Bloodlines rewritten [PEACH]

[kestrel404]

Bloodlines rewritten

Every so often, an individual is born who stands out a little from the rest of his people. This individual displays characteristics associated with a different kind of creature, such as a dragon, giant, celestial, or demon. Such a character is said to have a bloodline.

Bloodlines can exist for any of a number of reasons. Perhaps the character has an unusual ancestor, such as a dragon who took alternate form to live among humans or elves. The character might be a throwback to an earlier age, when all species were more closely related. The bloodline might be the result of unusual supernatural energies present during conception, pregnancy, or birth. It could also be an omen sent by the gods, part of an ancient prophecy or dire legend.

Bloodline Strength And Source

Every bloodline has both a source (the kind of creature from which its characteristics are drawn) and a strength (minor, intermediate, or major). The stronger the bloodline, the more potent the traits and benefits granted by it.

Every source has a minor bloodline associated with it. A minor bloodline doesn't alter a character much, and thus don't represent a very significant power increase over an ordinary character. In some cases, the only bloodline associated with a source is minor. This is most often true of sources derived from relatively weak creatures such as minotaurs or hags.

Many sources also have intermediate bloodlines. These affect the character's power level more drastically, and come from more potent races, such as elementals, and many dragons and giants.

Major bloodlines only come from the most powerful and primal of sources, including celestials, demons, devils, and the mightiest of dragons. A character with a major bloodline is a potent scion of his ancestor, displaying significant powers and abilities.

Racial HD

Over the course of his career, a character with a bloodline becomes more powerful than one without a bloodline. Because the power gain is gradual over a span of twenty levels, a static level adjustment doesn't truly reflect this difference. instead, a bloodline character must take one or more levels of the racial HD appropriate to the creature generating the bloodline at various points in his career, as noted on Table: Racial HD. Before a character with a bloodline reaches the indicated character level, he must take one racial HD of the correct type. These HD do not need to match the creature type of the character with the bloodline, and they also do not change that creature type, but in all other ways they act as normal Racial HD, increasing the character's effective level, skill maximums, BAB, Saves, skill points, etc.

{table]Racial HD|Minor|Intermediate|Major
1st|12th|6th|3rd
2nd|n/a|12th|6th
3rd|n/a|n/a|12th[/table]

A character who gains racial HD of a type other than his own in this manner does not gain any of the benefits or drawbacks normally associated with that type (other than those specified in the bloodline descriptions themselves). However, they are treated as belonging to that creature type in addition to their own creature type for determining the effects of spells and abilities that rely on creature type, and spells or effects that specifically target either of those types can affect them. For example, a human with the Celestial bloodline and one outsider racial hit die is treated as an outsider of their own alignment for the purposes of spells (such as Chaos Hammer or Dismissal) as well as humanoid (for Charm Person), with their native plane being the prime material plane of their birth. Characters with racial HD also qualify for feats and classes as though they were the appropriate type, except that characters with Dragon HD are treated as having the Dragonblooded subtype instead of being of the Dragon type.

If the character does not take a the racial HD before reaching the character level indicated on the table, he gains no further bloodline traits and must take a 20% penalty on all future XP gains. As soon as he meets the minimum racial HD, he gains all bloodline abilities due him according to his character level, and the XP penalty no longer applies. If a character chooses to take this racial HD as his first character level, it may not be replaced with a class level.

For example, A 1st-level character with a major bloodline (silver dragon) receives a +2 bonus on Sense Motive checks as a bloodline trait. When he reaches 2nd character level, he gains the Alertness feat as a bloodline trait. At 3rd character level, he must take a racial HD or Dragon in order to continue gaining bloodline traits. If he choose to take a level in a character class or prestige class instead and has no Dragon racial HD, he does not gain the bloodline trait due him at 3rd character level (Strength +1) and must take a 20% reduction on all future XP gains. If he later meets the minimum required racial HD, he gains his 3rd-level trait at that time (as well as any other traits he may have failed to receive for not taking his racial HD right away), and the XP reduction no longer applies to future gains. Before reaching his 6th character level, he must have taken two racial HD of Dragon in order to keep gaining bloodline traits. If he takes his third racial HD of Dragon before or upon reaching 12th character level, he becomes eligible to gain all the traits of his bloodline (as they become available when he reaches new character levels).

Depending on the strength of a character's bloodline, he gains a new bloodline trait every one, two, or four character levels (or effective character levels, for characters with a level adjustment greater than +0). The traits gained are given in each bloodline description.

Bloodline Trait Descriptions

Bloodline traits fall into four categories.
Ability Boost - You gain a permanent +1 increase to the given ability score. This is similar to the ability increase gained by characters at every fourth level.
Bloodline Affinity - You gain a bonus (either +2, +4, or +6) on all Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, and Perform checks made to interact with creatures of your bloodline.
Skill Boost - You receive a +2 bonus on checks made with the given skill.
Special - You gain a special ability. Common bloodline special abilities include bonus feats, natural armor, special attacks (such as the ability to smite evil or smite good), special qualities (such as resistance to energy, spell resistance, or scent), or spell-like abilities. Spell like abilities and supernatural abilities are treated as having a caster level equal to your character level, unless specified otherwise.

If you already have a feat that a bloodline provides as a bonus feat, you may choose a different feat. For example, the minor celestial bloodline grants Alertness as a bonus feat at 8th level, If a character with this bloodline already has Alertness by the time he reaches 8th level, he can choose any other feat instead (subject to normal prerequisites, of course).

Bloodlines and associated Racial HD:
{table]Bloodline|Racial HD
Celestial|Outsider
Demon|Outsider
Devil|Outsider
Doppelganger|Monstrous Humanoid
Dragon, Black|Dragon
Dragon, Blue|Dragon
Dragon, Brass|Dragon
Dragon, Bronze|Dragon
Dragon, Copper|Dragon
Dragon, Gold|Dragon
Dragon, Green|Dragon
Dragon, Red|Dragon
Dragon, Silver|Dragon
Dragon, White|Dragon
Elemental, Air|Elemental
Elemental, Earth|Elemental
Elemental, Fire|Elemental
Elemental, Water|Elemental
Fey|Fey
Genie, Djinni|Outsider
Genie, Efreeti|Outsider
Genie, Janni|Outsider
Giant|Giant
Hag|Monstrous Humanoid
Lycanthrope|Monstrous Humanoid
Minotaur|Monstrous Humanoid
Ogre|Giant
Titan|Giant
Troll|Giant
Vampire|Undead[/table]

Bloodline Descriptions
See original text
Eratta: Replace the Titan's 'use oversized weapon' ability with Powerful Build

[kestrel404]

Reserved post #1

[Pyromancer999]

Have you seen Welknair's bloodlines? They're a re-do of bloodlines, and do a better job of getting you more for what you pay.

[kestrel404]

Have you seen Welknair's bloodlines? They're a re-do of bloodlines, and do a better job of getting you more for what you pay.

No. Do you have a link?

I did this mostly because I made a passing reference to the idea on the main board and someone asked me to expand the idea. I figured a full writeup would be nice so people could actually use it if they liked.

[Ilorin Lorati]

's right here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post11487854

[kestrel404]

Thanks.

OK, so he just re-wrote the existing bloodline rules so that they make sense. That's nice. It doesn't actually improve the usability of bloodlines at all, it just gives a single interpretation to them instead of 'let the GM decide what this means' nature of the original.

I replaced the really stupid and poorly concieved 'bloodline level' stuff with existing and well understood 'racial hit dice' - which are of greater value (they give you BAB, Saves and skills) while still creating a cost (no class features) in exchange for the benefit of bloodline abilities.

I also like to think that the interaction between the bloodline racial HD & your normal creature type makes for some interesting mechanical interactions that won't break the game - but that's part of why I made this a PEACH thread.

[Pyromancer999]

Thanks.

OK, so he just re-wrote the existing bloodline rules so that they make sense. That's nice. It doesn't actually improve the usability of bloodlines at all, it just gives a single interpretation to them instead of 'let the GM decide what this means' nature of the original.

I replaced the really stupid and poorly concieved 'bloodline level' stuff with existing and well understood 'racial hit dice' - which are of greater value (they give you BAB, Saves and skills) while still creating a cost (no class features) in exchange for the benefit of bloodline abilities.

I also like to think that the interaction between the bloodline racial HD & your normal creature type makes for some interesting mechanical interactions that won't break the game - but that's part of why I made this a PEACH thread.

He actually edited the rules a bit. Still, the point is that with the bloodlines made by Welknair, they're not just meager things not worth a bloodline level anymore. They've been beefed up a bit, and actually made to the point where they're worth taking. If someone decided to use this with the SRD bloodlines, it could be fine. But if someone decides,"Oh, hey, let's use this with one of the Bloodlines on here, they're definitely getting a lot more than 3 levels' worth of stuff.