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One common complaint is that the disparity between magic users and non-magic users becomes too high as levels increase. This is especially apparent with prepared magic users who are given some preparation time, or have foreknowledge of the day’s challenges. A second common complaint is that almost no matter how invested into stealth a mid level rogue is, a wizard can completely outclass them with a single spell, leaving skills feeling too mundane and magic too powerful.
The following “alpha stage” idea is an attempt to rectify this situation. If this idea pans out, I will likely play test it during my upcoming campaign and thus would like to get as much feedback as possible before committing to allowing my players access to homebrew material for 15 to 17 levels. Please provide feedback!
Mystic Powers are Spell-Like Abilities that closely emulate specific spells. Gaining Mystic Powers requires both a feat investment and a heavy investment into specific skills, but yields great rewards to the studious adventurer. The effective spell level for a Mystic Power is equal to 1/3 of the character’s skill ranks in the activating skill and the effective caster level for a Mystic Power is equal to half of the characters skill ranks in the activating skill, rounded up. Unless otherwise specified, activating a Mystic Power is always a standard action and any flat numerical bonuses to the activating skill are cut in half. All other bonuses and penalties of the spell apply as normal. When using a Mystic Powers, you may replace all modifiers based on Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma with your highest mental Ability Score, including saving throws against the ability. Unless otherwise specified, Mystic Powers are subject to all limitations of the base spell, such as spell resistance, spell targets, and spell range. Targeting of a Mythic Power is subject to the limitations of the spell unless the Mythic Power makes a specific exception.
Your extensive training has transcended the physical. Whether the power is arcane, divine, or from another innate source differs from one Mystic Traveler to another, but that your skills are enhanced by magic is clear to all.
Prerequisite: Skill Focus in any skill other than a Craft, Knowledge, Perform, or Profession skill.
Benefit: You gain a Mystic Energy Pool equal to half of your total class levels (minimum 1) plus your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier, whichever is highest. You gain the ability to activate Artisan Mystic Powers with the required skill training.
Special: Activating an Artisan Mystic Power costs 1 Mystic Energy Point.
You can use your Mystic Energy Pool more times per day than most.
Prerequisite: Artisan Mystic Traveler.
Benefit: Your Mystic Energy Pool increases by 2.
Special: You can gain Extra Mystic Energy multiple times. Its effects stack.
Stories of your abilities span the world. Many believe you to be a prodigal child of local legends, born to achieve greatness.
Prerequisite: Artisan Mystic Traveler.
Benefit: You gain the ability to activate Legendary Mystic Powers with the required skill training.
Special: Activating a Legendary Mystic Power costs 2 Mystic Energy Points.
• With a +15 bonus and 3 ranks in the requisite skill, a Mystic Traveler can activate the following Artisan Mystic Powers:
Acrobatics: Urban Grace, self only
Appraise: Identify
Bluff: Innocence, self only
Diplomacy: Memory Lapse
Disguise: Disguise Self
Escape Artist: Liberating Command, allies but not self
Fly: Feather Fall, self only, immediate action
Handle Animal: Calm Animals
Heal: Cure Light Wounds, allies only
Linguisitics: Comprehend Languages
Perception: Keen Senses, self only
Ride: Saddle Surge
Spellcraft: Detect Magic
Swim: Grace of the Sea, self only
Use Magic Device: Floating Disk
• With a +20 bonus and 6 ranks in the requisite skill, a Mystic Traveler can activate the following Artisan Mystic Powers:
Climb: Spider Climb, self only
Disable Device: Find Traps
Intimidate: Blistering Invective
Sense Motive: Detect Thoughts
Sleight of Hand: Pilfering Hand
Stealth: Invisibility, self only
Survival: Bloodhound
• With a +25 bonus and 9 ranks in the requisite skill, a Mystic Traveler can activate the following Legendary Mystic Powers:
Acrobatics: Grace
Appraise: Discern Value
Bluff: Glibness
Disguise: Beast Shape I
Fly: Fly, self only
Handle Animal: Dominate Animal
Heal: Cure Serious Wounds, allies only
Linguisitics: Tongues, self only
Spellcraft: Arcane Sight, self only
Swim: Sky Swim, self only
• With a +30 bonus and 12 ranks in the requisite skill, a Mystic Traveler can activate the following Legendary Mystic Powers:
Cimb: Earth Glide, self only
Diplomacy: Charm Monster
Disable Device: Fire Trap
Escape Artist: Freedom of Movement, self only
Intimidate: Fear
Perception: Greater Darkvision, self only
Ride: Oath of Peace, willing mounted creature only
Sense Motive: Locate Creature
Sleight of Hand: Stay The Hand
Stealth: Greater Invisibility, self only
Survival: Ward of the Season, self only
Use Magic Device: Spiritual Ally
I like it, I'll ask my co-GM if she'd be up for this and I'll post any feedback.
It's still just an idea at this point and I'd really like conceptual feedback from players and GMs alike. I plan to play test this in the coming year, assuming I can sell my players on it, which shouldn't be hard, since I'm giving them more options for nothing, lol.
In the past few days, I've expanded on it a bit and will post those updates tonight. Off the top of my head, here are some of the changes:
• Use Magic Device now gives Unseen Servant instead of Floating Disk
• Verbiage about replacing mental ability score modifiers for Mystic Power spells with your highest mental ability score has been removed.
• Added two feats to grant 1st through 4th level Divine spells (chosen from the Cleric/Oracle or the Druid list) to any character willing to invest the two prerequisite feats and the two new feats. These basically allow a fighter to gain spells at a rate similar to a Ranger.
• Added two feats to grant 1st through 4th level Arcane spells (chosen from the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list only) to any character willing to invest the two prerequisite feats and the two new feats.
• The Arcane and Divine spells are mutually exclusive as they hint at being the source of the characters initial foray into magic in their focused skills.
Updates: As promised, just a day late. =)
• Changed Use Magic Device rank 3 SLA to Unseen Servant (from Floating Disk)
• Added two feats for Divine spellcasting at (near) Ranger equivalent progression
• Added two feats for Arcane spellcasting at (near) Ranger equivalent progression
• Simplified Mystic Powers by removing some complex wording from the general rules.
Slight (but positive) Rant:
I've intentionally left the four feats which essentially allow adding spellcasting for classes which do not currently have it (for 4 feats) on their own page (the second page). If you, as the DM of your own campaign, feel this is an overreach or devalues spells too much for your own taste, but still like the idea of increasing the value of skills, please feel free to print only the first and third pages and present the info to your players that way. They'll never know you've omitted anything. =)
I've just glanced over everything but I like the basics of the idea. I do, however, question requiring a feat heavy investment. It seems, to me, this is meant as a buff to classes like rogue and monk who get plenty of skill points but not a lot to do with them and in that case, why not just let it straight up be a buff?
I originally had the same thought you did, However, I looked around the table at the RotRL campaign I'm in, and with a bunch of 14th level characters I realized that a feat investment was necessary to prevent giving wizards, cleric, sorcerers, etc. easy access to more abilities & power at mid to high levels by just investing some gold into magic items. I think it would be bad if any fighter of level 12 or higher could just buy a relatively inexpensive (for the time) magic item to gain access to utilizing invisibility 6 + times per day...
As a note, you are correct in your thought - it is meant as a buff for the Monk & Rogue, or even a Fighter who wants to make themselves more versatile. Now, as a nod to the Monk & Rogue (the primary targets here), I have considered placing phrasing into the feats (or the Mystic Powers general rules section) which states that they may be taken in place of a Monk's bonus feat or a Rogue's talent. I think that would be a better solution than taking away the feat investment, which allows easier access to this for the intended classes without taking away the option for anyone else who wishes to pursue this path.
Another option would be to allow monks to access these powers by spending Ki as opposed to having to pick up a separate resource to utilize them... I think that would be best handled by creating one new feat which gives monks access to all Mystic Powers (with the required skill ranks & bonuses) but requires them to spend Ki instead of Mystic Energy. The monk would then have the choice of going for a single feat investment to allow his Ki to be utilized more broadly (but thus consumed more quickly), or the full 3 feat investment to have a separate resource for Mystic powers.
What do you think?
Seems like monstrous physique would fit disguise better than beast shape.
Good call on this one - I will update to Monstrous Physique. Something else that just occurred to me is that I should make an exception that you do not gain climb, swim, or fly speeds with this power. (This problem existed with Beast Shape.) Otherwise, maxing out disguise now gives benefits that minimize the Fly skill, Climb skill, and Swim skill bonuses by providing them all in a single skill. Do you agree with this point?
I should probably spend a bit more time going through the spells that are activated by each skill. I haven't given that enough consideration right now, so any feedback in this area is welcome as well.
I don't think I'd let the monk take them as bonus feats, but I do think they'd be excellent as rogue talents.
Yes, I definitely like the idea of allowing Mystic Power feats to be selected with a rogue talent as they feel very appropriate for the rogue class, so I'll add that.
As for the Monk, I was just brainstorming ways to make Mystic Powers more easily accessible for the Monk, but I edited my post with a better idea that you probably missed, so here it is:
How about a single feat that allows the monk to access these powers through his Ki? It would give a Monk the option of having access to all the Mystic Powers (that his skill training allowed him access to) in a single feat, but the drawback would be that he'd have to split his uses per day between Mystic Powers and his normal Ki powers. Alternatively, he could just spend the three feats to access get full access as could any other class.
On a side note, the Skill Focus prerequisite is only about half of a feat tax, since it's pretty difficult to achieve a +15 bonus by 3rd level or even a +20 bonus at 6th level without taking Skill Focus. I think this makes the regular path to achieving Mystic Powers attractive, even for a monk.
There are two Monk Archetypes (Hungry Ghost and Drunken Master?) that can gain Ki during the course of the day. I'd have to make sure these didn't become too powerful with nearly unlimited access to a few powers.
Like the fighter won't do that anyways? Fighter has plenty of feats to throw away on things like skill focus to unlock something like this.
I think a fighter would gain a lot from this path, but remember that 2 + Int skills per level means a fighter is going to be hard pressed to have access to any more than 3 or 4 skills of sufficient level unless he really pumps up his intelligence or goes Lore Warden. All in all, I think the three feats plus the necessary investment in skills is enough to make it seem like an investment, even for a fighter with all his feats. And that's the goal - if you invest in this, you should definitely get some benefit.
The fly skill isn't exactly minimized by having a fly speed, though I do get what you are saying. I can see that limitation.
Yeah, what I could do is change the duration of Monstrous Physique to 10 minutes/level instead of just 1 minute/level and take away some parts of the spell (fly, climb, swim for sure) to make it more utility and trickery than a combat ability, which is what the disguise skill should be.
And I'd have to put in some time on the spells as well. I could definitely see vanish and maybe even silence going on stealth though.
For now, I have invisibility and greater invisibility selected for Stealth. Vanish versus invisibility is just a matter of when you want the investing character to achieve the power and how effective you want it to be. I think invisibility being achieved later (6th level) as opposed to Vanish at 3rd level (which would be my standard for a 1st level spell, but could be modified) is desirable. For greater invisibility, it's a nod to the rogue's need for it, and giving it to a rogue at 12th level when it only lasts for 6 rounds doesn't seem like it's really stepping on the Ninja's toes to me.
Thoughts?
Put some thought and time into the abilities provided through Mystic Powers and modified a few of them to focus them better on the skill given. Also updated a lot of things based on discussions and feedback from ShadowcatX.
The perma-link to the updated file is found in the original post and here.
I'm not a fan of something like this as a feat investment.
I think you are better off limiting it to classes by doing it as an archetype. So building one for each martial class you want to allow (Rogue, Fighter, Barbarian, etc) and not having the feats.
That's an interesting idea - I'd have to think this through. Rogue, Fighter, Monk would be my primary targets for this, so I'd have to decide what abilities they would give up for such an archetype. I do like that this would make balancing the abilities easier to achieve since they would be more limited in scope. Another thing that would be nice about writing this idea up as archetypes is that you could give it more specific flavor.
What about making these abilities available as feats is it that you don't like? Do you think it makes them too widely available?
Perhaps I'll write it up with the abilities granted as archetypes as another option, then I can decide which way seems to work better.