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Homebrew Exaltation: The Monster-Bound, Guardian and Friend; An exalt whose soul has been attached to that of a powerful creature.
Topic Started: Aug 8 2016, 03:02 PM (1,896 Views)
Nobody Important

Additional actions always make me nervous.
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Konate

Nobody Important
Aug 8 2016, 11:22 PM
Additional actions always make me nervous.
It's more like a shared half action. You have to decide who gets it.

And it's not nearly as bad as celerity
Edited by Konate, Aug 8 2016, 11:26 PM.
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weredrago2
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He Who Posts Too Much
Your best bet for getting feedback would be to do some playtesting. Run a game with someone as this Exalt and write down notes on what's good and what's bad.
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Eisenritter
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Old Iron Knight
Ask and ye shall receive. Ignoring fluff, as per my idiom.

Konate
Aug 8 2016, 03:02 PM

Anchor: A small, powerful artifact or charm that acts as the monster's anchor to you. You always know the direction to your monster and can communicate with it as though it were standing next to you, as long as you possess the anchor. If you lose it, you can still control the monster but may not spend or regain Trust. You always know the direction to your anchor. The anchor can never be destroyed, and you can never truly get rid of it. Your bond to the Anchor also makes you immune to certain Exaltation effects - such as Vampirism. If you ever die, your Anchor disappears and your monster dies.

This appears to be a mostly fluff power. You need to clarify what this is and how it's determined that you acquire it (I would recommend filching from my Champion's CQC Enhancer) at chargen, else you need to actually spell out that it's some otherwise-random fluff trinket that has the plot protection of an Artifact.

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Bonded Monster: Choose 3 characteristic groups (physical, mental, social, power, finesse, and resistance). The monster starts at 1 dot in all characteristics, with +1 to each characteristic in each chosen group. Choose 1 skill group: it has 1 dot in every skill in that group, with the exception of brawling, ballistics and weaponry, which is equal to your Fellowship. It has size 1, its level is equal to your Bond, has bonus HP and AP equal to its Bond, a natural weapon (1k1 R or I, melee. Brawling). It acts on your initiative, but normally only has one half action. You may sacrifice one of your half actions to give the monster a full round action or two half actions. The monster is immune to critical damage. If the monster ever drops to 0 hit points, it is absorbed into your anchor for the rest of the scene. When you make your next Care test, it comes back with hit points equal to the trust you gain. If you ever fall unconscious, your Monster will continue to protect you to the best of its abilities, and even try to nurse you back to health if it has the necessary skills. If it can not, it will attempt to take you somewhere that it can receive help.

This is a complex power. You may want to use
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[list]*text*[/list]
to ensure clarity in how it functions. Also, do please recall that it's part of an Exaltation; even if it's "just" a rat, it's an Exalted Rat. Size 2 minimum, please.

It's also mildly disappointing that what is essentially an imaginary friend incarnated as your personal champion doesn't get the Guardian feat by default.

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Shared Power: You start with one level of any sword school in which Brawl is a weapon choice, and may always advance it normally as though it were part of your current class. In addition, any special attack you purchase may be performed by your monster.

Note that there is currently nothing preventing you from taking such a sword school and then choosing not Brawl for its weapon type. There's also not that many Unarmed sword schools compared to the vast swathe of sword schools we've created. Suggestion: Unlock the weapon type requirement, then add that your beast's natural weapon always works with your special attacks.

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Blessed be the Innocent: You start play with a pair of hindrances, marking the reason why you were chosen. The following pairs are examples, but you can use any other pair that can be explained through story and approved by your SM: Small and Young, Ailin' and Young, Law o' the Stars and Enemy, Night Terrors and Wimpy, Big Britches and Deathwish. These hindrances do not grant bonus experience, nor do they count against the maximum, but they can be bought off for 200 exp each.

Oooh, I dislike this. And not just because Small doesn't exist anymore; something about "demerit" powers that force something on you at chargen only to let you choose to ignore them later just bugs me. Also, taking the previous power into account, it's possible to learn something like Dark Messiah and still be "innocent" because this power says so. Which is... mildly amusing, really.

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Resource: Trust
Equal to Fellowship + Bond.
You may never spend Trust on yourself, though your monster may spend it as if it were you. Once per scene, you may make a special Care test (TN 15) using Animal Ken + Fellowship on your monster. If you succeed, you regain 1 trust, + 1 for each raise, and heal the monster for that many hit points. You must have an hour to perform this test.

Green line is a demerit power; should be in one of the base powers or not at all. I'm in favor of the latter, as trust should go both ways anyway.

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Rank 1 - Your Very Own Monster
You gain your monster and anchor. Congratulations! Your monster starts with any 2 racial feats. The monster gains any racial ability that the feat modifies, instead of the feat itself, if it doesn't already have the ability.

Cut out the fluff lines. Current wording allows for it to poach feats (and thus powers) from multiple races.

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Rank 2 - Training!
Choose two different skill groups. Your monster gains +1 dot to all skills within that group, the Unarmed Warrior feat, and an additional racial feat. It also permanently gains +1 size or +2 static defense.

...That's a lot of stuff for one dot. If we're getting more damage, I'd drop the SD option.

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Rank 3 - Champion Evolution
Choose one characteristic grouping. Your monster gains +1 dot into each characteristic in that group, and an additional racial feat. You may also spend 1 trust to Evolve your monster, and must maintain the Evolved state each round after the first by spending another Trust, giving it +2 size or +4 static defense, +1 to all physical characteristics, and +1k1 to its damage. When you stop spending trust to maintain the evolution, it devolves back to its original form.

Very complex for a table power. This one I actually don't want to pick apart, but you should use a semicolon after "Static Defense" here, as the current writing could be read as increased Size against all of the other three together.

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Rank 4 - More Training!
Choose two different skill groups. Your monster gains +1 dot to all skills within that group, the Unarmed Master feat, and an additional racial feat. It also permanently gains +1 size or +2 static defense.

You might want to give more Characteristics at some point? Still not a fan of the option here; let's be blunt, I guess I'm thinking this might be more impressive if the monster is at least the size of the kid summoning it and only gets bigger.

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Rank 5 - Ultimate Evolution
Choose one characteristic group. Your monster gains +1 dot to each characteristic in that group, and an additional 2 racial feats. Once per session, if your monster is already evolved, you may evolve it further at no cost to Ultimate. You no longer need to maintain the evolution and all evolution benefits are doubled. However, at the end of combat, your monster reverts back to normal and you lose all unspent trust. You may not make a Care test until the next scene if you use Ultimate evolution.

...Oh. There's the Characteristic bonus I was looking for. Looking back at similar powers (of which I think there's only homebrew...) I feel like this should probably be limited to X rounds rather than a Scene. Trust loss is a bit of a harsh cost for it, though.

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Daemonic Monster: Your monster gains the Daemonic trait. When it is evolved, it gains Stuff of Nightmares. While in Ultimate it gains Fear 4. You are immune to this fear. You must use Forbidden Lore for the Care test.

Note "instead of Animal Ken" here.

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Feral Monster: Instead of Racial feats, your monster gains a bonus to damage equal to its Bond. In addition, it gains a different set of bonus feats: Frenzy and Power Attack at Bond 1, Powerful Charge at Bond 2, Swift Strike at Bond 3, Furious Assault at Bond 4, and Battle Rage and Crushing Blow at Bond 5. When it Evolves, it gains Fearless.

Battle Rage doesn't really go with "feral," as it implies presence of mind. I'd suggest using a homebrew feat in its place; Short Fuse, for example, would actually let your monster flip out with its own action.

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Automaton Monster: Your monster gains a Promethean asset, substituting any mention of Generation for Bond, Pyros for Trust, Integrated Armor with Machine Trait AP, Transhuman Potential with Champion Evolution, and Warstrider with Ultimate evolution. The monster gains the Machine trait with bonus AP equal to your Bond, and you use Tech Use for your Care tests. It does not gain 2 Racial feats at Bond 1, but you can take a Gun Kata instead of a Sword School. The monster gains a custom ranged weapon, using the Basic template and either Laser or Flamer type, with a maximum rarity equal to your Bond. You may modify the weapon every time your Bond increases. At bond 3, you may use the Rifle or Cannon templates, and at Bond 5 you may use the Exotic type. Your Monster has enough ammunition for 2 full magazines, and replenishes them at the beginning of every scene.

Green bit is too much with everything else. Machine trait comes with a rating that needs to be set; I assume this is meant to be equal to your Bond. Note also that it means your monster no sells Enchantment effects. Again, needs to write out "instead of Animal Ken."

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Spirit Monster: Your monster gains the Undead trait, and may spend 1 Trust to gain the Phasing trait for a number of rounds equal to your Bond. When the Monster takes damage, it may spend 1 Trust to transfer half the damage to you. In addition, your monster gains a Wraith asset, substituting any mention of Synergy for Bond and any mention of Plasm for Trust.

Green bit should probably replace one of the racial feats that your monster gets at Bond 1.

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Puppet Monster: Choose a race. Your Monster gains all of the racial abilities and size of that Race but not the characteristic and skill bonuses, as well as the Mindless trait. You can never take the Size bonuses from increasing Bond or Evolving - only the Static Defense bonus, and the Monster uses your Dexterity instead of your Fellowship for Brawl, Ballistics and Weaponry. The Monster also does not gain skills - instead using your own skills, with its own characteristics (with the exception of Brawl, Ballistics and Weaponry). You use Medicae for your Care test. Add all Weapon and Armor proficiencies as Feat options, and the monster can only take Feats available to the Race chosen.

Again, "instead of Animal Ken." Might have to come back to this one if/when other things get changed, but... I like it? Could get a bit unintentionally creepy depending on who's controlling what.
Edited by Eisenritter, Aug 8 2016, 11:47 PM.
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Sodium

Do alternate wraith exaltations count as a wraith asset?
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Konate

Sodium
Aug 9 2016, 04:57 AM
Do alternate wraith exaltations count as a wraith asset?
I guess I'm unclear to the precedent. Are paragon assets also fool assets?
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Konate

Eisenritter
Aug 8 2016, 11:43 PM
Here's a lot of great feedback!
So, this idea came to me while watching digimon with my son.

Your anchor basically lets you talk to your monster no matter where it is, and allows you to.always know where it is, without all of the psychic stuff in between. It's definitely important, because if someone steals it, you can't use trust until you get it back.

I will bulletpoint the monster power lol. The reason why it starts at size 1 is because it will still be very hard to hit, but I can see the logic behind starting it at size 2. I've never heard of guardian

The thing about the sword school is important and I love the change, it fits much better inside the theme

In terms of the hindrance demerit, I felt that the creature can be very powerful. However, would you recommend removing it or not allowing the player to buy it off?

I can see your reasoning on trust, and you have a good head for balance, so I'll make the change

You are correct. The creature can take any racial feat, or gain a racial ability by taking a feat that modifies one. This is intentional.

The size/static defense choice is supposed to improve the defense of your monster, depending on how you want to build it. I can see why we'd want to get rid of the damage feat, bit then I feel like the monster's damage wouldn't be keeping up

Dot 3 gives you a pay-per-turn ability that improves your monster. Also, you get a characteristic increase at this rank

By dot 4, the monster either has a permanent +4 static defense or +2 size. If you have a better suggestion, I'm absolutely very all ears

The dot 5 ability actually ends at the end of combat, not the scene. I should at a clarification clause.

I trimmed down the automaton asset greatly, in terms of the weapon

Great.suggestion for feral

You're right, I forgot to add that, similar to automaton not granting feats at bond 1

And yeah, the puppet idea was based on homonculi and golems from d&d. It can be creepy, but so can a lot of things in dtd
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Eisenritter
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Old Iron Knight
Sodium
Aug 9 2016, 04:57 AM
Do alternate wraith exaltations count as a wraith asset?


Konate
Aug 9 2016, 05:39 AM
I guess I'm unclear to the precedent. Are paragon assets also fool assets?


No and no. Unless specifically stated otherwise (such as with an Ahroun Werewolf), ExAlts have their own pools of assets because they are not their parent Exalts. Those assets tou see in the homebrew race threads that have the [Paragon] tag? Fools do not get to take them, or the Paragon assets in Book 1, and as they aren't Paragons, they only get one exaltation asset. By the same token, Paragons can't take Fool assets either.
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Konate

There, heavily revised.
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Konate

I'm thinking of, instead of picking characteristic groups, simply giving you 9 characteristic points to spend, up to a max of 3 in any single stat. But I fear that would be unbalanced and allow stronger mix-maxing
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