Why are Tome Feats a problem?

[JonSetanta]

After days of discussing the erroneous spell access in the other thread I realized it wasn't MOST spells but just a few that needed banning.

[deaddmwalking]

I still recommend that you write spell lists rather than 'all spells in this school except these two I don't like'. First off, you want to be sure that every concept actually works - they have access to the spells they need for offense, defense and problem-solving. If Conjurers are the only ones that can cross large distances AND they can do as much damage as Evokers, maybe Evoker isn't really a concept?

Domains/Spheres are quick ways to find thematic spell lists already filled out for you, and the number of spells to consider is significantly less than 'all spells published, ever'. Choosing, say, 3 domains, is a pretty quick way to define a concept and provide a spell list that includes options at every level.

[JonSetanta]

Frank and a few others peed on my suggestion a few years ago when I mentioned that everyone should get a free Domain for devoting to a pantheon or deity, but I still stand by the idea.
Trollman pointed out that Spheres are inherently better in every way, but rely about 50% on non-SRD material.

Domains are literally in every PHB after 1e.

What we really need are core-rules Arcane schools sorted by what they DO, and I did read Kaelik's new divination replacement thread today, still thinking about it, and figured we could probably shrink ALL of these spell lists into a series of loose tag-and-function spells.

The Teleport spell and further to Greater and Dimension Door and Plane shift and Teleport Circle, combined with all PSIONIC powers that do various "psychoportation" functions, are absolutely bursting with different flavors of the same thing.

I might do a thread entirely sometime about the topic but that "Warlock Mage" needs finishing first.

Edit: ok actually something was in the back of my mind though. Benchmarks in Tome everyone should be able to d o by X level.
Things like...
Level 5: Fly
Level 9: Teleport
Level (something): Plane shift
Level 15: G. Teleport
Level 17: Miracle (at this point you're pretty much part demigod or have some degree of divine intervention)

Edit2: oh and to enter the Soul Economy one must be able to Git Money.
At some point Good characters need the Quest spell once per day, and Baddies need some function like Raziel from Soul Reaver to absorb and coinify like a devil any disembodied spirit.

[deaddmwalking]

What characters need to do to be competitive by Tome standards is based off wizards and clerics existing. If they don't exist, the benchmarks are completely different.

There are also a lot of assumptions built in to being competitive. Things like the SGT are good tools, but they undervalue cooperative play. A character that makes everyone else 2x stronger may fail the SGT but in actual play parties that include that character will steamroll opposition. Usually parties need access to those tools, bit not necessarily every character.

And quest? Why do good characters need daily access to that?

[Foxwarrior]

Not every character in a Tome party needs to be able to do everything a wizard or cleric can do. The wizard or cleric can do those things, after all. Much more important to feeling like not dead weight is to be able to do some things that the party wizard or cleric can't do. Role protection and whatnot. It's a little awkward in Tome because a wizard or cleric can do almost anything, but there are a few things they can't do, and it's not that hard to make a character better at something than the wizard, just let them do it more often or at a slightly earlier level.

[JonSetanta]

And quest? Why do good characters need daily access to that?

If evil deals with ensnaring and trading souls, good does with favors.

[deaddmwalking]

And quest? Why do good characters need daily access to that?

If evil deals with ensnaring and trading souls, good does with favors.

So why does it have to be compelled?

This smacks of Book of Exalted Deeds where good has to have 'good poison' because evil has 'evil poison'. Why does good have to do the same things evil does to function in a post-wish economy?

[JonSetanta]

I was just taking inspiration from an FnK postulation that "every paladin should get the Quest spell at an early level to redeem their own abilities if they lose divine favor"

[deaddmwalking]

Your suggestion (good characters get quest) would include Paladins, but also every other class with a good alignment. If Paladins have quest, but they 'fall', they can't cast the spell anyway. Even if they could cast spells, I think you mean atonement, so I'm not sure that this is related at all.

[JonSetanta]

I apologize yes it's been a while since I used high level spells in D&D, Atonement is the one, but what I intended was some kind of favor-collecting mechanic, you'd probably have to introduce a stat called Trust or other fungible social token to integrate to d20 rules, and at that point I'll just play a better game because you are literally dealing with "I roll Charisma to seduce the barmaid" as a running gag.

[Omegonthesane]

WRT divine classes that can Fall, I prefer the solution mentioned offhand in I think the Kaelik Cleric where the kind of person who would become a Cleric or Paladin takes no more than a fortnight to either make it up to their existing patron in downtime or to get hooked up with a new patron.

(Or for paladins, just adapt the Oathbreaker shit from 5e with the understanding that this doesn't lock you into Evil, since the Oathbreaker Knight introduced the concept of being an Oathbreaker who was evil in the first place and broke their oath by not committing to evil at the crunch point. Pay no attention to how Oathbreaker Paladin itself is an adaptation of the concept of fallen Paladins getting extra bonuses for becoming Blackguards)

[Kaelik]

LMAO, I was thinking about making a post expressing that classes with stuff like that should just express a general sense of remediation in the class entry, and then give a sample, but that's right! I already did this!

Being A Cleric (Ex): Clerics are oftentimes Clerics. Which means they worship something or other. When a character takes their first level in Cleric, they pick a God or Cause to worship, and their belief in that Cause grants them spells. If the God wants to he can totally let them know at any time that he’s pissed off, and that means the Cleric will not have sufficient belief to get their spells until they feel like they have atoned. Unless of course, the God’s disfavor prompts a crisis of faith or retributory opposition, in which case the Cleric may no longer worship the God in question.

A Cleric can decide, for any number of reasons, to stop worshiping a god or cause. If they do so, then they might make an enemy of a previous god (or those dedicated to their previous cause) and that can be bad. Usually the process of completely forsaking your purpose in life is not an easy or quick one. A cleric in the middle of the process can’t prepare or cast spells for two weeks, after which they have a new driving purpose in life, because the types of people who are Clerics are quick to latch on full force to whatever purposes they come to. At this point they may (and perhaps even must) choose new domains that are in line with their new God or Cause.

I also wrote this simpler version for the Priest:

Worshipping a God: A Priest has to pick a specific existing diety that isn't them in the setting to worship, instead of a concept or themselves. They probably want this Diety to have some listed Domains. If you piss off your god in some dumb fuck way they can stop granting any prayers until you atone. This should only ever come up if it's fun and cool, and is not a balance mechanic.

[Omegonthesane]

(musings in a second post because the first one got replies before I edited it in and I've slightly refined the thought)

Back when I was desigining a system for a new group (boring story, won't tell) I was pretty stuck on the idea that clerics should get to still be clerics of the same potency if they actively changed religions. I think the fluff was something like becoming a divine caster meant having something eroded out of your soul (which I just realised is mechanically represented by your lost potential to have spent those levels on e.g. Wizard instead) and filled the hole with their light/warmth/love/cake, so that if the contents of the hole were taken away due to a falling out with your patron, some other deity could quickly bring you up to speed by filling the hole with their darkness/cold/hate/pie.

And as I was playing DCSS a lot at the time I assumed any such conversion would potentially cause your old god to take out a hit on you, at which point successfully using your new powers to survive is seen as your probationary period.

[deaddmwalking]

I apologize yes it's been a while since I used high level spells in D&D, Atonement is the one, but what I intended was some kind of favor-collecting mechanic, you'd probably have to introduce a stat called Trust or other fungible social token to integrate to d20 rules, and at that point I'll just play a better game because you are literally dealing with "I roll Charisma to seduce the barmaid" as a running gag.

In the real world, people accept debts to be paid in the future without any magical compulsion. Sometimes they fail to pay those debts. But honorable people often will do the things they promised to do. Failure can impact willingness to accept their word in the future. While a Respect mechanic might work, it's also possible to do without one.

Evil UNLAWFUL people might need to pay in souls up front, but devils are well known for keeping their literal word and sticking to a bargain.

In the event that you want high level people to be compelled to fulfill oaths, that's also something that can be handled by a third party (maybe a religious order?). In standard D&D we kinda expect high level PCs to roll around with a literal dragon's hoard on their person, but most people use banks to store wealth. If your setting includes banking, it could also include deposits of debts.

There are some things that EVERY CHARACTER needs to do - like contribute to combat and have non-combat utility. At higher levels of play, there are some things that EVERY PARTY needs access to - like dimensional travel. It doesn't necessarily follow that every character needs all of these things. It's probably a bad idea if only clerics have access to healing because then you can't have a party that doesn't have a cleric and if there are 12+ classes and parties are 4 characters, you'd expect more than half of parties NOT to have one if every class were an equally valid choice. So spreading around some of the abilities is a good idea, but not necessarily giving everybody everything.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

... filled the hole with their light/warmth/love/cake, so that if the contents of the hole were taken away due to a falling out with your patron, some other deity could quickly bring you up to speed by filling the hole...

Ew.

Look. Not all deities are Zeus.

#NotAllMenDeities

[JonSetanta]

In the real world, people accept debts to be paid in the future without any magical compulsion. Sometimes they fail to pay those debts. But honorable people often will do the things they promised to do. Failure can impact willingness to accept their word in the future. While a Respect mechanic might work, it's also possible to do without one.

Evil UNLAWFUL people might need to pay in souls up front, but devils are well known for keeping their literal word and sticking to a bargain.

In the event that you want high level people to be compelled to fulfill oaths, that's also something that can be handled by a third party (maybe a religious order?). In standard D&D we kinda expect high level PCs to roll around with a literal dragon's hoard on their person, but most people use banks to store wealth. If your setting includes banking, it could also include deposits of debts.

There are some things that EVERY CHARACTER needs to do - like contribute to combat and have non-combat utility. At higher levels of play, there are some things that EVERY PARTY needs access to - like dimensional travel. It doesn't necessarily follow that every character needs all of these things. It's probably a bad idea if only clerics have access to healing because then you can't have a party that doesn't have a cleric and if there are 12+ classes and parties are 4 characters, you'd expect more than half of parties NOT to have one if every class were an equally valid choice. So spreading around some of the abilities is a good idea, but not necessarily giving everybody everything.

That's where Calling In A Favor might fill the gaps.

Let's say we have a typical "Unbalanced Party".
Let's say everyone is playing warriors. Hey, it happens.

They can't fly. They can't teleport. Hell, the best healing they might have is Tome Barbarian.

But if they spend X resource to gain Y spell or equivalent effect even once a day, a wizard could teleport in to give them a hop to the Astral, or cleric shows up to heal everyone during a rest.
That would be an interesting resource -> effect mechanic.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

But if they spend X resource to gain Y spell or equivalent effect even once a day, a wizard could teleport in to give them a hop to the Astral, or cleric shows up to heal everyone during a rest.
That would be an interesting resource -> effect mechanic.

Is he inventing Social Credit mechanics?

Is he inventing karma points abstract story manipulation mechanics?

Is he inventing Gig Economy spellcasters available 24hrs a day on the wizard internet?

Or is it the next big Magic The Gathering mechanic?

Can anyone make him actually describe which one it is without him pretending to ignore you for a year?

[deaddmwalking]

That would be an interesting resource -> effect mechanic.

I mean, if the PCs ever accomplished anything ever, they probably have established friendly relations with someone who can help them. Sometimes that's a low level party saying 'maybe that wizard we hired us in the inn would be willing to break the curse' and maybe sometimes that's a high level party saying 'maybe that wizard that hired us in the inn could teleport us somewhere we want to go'.

As a GM, you want your players to be able to get to the adventure, right? Why would you make that hard for them?

Favors are treasure, just like items. If you give favors out, you'll expect that the PCs will use them. Many favors are like single-use items. You can just flavor them that way if they're easier. It's only if you don't know that the PCs are going to need something that you get in a bind, and then they get a fetch quest (do x and get y) which is basically the same thing but they know in advance what their reward will be and they're already planning on spending it.

[silver877]

By leveraging their relationships and reputation, the party could access abilities and resources that they wouldn't normally have, which could lead to some really cool and memorable moments in the game.

[morgan13]

I think that in an attempt to offer a wide range of options, Tome Feats sometimes introduced overly powerful abilities.