthermore, while it will improve a player's choices when they unlock that vestige level, it will also mean that they won't get anything new anymore when gaining levels of binder for a while.
That's why I suggested having them learn specific binds as they level up, so (again, like a Bard, or Warlock) even at levels where they don't unlock a new vestige-tier they get something. If you really want to fill dead-space, you can add in bonus-feats or maybe find some way to make the pact-augmentation feature more interesting, like combine and remix it with your Soul Embodiment feature.


I like these ideas
...
Interesting, but maybe instead of locking out a whole ability, maybe put a more meaningful penalty like a -1 to EBL or something similar instead.
Whatever floats your boat. I'm in favor of actually upping the power-level on individual vestiges, but if you don't want to go that far then your idea is probably more balanced.
You don't have to take my ideas wholesale, but if they inspire some other tweak of your own, then that makes them worth posting.


Agree with most of what you said but this makes their already underpowered ability suite even more limited.
Well, yes, but the biggest part of fixing the Binder is fixing a lot of the mediocre vestiges. It's like you can't really fix the Wizard just from the Wizard-class page, you've got to go fix hundreds (or maybe at least dozens) of spells instead.


My solution would be to instead create binder "subclasses" where there are several themed suites of vestiges and you only get to access one, chosen at 1st level (then maybe you could have a second choice at xth level out of another set of suites). This creates variety between binders while also solving the problem you note with the restrictions:

with my suggestion above you instead design specific sets of vestiges to play nice with each other instead of doing it on a case by case basis.

my overall rewrite of the class would be to compote it with warlock. the vestige "suites" could be themed around warlock pact/patron: so you would have one set of demon vestiges, one set of lovecraftian vestiges and so on.
OK, that's a possibility, but then I feel like once you pick an archetype you haven't got very many choices left, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

noob
2021-01-15, 09:46 AM
I've never liked flat bonuses- I prefer things that scale. And since you're fixing all the vestiges anyway, you can tweak any specific bonuses or abilities to be level-appropriate. Plus, like I said, you can use other power-curves as well- you could do new vestige-tiers at 1st and then every third level after that, so 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, & 16th. That's kinda like the levels at which a Bard learns new spells.


That's why I suggested having them learn spells as they level up, so (again, like a Bard, or Warlock) even at levels where they don't unlock a new vestige-tier they get something. If you really want to fill dead-space, you can add in bonus-feats or maybe find some way to make the pact-augmentation feature more interesting, like combine and remix it with your Soul Embodiment feature.


Whatever floats your boat. I'm in favor of actually upping the power-level on individual vestiges, but if you don't want to go that far then your idea is probably more balanced.
You don't have to take my ideas wholesale, but if they inspire some other tweak of your own, then that makes them worth posting.


Well, yes, but the biggest part of fixing the Binder is fixing a lot of the mediocre vestiges. It's like you can't really fix the Wizard just from the Wizard-class page, you've got to go fix hundreds (or maybe at least dozens) of spells instead.


OK, that's a possibility, but then I feel like once you pick an archetype you haven't got very many choices left, unless I'm misunderstanding something.
You can fix the wizard using only the wizard class page: simply make them a fixed list caster with only a bunch of spells(that are not picked among the broken ones) and it is done.
Meanwhile binder have way less material to drag from so making them more powerful is considerably harder than it is to make the wizard weaker.

Elves
2021-01-15, 12:51 PM
OK, that's a possibility, but then I feel like once you pick an archetype you haven't got very many choices left, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

I'm talking about what amounts to a full rewrite. You could make as many new vestiges as needed.

Kind of a shame to lose the unique binder lore, but you could preserve it in a Vestige Pact that involved invoking dead souls from the void.

Morphic tide
2021-01-15, 02:13 PM
One of the things that bugs me, a lot, about Vestige Binding's mechanical interface is that the fluff this is supposed to be describing says it's really easy to do. So my own main direction would be re-orienting Binding around having every Vestige accessible from 1st level (give or take various Special requirements to actually reach the things), but have the scope of abilities be derived from the Binding check and hold certain kinds of risks for applying the top of what you're allowed to use with any given check.

This would come with each individual Vestige being designed more like an Ardent Mantle, acting as a canned proficiency in the foundations of a certain playstyle rather than each basically doing whatever they want. Abysm the Schismed would flat out make you a Telepath Psion of some description, for instance, with such direct rips leaning heavily on synergy with other features, such as most caster-types bringing some form of save-reduction or DC bump, instead of turning you into a passable character of their "type" entirely directly.

Would be wanting to aim for Tier 3 with unusually large but not game-cracking numbers, having the capacity to adjust to solve any problem the game is capable of throwing at them, but not able to run over much of anything in particular. Possibly have relatively small flat amounts like 2nd-4th level subsystem access and one Vestige in each major area that gives scaling access so you need to have three or four stacked to reach high-level abilities within the subsystem.

Actual direct subsystem access would be one of the major draws to spending feats on entry, usually acting as an upgrade to Practiced Whatever by actually giving back levels of basic progression and something to use the higher-level access on, even if just with meta-whatever effects. This would entail buying an extra two levels of leeway on reaching 9ths, with better amounts needing either truly staggering Charisma bonuses or some heavy focus on Binding as a mechanic.

Think I'd throw in a Binding Level function that the check deviates from, rather than explicitly being the check result itself, so it can be interacted with as a resource and a poor check is both not crippling and can be ramped back up. This helps with the idea of having true, stacking, subsystem access by making it possible to cap the check results so a lucky 20 doesn't let a Wizard looking to go mad with PRCs mug 4 levels of spellcasting off Karsus without putting in serious Binding investment.

For said Binding Level, I'd mostly allow off-class improvement of it by way of additional Binding access feats that offer some degree of other benefit, probably removing the entirely basic version outright so pure feat-based access has to pick a more specific method. These would be mostly focused around classes that'd get a lot of sensible use from Binding, such as Fighter or Ranger, alongside options with high fluff synergy, like [Incarnum] and [Item Creation] versions, maybe Ardent and Chameleon tools at a stretch.

Deepbluediver
2021-01-15, 04:52 PM
You can fix the wizard using only the wizard class page: simply make them a fixed list caster with only a bunch of spells(that are not picked among the broken ones) and it is done.
Meanwhile binder have way less material to drag from so making them more powerful is considerably harder than it is to make the wizard weaker.
Depending on how much supplemental material you want to include, that could still be a list of several hundred spells you have to curate. It also wouldn't do anything about under-powered or overly-specific spells, either.

My real point is, though, you can do things "easy" but that doesn't mean then are being done well. You could just slap some of those OP wizard-spells on a few of the vestiges, but that wouldn't, IMO, be a GOOD type of fix.


I'm talking about what amounts to a full rewrite. You could make as many new vestiges as needed.

Kind of a shame to lose the unique binder lore, but you could preserve it in a Vestige Pact that involved invoking dead souls from the void.
Since you're considering a full rewrite anyway, then requiring a Binder to learn specific binds 1 at a time is really only as limiting as your fixed binds make it.

noob
2021-01-15, 05:10 PM
Depending on how much supplemental material you want to include, that could still be a list of several hundred spells you have to curate. It also wouldn't do anything about under-powered or overly-specific spells, either.

My real point is, though, you can do things "easy" but that doesn't mean then are being done well. You could just slap some of those OP wizard-spells on a few of the vestiges, but that wouldn't, IMO, be a GOOD type of fix.


Since you're considering a full rewrite anyway, then requiring a Binder to learn specific binds 1 at a time is really only as limiting as your fixed binds make it.

I am not sure you know what a fixed list caster is.
By definition they do not change when you add more manuals: their list is fixed.
The battlemage and the beguiler are fixed list casters: they do not pick spells instead they get a specific list of spells.
If you wanted to include more manuals with fixed list casters you would just make new fixed list classes based on those manuals.

I specifically said that you could not do the same thing with binders: binding works in a non spell way outside of one vestige(that is considered as being the most powerful vestige and grants summon monster) because active abilities needs to be usable once every 5 turns and vestiges have one at most which removes the possibility to just cram spells in binder: you have to actually create new vestiges doing new things instead of slapping together a spell list or it stops being a binder.
Binders works best with binder material due to having a strong fluff and united mechanics no other class uses while wizard having a weak fluff can just lose vast amounts of spell access without breaking the fluff.

Deepbluediver
2021-01-15, 05:56 PM
I am not sure you know what a fixed list caster is.
By definition they do not change when you add more manuals: their list is fixed.
I was assuming you wanted to give the Wizard as many options as possible, and review most of what's on their various spell list(s). Personally I'm not a huge fan of fixed-list types of classes; I prefer leaving anything open to expansion and limiting individual characters by having them learn more as they level, for all spellcasters (including Druids & Clerics), and anyone else, like Manuever users, Incarcum-caster, Shadowmages, whatever.

Comparatively, you could also just weed out a lot of the un-impressive vestiges by cutting the Binder's list down to just the best ones, but again I wouldn't call that a good fix either.

Edit: Also, IMO to PROPERLY fix the Wizard he should be more than just "a list of spells" but that's getting really off-topic.


I specifically said that you could not do the same thing with binders: binding works in a non spell way outside of one vestige(that is considered as being the most powerful vestige and grants summon monster) because active abilities needs to be usable once every 5 turns and vestiges have one at most which removes the possibility to just cram spells in binder: you have to actually create new vestiges doing new things instead of slapping together a spell list or it stops being a binder.
Why do active abilities need to be usable every 5 turns? Why not every 3 turns or X times per day? Why can't you have more vestiges that grant spell slots? or Wild Shape or Rage or any other class-feature that you borrow from another class?
And while most existing vestiges don't try to fully emulate a specific class, they are clearly designed to let Binders fill the same standard roles as other classes, so I don't really see a problem with designing vestiges that make you a bit like a Fighter or Rogue or Warmage or Spellthief or Swashbuckler anything else under the sun.


Binders works best with binder material due to having a strong fluff and united mechanics no other class uses while wizard having a weak fluff can just lose vast amounts of spell access without breaking the fluff.
I think you're putting to much focus on the fluff- personally I don't see it as being any more difficult to add features (or buff up existing ones) to an underpowered class as it is to pare back or limit an overpowered one.

Elves
2021-01-16, 01:00 AM
[snip]


Since you're considering a full rewrite anyway, then requiring a Binder to learn specific binds 1 at a time is really only as limiting as your fixed binds make it.
Re: binder rewrite, the best thing to compare/contrast it with is the incarnum classes, which also choose a small number of "ability packets" on a daily basis. The most underdeveloped mechanic that stands out for binders is vestige influence -- instead of fluff, this could become cute combat restrictions -- from something as basic as "can't make melee attacks" to more complex like "can only move diagonally".

With the idea of putting on many pieces of gear, incarnum chars also fit more naturally the idea of having hetergeneous powers; for binders, by contrast, perhaps you can bind several vestiges but only one can be "dominant" at a time (whether that means you gain less or no benefit from the rest). Although if that means only one "influence" at a time, that clashes with the possibly fun idea of stacking multiple influence restrictions.

If melding it with warlock, vestiges would grant a small number of floating invocations as well as modify your eldritch blast and perhaps your other invocations. Maybe you gain all the invocations granted by your bound vestige but only gain the EB modification of the "dominant" vestige.

In this light, one solution to the influence puzzle would be that the dominant vestige's influence always applies, but the rest are off by default; instead, when you use an invocation they grant, you feel their influence for 1 round (or 1 round per vestige level?). 8 levels is clearly too much in this case; probably 4-5. A simple rule would be "bind one vestige of each level/tier you have access to".

Deepbluediver
2021-01-16, 08:40 AM
Re: binder rewrite, the best thing to compare/contrast it with is the incarnum classes, which also choose a small number of "ability packets" on a daily basis. The most underdeveloped mechanic that stands out for binders is vestige influence -- instead of fluff, this could become cute combat restrictions -- from something as basic as "can't make melee attacks" to more complex like "can only move diagonally".

With the idea of putting on many pieces of gear, incarnum chars also fit more naturally the idea of having hetergeneous powers; for binders, by contrast, perhaps you can bind several vestiges but only one can be "dominant" at a time (whether that means you gain less or no benefit from the rest). Although if that means only one "influence" at a time, that clashes with the possibly fun idea of stacking multiple influence restrictions.

If melding it with warlock, vestiges would grant a small number of floating invocations as well as modify your eldritch blast and perhaps your other invocations. Maybe you gain all the invocations granted by your bound vestige but only gain the EB modification of the "dominant" vestige.

In this light, one solution to the influence puzzle would be that the dominant vestige's influence always applies, but the rest are off by default; instead, when you use an invocation they grant, you feel their influence for 1 round (or 1 round per vestige level?). 8 levels is clearly too much in this case; probably 4-5. A simple rule would be "bind one vestige of each level/tier you have access to".
I'm not entirely sold on combining the Warlock and the Binder, but I think I get what you're going for here. By RAW, both classes felt like they were missing a little something, and so by reducing the chaff and working out quirks between the mechanics, you could make a class that had both the flavor and the versatility and the fun to attract players.

Maybe make it so that you get ALL the abilities of your main bind/patron, then some of the abilities of binds from the same sphere of influence (fiends, celestials, fey, aberrations, whatever), only 1 or 2 form un-related binds, and then opposing spheres you can't bind at all. Like Fiends<-->Celestials, Fey<-->Undead, Aberrations<-->binds-who-where-just-normal-people, etc etc etc.
And if each one modifies your EB in a specific way, like more range, AOE, turns it into a melee attack, etc. It certainly has potential and I can see the appeal.

I still think you'd have to navigate between making a class that's overly complicated and leaving to much stuff on the cutting-room floor, but if you ever type this up I'd be interested in reading it.

noob
2021-01-16, 01:02 PM
I was assuming you wanted to give the Wizard as many options as possible, and review most of what's on their various spell list(s). Personally I'm not a huge fan of fixed-list types of classes; I prefer leaving anything open to expansion and limiting individual characters by having them learn more as they level, for all spellcasters (including Druids & Clerics), and anyone else, like Manuever users, Incarcum-caster, Shadowmages, whatever.

Comparatively, you could also just weed out a lot of the un-impressive vestiges by cutting the Binder's list down to just the best ones, but again I wouldn't call that a good fix either.

The binder being too weak is going to be worsened if you remove vestiges because all the vestiges are available so even if a vestige is only useful in a niche case removing it is going to make the binder be worse: if the binder did only have the best vestiges it would still be a very weak class so your argument is completely false.


Edit: Also, IMO to PROPERLY fix the Wizard he should be more than just "a list of spells" but that's getting really off-topic.


Why do active abilities need to be usable every 5 turns? Why not every 3 turns or X times per day? Why can't you have more vestiges that grant spell slots? or Wild Shape or Rage or any other class-feature that you borrow from another class?
And while most existing vestiges don't try to fully emulate a specific class, they are clearly designed to let Binders fill the same standard roles as other classes, so I don't really see a problem with designing vestiges that make you a bit like a Fighter or Rogue or Warmage or Spellthief or Swashbuckler anything else under the sun.


I think you're putting to much focus on the fluff- personally I don't see it as being any more difficult to add features (or buff up existing ones) to an underpowered class as it is to pare back or limit an overpowered one.
It takes way more time and effort to create new features than it takes time to remove features.
I think making the wizard be a fixed list caster takes a third of the time of making the binder have enough good vestiges to do its job right but not overshadow the other classes.

You really did not even think about the fact removing stuff is in general easier than adding stuff(takes less time, have less chance of adding dysfunctionalities and so on).

The wizard have too much stuff(and too many op stuff in that list of stuff) and pruning by making a small white list takes less time than adding enough stuff to the binder(which do not have enough stuff) for it to be balanced with the desired power the thread creator wanted.
There is people who considers removing the wizard entirely is a proper fix so your notion of "proper fix" does not makes any sense to me if you do not say what it means to you.
the reason why it would be a bad choice to add vestiges with active abilities usable at a rate different from once every 5 turns is that the vestiges are made this way: it would be like deciding "this spell here does not takes a spell slot instead it takes 5 hp to prepare" it breaks the overall regularity of the structure: vestige abilities are constant things or things you use as much as you want and if it can not be used at will then it is once every 5 turns.
Psionic vestiges do not follow that rule as does a few other but outside of that the constraints are respected at extreme rates(the few exceptions are either things that are "continuous" but have an effect on someone else or is a thing separate from you and things that the devs considered"too powerful" for no reason and have the five turn constraint and another constraint like tenser transformation on some vestige).

Deepbluediver
2021-01-16, 01:26 PM
The binder being too weak is going to be worsened if you remove vestiges because all the vestiges are available so even if a vestige is only useful in a niche case removing it is going to make the binder be worse: if the binder did only have the best vestiges it would still be a very weak class so your argument is completely false.
I said in the very beginning that you need to fix ALL the vestiges. Some of them need more fixing than others, but improving the power-level (and reducing the niche-fit for some) was always part of the equation.


It takes way more time and effort to create new features than it takes time to remove features.
I think making the wizard be a fixed list caster takes a third of the time of making the binder have enough good vestiges to do its job right but not overshadow the other classes.
We'll have to agree to disagree then, since IMO fixing the Wizard PROPERLY means giving it actual class-features.


There is people who considers removing the wizard entirely is a proper fix so your notion of "proper fix" does not makes any sense to me if you do not say what it means to you.
I've been trying to explain it, but you seem determined to prove to me that you can "fix" the Wizard with a bare minimum of effort, which was never my point. What I was getting at was, IMO, to PROPERLY fix either class you need to address vestiges and spells respectively, not just what's listed directly under the Class Features section.


the reason why it would be a bad choice to add vestiges with active abilities usable at a rate different from once every 5 turns is that the vestiges are made this way: it would be like deciding "this spell here does not takes a spell slot instead it takes 5 hp to prepare" it breaks the overall regularity of the structure: vestige abilities are constant things or things you use as much as you want and if it can not be used at will then it is once every 5 turns.
"vestiges need to have abilities on a 5-round cooldown because they were designed that way" is a circular argument; it explains nothing. You could say the same thing if they had been designed with abilities on 3-round cooldown.
No, a vestige needs to be able to use it's abilities often/infrequently enough so that it feels balanced. That might mean an ability is at will, it might means it's X times per day, it might mean it has a cooldown of 1d6 rounds, etc etc etc. It's whatever the creator wants to balance between fun, making impactful choices, and not overshadowing other classes.

noob
2021-01-16, 01:39 PM
I said in the very beginning that you need to fix ALL the vestiges. Some of them need more fixing than others, but improving the power-level (and reducing the niche-fit for some) was always part of the equation.


We'll have to agree to disagree then, since IMO fixing the Wizard PROPERLY means giving it actual class-features.


I've been trying to explain it, but you seem determined to prove to me that you can "fix" the Wizard with a bare minimum of effort, which was never my point. What I was getting at was, IMO, to PROPERLY fix either class you need to address vestiges and spells respectively, not just what's listed directly under the Class Features section.


"vestiges need to have abilities on a 5-round cooldown because they were designed that way" is a circular argument; it explains nothing. You could say the same thing if they had been designed with abilities on 3-round cooldown.
No, a vestige needs to be able to use it's abilities often/infrequently enough so that it feels balanced. That might mean an ability is at will, it might means it's X times per day, it might mean it has a cooldown of 1d6 rounds, etc etc etc. It's whatever the creator wants to balance between fun, making impactful choices, and not overshadowing other classes.

You still did not define properly.
Your speech is entirely pointless if you do not define what is "fixing properly" for you because you give examples but examples does not constitute a definition: as far as I know "fix properly" only means "it looks good to me but is bad for all the others" in which case it is relative to you and an entirely pointless thing that should be avoided.
And I am sorry but if people started making extremely random and variable rules for everything as long as it "feels balanced" it would make things an overconvoluted thing very fast: you would need to look up each ability you did pick today to know if you should throw a dice to determine how fast it recharges or if it is available sqrt of your level times every 5.5 hours or yet another convoluted mechanic(like available again as soon as you kick out the vestige and bind it again).
Imagine if instead of saying "I prepare the following spells in those slots" you now had to check for each spell how many slots they took(because now fireball takes a level 1 slot and a level 2 slot and your hat magical item slot) and that some of them did not take slots but instead did take permanent hp maximum reduction as long as it is prepared and some replace a feat when prepared and so on life would be way more complicated than it already is with vancian casting.(then you cast fireball and discover it frees your hat slot but that if you put another hat as a complex action it can be turned into a prepared fireball and that you forgot to put on a new hat between the fights you will feel as if you missed something and failed)
Reducing the variety of the recharging mechanics in a class is useful for making things simpler to understand, faster to play and reduce the need for rule look up so in fact "doing things this way because it is done this way for other features of the same kind(like spells each taking one spell slot like other spells and so on)" is a good thing because it streamlines gameplay and I could not understand why you failed to see that.

Morphic tide
2021-01-16, 04:54 PM
Reducing the variety of the recharging mechanics in a class is useful for making things simpler to understand, faster to play and reduce the need for rule look up so in fact "doing things this way because it is done this way for other features of the same class" is a good thing because it streamlines gameplay and I could not understand why you failed to see that.

This would be the answer that was asked for, as it's an actual specific reason for having a given recharge mechanic. "Because they are made that way" isn't a sensible answer, and that is the reason you gave for five rounds in particular being the only "good" usage rate. This would be why I suggested having a typical subsystem level factor that the check deviates from, as this can make the integrity of the bind a consistent resource mechanic across all Vestiges, thereby allowing for gradients of cost so that Vestiges can be more reliably cross-balanced because more powerful effects can have larger usage constraints than the same basic per-five-rounds.

Could also have Influence as a secondary tract for various things to do with being different yourself instead of simply drawing power from the thing you have a Bind on, such as Zcyeryll's Pseudonatural template. In that case, I'd definitely make Wisdom a secondary score for the subsystem, used to determine how much Influence you can sustain and being involved in reduction to resume proper control of your character, and act as a central cap for properties that will be most wanted to keep a handle on for the stacking of.

With regard to overhauling the existing Vestiges, I'm very much in the camp of rejiggering them to roughly comparable width, such that they're all actually fairly niche, each giving two or occasionally three serious "things" you're doing and fleshing their niche out as the Binding goes up. This should be quite readily achievable, as we have the Ardent as a basis for a class that does work passably on such a paradigm, and with the Binder being able to change them out, the class at large being bad becomes unlikely.

There's 46 official Vestiges overall, giving us plenty enough ground to get to rather fine grains of niche coverage with just rewrites. And the main source of IRL mythology being made into Vestiges is a set of seventy two demons, so there's plenty of source material if there's a niche we need more fluff to fill. On top of all the other candidates for sealed entities, Far Realms beings, and dead divinities.

Deepbluediver
2021-01-17, 09:25 AM
You still did not define properly.
I don't know if I can, since if differs so much from person to person, and a class can be mechanically balanced and still unappealing to play.
For classes like the Wizard and the Fighter, it would involve giving them actual class features so they aren't just a list of spells and a pile of feats, respectively. I'm a little less worried about specific class features the Binder because vestiges are much more unique and more complex than spells or feats already, IMO.

My initial point was that the Wizard isn't broken because of anything listed in the "class features" section of it's description, but because of the hundreds and hundreds of spells they have access too, some of which are more imbalanced than others. By the same token, the Binder, Incarnum users, Shadowcasters, and even maneuver-users (i.e. ToB to a degree) have many lackluster options in whatever resources they are supposed to call upon. You can't fix those classes just by tweaking the class-table; you've got to take on the bigger project of diving into their spell-list equivalent, and address the issues there.


And I am sorry but if people started making extremely random and variable rules for everything as long as it "feels balanced" it would make things an overconvoluted thing very fast: you would need to look up each ability you did pick today to know if you should throw a dice to determine how fast it recharges or if it is available sqrt of your level times every 5.5 hours or yet another convoluted mechanic(like available again as soon as you kick out the vestige and bind it again).
Imagine if instead of saying "I prepare the following spells in those slots" you now had to check for each spell how many slots they took(because now fireball takes a level 1 slot and a level 2 slot and your hat magical item slot) and that some of them did not take slots but instead did take permanent hp maximum reduction as long as it is prepared and some replace a feat when prepared and so on life would be way more complicated than it already is with vancian casting.(then you cast fireball and discover it frees your hat slot but that if you put another hat as a complex action it can be turned into a prepared fireball and that you forgot to put on a new hat between the fights you will feel as if you missed something and failed)
I assure you I'm aware of the problem of thing being overly and unnecessary complex- I warned against it in my very first post with regards to limiting what binds can fit together. But I'm also aware that some classes, by their nature, are likely to require more book-keeping than others. That's on a player to see that they keep track of their own stuff, and for a class like the Binder, you could even avoid picking certain binds if you personally didn't feel like tracking how certain cooldowns worked.

Part of what makes the binder unique is that, because of it's flexibility, its resources don't need to have a single, unifying mechanic like other classes do. That's my opinion though, and you're free to disagree.


Reducing the variety of the recharging mechanics in a class is useful for making things simpler to understand, faster to play and reduce the need for rule look up so in fact "doing things this way because it is done this way for other features of the same kind(like spells each taking one spell slot like other spells and so on)" is a good thing because it streamlines gameplay and I could not understand why you failed to see that.
That's an argument for making all the cooldowns for a class of the same type, but still doesn't explain why it has to be 5 rounds for the Binder. There are a lot of different active abilities (or at least potential for different actives, since we're talking about amping up some vestiges), and putting them all on the exact same 30-second cooldown feels weird to me. Also, if you can't bind 5 vestiges, then some rounds you might be left with very little to do.

A 5-round cooldown is usually once per encounter; I'd prefer, where necessary (i.e. on anything that's not at-will) to give abilities that are X-uses-per-day or x-uses-per-ability-bonus, like lots of other classes. Then it's up to the player to parcel out their power as appropriate, AND you can have the uses scale up based on level if you want.