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Homebrew Exaltion: The Mantle; Who needs things like knowledge when you have MAGIC
Topic Started: May 20 2017, 09:35 PM (1,789 Views)
Scrapyard_Dragon
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Homebrew Exaltion- The Mantle
There are a lot of things out there with power, and if the exalted are anything to go by, those who have it will want to use it in any way they see fit. So, what to do if for some reason you can’t go around using it to make your way with the world? The more inventive forces out there came up with a simple solution. Copy the gods and shove some of that power into a mortal and point them at something that needs doing. Results may vary. Usually this goes along the lines of a daemon, ghost, or some other third thing shows up before some poor mortal, blasts them with lighting and then gives them some hasty instructions before being shoved back to wherever they came from, though one crazy berk claimed he did it by eating a summoning hearthstone. Whether for good or ill you’re one of the lucky berks who didn’t die in this process, now the only question is what to do next (which is probably whatever you were enlisted to do).

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Powers:

Guardian's Force: You gain a free level 1 spell. Whenever you increase your Junction, gain any number of new spells with a total level equal to your new Junction score. These "mantle spells" cannot be fettered or pushed, and do not cause warp phenomena. You can spend a Focus to ignore the Material and Focus keywords when casting mantle spells.

Para-Magic: Espers don't draw power from the Warp, so much as they draw from their own being. Mantle spells roll Xk3 for the focus power test, where X is equal to your junction+3. At junction 3 this becomes Xk4, and at junction 5 Xk5. Effects that reference spell school level for mantle spells use the Mantle's Junction.

Joint Power: A foreign being twisting your body to suit it's own ideas has its benefits. A number of characteristics equal to your Junction can be raised to six dots.

Mind Overload: Even the passive effects of your abilities still take up brain processing to keep running. Select three mental skills at character creation. These skills cannot be raised above 3 and cost double to increase with XP. You cannot take the Eidetic memory feat and treat it as optional in your class track.
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Power Stat: Junction- A measure of how easily a mantle can tap into and actually direct the power they found suddenly thrust upon them. To say they get stronger would be inaccurate, the power was always in them, it's just a matter finding out how much is there and what you can do with it.

Resource Stat: Focus- If junction represents your quality as a conductor, focus is the life in your rechargeable batteries. A mantle's Max focus= Junction*2. A mantle regains 1 focus every hour.
Tell: As a mantle spends focus, a ghostly mirage of the true source of their power slowly becomes visible, often besides or overlaying them. As their junction increases though, it increasingly seems like they themselves are changing instead.

1.Doublecast: you may spend a Focus copy any level 1 or 2 mantle spell you cast this round as a free action, using the same magic result as the initial spell for the copy.

2.Draw: As a full action, you may make a TN 15 Junction + Arcana test against a target with resource points, spellcasting abilities, or any source of magical energy. If successful, you regain 1 Focus, and deplete the target's resource pool by 1 (if applicable).

3.Combat junction: Gain either the Elemental Shot I or II feat. After making a weapon or unarmed attack, you may spend 2 focus to cause the target to be affected by the stun, confusion, or unluck spell for 1 round, using the attack roll as the TN for saving throws. you may not do this on an attack affected by any of the elemental shot feats.

4. Greater Draw: Increase the Focus gained and the target's resource drained from Draw by 1.

5. Eidolon’s visage: After who knows how long of experimenting, all that power all that power is finally 100% natural for you, for a variety of reasons. Create a level 5 Monster using the Monster creation rules to serve your Esper Form. You can enter Esper Form by spending 1 Focus as a full action, and maintain this form by spending 1 Focus at the end of each subsequent turn. In Esper Form, you lose access to your racial power and racial feats not taken during Monster Creation, though Exaltation abilities & normal feats work as normal.

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Assets:

•Warrior- Some Mantles were chosen because they passed some test of battle, even if they didn’t know it was a test. Chose a sword school or gun kata. You gain a free rank in that school and can always advance in it as if it was in your class progression. You may ignore the session limit for elemental shot by spending a focus for each additional use.

•Lineage- Slated for revisions

•Overcharged- Only the particularly lucky survive becoming a mantle, but only those blessed by fate itself can survive how much energy you were given. You may spend up to three focus to gain a +1k1 bonus per focus spent to cast your next mantle spell. Spending 2 or more focus for this ability inflicts wounds to the caster equal to the amount of focus spent.

•Heir- Surprisingly, not every immortal being likes existing, because one of them is going to wipe itself out and make you it’s heir. You Gain Eidolon's Visage immediately, though your Esper form is restricted to your junction, reworking it every time your junction increases. At junction 5 transforming only takes a half action, and you do not need to spend focus to maintain it. instead, changing back requires another half action which does not spend focus.

•Maxed capacity- Memories are overrated anyways. You gain an additional level one spell, and your junction counts as one higher for purposes of choosing spells gained through Guardian's Force. The skills selected for mind overload are capped at 2 instead of 3.
Edited by Scrapyard_Dragon, Dec 20 2017, 06:57 PM.
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What surprising timing, I had actually been talking to someone recently about summoning things and FF8 summoning in the context of DtD!

It is very reminiscent of a Daemonhost, with the "Sticking myself in someone else's body to be able to experience things" from Dragon Age angle, although that is hardly unique to Dragon Age. Perhaps make them less a unique thing from a Crystal Sphere and more along the lines of a Spirit of sorts? Of course, then the not-magic unique feature breaks down a bit.

Guardian Force refers to itself (presumably) as spiritual force in the description.

Joint Power and Joint Mind both grant Speak Language (Esper). I wonder if that is a bit overly specialized. Spirit and Syrneth from Werewolf and Atlantean respectively are more multi-useful, but by this Exalt's own admission Espers are only in that one Crystal Sphere that they can't really leave normally

Does Doublecast stack multiple times? As in, could you spend 5 Focus to cast a spell 5 times in a round? Does it still require another half or full action expenditure, or is it a Free Action? You might want to specify. If it is Free Action, you would be able to only use it once per round though, which might be what is intended.

Minor Magic and Greater Magic seem a bit weak. Power Stat features that just give you feats anyone could get seem a bit of a let down. Especially Greater Magic, which costs 600xp but gives you 200xp worth of feats.

When using Eidolon's Visage, do you get the Resource stat of the Monster replacing your focus? I presume this isn't intended but perhaps it is. If you gain spells, do you cast them like normal magic or Internal Magic? Or do you not get any spells at all other than your normal ones, since your Exaltation features are still active and they say no casting spells. That would be fitting I suppose since you're just using your Esper's magic both times.
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Scrapyard_Dragon
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I have to admit, as I was making this the Daemonhost bit came to mind a lot and I considered Making it just a varient as I progressed, but I'm not 100% sure how to retool everything to work as a varient. Amusingly, I've never actually played dragon age.

the bit with Guardian Force and the double language thing is what happens when you write the draft in word, then as you're moving things decide to reword a few things only to forget you changed some of the terminology. I'll get on that. honestly the original draft didn't even mention gaining a language, so it was more just a ribbon I tossed in because it made sense.

Doublecast is meant to be a free action, another thing I'm going to fix.

I have to admit that Minor and Greater magic could use some buffing, but the reason I put them in is because the tradition feats only show up in the magic user class progression, which actually has certain levels in different spell schools a prereq to progress to higher in, so they were my way of still allowing you to get the tradition feats. suppose the easiest thing to do is double the traditions you get then. plus I figured the scaling features at least partially made up for ranks 2 and 4 being a bit lacking.

Visage is meant to run on focus, but internal magic doesn't actually say anything about not getting spells through means OTHER than ranks in magic schools, so yeah, you can increase your library while in Esper mode.

Edit: The original version had a bit about ignoring focus and material keywords by spending a focus misplaced into the Junction3 power, when it was meant to be in Guardian's force. it's fixed now.
Edited by Scrapyard_Dragon, May 20 2017, 11:15 PM.
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GuardianTempest
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+8:00 GMT || Unlucky & Miserable
Interesting idea, an odd mix of the Daemonhost and the Monster-Bound.

Suggestions:
- Any homebrew feats and systems (e.g. Monster Creation Rules) ought to be linked to their respective threads so prospecting visitors would know what that actually means
- For the intention of brevity Eidolon's Visage, simply say that you get a Level 5 Daemon-type monster unless you intended it to be picked with other types. Although that might raise some minor balance concerns number-wise, the Other-type would save up on Bonus Points.
- Typically, an Exaltation's drawback is completely isolated in its own power. Perhaps separate the negative bit into its own section while merging two powers into one?
- Simple text formatting like bold tags and/or underlines. That's just me being picky though.
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Scrapyard_Dragon
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Adding a link and taking your advice for collapsing the drawbacks into one entry (now to think of new name for it)

In regards to Visage You actually were supposed to be able to pick any of the types. Instead of making the entry longer by specifying that picking Daemon-type, how about just switching the Free Daemonic to unatural toughness? still does the same job of making the super-form more bulky, and gets off of the Daemon-type's toes.

Finally, Adding another Asset, if for no other reason than because most Exaltions have at least 5.
Edited by Scrapyard_Dragon, May 21 2017, 09:50 AM.
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Thatguyrightnow
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I love this, and I know a friend who will too XD
Totally willing to play this if someone comes up with a game...

Question: does heir give you access to the capstone early in any way, or just one small part of it and an upgrade when you eventually get there?

I know it's probably a dumb question, most of mine are, but I like to be clear
Edited by Thatguyrightnow, May 21 2017, 12:45 PM.
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Scrapyard_Dragon
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Heir doesn't give you the capstone early, which is intentional. at lower levels, yeah, it'd be pretty weak (unless you can somehow pull something crazy off with SoN), but the idea is that it's a long term investment for a big payoff at the end. it's probably more useful if you start at a higher level, but hey, that's always on the SM.
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Thatguyrightnow
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True enough
I would prefer if it gave you a weaker version of the capstone, but that's just me XD, I don't know what balance problems that will make...
Edited by Thatguyrightnow, May 21 2017, 01:04 PM.
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Scrapyard_Dragon
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So, stray thought time that I'm not sure whether to pursue.
The warrior Asset, to me anyways, seems kinda weak compared to it's competition. I mean, yeah, almost every exalt under the sun has an asset that gives it a free sword school, but iirc most of those also give an additional benefit. i'm just not sure what it could be in the mantle's case.
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Thatguyrightnow
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Maybe spend a Focus to boost attack? I dont know what exactly, but maybe change damage type, give effects, maybe it can act like a trigger effect that you can apply to any weapon, replacing the ballistics roll for spending that favor?
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