Creating a 'world hacker' prestige class


Homebrew and House Rules


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So for an upcoming game I'm thinking of making, one of the world's major plot points is that it's actually a sort of magical creation of a sufficiently powerful wizard. Like if The Sims could make a fantasy world full of fully cognizant personalities and souls.

After this secret got out, sufficiently talented scoundrels found ways to turn this to their advantage, which necessitates some kind of new 10-level prestige class, I figure. Basically, they're accessing the magical debug console of the universe and making tiny changes in order to give themselves advantages.

I'm looking for good ideas to refine this idea from base 'OKAY SO--' and move it into advanced 'THIS AND THIS AND THIS' type ideas. Here's what I have so far for the class:

Prerequisites:
Sleight of Hand 6 ranks (You're typing in midair with one hand while fighting, you have to be precise)
Access to Detect Magic (Basic magical vision stuff, seemed right)
Feats: ?? Maybe ??
Special: Must own a specialized interface device worth no less than 1000 GP (this is used as the hacking conduit)

I know I want a d8 hit die. They're not a spellcaster class and don't advance casters, but they don't feel like a typical fighter--going with rogue for this.

I know that the first level power lets you activate the console to get arcane sight for a certain number of rounds/day, and that this lets you try searching for the object id of creatures you're looking at via some sort of check vs their DC. At later levels, the arcane sight eventually becomes permanent, and can be turned on/off at will. (Maybe just add more rounds? Hm.) You also get the first level ability to do a knowledge check automatically as a move action on any creature whose object id you've found, with a result equal to 13+ your hit dice+ your int mod. In effect, you're calling their debug data.

On even levels, I want to do an options-based thing where you can get a variety of techniques. Each of them takes either a move or a standard action based on what they do. Some ideas I have:
-Call up a 5 foot cube of rock to take up a square (move action)
-next spell you cast gets +1 to its DC (move action)
-one object id'd opponent gets a -2 to its next attack/save/check (pick one) (no save) (standard action)
-you get a +2 to your next attack/save/check (pick one) (move action)
-add temporary hp?
-deal damage?
-get sneak attack vs enemy you've object id'd
-delete sections of floor/change parts of floor into difficult terrain
-teleporting things around on the battlefield (id'd Enemies WOULD get a save on this one, that's just too much otherwise)

I really want more options to mess with the actual battlefield, since calling objects into the field or altering it via debug commands seems really interesting. I do think that most of these should only last for a limited number of rounds before vanishing again, since the world eventually realizes that it's having limited glitches in an area.

At 3rd level, you begin subtly tweaking your own information, and your efforts give you a +1 luck bonus on all attack rolls.

At 5th level, further tweaks give a +1 luck bonus on all saves and skill checks.

At 7th level, all your techniques get one step faster. Move becomes swift, standard becomes move, and swift (if any) becomes immediate.

At 9th level, you get a +2 inherent bonus to all physical scores.

At 10th level, you get :an ultimate technique:. Dunno what it is yet, maybe some kind of contingency ability that let's you have an IF>THEN command for a prechosen ability? Or it could be something that lets you extend the duration of your changes, perhaps making them permanent instead of on a limited timer?

This is a lot of ideas, and I'm open to anything cool that would fit with the theme and make something cohesive.

Liberty's Edge

Early morning first thought stuff.

Debug menus and console commands mostly get used to get cash, max stats, and activate God modes.

On the cash front, Noble Scion has a mechanic for getting money at every level. Or maybe just the "You get to pretend you spent X amount of gold on minor inconveniences" ability. Actually, Noble Scion in general is a decent template for weird grab-bags of abilities.

For maxing stats, you've got a start with the inherent bonuses.

As far as God mode, that's just not feasible. Maybe a limited use Rage-style ability that reduces damage and spell-slot use?

Calling up the object ID of monsters is cool. Just modify Bardic Knowledge.

"A CLASSNAME adds their class level to all Knowledge skill checks to identify creatures and may make these skill checks untrained."

Probably should have a suite of movement related abilities. Toggle Collision to Fly, Frame Clipping to Dimension Door, Multiply Speed for Haste, etc. Maybe these can be "Rage Powers" to use in "God Mode Rage".

I'll think on it more as I wake up.


Oddly, I see it more as a psychic class that can see beyond the veil and affect the world around them by bending the code. They can see the source code, and debug it, they might still need an interface device, but the console is more of a mental construct the PC can manipulate.


That would be cool, but in this case the fluff isn't about psychics. The information first became available when a group of heroes effectively killed God, who was holding up the world with his own energy and wanted to turn it off. This made things almost break down, and the nature of the world got discovered when someone wound up leaving it in a rift caused by things breaking down.

They fixed the breakdown in the history, but the person in question still knew. It's only after the knowledge became available that people started dicking with the magical nature of everything to figure out how to do this. The first person to figure it out had the help of what's basically a tutorial robot artifact who had been given some several thousand years to develop its own personality, and they used it as their conduit. In this case, it's somewhere between pure tech and magitech.

Anyways, I'm thinking that the best way to do it would be to make a couple of trees then, for godmode hax, item creation hax, and movement/noclip hax. I prefer a consistent check result over a bardic knowledge style bonus for the move-action scan option, since that way it's a relatively safe bet and gives you a reason for going for this over just being a bard. Maybe level 10's ultimate gives you a couple choices as well, and one of them is an additional inherent bonus to physical stats? That might be too big for what is basically a level 16 prize.

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