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I've been thinking about updating the 3.5 Dragonmarks from Eberron Campaign Setting to be applicable to PF. The thing about 3.5 Dragonmarks was that unless you had a very good (often concept-driven) reason to do so, they tended to be a bit of a waste of a precious feat slot. That's why I loved the exclusive feel they got in 4e and I wanted to do a bit of a mix of the two to be used in PF.
So here's what I got:
Least Dragonmark
You have a least dragonmark (duh)
Prerequisite: Member of appropriate dragonmarked race
Benefit: you gain a Dragonmark Pool equal to the caster level of the dragonmark feature which you may use to cast various spell-like abilities. It takes 1 point of Dragonmark Pool to cast a Least Dragonmark spell-like ability. Normally, your caster level for your dragonmark spell-like ability is 1 + your level in the dragonmark heir prestige class. This pool is replenished once per day after 8 hours of rest. This need not be consecutive.
A saving throw against your dragonmark spell-like ability has a DC of 10 + the level of the spell + your Cha modifier.
In addition, you may prepare and conduct a Least Dragonmark Ritual, which allows you to cast a dragonmark spell-like ability without expending the normal dragonmark pool. You must pay 5 * caster level * spell level worth of gold pieces in material components, even if the spell emulated does not normally possess expensive material components. 0-level spells are considered as one-half level for the purpose of calculating the gp and time required. You must have at least 1 point of Dragonmark Pool left to conduct a Dragonmark Ritual. Conducting the ritual requires 1 minute of work per 10gp in the spellcasting service's base price, or the normal time required to cast the spell, whichever takes longer.
Lesser Dragonmark
You develop a Lesser Dragonmark
Prerequisite: Member of appropriate dragonmarked race, Least Dragonmark, 6 ranks in any two skills, one of which must be associated with the dragonmarked house's line of work.
Benefit: Your dragonmark caster level (therefore your dragonmark pool) increases to 6 + your level in the dragonmark heir prestige class. You may also cast a lesser dragonmark spell-like ability, but it costs 3 points from the Dragonmark Pool.
As with the Least Dragonmark, you may conduct a Lesser Dragonmark Ritual.
Greater Dragonmark
You develop a Greater Dragonmark
Prerequisite: Member of appropriate dragonmarked race, Least Dragonmark, 9 ranks in any two skills, one of which must be associated with the dragonmarked house's line of work.
Benefit: Your dragonmark caster level (therefore your dragonmark pool) increases to 9 + your level in the dragonmark heir prestige class. You may also cast a greater dragonmark spell-like ability, but it costs 5 points from the Dragonmark Pool.
As with the Least Dragonmark, you may conduct a Greater Dragonmark Ritual to cast a Greater Dragonmark spell-like ability without expending the Dragonmark Pool.
I am yet to review the spell selection for each of the houses but the DM is pretty happy about the direction this is going. I was just hoping to get some more opinions of the matter from the wider population though.
Your suggestion sounds fine to me, I think, although my reservation about the dragonmark feats was that most of the Least Dragonmark spell-like abilities didn't seem very interesting to me, so it was hard to justify starting that feat chain.
The dragonmark ritual cost might be a little low, I suppose (i.e. it's 1/3 of the cost of a wand charge and 1/5 of the cost of a scroll).
I don't want to sidetrack the discussion, but how did 4E handle dragonmarks?
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4th ed. gave characters general bonuses (such as getting a +1 when attacking while hidden) along with the ability to cast a handful of rituals. I have no idea how well it works, though.
I do like the looks of this. I'm going to be running a short Eberron campaign myself using PFRPG and I've been wondering what to do about the Dragonmarks. However, I'm not sure I understand the point of the ritual part of the feat. Do you mind expanding on your thoughts about it?
However, I'm not sure I understand the point of the ritual part of the feat. Do you mind expanding on your thoughts about it?
For instance, instead of buying a wand of Cure Light Wounds for out of combat healing, you could have a character with the Dragonmark of Healing use rituals of Cure Light Wounds instead (although it would be ten times slower).
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For instance, instead of buying a wand of Cure Light Wounds for out of combat healing, you could have a character with the Dragonmark of Healing use rituals of Cure Light Wounds instead (although it would be ten times slower).
Ahhkay, that makes more sense, though I still don't think it quite fits the flavour of having a mark. I'll talk to my group and see what they think.
Either way, I like what I see here. The pool is more versatile, yet manages to keep the character from using their dragonmark constantly. I'll have to give it a try.
Yes, the ritual part of the feat line is the weakest area that needs a bit more working and feedback. So thanks for all your feedback guys ;)
On the justification of the rituals: 4e Dragonmark gave the characters a sort of exclusive access to certain rituals, granting the Dragonmarked Houses a clear competitive advantage. I wanted to emulate that sense of exclusivity to the feats and more importantly, give more "life" to the world. So instead of a House Jorasco Expert only being able to cast CLW 1/day and then having to resort to his Heal skill to get him by, he now possesses an untapped pool of potentials (unexpended Dragonmark Pools) through which he can "cast" the spell-like abilities over and over again- given enough time and more importantly, resources. Since an NPC, especially that of a Dragonmarked House, is severely limited by what resources they have lying around. Unlike spells that may be replenished daily, the gold expended upon casting the ritual ain't going to come back for sure.
So I based the ritual cost based on the Spellcasting Services of the Goods and Services section (10gp * caster level * spell level) as a general ballpark for the services a Dragonmarked House could provide using their dragonmarks. It seems this approach is a lot less problematic with NPC builds because the lower cost is justified by the inability to exchange the spellcasting goods (scroll is a good benchmark); the fact the official guideline on the spellcasting on-the-spot was also a big factor in determining the 'crafting' cost of each rituals.
PCs however, are in an entirely different ballpark because of the PC-centric nature (naturally) of the games. The feat not only provides the cheaper alternatives to hiring NPC spellcasters (or in more likely, the "free slot" effect for preserving valuable spell slots), they can take it around wherever they want! Thus sidestepping the whole issue of "lack of portability" inherent in the spellcasting services.
Another issue with the current draft is that it allows a higher-level NPCs with the appropriate Dragonmark to cast the desired spells over and over again- while it was the whole point of having rituals, a Jorasco scion casting Heal all-day long with a 54-minute casting time (AND costs 1/4 the price of the scroll!!) is indeed an oddity in a relatively low-magic world such as Eberron.
Mayhap I could reduce the required Dragonmark Pool by one step? So while a Least Dragonmark ritual still allows you to cast all-day long (the "high turnover stocks" of the dragonmark houses), a Lesser Dragonmark expends 1 point from the Pool per ritual, and Greater 3 points.
It seems it still requires much fiddling with the actual spell selection for the dragonmarks though, since free Heal spell 3/day is indeed a much more potent power to be given to anyone than a Sending spell.
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I did see what you were going for with the swarmsuit - the dragonmarked Houses managed to achieve their power through the use of their unique gifts, and yet if they can only cast gust of wind once per day how did the House become so powerful? The rituals would help to explain this.
That being said, the rituals as they are now seem too accessible. I prefer the Dragonmarked sourcebook's approach to explaining how the Houses got so powerful - the dragonmarks can do more than just cast spells (with the proper feats, of course). There's also the fact that if everyone in your House can use the marks, well, that's a lot of gust of wind spells that can be cast at once.
yeah, I'm concered about that too. Perhaps I should make the ritual available only as a separate feat- can be taken at 5th level or higher. Since the bulk of the common NPCs don't ever reach that high a level, only the skilled artisans of each houses may be able to tap their potential at a more efficient rate.
Another solution would be to remove the ritual side of the things from the feats altogether and treat it as a part of the House's "trade secrets". So it'd be entirely up to individual DMs whether to incorporate this theme or not. It makes sense that it would take more than just a few coins to activate such a powerful ability and that only a proper house enclave would ever possess enough resources to facilitate such procedures. Kinda like the altar of resurrection thing (can't remember the name) of House Jorasco, you know.
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The group ritual makes more sense to me (and it would be a good explanation for the Aberrant House's tremendous release of powers in their last battle). Making it a trade secret also would work as a good plot device, prevent PCs from taking advantage of the ritual cost, and give the PCs a reason to go to the Houses if they really need too. I'm looking forward to trying this out.
Thank you so much Space Titanium and hogarth for your encouragement and feedbacks. I'll soon update the original post to make a few changes.
I am currently playing a Dragonmarked Heir in a PbP here, as I love the concept. this sounds rather interesting. The biggest suggestion I would make would be to expand the spells available per grade of Mark.
I'd also include the three Mark feats from Dragonmarked as well, except instead of taking spells found in the Spell Compendium, they would spells from the APG and UM.
While the ritual concept sounds good, it's not practical for PCs, especially when emulating a spell in combat. I think something similar should be explored, but I am just not sure what atm.
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That raises a question from me - can you cast multiple spells from a single dragonmark? I always assumed that you have to choose a spell when you take a dragonmark feat, but more choices would be a good idea.
However, here's an even bigger question - if using Dragonmarked and taking feats from that book, how would the pool be affected? I am thinking that each extra dragonmark feat raises your CL by one, or perhaps ever two feats you take increases the CL by one instead. Something to ponder...
Well in 3.5 you had to choose which spell to cast as a spell-like ability and you were stuck with it. However, since I plan to remove the ritual side of the feats (and treat it as a campaign trait), I believe letting the marked character choose each time she expends the pool would be a better choice.
With regard to Dragonmarked, the pool-based approach to the dragonmarks allows one to substitute the Action Point expenditure of many feats with the pool, if one so wishes. Because Action Point is one of the more limited resources available to a character (renewed only upon levelling up), this boosts the feats to a PF-standard which grants the characters generally higher level of power.
Another point I've been pondering about was as you said, allowing the dragonmark-related feats from the book to increase either the CL (therefore the pool) or only the pool by 1/2 the number of dragonmark-realted feats (excluding the dragonmark feats themselves). Combined with the pool-for-action-point substitution rule proposed above, this can create a chain of potent options for the characters to burn through over the course of their daily adventures.
I don't know about you, but if I were a Paladin of House Deneith (a Sentinel Marshal, even), I'd love to have the Dragonmark Smite feat anytime- especially now that I can do it multiple times a day, without having to worry about using such precious a resource.
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Hmm, the use of Action Points is interesting, but I was hoping to try and use the APG's Hero Points (which have more or less the same effect as Action Points, but eh). Thus, I have another proposal:
Allow the extra dragonmark feats to add one CL to the spell-like abilities of the marks. These extra effects spend points from the pool just like the spells. Now, considering the increased number of feats a PC gets in Pathfinder, this will add a lot of points to the pool, and will mean that a player only has to keep track of one pool rather than two. It also gets refreshed everyday, so on average a character would get more uses out of their dragonmark pool than from the Action Points. It also gives a character choice in their actions, meaning that they have decide between their spell=like abilities or their feat bonuses.
It would definitely be awesome for the House of Deneith paladin to use Dragonmark Smite all the time, but this pool method could also allow the character to use the lesser abilities of the feat by spending less points. What do you think?
My only suggestion for the time being would be to change the skill requirements on the Lesser Dragonmark from six ranks to either five or seven, since they would have to wait until one or the other to take the feat anyways.
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I would agree with you, and drop the skills to 5 ranks. However, is that going to mess up the Dragonmark Heir abilities?
Actually, on second thought the six ranks make more sense. I don't think you can take a feat as you gain the requisite skill ranks. Instead, I increased the skill pre-req of Greater Dragonmark to 10 ranks instead of 9.
Regarding Skill Ranks, recall that in 3.x one could have their level+3 ranks in a skill. So when converting something from prior editions, one must lower the the skill costs to reflect the change in skills PF made.