The Book of Elements
Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 6:21 am
Right, so, I've been sitting on the entire manuscript for the Book of Elements for a few months, and it hasn't been improving except when I sit down to post it. So I've started to post it to the Wiki. If people are interested in anything from it, let me know, because it's already bbcode formatted; posting it here will be faster than wiki-ing it.
The Book of Elements ate the following bits of the Tome of Tiamat (explanations of what's new in bold):
Right. First request:
The Book of Elements ate the following bits of the Tome of Tiamat (explanations of what's new in bold):
FrankTrollman wrote:Tome of Tiamat-Username17
- Magic Physics (already wikied)
- Bonus Core Classes (Elementalist (minor tweaks only), Firemage, Puppeteer, Snowscaper Alchemist (updated), Shadowcaster, Windseeker, Snowsoul)
- Prestige Classes (Shadowdancer, Soulseared (Bane Knight), Elemental Champion (Elemental Knight), Planar Oracle, Primordial Thief, Flesh Alchemist, Worldsmith, Planecrosser)
- Feats and Spells and Spheres (oh do we have those)
- Elementals (minor tweaks to the Elements Project)
- Genies (see: Elementals)
- Evocation Overhaul (see: Feats)
- High Adventure on the Inner Planes (Four elements, two energy planes, Wood, Cold, and Shadow. Also giant comprehensive rewrites of the environments on the planes)
If any of that looks interesting, ask away. A lot of this stuff hasn't been read too intently by anyone who isn't me, so it might not be as polished as the original tomes. The stuff that has been read and criticized was read and criticized by a computer programmer, and I may have drifted into programmer mode myself sometimes. So in some places it might prize being unambiguous over being easy to read. If this makes any parts unreadable, let me know so I can fix it.formatting consistency wrote:Book of GearsOther
- Magic Item (90% copypasta)
- Glyph Traps (copypasta and new spells)
- Power Sites
- Demiplanes
Right. First request:
Well, that's finished. Here it is:IGTN wrote:The main problem I've been running into with the Demiplane rules is that even after taking all of the general Create a Demiplane rules and giving them their own section to be called by feats, spells, class features, and so on, the feat still ends up long.fbmf wrote:I'd be interested in seeing that.I'm in the process of writing a feat that allows you to use Raw Chaos to make either magic items or demiplanes.
Game On,
fbmf
I should probably try to make some of the rules (like trait assignments) more general, so that I can take them out of the feat.
Elementals of Style wrote:
Reality Shaper
You can shape primordial chaos into powerful magic items.
Prerequisite: Three or more Item Creation feats, caster level 10th+
Benefit: You can transform Raw Chaos into magic items. Doing so takes the normal creation time for the item, but reduces its cost to create by 200,000 GP and its experience cost to create by 40,000 EXP. You can make multiple magic items out of the same piece of Raw Chaos, and need not work consecutively, but before you begin your work you must decide what you are going to make the chaos into. Raw chaos is potent stuff, and you gain the ability to use use the Use Magic Device skill if you have it to emulate spell prerequisites as though you had scrolls of any such spells made by a Wizard, Cleric, or Druid at minimum caster level. If the spell does not appear on their lists, you may emulate it as though from any class that can cast ninth-level spells; failing that, any class is permissible. You need only do this once per crafting per spell, and must do this in order from lowest caster level to highest; each previous successful check raises the DC of subsequent checks by two. Items created out of Raw Chaos usually detect as strongly chaotic for a long time after having been made that way, but usually this fades after a few years. The vestiges of chaos in the item, however, are not predictable and may remain for longer, or leave sooner.
Master of the Primordial
Your mastery over raw chaos rivals that of the oldest gods, allowing you to shape it into entire planes of existence.
Prerequsite: Reality Shaper, 18+ ranks in Craft.
Benefit: When you have Raw Chaos, you may expend it to create a demiplane as a standard action. See the section on creating demiplanes under Sites and Seats of Power; your caster level is equal to your Craft ranks, and the save DC is 9 + 1/2 your Craft ranks + your Intelligence modifier. You may create a coterminous or tangent plane, and tangent planes may have boundaries or be self-contained. If this is done as part of the process of creating an artifact, the plane may also be item-bound. When you create the plane, you must make a Craft check after making all decisions for the plane; if not stressed (such as by making the plane as a refuge while in combat), you can take 10. The plane created is spherical, with a radius equal to 10 feet times your craft check result, or cylindrical, with a radius of 20 feet times your craft check result and a height of 20 feet per rank in craft that you have. The planar environment can be made out of anything that can be Fabricated from its basic components with a check 20 less than your check result.
Getting a plane with the traits you want is a base DC of 10, plus the trait value of the plane. If you fail the check, randomly choose a planar trait, remove its DC adjustment, and replace the trait with whatever you get for free (if you have multiple options, pick one at random).
After creating your demiplane, you may expand it, adding to its primary dimension with another Craft check, as a week's work for no additional expenditure of Raw Chaos. A second expansion requires more Raw Chaos. You can expand it for free once after each time you spend Raw Chaos to grow the plane, before you spend Raw Chaos again.
Creating demiplanes with this feat is a Supernatural ability.
You also gain power over Divinely Morphic planes. You may cause any region on a Divinely Morphic plane to revert to its normal planar traits as a full-round action, with a Craft check opposing a level check or craft check from its original reshaper, if present (if not, or if the original reshaper doesn't oppose you, you automatically succeed). A day's work can allow you to change the magic, elemental, and aligned traits on any Divinely Morphic plane to a radius of up to one mile per rank of Craft that you have; doing so requires a Craft check with a DC exactly as if you were creating the plane in the first place.
And a spell, thrown in because the new demiplane rules mean it wants a rewrite:
Genesis
Conjuration (Creation) [see text]
Level: Clr 9, Sor/Wis 9
Components: V, S, M/DF, XP
Casting Time: 1 week (8 hours/day)
Range: 180 feet (see text)
Effect: A demiplane centered on your location
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
This spell creates a demiplane as per the demiplane creation rules in this book. The demiplane must be coterminous or tangent to the plane you cast it on, and this spell must be cast on the Ethereal or Astral plane.
The plane's traits may have a total trait value of up to the caster level the spell is cast at (see the section on creating demiplanes in this book. The spell's descriptors match the elemental and alignment traits of the plane it creates).
When this spell is cast, a local density fluctuation precipitates the creation of a demiplane. At first, the fledgling plane grows at a rate of 1 foot in radius per day to an initial maximum radius of 180 feet as it rapidly draws substance from surrounding ethereal vapors and protomatter.
The planar environment is decided by the caster: atmosphere, weather, composition (including amount and presence of water), and the general shape of the terrain, to no more accuracy than about a 20' cube. The spell cannot create life (including vegetation) nor construction; such things must be brought in or built in the plane. After creating the plane, this spell can be cast again on it after it reaches its maximum size to add another 180 feet to its radius.
Arcane Material Component: A snow globe.
XP Cost: 5000 EXP
Sites and Seats of Power wrote:
Creating Demiplanes
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."
- Carl Sagan
Many characters of great elemental power gain the ability to create demiplanes; under Origins of Creation or Multiversal Fundamental elements, that's quite natural, as everything itself is made out of and by the elements, so creatures with power over the elements naturally have the power to create parts of everything else. They also have the power to destroy parts of everything else, which is handled quite effectively by the combat system, and so need not be addressed here.
When creating a demiplane, a number of choices have to be made. Sometimes, the method used may pre-decide some of these choices, but everything determined by either the creator or by the effect used is listed here as the creator's option.
Planar Links
The first decision to make when creating a demiplane is how to get to it. There are two major ways, here; the plane can be coterminous or tangent (mostly separate) to the plane it is created on. Some planes can also be created coexistent, so that will also be addressed.
Coterminous
When a coterminous plane is created, a wave of creation sweeps over the plane that it is being created from. A planar boundary comes into existence, which blocks line of effect, but creatures and objects can pass through it with ease. The existing area of the plane it was created from can be destroyed, absorbed, or cast into another plane (usually the astral, although sometimes the ethereal and rarely a plane with a more interesting environment, such as an inner or outer plane, shadow, or material). If it is absorbed, features, creatures, and things from the former plane still exist on the created plane exactly as they were, with the reality they exist in changing around them. Lingering noninstantaneous spell effects are usually absorbed, and creatures are almost always absorbed. If it is cast into another plane, generally the entire chunk of space, including most of the lingering spell effects and creatures on it, travel with it; the lost area can be another demiplane or simply a chunk of environment in another plane. Destroyed areas are destroyed utterly. This never happens to creatures, unattended magic items, or anything else that makes saving throws unless it has less than three hit points per caster level of the creation effect.
Whether something is absorbed or lost depends on the will of the creator (with the above-mentioned exception for things that make saving throws). Whether lost objects are cast away or destroyed is up to the DM. All creatures who would be destroyed by a creation effect may attempt Will saves against the creation effect's save DC to instead cause the area to be cast away instead of destroyed. When an area is cast away, creatures and so on capable of making saving throws may be sucked with it (Will save, DC equal to that of the creation effect, to negate). Except to those lost, an area being cast away and being destroyed are indistinguishable. Being cast away is harmless except for the environment they are cast into. The creator of the plane is never lost, always being absorbed, and may designate a number of creatures equal to the effect's caster level to also be absorbed.
Astral and Ethereal areas are never cast into more interesting planes, although they may be cast into a region on the same plane. Their objects and creatures may be scattered to random planes (usually arriving in groups, but not all together), instead.
Tangent
Creating a tangent plane is almost entirely unlike creating a coterminous plane. The center of a tangent plane is coexistent to the place where it was created on its origin, but no other inherent links exist except to transitive planes; the tangent plane is fullly coexistent to a region on one transitive plane, at least. The creator can designate any number of creatures within close range to be drawn in to the plane when created (will save negates), and nothing else is brought over. Likewise, nothing else is destroyed or cast aside on the origin plane. At the creator's option (usually), a portal may be created connecting the two coexistent sites.
If created in a transitive plane, a tangent plane always connects to that transitive plane, only, with a coexistent region created for it. If created on the outer planes, it always connects to the Astral; on the Inner Planes, to the Ethereal and possibly also to the Astral (creator's option). If created on the shadow plane, it gains its own border shadow accessible from where-ever it was created (and an area around that shaped and sized roughly like the plane). On the material plane, it may have any one or two such connections.
Coexistent
A few effects can create a coexistent plane. Doing so is like creating a tangent plane, except that every point on the plane is coexistent to a point on the origin plane the same direction and distance from the point of casting as it is from the center of the new plane.
Item-Bound
In some cases, a Demiplane is attached to an item. Such an item always exists on not only its primary plane, but also on planes coexistent to it, and any manipulation on one affects the item on the other, except that reflections cannot be brought to other planes. However, the item can be pulled on from one plane so that its main body enters that plane, where it formerly was becomes a reflection. This requires a DC 16 Strength check, or an opposed Strength check against the strongest person currently holding it on every other plane with a +2 bonus and aid from everyone else holding it, whichever would be harder. The demiplane has coexistent reflections of all planes coexistent to where it actually is. Entering that set of planes requires the item (the item cannot be brought within, of course), and deposits the entering character on the appropriate plane in the set. If a reflected plane is removed (by, for instance, taking an item that contains a demiplane to a place without a coexistent plane), then everyone and everything on that reflected plane is shunted into the main one, taking damage and being shunted out if they arrive inside a solid object, as per the Dimension Door spell. Exiting the bound plane(s) plants the exiting character by the item. The item usually can transport people in on its own, but a few cannot, and require their own Plane Shift effects, or similar. Creating an item-bound demiplane is extremely difficult, and they mostly exist as plot devices.
Demiplane Traits
Generally, the creator of a plane gets to determine its planar traits, with a few exceptions. First, no plane can be in opposition to its creator. This means no plane can have an alignment trait opposed to its creator; a fiend cannot sell you a celestial palace fitting for good, although it can sell you a neutral palace if it can create demiplanes. It also means no plane can have an elemental trait opposed to its creator's elemental subtypes, if any, unless its creator also has the subtype it is being created for. A water weird cannot make a fire palace. Second, under no circumstances can a demiplane plane have the Flowing Time trait, and DMs should consider carefully whether Erratic Time is more headache than it's worth. Beyond that, restrictions are fairly common-sense. Tangent planes can be self-contained, but pretty much all other planes are finite with boundaries. Creating a sentient plane requires simultaneously crafting an intelligent magic item as the plane, and adds the two times to create together.
If an Enhanced Magic metamagic abuse is found that requires creating a plane and doesn't destroy the game, go nuts with it. It doesn't really matter if you can make your Shapechange or Foresight persistent, if you have to create a universe to do it in. Seriously, you're a god at that point, go hog wild. You still can't stack the same metamagic effect multiple times.
Nonetheless, different types of demiplanar traits have a different value, which can determine how hard it is to make one. Exactly how making a high-value demiplane is harder depends on how the plane is being created. A demiplane whose traits match the plane it is being created on (except for some cases of gravity, see below) has no cost for its traits. Changes to its traits cost as follows:Demiplanar Environment
- Each elemental or energy trait added or subtracted adds 5 to the plane's trait value. Traits like the Plane of Ice's Cold Dominance, or a similar trait for sonic damage, use the same rules.
- Objective or Subjective gravity add 5 to the plane's value, even if they match the origin plane. Origin planes of objective gravity grant normal gravity for free; those of subjective gravity grant no gravity for free. Other gravity traits increase the value by two.
- Highly morphic, Alterable Morphic, or Static planes have a value increase of 5. Sentient-Morphic planes require that the plane be crafted as an intelligent magical item, regardless of origin plane. Being divinely morphic increases the plane's value by 10, or by five if the origin plane is itself divinely morphic (alterable morphic is free in that case). If the origin plane is sentient or magically morphic, alterable morphic is free. Magically morphic doesn't actually mean anything anyway.
- Strong alignment traits cost 5, each. Weak alignment traits cost 2, each. A plane may not have contradictory alignment traits.
- Each level of metamagic feat provided by Enhanced Magic costs 5. Each school or other division impeded costs 2. Each subschool, level, or descriptor limited costs 2. Each school limited costs 5. Wild or Dead magic costs 5.
- Normal time is free, regardless of the time trait of its originating plane. A demiplane may also have erratic time matching its originating plane if its originating plane does. For a value of 5, the demiplane may be timeless with respect to hunger, thirst, aging, and so on (time still passes relative to other planes).
Demiplanar environments can be pretty much anything. They can't be created with life or anything similarly complex, at least not on their own without a sufficient amount of time. Most people don't have the patience to wait the billions of years it takes life to evolve, so life is generally imported or absorbed. Demiplanes can't be created with magic items or planar currency of any kind, either, so that has to be brought in.
Most effects can only create simple elemental matter: air, dirt, rock, water in its various forms, and fire, which only shows up for long on planes with the appropriate traits; you could make a demiplane out of shadowstuff, too, if you really wanted to. Despite having an Elemental Plane of Wood, there are very few ways to create demiplanes that allow you to make a wooden demiplane, without first making an empty demiplane and then bringing in wood. The elemental materials you are given, though, come in a very wide variety. Rock is not just your standard granite and basalt, but also includes coal and ores (or other naturally-occuring forms) of pretty much any mineral you could wish for. Some effects start from this and allow you to add a limited amount of complexity. Other effects might allow you to fill your demiplane with anything you might wish for, letting you have a plane of diamonds, or gold, or beer.
Expanding your Demiplane
Now that you're the owner of a brand-new demiplane, you can make it grow bigger by using any effect that creates a demiplane from the center. Instead of creating a demiplane, then, you can choose to expand the existing one's primary dimension (if it has no primary dimension, pick two and expand them) by the radius of the demiplane that you would create, or cause the demiplane to grow out from its edges if it has them, or, if self-contained, from either every point in the plane or in a region around the caster, by a length equal to the radius the new plane would be created with. Edge lengths are "worth" half as much as radii, so double all radius numbers before applying them as edge length, and halve all edge lengths before applying them as radii. If the new effect comes with a height, like a cylinder or prism (a polygon stretched into a third dimension, with two arbitrary polygonal faces connected by a bunch of rectangles, for anyone who needs a geometry refresher), you can add that to the height, too, if you want. A demiplane with edges can instead have the edges pushed out in one direction, adding the same volume as would be normally created (if the effect would create a new demiplane), contiguous to some edge of the original demiplane.
List of primary dimensions, by shape:
Spherical: Radius
Cubic or other polyhedral: Edge Length
Circular Cylindrical: Radius or height
Prismatic (regular polygon): Polygon edge length or height
Demiplanes and Plane Shift
A note has to be made of how Plane Shift interacts with demiplanes, since it's not even possible for a Plane Shift spell targeted on the center of most demiplanes to end up anywhere within the radius of the plane. If you Plane Shift into a demiplane with inaccurate teleportation that makes you arrive outside the plane, you instead arrive at a random point on the plane that can support you. Note that a tuning fork to use Plane Shift to get to any given demiplane without just getting it as a spell-like ability is generally extremely hard to come by (the dedicated can figure out the right one, though, with enough DC 30 Knowledge (the Planes) checks. "enough" depends on how much they already know), and it's impossible to Plane Shift to a demiplane with neither an item that uniquely identifies it (such as a proper tuning fork) nor a detailed description, nor having been there oneself (even if it's changed since), nor, at least, some unambiguous magical identification like a teleport trail, even with a spell-like ability.