Xenotheurgy: Far Realms magic system

[Narmy]

When you complete this, I would very much like to see it in PDF format. ><

Would make for an easier read.

[urkthegurk]

I advise that you drop this book at once. Whatever you are looking for, know that you will not find it here. If you seek hope, know that I will only bring despair. If you seek a weapon, know that the price is far too steep. If you seek understanding, know that I can only offer more confusion.
Still, I have no power, no special charm to make you drop this book. If you insist upon perusing its pages, you will see what you were not meant to see, discover what never should’ve been discovered. Even if you fail to comprehend it, you will still know the truth.
Believe me when I say that knowing is more than enough to ruin your life. Whether or not you peer beyond the vast gate for the meager powers I promise is for you alone to decide.
- The introduction to the Codex Vesania, penned by Sion Ponure

Well, I haven't read all of this, but that is certainly the most convincing argument I've ever seen penned for the first page of a forbidden tome of knowledge. Con-grats on that, and I'll be sure to disregard it the soonest chance I get.

[drakir_nosslin]

Whoo! More breaches! Keep 'em coming, RoC! *Goes off to read the new stuff*

[Realms of Chaos]

Sinister Persuasion is now up.

On a similar note, there are now 4 posts of just breaches. I guess that I was smart to reserve 8 posts, considering that we're just over half-way there.

Say it with me, everybody: OVER HALF-WAY THERE!


Edit: Thank you, urkthegurk. I spent quite some time coming up with codex vesania quotes and the openner was particularly troublesome. Nice to see that it turned out okay.

[Owrtho]

Glad to hear Sinister Persuasion is up. If you haven't decided which to do next, I'd rather like to see Space Between Stars. Also rather looking forward to Rewoven Elements, Path to Entropy, Insidious Pact, and Fading Whispers.

Anyways, hope to see more soon.

Owrtho

[Realms of Chaos]

I'm sorry to say there is indeed an order that I'm following. Here is the order as things currently stand.

1. Half-Heard Secrets
2. Distant Presence
3. Rewoven Elements
4. Fading Whispers
5. Abomination of Nature
6. Insidious Pact
7. Path of Entropy
8. Space Between Stars
9. Tongue From Beyond

[aje8]

YES! I've been waiting a full 3 months for the breaches to continue appearing and they FINALLY are. I can almost play a True Xenotheurgist.

Unfortunatley..... I planning on taking Path of Entropy and Space Between Stars....... and they're like 2 of the bottom 3 on your list.

Regardless, thanks for actually doing work on your excellent project Realms of Chaos.

[Foryn Gilnith]

This is awful, artificial, amusing, and overwhelming(ly great). I think we should throw money at you.

[Owrtho]

This is awful, artificial, amusing, and overwhelming(ly great). I think we should throw money at you.

Yes! For this abomination of a magic system we should pelt him with large sums of money.

Owrtho

[Realms of Chaos]

Thank you for the praise but though a free PDF would cross the internet like wildfire, I somehow doubt that it would sell that well, especially in the current 4e environment.

Truth be told, this thing is probably very buggy. Everything looks okay at the surface but I have yet to test it or hear from anybody who has played it (not surprising since I still have breaches to post ). I would never charge money for a sub-par product (and probably not for a perfect one, either).

If anyone out there has any pictures that they think would go great with a PDF of this thing (or has seen them, or just wants to support this project), by all means feel free to share.

[Gralamin]

Wow, this looks amazing.

I'm not sure how far you are in making a PDF of this, but because I find it easier to read, I am making one from the posted version right now. I have the formatting done up to Insidious Pact. If you have Word 2007, I could send you the base file, if you want.

[Realms of Chaos]

To be honest, I haven't even started.

The big plan was that if nobody had volunteered to help by the time I finished, that I'd look up how to do so myself. If you have already taken a crack at it, however, that is completely okay and in fact totally awesome.

thanks and I'd love to see it.

Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy. Time to sleep.

[The Corinthian]

This system is awesome in oh, so many ways, and Sir Peter the Paladin (now an afflicted Xenotheurge) owes you much, although he might not see it that way.

It's pretty heavy on the book-keeping, though. I don't suppose you could suggest any ways to mitigate that? The best part of the system to me is the tension between keeping the murmur level high (to use your breaches) and wanting it low (to keep a lid on side effects and the threat of complete collapse.). That, and the awesome flavor.

But the breach bonus, and the "empowerment" mechanic, tend to get lost in the scuffle more often than not. If I simply ignored them, would I ruin or unbalance anything?

[Owrtho]

Also, just a random note, but I noticed you tend to change between second and this person (sometimes even mid sentence), and wondered if that was intentional. It's hard to tell as it rather suits the content (though it did make it a little confusing before I realized it).

Owrtho

[Realms of Chaos]

Corinthian: The empowerment mechanic is easy enough to ignore at your whims as its contains its own self-contained check-and-balance of low-life vs. better effects.
Breach bonuses, however, are not so easily ignored. If you pay close attention to what they are, they are the only thing that forces all creatures, regardless of their Will save bonus, to eventually stop using breaches.
If you want to simplify the mechanic, however, one slightly weaker but simpler mechanic is to decrease your Will save by -1 for 24 hours whenever you succeed on your own Will saves against breaches.
Although this is simpler, however, it kind of takes away all possibility of breach penalties (which are something you generally want) and doesn't add to the save DCs of your breaches as breach bonuses do.
In short, it's a weaker path but it'll do.

Owrthro: I honestly didn't notice that mistake while I was writing but it's something that I occasionally mess up with.
If you can help localize where the error occurs, I would be most appriciative.

[Owrtho]

I actually find it to be rather fun given that its rules for forces know to cause insanity. But I can understand why you might want to fix it to make it easier for readers. If you'll tell me if you want it in second or third person I can try finding all of the cases of the other for you. I've been planning to do a full read through sometime soon anyways.

Owrtho

[Realms of Chaos]

I think that I just came up with a way to alter this that consolidates Breach bonuses and empowerment together while taking out some of the book-keeping.

Step 1: do away with breach penalties. Instead, have abilities that reduce breach bonus.
Step 2: instead of requiring low life for empowerment, instead be able to use empowered breaches at will by increasing breach bonus by +2 before you roll your saving throw (increasing it by another +1 if you succeed, as always).

Through these steps, I would stop players from mutilating themselves, using a super-move, and then getting healed back up. Simultaneously, I will create another check and balance between wanting empowered effects and not wanting to send your breach bonus skyrocketing.
I would edit the improved empowerment feat to only give +1 breach bonus if at half or fewer life (which is just like tracking whether or not you are bloodied in 4e).

Opinions? Should I up the breach bonus increase to +4, perhaps?

Edit: Owrtho, the general trend I want is second person when talking about the xenotheurgist and third person (it, they, them, etc.) when talking about targets (unless the target is the xenotheurgist in quiestion).

Edit Edit: Half-Heard secrets is now up. Despite being the divination murmur, it's pretty darn handy. See the future (in greater detail), learn where things are (with fewer limits), learn about things (without long casting time), and learn what items do (and how to use them). The only thing that it doesn't do is scry...
After all, scrying comes with our next murmur, Distant Presence.

[Owrtho]

I started reading through everything again. So far I've done the first post. I'm sending you the errors in PMs. I'll send the other posts as I read them (though it will likely be over the next few days rather than tonight). Hope I'm able to help.

Also new breaches being up is awesome! Keep up the good work.

Owrtho

[Draken]

I will reiterate that this is one of the most awesome homebrews ever and that it is great to see the rest of the breaches being posted.

I have a suggestion here, however, but not related to the breaches themselves, just their organization in the post. It seens you are using the normal organization for spells (alpahebtic order). I would recommend using the organization that was used for the maneuvers in Tome of Battle, as it is much more organized:

Discipline Murmur 1
Related Breaches in alphabetical order.

Discipline Murmur 2
Related Breaches in alphabetical order.

Discipline Murmur 3
Related Breaches in alphabetical order.

Discipline Murmur 4
Related Breaches in alphabetical order.

[Realms of Chaos]

Urgh.

I just tried to reorganize the breaches but my computor froze up on me.

Unfortunately, my family is doing some pretty heavy cleaning today (called oosoji) in preparation for the new year so I won't have time to make more breaches today. I'll resume work tomorrow, I promise.

by the by, still waiting for feedback in regards to the possible change to breach bonuses/empowerment. Is is a good idea? bad idea? any alterations needed?

[Saurus33]

I prefer the original mechanic, but the new one seems to work fairly well.

[aje8]

Well.... I think kinda need to play with the system to know which one works better..... this system is too complex anyalyze accurately in the theoretical.

However, my gut says that the previous version is probably better...... more player options is generally a good thing. Also, this class has so many (interesting) tensions it might be a little weak and it might be a bit stronger the old way.

[Gralamin]

To be honest, I haven't even started.

The big plan was that if nobody had volunteered to help by the time I finished, that I'd look up how to do so myself. If you have already taken a crack at it, however, that is completely okay and in fact totally awesome.

thanks and I'd love to see it.

Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy. Time to sleep.

Well, I haven't made any changes lately since I've been busy, but here is what I have: Google Docs Link

[Realms of Chaos]

Just enough time for quick post.

Skimmed over the document. Very nice work.
3 quick comments:

1. although it may be tricky, it will probably look better if tables are juggled around to fit on one page.
2. All of the breaches seem to have lost their bold lettering. That seems odd and is slightly troubling.
3. If there is some old "parchment" template anywhere (in place of a perfectly white background), that would be the best thing ever.

Sorry if I sound too critical. I'm just voicing the absolute best-case cenario in my head, not what I expect everyone to cater to.

[Gralamin]

Just enough time for quick post.

Skimmed over the document. Very nice work.
3 quick comments:

1. although it may be tricky, it will probably look better if tables are juggled around to fit on one page.
2. All of the breaches seem to have lost their bold lettering. That seems odd and is slightly troubling.
3. If there is some old "parchment" template anywhere (in place of a perfectly white background), that would be the best thing ever.

Sorry if I sound too critical. I'm just voicing the absolute best-case cenario in my head, not what I expect everyone to cater to.

1) Yeah, it'd be better, but before I can do that, I need to get the overall formatting correctly done. The 100 table will pretty much be its own page.
2) I have no idea why. EVERYTHING ELSE kept its formatting until I changed it. I'll look into it when I get to it.
3) The default parchment might be a bit bright (Sample), but I could always take it and darken it if need be.

[Owrtho]

I'd think the brightness is fine, but that it could use more contrast as if rather worn. Thats just my oppinon though.

Owrtho

[Germille]

I want to say, a truly wonderful class
i have used it for three npcs (two minor, and one of epic level)

last session one of them engaged combat with the epic xenotheurge(spellwarped creature), it turned out preety fun to combat with, or at least that's what the player said.

half of the powers however, i needed to made them up.
I based the duel/encounter in the far realms, i sent the player to the far realms(Expelled from Existence) jamming a little his magic with wild magic rolls. Then i striped out of his magic items with (Supress battlefield magic).

a really fun class.

[Owrtho]

I thought I'd mention I've finished looking over the second post for errors and sent you 2 pms (it couldn't fit into one) bolding them. As I've said before I hope this helps.

Also, thinking on it, I can't help but notice that the aberration feats from Lords of Madness seem quite appropriate for a Xenothurgist. I might suggest allowing them to be taken for the bonus feats that they get.

Owrtho

[Realms of Chaos]

Terrible news, everyone.

My computor has been acting funny recently and finally decided to die today.

Right now, I am typing from an internet cafe.

Until I get my parents to send me the windows installation disc or (even better our spare laptop) I won`t have access to a word processor, making it nigh impossible to update this.

This project, though definitely not abandoned, is put on temporary haiatus due to mechanical difficulties.

As one last note for now, I disagree with the aberration feats as bonus feats idea (although I expect plenty of xenotheurgists to take them as normal feats). Having madness running through your veins doesn`t mean that aberration blood is running there as well (even if just in name).

[Owrtho]

I said I might suggest it. I was pointing out though how well they fit the theme of the class (and the warped mind one can be especially nice). As for the thing about aberration blood, while they might not have it, they seem on their way to becoming aberrations themselves based on some of the class features (though it does end with them as outsiders, which is understandable, and I could see a decent argument be made for them being more likely to become outsiders or aberrations).

Owrtho