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Hello there, everyone!
After Endzeitgeist's awesome review of the truenamer, I've decided to go ahead and get the ball rolling on a compilation hardcover with all of the alternate magic system classes I've cooked up since December: the ethermancer, the maestro, and the truenamer. I'm looking to have an average of 10,000-12,000 words of new content for each of these base classes. In addition to new manifestations and feats, here's what the ethermancer is getting!
Heralds of the Universe
The heralds of the universe are effectively multiuniversal philosophies taken to their extremes. These 5-level prestige classes are mutually exclusive: an individual who is serving the eldritch abominations that want to destroy existence cannot be a bleeding-heart protector of creation.
Herald of Creation
Playstyle: Gish
The ether would be a formless expanse of nothingness were it not also protecting the universes it holds. Specializing in alteration and genesis etherspells, the herald of creation follows much the same philosophy, taking to the frontlines to protect his friends and allies in order to give his own existence meaning. Alteration manifestations blanket an area around the herald of creation, making him a beacon in the night when things are at their most dire.
Herald of Harmony
Playstyle: Physics-breaking Monk
Monks seek to achieve harmony both within and with the world around them. Those with such a goal find the going to be slightly different when the multiverse becomes a part of the equation. Specializing in alteration and blast etherspells, the herald of harmony's only recourse is to make himself a child of the multiverse, a being that is in complete harmony with its natural state. This allows the herald of harmony to reduce his maximum EP to produce ki, and spend ki to more rapidly generate EP. Comfortable with the shifting of the world around him whenever the ether is invoked, heralds of harmony remain perfectly centered and can take advantage of alteration etherspells, effectively getting the opportunity to make attacks of opportunity whenever they cast! Combined with their ability to channel ether through their fists, a herald of harmony is a perfect tool of the ether itself, a being that does not ask why, but rather how.
Herald of Madness
Playstyle: Status Effects and General Insanity
The ether is a cage, not to keep the universes in, but to keep something else out. Lurking just beyond the ether itself is a realm of absolute chaos inhabited by mostly-formless beings of unfathomable power. The attacks of these beings against the tiny realm of stability created by the ether are responsible for all of the tiny pinpricks that create all of the multiverse's ethermancers. Through these pinpricks, these mad lords whisper, and, rarely, an ethermancer returns the call. Specializing in bestow etherspells, the herald of madness mutates much more rapidly than his colleagues, developing sickening tentacles, wings, oversized jaws, sticky pores, and other bits of alien anatomy. Combined with his attunement to and ability to project the ravings of his eldritch masters, a herald of madness is less a servant of these mad lords than an avatar of their will.
Herald of the Void
Playstyle: Spell Damage
The ether is an entity that drains power from the multiverse to fuel its own schemes, whatever they are. Specializing in blast etherspells, the herald of the void leverages his power for his own selfish ends and is adept at sapping energy from the dead and the dying to fuel more and bigger blasts. Much like an archmage, the herald of the void gains access to metashape manifestations, which alter the geometry of a blast on a target-by-target basis, thereby making them much more powerful when mixed with shape manifestations. Selective targeting, secondary detonations, spells that keep trying to hit a target that dodges them, and more are the domain of the herald of the void. After all, he can't gain benefit from others unless they're dead or dying.
Ah, yes, and all of the expansion material will be made available as three PDFs, one for each class, for the people who don't want a physical book. :)
I want a physical book. Shut up and take my money.
Ah, yes, and all of the expansion material will be made available as three PDFs, one for each class, for the people who don't want a physical book. :)
Will this be three new PDF's? For example I already have the Truenamer and the Maestro classes PDF's.
BTW, adding both of these classes to my homebrew setting.
This here will be one PDF. I understand there are people who will not want a compilation PDF, even though it'll be shiny, full of art, and fairly cheap compared to the combined price for the individual PDFs that go in it. As such, there will be a PDF full of all the new maestro stuff, a PDF full of all the new ethermancer stuff, and a PDF full of all the new truenamer stuff for that demographic.
This here will be one PDF. I understand there are people who will not want a compilation PDF, even though it'll be shiny, full of art, and fairly cheap compared to the combined price for the individual PDFs that go in it. As such, there will be a PDF full of all the new maestro stuff, a PDF full of all the new ethermancer stuff, and a PDF full of all the new truenamer stuff for that demographic.
Fair enough. If the new material for at least the Truenamer and the Maestro is comparable in quality to the existing material, it should be a no brainer to pickup for me. Any ETA for this project?
Thanks.
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Well, I want art for the Kickstarter and one of the artists I have eyeballed is booked for another month. As for the expansion content, only the ethermancer is approaching being done currently, so it'll probably be a month to six weeks of me working on it in the background before it pops up ready to go. I, for one, am unwilling to go Kickstarter without all of the writing, save whatever pledges and stretch goals unlock, already being ready to go.
There will be pledge levels for having me produce abilities, archetypes and prestige classes based on a theme of your choosing. If negotiations go well, buying a prestige class will also get you in contact with one of the artists, who will then work with you to make the look of the iconic for that prestige class.
The business model of this Kickstarter is currently slated to be an odd one with a focus on no nonsense. The hardcover print level is expected to be $15-$18, which gets you the PDF and a coupon to get the book printed by Lightning Source, a POD printer, at cost when it is finished. Why am I doing this coupon approach?
1: Inventory does not ship to me before it ships to you, making it so I don't have to increase the price of the product to cover that double shipping cost.
2: I get to hijack the OneBookShelf shipping system, meaning we get the use of their customer support.
3: The printer is in the US and the UK. Europeans, order the print on your side of the pond and say goodbye to overseas shipping charges!
4: I don't have to guess how many stretch goals will be achieved and how many additional archetypes will be ordered. Instead of adding $2.00 or $3.00 to the price of the book to cover my margins in the case of a runaway success, the price to print just goes up $0.15 each time a long prestige class gets added, making the product perfectly priced by definition.
5: Printing costs, which would be about 40% of the money raised, as well as shipping costs, let's say another quarter, are handled outside of Kickstarter, avoiding the 10% fee. This effectively drops the price of the product by 6.5%.
In summary, I expect the books to start off as $8 cheaper because of this business model, with the price increasing by $0.03 per page as stretch goals are added. This is not counting cheaper shipping for Europeans. Total price to the consumer is expected to be $30-32 + shipping rather than $38-40 + shipping, with reasonable error bars.