d20

1,214 Responses

Bill, on February 18, 2008 at 2:14 pm said:

Just curious,

On p 189 of Eclipse: The Codex Persona there is a blurb saying:

“If you want to run a game without using experience points at all, you’ll want to consult our OGL web supplement. We can’t tell you how to do that in a d20 product”

What exactly was this referring to and what became of it?

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- Bruce Gnrray, on November 7, 2016 at 2:27 pm said:
  
  Well, I don’t know about you, but I think an Elementalist should only be the cardinal elements of history – Air, Earth, Fire, and Water – with one exception. What do you get when you remove Air, Earth, Fire, and Water? I believe this indicates that there is a fifth element – that I call Void. I also wonder about the demi-planes – Mud (Water and Earth), Magma (Fire and Earth), Smoke (Fire and Air), and (here’s the one I’m not sure of) Fog (Air and Water). What do you think of my ideas Eclipse wise?
  
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Thoth, on February 18, 2008 at 8:19 pm said:

Hmm. Checking back, it looks like that file went missing when the original site was hacked. I’ll get a revised version up here shortly. As for what it was, well, the d20 license – as distinct from the open game license – prohibits including rules on how to apply experience to a character to advance their level. Ergo, no experience point chart and no options for doing without one.

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Bill, on February 20, 2008 at 6:06 pm said:

I’d love to see that file if you have it somewhere.

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Tony Boyd, on June 9, 2009 at 8:36 am said:

The Practical Enchanter says that curses can be cast by people who do not have magical abilities, yet then it goes on to categorize curses as spells with levels. If curses are spells and commoners have no spellcasting ability, how’s that work?

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Thoth, on June 9, 2009 at 6:56 pm said:

It’s easy enough: almost uniquely, the spell level modifiers on a curse can reduce it’s level below zero – and there are no requirements for casting such “spells”. For example, if an ordinary person – possibly after being aided by someone who kept them from dying or having a lingering death for dramatic purposes – is cursing a child of theirs (-2) who personally inflicted a mortal wound on them (-2), and is willing to suffer severe backlash (-2), and fuels the curse with (1d4 x 500 XP) (-1), they wind up with a net modifier of -7 spell levels. If they attempt a curse with a base level of 6 or less, they’ll wind up with a net spell level of (-1) – which anyone can manage.

Of course, that’s an extreme example, and a rarity even under such circumstances. Most people don’t have the focused malice, the concentration, or the inclination to lay good curses – although this does provide a reason to avoid pointlessly slaughtering the peasantry. Even minor curses can be annoying.

Still, if the foul Prince Karnacht stabs his father the King with a poisoned blade and leaves him to die (a prelude to blaming a neighboring kingdom for his death and declaring war upon it while simultaneously seizing the throne), he should not be surprised to find that his father, while only an eighth-level noble with no spellcasting ability, has cursed him with his dying breath and words written in his own blood “to be brought down by the children of his deeds”. As a sixth-level curse this Affliction can use a “Suggestion” effect six or seven times per day – which it will use against the King and his commanders to try and allow the occasional vengeful child to escape the upcoming massacres. When a few such children grow up and become adventurer’s (thanks to more subtle Suggestions), King Karnacht may well meet his doom at their hands. After all, the avengers will be mysteriously “lucky” enough to have an suggestible old servant absent-mindedly reveal the location of the secret passage to his chambers…

Now that’s a pretty classical plot, but now you actually have some reason for it; King Karnacht often failed to follow the rules of the Evil Overlord List because he was being magically manipulated. His officers mysteriously took pity on the occasional child, or committed obvious blunders, for the same reason. Why did the kids come together? Why did they become adventurers? Why did they stay determined to seek revenge? Why were they the only ones to stumble on the secret passage? Because the curse is fulfilling it’s wording. There may be more efficient ways to get things done, but this is a curse, not an engineer on assignment.

In classical terms, the existence of such curses equates to the purported ability of dying people to curse their murderers with terrible fates and with the supposed ability of parents to lay curses and blessings on their offspring – a notion goes back as far as we have records, and can be found in sources ranging from Sumeria to pre-dynastic China and the old testament.

In d20 terms, spells with negative spell levels are only possible if they’re either bits of folk magic with no actual game effect – such as kitchen charms to keep cakes from falling, cellar charms to help keep the bugs out of the stored vegetables, cleansing charms, and a thousand other tiny items – or if all the real work is carried out by someone else. Thus you have the occasional efficacy of perfectly ordinary people offering prayers to gods or cursing their tormentors. There are things out there that listen – sometimes even to people who don’t have the magic to reach them directly and reliably.

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Tony Boyd, on June 10, 2009 at 6:43 am said:

Hey, thanks for the great reply. Before I read your response, I had thought about a system like what you described. I had a problem with it because I would think a spell level cap would apply even for a -1 spell. In other words, you need an ability score of 10 + the spell level to cast that level spell. So for a -1 curse, you’d need an ability score of 9 to cast it. But what ability is used, for commoners who have no main spellcasting stat? Also, how do you calculate the DC?

Also, with your system curses are very easy to pull off, and even players would get into the action, casting them “for free” all over the place.

So… I posted to En World a different homebrew method of applying your book. That is here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-house-rules/257391-curses-those-who-cant-cast-spells.html

It’s far more harsh — it sets level -5 spells as the only ones that are free, and it eats up levels instead of just a bit of XP (my problem with the XP cost as it normally stands is that it is a HUGE cost for a commoner with no XP, but is downright insignificant to a level 20 fighter, making them super-cursers). By eating levels instead, it seems to reign in the overpoweredness.

Anyway, although your system is probably much simpler and much more enjoyable to you, I hope you can appreciate at least some aspects of my proposed implementation. I’m wishing for a way to combine the ease of your system with the “only gets used in rare situations” structure of mine.

Feel free to add my alternative system to your document, if you wish. Just keep my name in there somewhere if you do. :)

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Thoth, on June 10, 2009 at 1:10 pm said:

Easy enough again:

Normally spell level caps don’t apply to effects with negative levels. As noted, those include things like folk magic and “praying”, which seem like they ought to be available to anyone. That would also mean that the save DC would normally simply be (10+Effective Spell Level) – which, since the spell level is normally (-1) or less, means a DC of 9 or less. This will work sometimes – but most high-level opponents are likely to have at least a +7 will save after bonuses (and may have some method of making occasional rerolls too) – hence such targets will only fail to save on a 1 and 95% or more of all unskilled curses directed at powerful opponents will be wasted. That’s a definite pain if you’re using the “fueled with XP” modifier.

If you want to use a spellcasting attribute you can either use constitution (as used with monster abilities), use Charisma (following the tradition of innate-magic Sorcerers), or just let whoever’s laying the curse pick one if you’re feeling really really generous.

Unskilled curses by player-characters are unlikely to include any “Target is” modifiers (major villains usually aren’t a player character’s children, close relatives, or beyond their ability to harm otherwise), and usually haven’t personally killed the character laying the curse, that means that the maximum modifier they can stack up is (-6) – including automatic backlash, an escape clause, and a lengthy delay in taking effect. That’s enough for a curse with a base level of 5, but not enough to put it outside the range of curses that can be removed with “Greater Remove Curse” (exactly like Greater Dispel Magic). They can throw in the “extremely difficult to remove” modifier, but that will both weaken the curse and make it even harder for them to get rid of the backlash.

Players are quite welcome to have their characters start throwing around curses; after all, with each curse they throw, they’re intentionally demanding the attention of malevolent spirits that like to cause trouble for people. Ergo, the note about “Backlash” occasionally occurring even if you don’t use the modifiers that force it to. Player characters who throw a lot of curses are likely to cause a great deal of trouble for themselves. That’s why cursing is traditionally a last resort. Player characters may throw curses to give their friends an advantage against the foe that just struck them down – but this is poor strategy, since they’re likely to inflict long-term problems on themselves in exchange for a very short-term advantage. Most of the time the player characters either win or fall back anyway; total party kills are relatively uncommon.

As a secondary problem, characters who attempt to select specific results and the mechanics thereof , rather than wording a dramatic curse and letting the game master pick the exact mechanics to fit within the level of the curse they’re using, are subject to the +2 level penalty for “worded in terms of game mechanics”. Players who try to min-max the mechanics for maximum efficiency are thus automatically penalized.

Now, the base range of a curse is touch, +1 level for +1 range category (Close +1, Medium +2, Long +3, Unlimited +4). That makes it awkward to strike back at people you can’t see. I was assuming that Prince Karnacht either touched his father while pulling his dagger out of his back or later passed through the hall or room where his father’s curse was waiting for him, but that seemed reasonable enough.

The final requirement for an unskilled curse is that it be backed by a powerful emotion – preferably by “festering bitterness” and a sense of powerlessness. Player characters are rarely powerless – and are usually involved in making practical plans for dealing with or escaping their opponents rather than in brooding over their grievances. Trying to curse their enemies as a tactical maneuver simply isn’t likely to work.

The same goes for most NPC’s. Most dying people focus on prayers and professions of faith, providing for friends and relatives, issuing final instructions, the pain and other symptoms, trying to cling to life, disbelief or denial, and sheer shock, rather than on spewing vindictive curses. Most people throughout history have believed in the power of dying curses – but they’re still unusual.

Many real deaths are much more lingering than is usual on d20, which is why I allow mortally-wounded or just-deceased characters to issue some final words or take some small action if they want to have a dramatic death scene (if they were merely mortally wounded, the strain of doing this automatically kills them). Presumably their soul animates their body for a few final moments before taking it’s leave. That actually comes up more with NPC’s than PC’s; it means that a technically dead – and thus beyond the reach of healing magic – individual can speak a few final words, or entrust some item or errand to the characters, without the pesky party healer simply fixing him or her up. I’m sure you’ve seen that routine when the Game Master tries to be dramatic:

“The dying man is gasping through the blood that’s dripping from his mouth. He feebly pulls you down so that you can make out his dying request to save his daughter from the bandits before he falls back – dead.”

Except for the fact that the pesky healer will inevitably announce “Cure (Whatever) Wounds” around the third or fourth word. Ergo, the “Death Scene” rule.

I’ll take a good look at your alternative system this evening or tomorrow, and probably mirror it here as an alternative. More options are always good.

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long term curses? - EN World D&D / RPG News, on June 10, 2009 at 8:03 pm said:

[…] Having written that house-ruled system, I also asked the author about it, and he posted that anything below a cantrip/orison was clearly a freebie. So his rule is actually almost exactly like mine, except that he made level -1 spells free. My […]

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Alzrius, on September 23, 2009 at 9:18 pm said:

Over a year ago, I wrote my own version of a section of The Practical Enchanter regarding the number of unique spells in a game world, stretching it out a bit to also include a population breakdown. Looking back, I think that I completely forgot to mention it to you, even though you wrote the original essay.

Here’s the link: http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/alzrius/732-spells-spellcasters-campaign-world.html

I’ll say it again: The Practical Enchanter is a SPECTACULAR book! ^_^

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- Thoth, on September 24, 2009 at 1:49 am said:
  
  Well, it’s always nice to see people putting the material to use – and I’m glad you’re evidently still enjoying the book!
  
  I hope that you’ll find some of the other material on this site useful as well – although I must admit that there have been a lot more questions about Eclipse (mostly “how do I build this?”) than about The Practical Enchanter.
  
  That’s a nicely-developed essay over there; I fear that restricting things to one page wasn’t really enough to do the topic justice.
  
  I have considered going back and fixing the left-out modifier in the campaign resources section – but it wouldn’t change the basic result and, so far as I know, you’re the only one who’s ever noticed. Still, I really must get to it one of these days. So many projects, so little time.
  
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alzrius, on May 21, 2010 at 10:37 pm said:

A quick question on something I noticed in The Practical Enchanter. The nullfield spell notes that, when used for creating a golem’s magic immunity, spellcasters can design spells that beat said magic immunity for the cost of the spell being +3 levels. Would that also be the formula to create a spell that can affect a creature through a nullfield or standard antimagic field?

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- Thoth, on May 22, 2010 at 1:08 am said:
  
  Not precisely; Golems – being animated by magical energies – have to leave the way open for some types of magic to operate on themselves. Thus the rules under Nullfield; a spell can be designed to work on specific types of golems for +1 level – targeting the specific weaknesses of that type. A spell designed with the +3 level modifier will automatically adjust itself to attack the weaknesses of the type of golem it’s targeting, essentially acting as a “smart” attack.
  
  Straight up Nullfields and Antimagic spheres allow only one magical effect – the caster dismissing them. Of course, it might be possible to design a spell that sought out that particular trigger and dismissed the spell. (Hm; “Dismiss Spell”. Much more subtle than “Dispel Magic”, and often less useful since it would target an individual spell. Probably level four or five, which is why it’s rarely researched and used).
  
  There are some notes on Antimagic under the Greater Antimagic Field spell (Eclipse, page 130); Antimagic can be broken by sheer overload – by an external spell that exceeds twice the level of antimagical spell used or by an internal spell of at least three times the level of the antimagical effect used (usually something that only gods and powerful epic characters can pull off).
  
  For a realistic comparison, I’d say a golem is like a well-insulated machine; find the uninsulated points to hit with an electrical discharge and you’ll fry the insides. Hit the insulation, and nothing much happens. An antimagic field, however, is just a big wad of insulating material; if you want to get rid of it with electricity, you’ll have to overload it’s resistance and destroy it.
  
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  - Alzrius, on October 24, 2010 at 8:16 pm said:
    
    Looking back over this, what would the “dismiss spell” spell look like? Since it has to be specifically tailored towards a particular spell, how about seeing it as “dismiss antimagic field” since that’s probably one of the most useful variations. Or would it be better as a spell template? Presumably, it only works on spells that are dismissible at all (that is, they have the (D) notation in their duration listing).
    
    For that matter, could you cast this spell within an antimagic field? Or would it fall victim to the “must be three times the antimagic field’s spell level” clause?
    
    Also, regarding that rule about overloading an antimagic field/nullfield, does that take metamagic into account? I ask only because conventional wisdom is that metamagic doesn’t increase the spell’s actual level (Heighten Spell notwithstanding), hence why an empowered maximized magic missile wouldn’t get past a globe of invulnerability. So a spell that’s supercharged on metamagic would still fail no matter how heavily it was strengthened, right?
    
    Finally, using your analogy that a golem is like a well-insulated machine, at what point can you simply overcome its “insulation” with brute force the same way you could a nullfield or antimagic field? Surely, if a power word kill can punch through a nullfield (since it’s ninth level, and thus one level about twice the spell’s level), a spell of similar or greater power could hit through a golem’s magic immunity. Would that permanently collapse its immunity the way it would the spell, or would only spells that powerful get through, with the immunity still remaining intact?
  - Thoth, on October 26, 2010 at 9:42 pm said:
    
    Ah, this too got too long for comments – so I’ve compiled this set of questions together and answered them all at length over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/eclipse-d20-nullfields-antimagic-dismissal-and-arcane-overloads/
alzrius, on May 23, 2010 at 4:18 pm said:

I’m not sure where else to post this particular Eclipse d20 request, so I’m posting it here; let me know if there’s a better way to make such requests in the future.

I recently watched the latest episode of the anime, Bleach. In this, the protagonist had been utterly defeated by his enemy – wounded near death – and the leading lady was screaming for him to save her. At the last possible instant, out of pure desperation he suddenly transforms into a new, more powerful form, and is able to effortlessly thrash the foe that he previously hadn’t been able to scratch.

This is a somewhat common trope in certain genres of anime/manga – that when all is lost, the hero will suddenly find a new, stronger power within himself, usually transforming into a mightier form to be able to defeat the enemy. This transformation usually comes with a cost, such as having a short duration, making the user go berserk, exhausting or causing damage to the user while transformed, etc., though in some cases they’ll later overcome these drawbacks.

Presumably, this would be purchased as a template in Eclipse d20. Given the variable nature of the powers such a template would convey, however – and more problematically, the level of power they’re supposed to grant the character, since these tend to be overwhelmingly strong instead of just a small power-up – how would you design this? (On a related tangent, I do realize that this would be one of those places where character knowledge is separate from player knowledge, in that the player would pay the CP cost for the template, but the PC won’t know it’s there until it suddenly is used for the first time.)

On a final note, is it possible to make such a template stackable with itself? Anime heroes often undergo multiple transformations to boost themselves in accordance with new and stronger foes (in the example I cited at the beginning of this post, for example, this is the character’s third transformation).

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- Thoth, on May 25, 2010 at 12:02 am said:
  
  Oh, I simply check the recent comments listing for requests; putting them here will work, as will attaching them to any relevant article or to one of the recent index posts.
  
  As far as the actual question goes, I’ve put up a couple of methods of setting up temporary power-ups over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/eclipse-d20-the-shonen-jump/
  Let me know if those will do, or if you need something more specific.
  
  Oh, as a note, Matthew here – https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/atheria-d20/matthew-paladin-archer/ – was, I believe, very loosely based on one of the Bleach characters.
  
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alzrius, on May 24, 2010 at 11:08 pm said:

Another Practical Enchanter question this time.

On page 104, for the Summoning spell, it says “Summoning calls forth one creature of a CR appropriate to the spell, 1d4+1 creatures appropriate to a spell one level lower, or 4d4 creatures of a CR appropriate to a spell two levels lower than the one used.”

My question is, can you take this particular aspect of the spell any further – e.g. can you summon even more creatures of a CR appropriate to a spell three or more levels lower than the one used?

Suppose an evil conjurer wants to assault a town, for example. Knowing most townspeople are weaklings with only a single NPC level, he casts an 8th-level summon to bring forth X number of monsters of a CR appropriate to a 3rd-level summoning spell (five levels lower). How many creatures would he have summoned then?

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- Thoth, on May 25, 2010 at 1:27 am said:
  
  Sadly, it doesn’t keep multiplying; you wind up with an additional 2d4 creatures per additional level drop. The evil conjurer would wind up with a total of 10d4 creatures suitable for a third-level summoning spell.
  
  That didn’t go in the book simply because it – like letting people use the spell templates to build spells of above ninth level – is a headache to administer, and “ease of use” is a consideration too.
  
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alzrius, on May 25, 2010 at 2:18 pm said:

Another question (man I’ve had a lot of questions lately):

In Paths of Power II, the Deathlink spell (pg. 51) is a 9th-level spell that allows you to try and kill a specific person at range by killing someone else (possibly a friend or family member for heightened damage) as a proxy, sending the damage to them that way.

In contrast, the Extinction spell from Eclipse (pg. 150) is a 23rd-level spell that allows you to wipe out a particular (sub-)species.

My question, then, is to ask about a spell that has some sort of middle-ground between these two. That is, what sort of spell would it be to cast a spell that wipes out every member of a particular bloodline (which may cross species boundaries)?

Also, how do you defend against spells such as these? I know Extinction can be blocked relatively easily, but Deathlink has no such protection, which seems to make it easy for an enemy to eventually kill you from afar with it (though they’d have to keep casting it over and over, given its low damage).

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- Thoth, on May 27, 2010 at 7:51 pm said:
  
  Well, questions are always welcome (at least if they make any kind of sense at all).
  
  The answer to this set once again got long enough to wind up as an article however, so I’ve put it up over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/deathlink-extinction-and-the-great-withering/
  
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alzrius, on July 10, 2010 at 3:35 pm said:

How would you translate the existing epic-level spells from the Epic Level Handbook to Eclipse’s high-level magic system (the ones that aren’t already represented by the existing high-level spells, that is)?

For the most part, it seems like a matter of determining what spells would be what level, but some of them (such as Origin of Species) could probably use a more in-depth conversion.

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- Thoth, on July 11, 2010 at 4:02 pm said:
  
  I think that will have to be an article – and I’m not sure whether or not all of them are in the SRD offhand. I’ll link it here once I get it ready.
  
  Hopefully after finding time to check the Companions articles. So many projects, so little time.
  
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- Thoth, on September 14, 2011 at 10:13 am said:
  
  Ah, looking back through here I forgot to put the links up to the article-series:
  
  Epic Spells and Stunts
  
  For our next few epic spell conversions we have…
  
  Epic Spell Conversions, Part III
  
  Epic Spell Conversions, Part IV – Eidolon, Enslave, Hellball, Hellstorm, Kinetic Control, (Energy) Hammer, and Momento Mori
  
  Epic Spell Conversions, Part V. Origin of Species Achaierai, Nailed to the Sky, Pestilence, Mist of Contagion, Safe Time, Raise Island, and Master of the Earth
  
  Epic Spell Conversions, Part VI. Summon Behemoth, Lord of Nightmares, Acid Drizzle, Rain of Fire or Elemental Rain, Epic Spell Reflection, and Eternal Freedom.
  
  Epic Spell Conversions, Part VII. Create Living Vault, Crown Of Vermin, Superb Dispelling, Time Duplicate, Blurred Instant, Thief Of Time, Verdigris, and Verdigris Tsunami.
  
  Epic Spell Conversions, Part VIII. Epic Repulsion, Glorious Sanctum, Mass Frog, Sphere of Transformation, Mummy Dust, Peripety and Soul Dominion.
  
  Hopefully that will help out anyone who reads all these comments!
  
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Khnum, on September 22, 2010 at 8:48 pm said:

Couple quick questions for you.

1) Since 4th ed came out, Pathfinder took over d20. In the process they have revamped a few things, consolidating skills a bit, cross class skills arent really that much worse, a bit more powers in each class, a capstone power at 20th. Has there been any look at updated to take into effect the new d20 system with the point buy?

2) I’m currently running a pathfinder game, low level, and I have a character that’s looking for a bit more oomph. He’s an alchemist, so is looking to use poisons, particularly with a blow gun. Any thoughts or designs for a set of d20 poisons that just add extra damage to the attack on the quick, without having to worry about onset times, and damage through ability damage? We’re trying to keep it fairly fast moving, so the expensive toxins that do ability damage but can take a while aren’t too appealing, but I don’t want something that’s going to be so usefull that everyone is tempted to use it.

Thanks

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- Thoth, on September 14, 2011 at 10:23 am said:
  
  As far as Pathfinder goes, it’s finally caught up; Eclipse characters fit into pathfinder perfectly well – and here’s how to duplicate some of the classes they’ve released under the OGL – capstones and all.
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Barbarian
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Bard
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Cleric
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Monk
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Fighter
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Druid
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Paladin
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – the Ranger
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – the Rogue
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – the (Expanded) Alchemist
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – The Sorcerer
  
  As far as low-level damaging poisons go, I’d suggest “Elemental Essences” – as per “Eldritch Weapon” potions from The Practical Enchanter, but sub-dividable (fifty individual doses rather than a duration), with that advantage counterbalanced by the possibility of injuring yourself using them. That should make a reasonable cost per dose while remaining (as per your email specifications) neatly balanced with the costs of other weapons and abilities.
  
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Alzrius, on October 2, 2010 at 2:10 pm said:

Another fanboy request:

Recently, a friend introduced me to a manga/anime entitled “Sekirei.” It’s a complete piece of fluff, dedicated mostly to showing half-naked girls, but I thought it’d be fun to ask for Eclipse statistics for the eponymous sekirei race (which translates to “wagtail,” a type of bird).

I’ll assume you’re not familiar with the series, so I’ll outline their powers and abilities below. Note that Sekirei are basically human in form and function, differing only by the following:

* All sekirei have some sort of singular power or special ability which is unique to them. One, for example, is pyrokinetic. Another can telepathically interface with internet-based systems. A third is basically a super-sword fighter, etc.

* There are 108 sekirei in total, and each has a specific number from this sequence. This is notable only in that the nine single-digit sekirei are far more powerful than their double-digit counterparts.

* All sekirei operate under a compulsion to find a master (which they call an “ashikabi” – this seems to translate to “bud in the reeds,” but I think that what it’s meant to convey is “nest”), regardless of whether they want one or not. In some cases, this is a specific individual that they’re drawn to (having precognitive dreams or visions about that person prior to meeting them), while in other cases it’s the first person they meet who acts kindly towards them.

* It’s implied that only certain humans have the potential to be an ashikabi (and that among those who are, some are more capable than others); however, this particular X-factor is never expounded upon. (In the case of a sekirei having precognitive dreams about a particular ashikabi, often that ashikabi will have matching dreams/visions about that sekirei)

* A sekirei who finds an ashikabi may bind herself to his service. This is done by exchanging a kiss, but is referred to as “receiving wings” since the sekirei will momentarily manifest large, transluscent wings from her back as the kiss happens (subsequently, these wings will momentarily reappear whenever she and her ashikabi kiss). This bonding is permanent – she can only ever have a single ashikabi – and severing it results in the sekirei’s death (see below). Note that an ashikabi can kiss an unwilling sekirei to forcibly bind her to him.

* A winged sekirei gains more control over her powers. This doesn’t actually grant her additional power, but rather greater refinement over the powers she already has.

* A winged sekirei may also use a norito (literally “prayer”); that is, a super-charged version of her power – a sekirei with great strength, for example, can use a norito to deliver a punch so strong that it collapses a large building in a single blow. In order to use her norito, a sekirei must kiss her ashikabi and then recite a short incantation. The norito lasts for a single attack, but there’s no apparent limit to how often it can be invoked via another kiss and recitation.

* A sekirei who has gained wings permanently displays a pinkish crest on the skin between her shoulder blades, a tattoo really, depicting the silhouette of a bird in flight under which are the yin-yang symbol and the image of four magatama. This crest is a point of vulnerability (see below).

* A winged sekirei immediately dies if her connection to her ashikabi is ever broken (her crest disappears when she dies, apparently denoting the loss of her wings). While they can otherwise be killed normally, if a winged sekirei recites her norito incantation while touching the crest of another winged sekirei, that sekirei’s crest will vanish and her connection to her ashikabi will be broken, resulting in her demise. This does not work between sekirei of the same ashikabi.

* An ashikabi may have multiple sekirei. However, if an ashikabi dies, all of the sekirei bound to him or her immediately die as well.

* A winged sekirei keeps her own personality and mindset, but becomes submissive towards her ashikabi (most tend to adopt a loving/worshipful attitude towards their ashikabi), and will obey orders from him. This doesn’t change their feelings towards other sekirei their ashikabi may have (though they tend to develop at least a working relationship as a matter of course).

* A winged sekirei and her ashikabi seem to be empathically connected. The ashikabi can sense when their sekirei is killed, for example.

* It’s stated that training will have very little effect on a (winged) sekirei’s abilities; their power is stated to grow in direct proportion to their bond (this apparently means their emotional connection) to their ashikabi.

* Almost all sekirei have the ability to leap prodigious distances; they tend to “roof-hop” when traveling quickly.

* All sekirei are notably pulchritudinous.

* Though it’s more of a recurring bit of fan service than a quality of theirs (perhaps a world law?) sekirei who get into a fight tend to lose the majority of their clothes in the battle.

While there is more to the series (such as a series of eight items that, when gathered, can kill all sekirei everywhere), but that pretty well covers their racial traits and qualities. What would sekirei look like in Eclipse?

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- Thoth, on October 9, 2010 at 3:59 pm said:
  
  Well, not too surprisingly that turned out to be long enough to be an article – so here it is: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/eclipse-and-anime-the-sekirei/
  
  And thank you for including plenty of detail by the way! It was quite enough to come up with a conversion that’s hopefully fairly close to what’s seen in the series.
  
  Reply
burning8bones, on October 6, 2010 at 3:21 am said:

The Magical Languages of the Twilight Isles: The unusual effects of languages. Eclipse d20 mechanics, but not much of them.
this is a mislabeled link. it goes to high level spells index.
it is under:
Random d20 information:

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- Thoth, on October 6, 2010 at 11:03 am said:
  
  And so it was; I wonder how that happened? Regardless, that sort of thing is easy to fix. Do let me know if you find any other bad links please.
  
  Reply
JasperM, on October 21, 2010 at 8:58 pm said:

Sir,

On behalf of the gaming community, and generations yet to come, let me extend proFound congratulations to you for your (and there’s really no other word for it) HeROic efforts to fix D20. Seriously, kudos.

Coming up with an off the cuff point-buy translation is one thing. But methodically deconstructing an existing system to find the hidden equivalences between myriad disparate elements, and then back testing it against all available core classes, to demonstrate a variance of <1% (!!) over 20 levels . . . well, I'm speechless.
(An uncharitable man might be moved to wonde if one of the reasons D&D 4th ed was rushed out was that they got the word that you were in the process of 'hacking their source code' so to speak)

I do have 2 questions, if you have the time:

1) Familiarities – the 1 pt/3 skills is clear enough . . . but did you intend for that to take "cross-class" doubling? That is, if a Monk takes "Handle Aminal" (a cross-class skill for him) as part of a familiarity buy, does it cost 2/3 (or, put another way, take up two familiarity 'slots'), while, say, "Swim" would not?

2) Martial Arts – If I am reading the text right (always an issue), on page 53, the "Combat Enhancement" version of Martial Arts does not mention being able to switch to subdual damage without penalty (as Monks are explicitly allowed to do). "By the book", do I need a rank in the skill version of Martial Arts (page 80) (to buy Strike which allows such) to do that?
Since one usually needs the first 'level' of the combat Enhancement version to be able to buy any of the Skill version, that implies that easy switching is not part of that base Enhancement, otherwise everyone who would be in position to chose the "Strike" option from the Skill version would already have it, from the prerequisite. Right? Wrong? Let me know.

Sincerely Yours,

Jasper Merendino

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- Thoth, on October 22, 2010 at 3:29 am said:
  
  Well, I’m glad you find Eclipse interesting, and thank you for the compliment! It’s always pleasant for any author to hear that someone appreciates their work.
  
  Questions and requests are pretty much always welcome; many wind up turning into articles or sample builds. To answer your immediate questions:
  
  1) Familiarities are normally simply purchased at three per character point, regardless of whether a skill is in- or out-of-class. Since Familiarities represent a mere passing acquaintance with a skill (as well as being tied to an optional non-proficiency penalty which doesn’t exist in the basic skill rules) it doesn’t much matter if a character would normally consider those skills relevant.
  
  2) Combat-enhancement Martial Arts can be used to inflict either lethal or subdual damage without penalty. Sadly, editing the book down to a reasonable number of pages left a fair number of things implied (in this case by simply not specifying what kind of damage the ability did) rather than clearly specified.
  
  The skill based martial arts provide the option to inflict lethal or nonlethal damage under “Strike” for a couple of reasons – most notably, to make it available to weapons forms. If you’re importing the Martial Arts skill(s) into a standard d20 game, then there are three possible entry paths – Improved Unarmed Strike, Weapon Focus, and Weapon Finesse – so Strike lets you inflict nonlethal damage with weapons without penalty.
  
  In pure Eclipse point-buy games, the entry requirements for a particular style are up to the game master. Thus, while the compiled martial arts list includes quite a few styles with requirements like “Weapon Focus: Sword” or “Improved Unarmed Strike or Equivalent Point Buy”, it also presents styles with requirements such as “Natural weapons/claws and fangs and limited shapeshifting ability or better” (Cangmarg) or “Inherent ability to Produce Flames” (Fire Juggler), as well as a few weaker arts with no special requirements at all.
  
  There are a selection of martial arts styles posted here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/eclipse-compiled-martial-arts-forms/
  
  As well as an article on specialized martial arts styles here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/specialized-martial-arts-techniques/
  
  I hope that answers your questions; if there’s anything else you’d like to know, please go right ahead and ask.
  
  Paul Melroy
  
  Reply
  - JasperM, on October 23, 2010 at 3:49 am said:
    
    Oh, it does, thank you.
    I am “in” game design myself just now, working on a project with David Pulver, so I have some idea how hard it can be to implement a ‘fix’ that seems easy at first; ain’t always so.
    
    New question: At the risk of broaching heresy, I note that others in your circle play Hero system, and I believe I note some [constructive] cross-pollination of philosophy. So tell me, if you had to hazard a guess, what would be a reasonable translation Eclispse CP to Hero CP?
    Eclipse CP SEEM to be about twice as effective for raising skills. But the high cost of Self Development would seem to make them Muuuch weaker for ability/characteristic buys.
    And I am thinking Hero 5e; 6e, while MUCH better edited, I am still a bit leery of. Probably have to switch over, when my book disintegrates.
    
    And, apropos of nothing, I will add here that I TOtally agree with your review of D&D4e. Sure, some of the class abilities are cool (I’ve translated quite a few of them for my Hero campaignm, and use by my characters in another, and am translating more), but Where’s the Professions? Crafts? non-adventuring Knowledges?
    Example; My next 3.5 character is going to be a wanna-be merchant prince(ss). Lot s of knowledges and professions. Can’t do that in 4e.
    
    Jasper
  - Thoth, on October 26, 2010 at 12:17 am said:
    
    Oh, there’s some relationship to Hero System; it is, after all, the grandfather of pretty much all point-buy character design systems. For that matter, there are resemblences to GURPS, CORPS, and several other games.
    
    Now, the comparison of points was a bit long for a reply, so it’s been turned into an article over here:
    
    Eclipse and the Hero System
    
    Now, if you’re looking for point-buy systems, there are several more of those available here; you can find the Shadowrun and World of Darkness point buy systems in the download box in the righthand column. There are several others scattered around the site as well.
    
    As for Fourth Edition – I’d have to say that my opinion is still pretty much the same. I’ve had several requests for another revisit to the improvised “Magic Praerie Dogs versus the Oblivious Land Developers with Bulldozers” system, but not a single request yet for a Fourth Edition game after the initial experiments.
Alzrius, on December 6, 2010 at 9:53 pm said:

Purely for fun, I wanted to ask how you’d build an Eclipse class based around dancing. While any sort of “performance art” would generally fall under the purview of the bard, that class seems to lend itself more to vocal and instrumental abilities rather than visual/somatic ones.

Some basic ideas would involve a dancing martial art(s), possibly dancing-based spellcasting (e.g. the spells are cast with only somatic components – dancing – and no verbal or material ones; though there’d doubtlessly be some sort of price for this).

Beyond that, what other dancing-related special abilities could a class have? There’s a lot of ideas out there, from dancing that causes tremors and earthquakes with each step, to dancing that has a semi-hypnotic rhythm causing enemies to move with the beat and position themselves disadvantageously, to lots of other crazy ideas (my personal favorite being that an entire team – e.g. an adventuring party – can dance in sync during a battle to overcome an enemy/enemies, basically performing a combat musical number).

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- editorial0, on January 27, 2011 at 1:34 pm said:
  
  Don’t know if we got back to you. First, if you like the Bardic-type abilities, all the standard set and much more can be used by dancers, painters, sculptors, and so forth. In fact, we’ve had several games in which people used them as architecture for some really great benefits.
  
  However, apart from that you answered your own question: anything you can plausible define as “dancing” will fit. Whether it’s combat bonuses, the Earthquake spell, or the bard’s fascination ability, there isn’t really a hard limit.
  
  I’d probably create a sexy female melee-based spellcaster for (high) kicks. Take a lot of dodging bonuses and appropriate spells for defense, while using Streamline once to remove the verbal component from all spells. Stack Tumble and just enough attack bonus to hit hit touch targets, and you can hop into battle, screw with your opponents minds or hit them with something fun. Take some mobility-enhancers and maybe Reflex Training, and you can potentially dodge in and out while casting.
  
  Then this character would hook up with Baron Ectar, the Evil Wizard who shouts his enemies into defeat.
  
  Reply
alzrius, on December 13, 2010 at 4:32 pm said:

I’ve had very little exposure to the various Star Wars role-playing games (what experience I have comes largely from reading the Wizards of the Coast web column regarding the Star Wars d20 game, and flipping through the Core Rulebook for it once or twice), but I wanted to ask about this.

George Lucas apparently once said in an interview (in Vanity Fair, of all things) that had Darth Vader not been injured so badly on Mustafar, he would have been twice as powerful as Emperor Palpatine; however, as a result of those injuries, Vader was only 80% as strong as the Emperor. This matches with something I once saw in the SW d20 Rulebook, which listed Darth Vader as being 16th level to Palpatine’s being 20th.

So then, what would an uninjured, full-power Darth Vader look like? That is, I’d like to see your take on this incarnation of Darth Vader, for any particular incarnation of the Star Wars RPG.

Reply
- Thoth, on December 30, 2010 at 11:05 pm said:
  
  Well, I fear this took awhile – mostly because I had to review some stuff before starting – but there’s now a version up over here: As usual, it’s based on “abilities confirmed in the source material” (the movies) and on the assumption that access to fourth level effects does indeed represent a major advance over access to third-level effects.
  
  That may not always be true, but I do find that it usually seems to work that way if the spellcasters/psychics are using their abilities at all effectively.
  
  Reply
Alzrius, on January 21, 2011 at 9:54 am said:

As I’m playing a utility mage in my current Pathfinder group, I wanted to ask about feats and spells (or other special abilites) that would let me bend or even break some of the usual rules regarding spellcasting. Most of these are things that can’t normally be done with metamagic.

For example, what would let me cast a spell that’s undetectable both while it’s in effect and leaves no lingering aura? That is, Detect Magic and similar spells wouldn’t pick it up (presumably, this would let my character craft undetectable magic items also).

When you’re asleep, you normally automatically fail all saving throws. How would my character retain the ability to make saving throws against spells and effects even while slumbering?

Normally, when a person makes a saving throw against a spell, they know that some sort of effect just targeted them, though not what it was or who used it. However, that can still be more information than I’d like someone to have. If my character is alone with someone, and subtley casts Charm Person on them, if they make their save they’ll likely be suspicious.

How can I make a spell last a truly long time in a sort of “stasis” until I activate it? I know that Persistent metamagic will extend a spell’s duration for a varying length of time depending on the increase in spell level, but that’s for an active spell. I’m talking about a spell that, once cast, remains dormant until activated (e.g. a conscious contingency effect). This is the old “Remember back when I clasped your shoulder in a friendly way all those years ago? I cast a spell on you then, and now *snaps fingers* I’ve got you,” routine. Given how similar this is to Triggering metamagic, perhaps a better way to ask would be, can you somehow extend the duration of a Triggered spell after it’s been cast, since you can’t otherwise make a Triggered spell last more than a few days normally?

Is there any iteration of the Temporal metamagic (part of the Easy theorem) that will let my character cast a given spell as an immediate action?

Reply
- Thoth, on January 22, 2011 at 11:31 pm said:
  
  Well, this is – once again – too long for comments (in fact, this was too long for a single article), so here’s the first section: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/eclipse-magic-and-metamagic/
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on January 23, 2011 at 6:26 am said:
  
  And here’s the second section: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/eclipse-magic-and-metamagic-part-ii/
  
  Reply
alzrius, on February 3, 2011 at 11:01 pm said:

Thank you for answering my questions! I hope you don’t mind, but I thought up several more that I wanted to pitch. In this case, I’m primarily looking for new spells for various purposes.

A theme I see in a lot of stories about magic is that, for spells of truly great power or area, a wizard will build various edifices to help channel or spread the power around a vast area. Notwithstanding heartstones or wards major, how would my arcane spellcasting character accomplish this?

The Practical Enchanter offers some great spells for creating extradimensional spaces, but what about ways to manipulate such spaces (though this borders on planar travel in some areas)? How do I break into someone else’s extradimensional space, or ward them from breaking into mine? How can I take something in the real world and shunt it into a personal extradimensional space or demiplane? How would I force something in an extradimensional space or demiplane back into the real world? Would size be a factor (e.g. a demiplane the size of a continent or world that I wanted to merge with my native world)?

In regards to spell research, what modifiers are there for trying to invent an arcane version of a divine spell or psionic power? Notwithstanding GM fiat, is such a thing possible (e.g. an arcane cure light wounds, or an arcane hypercognition)?

(Major) Artifacts tend to be difficult to fight with spells. The only thing that really affects them seems to be Mage’s Disjunction, and that has only a small chance of working, and carries major penalties if it does. What’s a good way to try and combat an artifact with magic? And, for that matter, how does an arcane spellcaster guard against being hit with mage’s disjunction?

What’s a good way for an arcane spellcaster to try and deal with enemies that use the old “grapple the mage!” routine to prevent him from casting spells successfully?

There doesn’t seem to be any sort of spell or effect that will selectively let you remove a limb from another creature. It’s not hard to see why this is, since a few such castings could quickly descend into the realm of Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Black Knight; or even just one-off decapitations all over. Nevertheless, what would a spell with the ability to sever limbs look like (and what would be the game effects of losing an arm or leg)?

Finally, you’ve posted a lot of new spells here and there throughout your blog, such as the Dismissal spell in your article on nullfields and antimagic, or your speed-spells in the speedster article of Mutants of the Eclipse. It’s a big project to ask, I know, but is there any hope of getting an index of all of these?

Reply
- Alzrius, on February 4, 2011 at 2:51 pm said:
  
  You know, I got so caught up in the wording of those questions that I forgot to ask the one that tickled me most to think of:
  
  Given that alignment is determined by planar forces (as laid out in The Practical Enchanter for the rational discussion and change alignment spells, could there be a spell to stop you from changing alignments when you normally would?
  
  I like to call such a spell morality shield, since it would presumably not only protect you from having your alignment changed by using spells/magic items with an alignment descriptor different from your alignment (e.g. you can be a good spellcaster using spells and magic items with the [Evil] descriptor and not become evil over time), but also from actions that would change your alignment, whether immediately or gradually (e.g. betraying your friends, burning down an orphanage, etc.). Is such a spell possible? What effect would it have on spells that relied on alignment to determine their effects (e.g. blasphemy)?
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on February 22, 2011 at 12:20 am said:
    
    And the – rather lengthy – answer is over HERE. Unfortunately, the mechanics of alignment have long been a contentious subject…
  - Thoth, on February 22, 2011 at 10:30 pm said:
    
    And a bonus reply from Editorial0, who also – seeing as how it was taking me some time to get to everything – has answers (not the same as mine) for some of your questions over HERE.
- Thoth, on February 6, 2011 at 6:40 pm said:
  
  Well, this is going to take awhile… but your first answer (on building structures to help with magic) is over here:
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on February 12, 2011 at 2:51 pm said:
  
  And the Extradimensional Spaces answer is now up over HERE.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on February 13, 2011 at 3:50 am said:
  
  The spell research question answer is over here:
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on February 14, 2011 at 3:06 am said:
  
  And casting while grappled is over HERE.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on February 15, 2011 at 1:22 pm said:
  
  And here we go with the amputations…
  
  A spell index is a bit iffy, but I may get to it one of these days; there are simply such a lot of them – and a great many posts to go through to find them all.
  
  Reply
Derek, on February 7, 2011 at 9:25 am said:

I have no idea where to ask this so I will ask here.

I recently bought Legends of High Fantasy after looking at the ad in Eclipse (page 194). I noticed there are some differences between the ad and the product. I get that much of that was moved to TPE but not the advanced ritual magic “far beyond the basics in Eclipse”. Am I blind and not seeing it in TPE or are you planning on a seperate book (or file) on the subject? It, and the metaspells, that encouraged me to buy LHF.

Reply
- Thoth, on February 7, 2011 at 6:06 pm said:
  
  Here works just fine.
  
  The advanced ritual magic should be in the skills section – but upon checking the file it looks like something has gone wrong. I don’t know if it happened over at RPGNow or while I was uploading an update, but the download file has somehow been reverted to a very old test file. I’ll fix that and send out a notification of the proper update.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on February 8, 2011 at 3:38 am said:
  
  And RPGNow has been updated with the correct screen copy.
  
  Reply
Derek, on February 8, 2011 at 10:03 am said:

Ah, much better- thank you! When I get done reading it, I will post a review at OBS.

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- Thoth, on February 8, 2011 at 1:46 pm said:
  
  You’re quite welcome. Thank you for letting me know there was a problem.
  
  Reply
- editorial0, on February 11, 2011 at 11:00 am said:
  
  It’s nice to hear that people are interested. I created LoHF, though “Thoth” did a lot of the work in designing the Ritual Magic and spells. Sadly, that’s the very best part. I can’t say my setting or other additions made much of an impact. Ah well, live and learn.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on February 12, 2011 at 4:50 am said:
    
    Ah well. I lean a lot more towards mechanics and finding ways to make things work than towards sorting out what a setting really needs.
    
    That’s why my settings tend towards the “kitchen sink” approach.
    
    Look at the Manifold – “everything that anyone has ever imagined and everyone who has ever lived or been imagined is a part of this setting – usually in multiple versions”.
Derek, on February 20, 2011 at 7:38 am said:

It is good work and I wish that the Cemar had been released.

Thoth, you mentioned living magical items in TPE yet there is nothing on the tables for creating those that reproduce. How would you price a tree that casts Create Food and Water as a 10th level cleric daily and produces one viable seed per year?

Reply
- Thoth, on February 22, 2011 at 5:51 am said:
  
  Sadly, the Legends of High Fantasy series was being set up for print and ran into some severe problems with the supposed publisher (as in; they took our payments, stalled for the next year and a bit, and then simply informed us that they were dropping the project without returning the money – and legal action would have cost more than we could recover or afford). By that time, Editorial0 – who was developing the setting while I did the mechanics – had moved on. I still have what material was finished of course, so perhaps someday we’ll be able to pick up that project again.
  
  Thanks for the kind words though; I’m glad you liked it.
  
  In any case, as far as living and self-reproducing magic items goes, your wish is granted! You can find the how to set them up, and the pricing, over HERE.
  
  Reply
  - editorial0, on February 24, 2011 at 10:31 am said:
    
    Yes, it was avery sad. I must admit it was pretty sloppy compared to our later efforts, but I really poured everything I had into the game. I wanted to develop a setting which enabled a lot of great adventures, not just treasure-raids. So many, if not most of your opponents were probably more-or-less humans at war. There were plenty of elves and ancient civilizations, but they were hardly overwhelming. And there was an essentially infinite supply of evil plots, random interdimensional creatures, and terrible minions for the GM.
    
    Since it was never published, I never got to really detail the cities and sites of the world as well as I liked.
Derek, on March 11, 2011 at 8:46 am said:

I have some questions about the spell lifemaker (Eclipse p. 145). What can and can not be made with it? Could a human make a dragon or treant? What are the limitations of the spell? Could a hydra with immunity to all magic be created? Can unique creatures be replicated via this spell? Other than the number of creatures, what is the difference between genetic reconstruction (p. 141) and lifemaker?

Reply
- Thoth, on March 11, 2011 at 7:08 pm said:
  
  Well, once again this got far too long for the comments section and became a short article…
  
  Thus your complete reply can be found on the other end of this finely-crafted LINK.
  
  Reply
editorial0, on March 11, 2011 at 12:41 pm said:

I don’t have the spell in front of me, so I’m working from memory here. I will try to answer again later if I find I’ve steered you wrong, but…

It depends a bit on the game world – always an issue. What limits are present depend on what goes into them. We can and do present generic concepts (spells here) to answer reasonably common worlds and situation. So your homebrew world might not support this.

The Genetic Reconstruction spell alters an existing creature. It’s a handy way to add templates or customize an existing being. It does not create ex nihilo, which is why it notes that you need a lot of medical kowledge (far more than is usually available in DnD) and even divination to test.

The Lifemaker spell lets you create almost anything your mind can imagine, though it’s something of a plot device and a GM may require you to put some time and thought into it.

No, can you replicate a “unique” creature? It depends on the universe. Why is it unique? If it’s the last of its kind, it may be quite easy. If it’s a one-of-a-kind cosmic being whose existence is a fundamental aspect of the universe… then no. The question here is “Is there something which *prevents* another such creature from existing?”

More later.

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editorial0, on March 11, 2011 at 3:40 pm said:

Now, after double-checking the spell, it does appear that you could probably put together a hydra which was immune to magic – but remember, this is Eclipse, and “immunity” is a power with real upper limits.

Of course, you also have to be capable of throwing off 19th level spells and permanently sacrifice hit points, so whether you want to do this casually is up to you. Further, the resulting creature is just that: an animal or person creature with its own ideas about the world. It might view a wizard as a tasty snack.

The real downside, however, is that this creature will be pretty beefy and require a considerable amount of sacrificed HP. Sure, you pay for the creature according to hit dice, but that’s going to be closely linked to its ECL. But Lifemaker doesn’t require any special knowledge and if you’re willing to dump 15 hit points permanently and have yourself an extremely dangerous “pet”, go for it.

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Derek, on March 14, 2011 at 9:05 am said:

Simple question this time. Why is distillation a 6th level spell in Paths of Power II (p. 45) and a 10th level spell in Eclipse (p. 124)?

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- editorial0, on March 14, 2011 at 9:56 am said:
  
  Different spell, same name (sorry, we have a small problem with that, simply from having the same concepts).
  
  The 6th level spell is a lot weaker than the 10th level spell, the latter being a very distubing way of screwing with reality in any number of fashions. Not that the 6th-level effect is bad, mind. It’s just not as crazy as the 10th.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on March 14, 2011 at 1:09 pm said:
  
  In this case it’s simply because the tenth level Eclipse version has some upgrades. Unlike the sixth level version in the Paths of Power series (or the collected book):
  
  *It can be cast as a standard action instead of a one-minute ritual
  *It can affect unrestrained targets, thus allowing its use in combat.
  *It does not automatically kill the target – allowing a good caster to, for example, hire a dozen peasants, drain various useful qualities from them, let them recover, and pay them for their trouble.
  *It does not require material components or have the 6’th level versions (admittedly small) XP requirement.
  
  It’s also harder to save against and will penetrate defensive magic more effectively, but those benefits would also apply to the sixth level version if you put it in a tenth level spell slot, so that’s basically irrelevant. It will let you get away with more weirdness, but that’s simply because the guidelines for tenth level effects are looser – and it’s rather hard to quantify.
  
  The same basic effect is in both books because I thought it was an entertaining effect that offered a lot of options. Thus I included a weaker version in Paths of Power because that was, after all, a book about magic – whereas the high-level spells in Eclipse were mostly there as samples of the kinds of things that really powerful spellcasters could do.
  
  Reply
Derek, on March 15, 2011 at 5:32 am said:

The 6th level version is lethal to creatures?

And some questions on the dweomer skills on page 104 of Eclipse.

What can electrokinesis and nucleokinesis do at high level? What makes them different from reconstruction?
What dweomer skill can alter planar traits (if any listed)?
Which skill can turn energy to mass and mass to energy?
Which skill(s) can be used to create permanent hot or cold springs (for arctic and desert conditions respectively)?
Under telepathy, would links or projection allow the transfer of skill ranks? What would be the maximum number of people allowed to receive those skills?

Reply
- editorial0, on March 15, 2011 at 11:59 am said:
  
  The 6th level version of Distillation tends to destroy what you target, which may obviously cause some problems for a wide array of tricks. Even evil characters won’t find that inevitably convenient.
  
  Electrokinesis: control over electrons and electrical forces. Nucleokinesis: control over matter and atomic nucleii. (This is all taken from memory; I don’t have the books in front of me this very second.) Electrokinesis is very handy for controlling electrical forces, whereever they occur. Nucleokinesis is more subtle and changes matter.
  
  Altering a planar trait? Well, it depends on what, exactly, you want to alter. If you want to alter the matter of the Elemental Plane of Earth, that’s probably Nucleokinesis.
  
  And trying to do this over anything greater than a modest area calls for either Battle Magic or a spell powerful enough to start re-writing whole sections of the cosmos.
  
  Permanent Hot Spring? Ooh, that might not be such a good idea with Dweomer. You can do it, but you may be exposing people to nasty radiation as a consequence. Remember, this particular technique is about using fundamental forces of the universe. Making hot rocks isn’t so hard – it’s just dangerous, because you’re borrowing the energy from somewhere, with some side effects. That said, almost any Dweomer path might eb able to manage it. More later.
  
  Simple mental contact does NOT allow you to transfer skill ranks. (Actually, I’m curious as to how you got that idea. It’s not a bad idea, just not supported by the rules.) Now, some Mindspeech upgrades and Mystic Links can set things up so you can cast a spell, use Blessing, throw somebody a Positive Level or whatever, which could grant them some temporary bonuses including skill ranks.
  
  Depending on the skill, it may allow normal assistance bonuses from people helping. A Knowledge skill to research could easily get bonuses this way, because knowledge is more easily shared. A Swim check really isn’t, because no amount of urging and instruction is going to help in the short term. You might also be able to person you’re talking to do the check for you. If you’re in communication with a great scholar, you might reasonably ask them if they know who the Fourteenth Emperor of the Maelderoc Dynasty was (because you’re in his tomb and he’s kind of pissed at you). They could then respond back to you and give information about him.
  
  The principle here is that telepathy (Mindspeech in Eclipse) are basically “normal conversation, but in the mind”.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on March 15, 2011 at 8:53 pm said:
    
    I think he’s talking about the Dweomer Telepathy field there, not Mindspeech. Dweomer, since it’s spellcasting, allows a great many things that Mindspeech doesn’t.
- Thoth, on March 15, 2011 at 8:50 pm said:
  
  Ah, multiple questions!
  
  Well, as far as the 6’th level version of Distillation goes, it generally “reduces the target to dust” (although the game master is welcome to have some pathetic bits of bone or scraps of material survive). Thus the need to restrain living creatures so that they’re helpless targets; they usually object to being reduced to dust. I suppose you can skip the restraints if you find something that really wants to be reduced to dust, but I’d use restraints anyway, just in case my “volunteer” lost his or her nerve.
  
  Now, the Dweomer questions take a much longer set of answers – which can now be found right over HERE. For that matter, at the end of that article, you’ll find links to a few other articles on Dweomer and Thaumaturgy.
  
  Reply
Derek, on March 16, 2011 at 5:31 am said:

Editorial0- what I meant by a hot spring is something like those bodies of water that a species of Japanese monkey use to survive the winter (ie not radioactive). And as for where I got the idea of “borrowing” skills, I am currently reading Eclipse Phase, a sci-fi rpg where the characters are data that can be downloaded into various bodies. One thing that doesn’t exist in EP that I am considering for a fantasy game is something like a hearstone but skills rather than spells.

And again, thank you both for being so helpful!

Reply
- Thoth, on March 16, 2011 at 12:39 pm said:
  
  You’re quite welcome.
  
  Hm. Now I did put up a Transhuman Template over here – https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/eclipse-the-transhuman-template/ – but, as noted in that particular article, the fact that the whole concept revolves around external technologies makes it a bit awkward.
  
  Reply
editorial0, on March 16, 2011 at 8:08 am said:

Well, radiation isn’t always so bad. Any heat is radioactive. Even talking about what most people mean by the word, most radiation isn’t harmful, or is so small as to be unimportant. ou could use some of the dweomer abilities to make the surrounding rock radioactive, heating a spring, and that could last a long time.

As for granting skills, that sounds like a good use for Enthusiast (in the Eclipse general feats and abilities section). Given the setting, you’d want to put it into a Template, and Corrupt and Specialize for the same cost but Triple Effect: only in skills available for download.

Second, I mentioned that any kind of communication link can let you basically use another character, computer, or other magic source as if you were chatting to them over a phone (or whatever). So you could use a “Hearthstone” as a reference library. Give one the Image Link effect and put posters on the wall filled with information, and you have an instant Encyclopedia.

Reply
Derek, on March 16, 2011 at 9:39 am said:

No, heat is radiation. Radioactive is something completely different- it means the emission of alpha or beta particles or gamma waves.

Reply
- Thoth, on March 16, 2011 at 12:37 pm said:
  
  Or, in some cases positron emission, neutron emission, or a few other exotic modes…
  
  Fortunately, given a nice thickness of rock to absorb such particles, pretty much everything but the neutrinos (which go away doing virtually nothing) winds up as heat – which can drive a hot spring or some such just as well as the more typical volcanic activity.
  
  I always did like the natural nuclear reactor…
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
  
  Reply
burning8bones, on March 18, 2011 at 4:03 am said:

here is a strange question about a spell level: what level spell is Thespia. from here http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2011-03-11 and here http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2011-03-16

just thought it might be one of the greatest practical jokes ever, but might be a relativly high level spell. It seems to make the targets (every one in 60 ft of the casting) actually good at putting on a musical and turns whatever they are doing into one. (forcing them to break into song and dance at appropriate times without their control or the ability to stop until “the end of the production or the first rotten tomato is thrown”)

Reply
- Thoth, on March 18, 2011 at 1:06 pm said:
  
  Well, some skill grants – say at about +7 to a group – is level two, the compulsion is more than a charm and less than dominate, so about level three. That’s level four for the combined effect, another +3 spell levels for area effect, gives it about level seven. You might get a level off for the inherent limitations though. Ergo level six to seven. Probably allowing a save. Disallowing one would push it up a bit.
  
  Not as bad as the Invocation of the Ring Cycle (which lasted nine days, affected creatures that were normally immune to magic with no save, and only let the caster and friends sneak off after a full day of the production) – but that was chaos magic, and had other difficulties.
  
  Reply
Derek, on March 18, 2011 at 8:36 am said:

Yes, but the resulting genetic damage isn’t something to ignore. Get a bath and grow a tumor doesn’t sound very pleasant.

Some more questions. Genetic material lasts in the soil up to 100,000 years (and magical DNA may last forever). Can genetic reconstruction use (or an undead creature for that matter) that to rebuild a species? Or does it need a live creature to work on? If not, what spell would you suggest?

Reply
- Thoth, on March 18, 2011 at 1:12 pm said:
  
  I’d have to note that that does depend on your radiation source; alpha radiation can be stopped by a sheet of paper, yet it will still yield heat – and the environment is full of radiation. Brazil nuts are quite radioactive and bananas are too – but I eat both with no particular problem.
  
  Now, personally I’d rate a special-purpose “extract genetic pattern” spell as well below level ten, but I suspect that Editorial0 is thinking of a general purpose spell that interprets the information for you so you can make repairs. Still, if you’re casting 17’th level spells anyway, a mere level nine or ten spell shouldn’t present any problems.
  
  Genetic Reconstruction doesn’t necessarily call for a live creature; you can rebuild the DNA of a corpse if you want to – but there’s usually no point. If you want a live result, it’s much easier to just grab some random critter and use it for a base.
  
  Reply
editorial0, on March 18, 2011 at 9:41 am said:

Actually, with the right thickness of rock you simply get hot rocks and no radiation poisoning. In fact, there are natural places where radioactive materials make awfully hot cave systems, but they’re no more dangerous to explore than any cave.

Genetic Reconstruciton does require a living creature. That said, you could still use trace DNA you found somewhere, take a similar or related creature, and adjust to match. In fact, this has many advantages: you have a workable creature’s genetic code and need not spend so much time making sure your new monster/animal/whatever will turn out healthy.

The downside is that you need to FIND the DNA. it might be sitting around somewhere, but good luck locating it. Get ready for you very high-level divination spells – well beyond 10th level effects. Of course, if you can locate a more certain source of intact trace DNA, go for it.

Now you may be able to cheat the limits on altering an existing creature if you can put together a freakish biology lab with experimental “blank” creatures in forced growth incubators. You could then load your genetic structure and grow the blank into whatever you wanted. If you’re dedicated enough for that much effort, you’ve probably invested a lot of time and energy in the project.

Reply
Alzrius, on March 18, 2011 at 10:04 pm said:

Several more random questions regarding magical issues.

To what degree will Personal Immunity protect me from the “direct effects” of the spells that I cast? Can I walk through my own wall of force or prismatic wall? Can I stand behind them and cast spells through them?

What level spell would it be to cast a spell that summons multiple unseen servants at once? WotC has a (closed content) spell from the Spell Compendium that lets you summon 2d6 + 1 per caster level unseen servants (max bonus of +15) as a 3rd-level spell; is that about right?

What if I want to summon an unseen servant that has a greater Strength score, or better yet, can actually perform skilled tasks, what level spell is that? Would being able to perform skilled tasks include operating siege equipment and weaponry? That would technically violate the “unseen servants can’t attack” rule, but it seems like a gray area since they’re operating mechanisms rather than actively swinging/throwing weapons at someone. What spell level would it be to summon multiple skilled unseen servants at once?

The prerequisites for The Opening of the Ways feat (Practical Enchanter p. 143) are slightly confusing to me. Is the “OR” meant to mean that you need to get your GM’s permission and be able to cast 3rd-level spells OR that you need contact with the world in question, an innate Fort save bonus of at least +5, and be at least character level 7? Or is it saying that you need your GM’s permission, an innate Fort save bonus of at least +5, be at least character level 7, and be able to cast 3rd-level spells OR contact the world in question?

Does The Opening of the Ways, since it draws on the magic of a particular world, let you ignore all local conditions of a given world or plane affecting your magic (when you’re on a different world than the one you’re drawing magic from)? That is, does it let you ignore planar traits regarding magic? Would it let you ignore an antimagic field since you’re drawing your magic from somewhere else?

The Practical Enchanter mentions that inherent bonuses (such as from a wish) can grant feats. In this case, do you need to meet the prerequisites for the feats so granted? Also, does limited wish lack the power to grant any sort of permanent/instantaneous inherent bonus?

Reply
- Thoth, on March 19, 2011 at 4:08 am said:
  
  Well, most of those are quick and easy…
  
  Personal Immunity will indeed let you walk through your own Wall Spells (or at least those with a duration or which can be dispelled, rather than those that create real and solid walls). That won’t let you cast spells through them though, since the spells aren’t a part of you. For that you want “Obliging” under the Stabilize metamagic – so that the the spell sustaining the wall can actively get itself out of the way of your other spells. That will also let your friends pass back and forth through it – or let you have it pass enemies through it selectively.
  
  For a quick approximation, Unseen Servants work like any other summoning spell – you get 1d4+1 at +1 spell level, 4d4 at +2 spell levels, and (at least) +2d4 per additional spell level. Given how feeble they are, and how easy it is to get an item that can have a great many in existence at a time anyway, +1 per caster level is quite reasonable, and a “horde” is likely to turn up around level five.
  
  Creating skilled Unseen Servants is most readily done through the Unseen Supervisor spell in The Practical Enchanter (under the Master’s Badge). As a combined spell, that would only be level two. General modifications – such as making them stronger and such – would call for the Amplify metamagic – but making them attack is awkward, simply because with their duration it’s easy to make a device which would let you have hundreds at a time. I usually handle that by requiring a couple of levels of the Amplify metamagic to give them a basic ability to attack and treating them as a swarm capable of doing 1d6 or 2d4 (or, for much higher caster levels, 2d6) points of damage.
  
  For the Opening of the Ways, it’s level three arcane spells or contact with the world in question; you need one or the other to set up the link. It does let you ignore planar traits that affect magic (unless the game master decides that a plane actively blocks or warps magic instead of simply having strange magic or lacking magic entirely; when it comes to custom dimensions every GM makes their own rules). It won’t bypass Antimagic however, since that actively blocks magic within the area in question.
  
  A Wish can grant the user a feat that he or she is not qualified for – but, as usual, he or she cannot actually gain the benefits of that feat, or use it as a prerequisite, until he or she DOES meet the requirements. A Limited Wish could reasonably grant a temporary inherent bonus; spells that do that are at least three levels higher than other temporary enhancement spells though, so the effects (as per “duplicating other spell effects” will be much more limited.
  
  A Limited Wish might be able to grant modest inherent bonuses – perhaps toughening the user’s fingernails to the point where they work as feeble claws, or adding tattoos all over the user’s skin which break out his or her outline and enhance the ability to Hide – but such benefits will always be rather limited and must always be linked to some fairly obvious physical change, which might cause some social difficulties.
  
  Reply
  - Alzrius, on March 20, 2011 at 9:32 pm said:
    
    It’s worth noting that bonus feats don’t require the character who has them to meet their prerequisites; I had thought that perhaps wish-granted feats would fall under that purview.
    
    Regarding the unseen servant question, would that same level of Amplify metamagic be necessary to have them operate siege weaponry? That seems like it’d be different from having them fight directly.
  - editorial0, on March 21, 2011 at 10:47 am said:
    
    While normal d20 bonus feats don’t require pre-reqs, in this case you can’t do that. Usually you have to get bonus feats from some temporary source or a PrC, in which case you’re having to take a package and get a limited choice. Here you’re just picking what you want, and hence you can’t skip the feats leading up to things. You could wish for Supreme Cleave, but what you’d have to do is to sort out what Supreme Cleave grants that Cleave and Great don’t, and then you’d be left with only that).
    
    Of course, combo that with Eclipse and quite possible.
  - Thoth, on March 21, 2011 at 10:36 pm said:
    
    Well, we seem to have nested the comments as far as the current settings allow…
    
    As far as Bonus Feats go, I presume that you’re referencing the SRD descriptions of Monks and Rangers, who are allowed to select particular bonus feats even if they don’t meet the prerequisites?
    
    In this case, that’s because Eclipse (and The Practical Enchanter) axed most prerequisites; the ones that are left are generally functional. In Eclipse, if something has a prerequisite, the prerequisite is normally needed for whatever-it-is to work properly.
    
    Ergo, a Wish can grant you a feat – but if you don’t have the ability to use what you’ve wished for properly as of yet, then so be it.
    
    As for siege weapons – Unseen Servants can help wind, load, and otherwise operate them, but whoever is actually firing the thing needs to be able to make an attack check. Ergo, you might need to go beyond the +2 levels that let them swarm. If you want them to actually fire anything, you’re looking at plus three or four levels – if the game master allows it at all.
    
    He or she probably shouldn’t – or should rule that making something able to attack creatures directly subjects it to the natural magic resistance of all the things that don’t want to be attacked, greatly decreasing its maximum duration (in which case a lower-level spell might get the same effect).
    
    Otherwise you could put that level-five “Unseen Servant that Attacks” in an unlimited-use item at caster level ten and have 6000 around at any given time. Even if they need a “20” to hit and only do 1d4 with thrown rocks, you can just roll around crushing anything with insufficient Damage Reduction. That might well be worth the 90,000 GP, even without considering all the other things that many unseen servants could accomplish.
Derek, on March 24, 2011 at 6:20 am said:

Practical Enchanter question-

I have an idea for a wand of fire that can only harm orcs, nothing else. Would that be a decrease in cost as the target is extremely limited or an increase as the wand won’t cause collateral damage (eg forest fires)?

Reply
- Thoth, on March 24, 2011 at 1:36 pm said:
  
  Well, once again this turned into a small article – questions often do around here – and so your answer has now been posted over here:
  
  The Burning Wrath of the Terrible Eye
  
  Reply
editorial0, on March 24, 2011 at 8:08 am said:

It’s an upgrade.

Practical Enchanter notes that spells are controlled by Power AND Complexity. Spells which hunt orcs are more complex, not less. Hitting only orcs is probably a +1 or +2. (Have to double-check some sources on that).

Granted, sometimes you can get away with a cheaper effect based on the “natural” forces of a certain game universe. If fire elementals and similar creatures are actively harmed by water, then a spell which creates some water also functions as an effective combat spell against them and only them. And you can cut the magic which ties an outsider to the world. But generally, focused and discriminate magic is more complex, and more expensive, than otherwise.

There might be some variations, too. You possibly could work on a sickness spell which only creates illnesses which hurt orcs. That’s be uncommon, but at least theoretically possible. And that might be eligable for a cost break. On the other hand, it’s a lot less practical than a Fireball, too.

Reply
Derek, on March 26, 2011 at 10:36 am said:

Thanks again, gentlemen, for your responses.

One last question so I don’t overstay my welcome. How might you represent the changes in the Cronenberg version of The Fly? A curse that twists the body over time yet provides some amazing physical abilities.

Reply
- Thoth, on March 26, 2011 at 1:51 pm said:
  
  Oh, questions are always welcome. They provide more topics – and it’s always nice to know that someone is actually reading the books.
  
  A curse that turns someone into a monster is fairly straightforward mechanically; as per The Practical Enchanter (page 64), it’s a Transformation Curse with a base spell level of five. Like lycanthropy – which this very much resembles save that the transformation is always active and the weretype is insectile – this particular curse will be providing a package of physical enhancements, progressive insanity, and an obvious “becoming a monster” motif.
  
  Reply
Derek, on April 2, 2011 at 6:29 am said:

In TPE you mentioned that alchemy isn’t cost effective (p 49). How so? How might you change it to make it cost effective?

Reply
- Thoth, on April 2, 2011 at 3:22 pm said:
  
  Well, once again, the complete answer was long enough to become a small article on it’s own – so it’s over HERE: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/alchemical-bonuses-and-practical-enchantment/
  
  Reply
Derek, on April 24, 2011 at 7:31 am said:

A couple questions relating to TPE:

What would should the modifier be for a potion in the form of smoke that affects everyone who inhales it (say a 25′ diameter cloud with a single round duration)?

You have a lot of good stuff for spell design but one thing is missing- failure. I was thinking about failure for psionic power design (ie screwing up one’s own mind) and it hit me that it could be applied to magic (screwing up the unnatural order) as well. Have any ideas on this?

Reply
- Thoth, on April 24, 2011 at 6:09 pm said:
  
  And, once again, this got too long for the comments section – and so the answer is up over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/dramatic-spell-research-and-radius-potions/
  
  Reply
Derek, on April 26, 2011 at 7:56 am said:

First, what is that smile doing in the upper right part of this page? I have been meaning to ask about that for ages.

Second, with the creation of magical items that can use skills and feats, is there any good reason not to allow some to do magical research (other than a golem uprise)?

Reply
- editorial0, on April 26, 2011 at 8:34 am said:
  
  You can make robots, golems, and spirits to research things for you. But there are trade-offs, and it’s not necessarily a winning move.
  
  First, they do need to do just about everything you can, which means giving them bodies. Sadly, you can’t stick some heads on a wall and get useful information out of it: research, experimentation and practical testing is part of the design process.
  
  Second, it’s costly. You’re going out of your way to make a potent, specialized intelligent construct, which at the end of the day is going to hopefully save you some time (assuming it actually makes its design test rolls). So right there you’ve got to estimate the time saved is worth the cost of enchantment.
  
  Third, you need some way to give it class levels. Normally, you can only make new spells for classes you possess, and golems and constructs don’t have any. Now, in our games we’d probably bend the rules in your favor a bit. And it is possible for golems to earn class levels. But all in all it’s a lot of work for relatively meager gain. You’re better off paying someone to do it or taking the Leadership feat and having a follower do the same.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on April 26, 2011 at 11:28 am said:
  
  I think the smile is part of the hit counter. I can’t be sure, since this is a wordpress-hosted site, but I believe the system counts the number of times that tiny little image is downloaded to track page views.
  
  As far as magic items doing magical research goes, unless your game master rules that such research requires an unbound spirit, or some creative essence or mortal experience or something that you can’t get in an enchanted item, there’s nothing in the rules to stop it.
  
  Personally, I’d rule that it was rather risky though. After all, a normal researcher usually has an organic basis for their mind – but the mind of a magical item is based on magic. Running experimental magics through the mind of a construct might be a lot like running experimental chemicals through an organic brain; the results may be pretty damaging.
  
  That’s not to say that you can’t set your items to researching things anyway, or that you can’t just resort to applying the -20 “working from pure theory” penalty to avoid such difficulties, it’s just that it’s either riskier or more difficult – and so it might be a better investment to just hire a living spellcaster to do your research for you.
  
  Reply
Derek, on April 28, 2011 at 5:53 am said:

Or make a slave race that does spell design well. Just program them not to rebel and make their lives easy- as not to encourage a desire for freedom.

Reply
- Thoth, on April 28, 2011 at 9:23 am said:
  
  Oh yes – although, at some point, it’s easier just to take up the study of one of the spontaneous magical systems instead.
  
  Reply
Derek, on May 7, 2011 at 5:43 am said:

Are the varieties of basilisk mentioned on page 116 of Legends of High Fantasy based on “real” mythological creatures? What makes a true basilisk different from that in the MM stat-wise (beyond the poisonous nature)?

Reply
- Thoth, on May 7, 2011 at 4:55 pm said:
  
  And, once again, this got rather lengthy – and so your answer is up over HERE.
  
  Reply
Derek, on May 21, 2011 at 6:17 am said:

Two potential errata questions-

LHF, p. 113 Under Burial you mentioned an Established modifier. It isn’t mentioned on page 109.

TPE p. 163 In the first paragraph about the ring, you use both EP and XP. Is there a difference?

Reply
- Thoth, on May 21, 2011 at 11:46 am said:
  
  Ah, easy ones!
  
  For Legends of High Fantasy and the Burial Ritual the “Established” modifier is just shorthand for the note under “Special Modifiers” on page 109 – the bit that says that “Some [rituals], such as the burial rite, have been performed so often that their pattern has become embedded in the world’s magical fields”.
  
  The cultures book was going to expand on that, with a selection of each regions established rituals, and how those were shaped by, and shaped, those societies. Sadly, that has yet to see print.
  
  For The Practical Enchanter, the manuscript originally had “EP” wherever the sentence would read “experience points” and “XP” wherever it was just “experience”. Eventually we decided that – given that there was no real confusion to correct – to simply stick with “XP” in most cases. EP still turns up in three spots though – under the Hall of the Mountain King (page 30), under Draupnir (page 163), and Wards Major (page 213) – mostly for emphasis on the idea that those were very special items.
  
  I’ll make a note for the errata sheet. There isn’t that much there, but there’s ALWAYS something.
  
  Reply
Derek, on May 23, 2011 at 7:35 am said:

LHF related.

Probably a stupid question, but is there any difference between a spell (as per the druid/sorcerer chart) and a spellweave?

For example, p. 48. Does a sorcerer get Agonaire or Torment as a spell? I would guess it is the former but am unsure after rereading that section.

Reply
- editorial0, on May 23, 2011 at 8:15 am said:
  
  Yes, which is why they get so few. A Spellweave is simply the type of spell they get.
  
  Of course, you don’t have to pick Agonaire or Torment. (Heh.) But if you wear gothy clothes and read Twilight, it’s perfect for rounding out your style. (Double Heh.)
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on May 23, 2011 at 11:01 am said:
  
  There’s no difference in that section. It’s just that “New Spellweave” made the chart look broader than I liked and wasted space. “Spell” and “Spellweave” were pretty much used interchangeably for that section. In hindsight, we probably should have avoided that. Like the use of “level” in D&D, the multiple meanings aren’t always as clear as it seems when you’re writing.
  
  That black-magic Sorcerer would get Agonaire. Torment is just one of Agonaire’s agonizing and malevolent functions.
  
  In general, there are eight Spellweaves – the bolded, larger-type, listings – per magical field. The underlined, sublistings are functions of the spellweave.
  
  Of course, a Sorcerer or Druid in Legends of High Fantasy has some tough choices to make; do you dabble, or do you burn off attribute points to master additional spellweaves? You won’t get quite enough spells to fully master even a single field unless you make some sacrifices.
  
  Reply
Derek, on May 24, 2011 at 5:36 am said:

Yes, but mastering an entire field does matter much when they already have access to so much more power than a normal d20 caster (at least in terms of flexability).

I am not sure which I like more, paths or spellweaves. Paths make sense to me (in terms of wizard learning) but spellweaves do away with fixed spells (something I have thought odd since 1e).

Reply
- Thoth, on May 25, 2011 at 1:13 am said:
  
  Oh, the usual dilemma is that most Cemarian Sorcerers and Druids want a LOT more Spellweaves than they can afford. Of course, tough choices are a part of the fun.
  
  As for favorites… It all depends on what I want to do really. For someone with intuitive gifts, definitely Spellweaves. For studious Thematic wizards – Paths. For dabblers, Rune Magic, and so on.
  
  Reply
Derek, on May 26, 2011 at 5:56 am said:

Damn it, I thought I wrote doesn’t. Grumble *can’t edit posts* grumble

Ever since 1e (for me that would be about ’88) I have wanted to give each of the major spellcasting classes (druids, clerics, wizards and now sorcerers) a different method of spellcasting. I like spheres and think that domains were a major step backward (along with taking healing away from necromancy). With LHF, Eclipse and Paths now I can start building such settings.

The one thing I haven’t mentioned is that I really dislike d20 and have been converting the ideas into Alternity and Gamma World (spells make some of the best mutations). Fortunately, for me, most of what you have written is actually fairly easy to convert.

Thanks!

Reply
- Thoth, on May 27, 2011 at 5:28 am said:
  
  I’d definitely agree that domains were a big step back from spheres – even if it did neatly answer the complaint that specialty clerics weren’t generic enough, “that’s a stupid complaint” would have been a much better answer.
  
  And d20 works for some things – and there are much better games for other purposes. I tend to feel that the best games are the ones that are tightly tied to their settings, so that the vagaries of the rules are reflected in those settings – like World Tree, Weird West, Baba Yaga, or some versions of Runequest.
  
  The trouble with that is that – while those games are wonderful in their settings – they’re usually very difficult to separate from those settings, which limits things a lot. Good luck with the conversions though; any way you find things useful is the right way to use them!
  
  Well, OK: maybe not using the game book to beat your neighbor over the head. There are probably much more suitable objects in your garage for that.
  
  Reply
editorial0, on May 26, 2011 at 12:11 pm said:

If I were to give every clas it’s own spellcasting method, I would…
give Sorcerers Rune Magic*
give Clerics Spellweaves**
give Druids Thaumaturgy.

*Or Theurgy. But Theurgy is a bit butch and I think Rune magic fits better.

**You may wonder why we didn’t in Legends of High Fantasy. The short answer is that Clerics were a bit more traditional and synced nicely to Wizards in terms of theme in that manner. If anyone got more flexible magic spells, Sorcerers and Druids should probably take priority.

I can more readily believe the pre-designed spells following specific formula of the Wizard should be the old anican style than the supposedly flexible magic of the Sorcerer… using the exact same basic system in D20. I can more readily accept a Cleric being handed spells by divine fiat or bureaucracy than a Druid solemly memorizing his daily alottmen, which he got from the arbitrary force of “Nature.”

Reply
Derek, on May 27, 2011 at 7:20 am said:

My problem with d20 is that it is so rules heavy. Alternity is fairly rules medium. It only has skill rolls, ability checks, armor rolls (to reduce damage) and damage rolls. Everything can be placed in those four catagories and the modifiers (for the first two) are easy to memorize.

I have worked more than 6 years on the Alternity fan site (Alternityrpg.net is my second home) and we have proven that it can be used for just about any kind of game. Yes, like d20, it can be clunky with some settings, but it can do fantasy, science fiction, supers and historical gaming easily.

And we (well some of us) are very happy d20 happened- so much material to adapt, much of it easily. I think the only kind of magic that has yet to be tinkered with is incarnum. We also adapted the idea of feats as optional rank benefits. And I am starting to ramble.

Eh, the point is that you are producing great material that can be used for much more than d20. Every time someone on rpg.net asks about point buy or spell design, I direct them to DH’s products. When Oathbound was revived by Epidemic Books, I asked the authors to look at Eclipse and TPE to get ideas for the ultimate sandbox setting (at least in 3.X format). I bulldog for stuff I like and your stuff is among the best. I just wish that you were into OSR, then I could write for you as well as Skirmisher.

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- Thoth, on May 30, 2011 at 1:16 am said:
  
  d20 is indeed rules heavy (although there are a few even more rules-heavy systems out there). Like most things though, that has both advantages and disadvantages. Rules-heavy simulationist systems tend to be easy to adapt material from, to have more thoroughgoing control systems built in, and to work better when you have fractious – or exploitative – players in the group. Rules-light systems are easy to learn and play and call for a lot less fiddling around – but call for a more cooperative group.
  
  With a sufficiently cooperate group, you don’t actually need a system. It’s hard to get a group like that together though – and it works best when the setting is so well established that everyone knows what will, and will not, work in it without worrying about the game mechanics.
  
  d20… well, everyone is familiar with it. That makes it a LOT easier to get a game together. It can be kind of hard to find players for obscure games, no matter how good they are.
  
  Thanks for the recommendations – but as far as OSR and Distant Horizons Games goes, for that, you’ll want less Eclipse and more the Baba Yaga rules. Baba Yaga gets very little support on the blog here for two basic reasons; there are a lot more people using Eclipse than Baba Yaga and because – as a rules-medium or light old-school RPG, Baba Yaga doesn’t need nearly as many explanations and examples.
  
  And if you’d like to write an article for here or some such, you’d be perfectly welcome. It’s always nice to get another point of view.
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on May 29, 2011 at 7:17 am said:

hey I got a dum Question
Had a thought for an Alchemist specialsied in Spell Storing feats and upgrades.
And thought, why not just Buy the Immunity to the XP Cost?
Think as a GM would you allow that?
I figured a Common, Major, Major (or bigger) and used the points {30 in this case} as to how much he would be immune to and would have to pay diff.

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- Thoth, on May 30, 2011 at 1:45 am said:
  
  Well, a properly phrased Immunity could – in theory – do almost anything, but it’s usually best to use already-defined abilities rather than going to a catch-all. Thus the (somewhat limited) options for getting a “free” supply of XP to use under the item creation abilities or the option to use action points.
  
  As a game master, I’d only allow such an immunity with some limiting factor. After all, it potentially allows the user to accumulate a near-limitless number of stored spells – especially if you combine it with an immunity to the time requirement and/or the gold piece costs. On the other hand, if you can only store spells related to particular exotic astronomical conjunctions for “free”, and so must manage and conserve your stock (rather than, say, being able to stockpile small nations), that makes things interesting again.
  
  As always though, it ultimately comes down to what your game master is willing to let you do.
  
  Reply
Derek, on June 5, 2011 at 5:31 am said:

I have a request, if you have the time and interest. What would make a good path (of power) for the zerns (MM IV)?

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- Thoth, on June 6, 2011 at 12:39 pm said:
  
  Well, I can’t really deal with the Zern, since they’re not OGL – but they’re also a rather obvious derivative of the Zerg given a fantasy twist. Visually, the comparison between the Zerg Hydralisk and Zern Bladethrall is probably the most obvious, but the similarities in the mechanics and description – and the one-letter difference in the name – are also pretty blatant.
  
  Now, Zerg I can talk about under Fair Use rules – and they do inspire some notions that I may get to. For the Zerg we might have…
  
  1) A racial path for dimensional or interstellar travel – starting off with some simple spells for scouts (Speak Language, Detect Poison, and so on) on up through a ritual to establish a long-term gate or rift to invade through.
  
  2) A technological path, allowing them to temporarily power and use the artifacts of high technology (or fantasy-slanted versions thereof).
  
  3) A nearly-lost path related to their original racial form and type might be interesting; that way you could have some who have concluded that their racial quest for the “perfect form” is a delusion, and are attempting to revert to their races original nature. That group, of course, would need help and protection from the rest of their race.
  
  *The inherent contradiction in giving standardized stats for a race that’s supposed to be changing itself constantly is fairly obvious. Worse, in d20, increasing your species ECL modifier is generally a poor exchange, since it reduces your numbers.
  
  Reply
Derek, on June 8, 2011 at 6:15 am said:

Actually those sound perfect for ethergaunts (from the FF). They were one of the most interesting sounding and underdeveloped races in any edition of D&D. Thanks for the ideas.

And since when do zerg use technology?

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- Thoth, on June 8, 2011 at 1:58 pm said:
  
  You’re welcome.
  
  And, as listed, Zergs don’t use technology – but that’s simply the “Fantasy Campaign” setting default for pretty much everybody. Now, if they happen to be running around in Modern, Future, or a specific setting like Dragonstar, they might need to be able to use it – no matter how much they disdain non-biological abilities.
  
  Reply
Derek, on June 12, 2011 at 6:26 am said:

LHF questions:

On page 84, you mention trees of life. Did you mean something like the Dark Sun trees or something else?

Could a druid combine Hand of Earth (strange harvest or bonsai, p. 84) with Tincture of Alchemy (extract the essence, p. 82) to produce a tree that harvests the alchemical substances from the plants around it? In other words, can spellweaves from different “schools” be combined?

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- Thoth, on June 13, 2011 at 2:31 am said:
  
  In Legends of High Fantasy a “Tree of LIfe” is simply a plant that’s been modified to link multiple dimensions together and to draw energy from the interface(s) between them.
  
  That means that they’re hard to damage and almost impossible to kill. After all, they’re only partially in any one dimension – so even battering one entirely into splinters in a single dimension is no worse for such a plant than sawing off a limb is for a normal tree. Worse, with an endless supply of energy being supplied straight to every cell, they tend to regenerate their tissues with astounding speed – chop one down to a stump (a murderously difficult task in itself) and it will likely regrow itself within a day.
  
  Now, depending on WHAT dimensions such a plant is linking together, things may get strange.
  
  The Dark Sun “Trees of Life” would basically be a subvariety. I’d say those were most likely linking the elemental, material, and positive energy planes. Thus they could tap into massive amounts of life energy and raw elemental material to replenish themselves – and to fuel Dark Sun’s defilers.
  
  Spellweaves can be combined, usually by simply adding the “secondary effect” modifier on page 41 – although, sadly arcane spellweaves can only have arcane secondary effects and divine spellweaves can only have divine secondary effects unless the game master is feeling exceptionally generous.
  
  In specific, there wouldn’t be much reason to combine Strange Harvest of Bonsai with Tincture of Alchemy; Tincture of Alchemy generally just extracts substances – and you can generally do that with Strange Harvest anyway, it’s just that Strange Harvest calls for a much higher level spell if you want to accomplish it at the same speed.
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
Derek, on June 13, 2011 at 4:15 pm said:

Well, what I was thinking was a druid garden where alchemists and herbalists come to plant certain vegetation and then get the refined material from the tree in the center of the garden. Strange harvest would have to be extraordinarly high level to replicate almost every kind of herbalistic trait. This would make it much easier (and popular with those druids who use the political power gained from controlling advanced alchemy in the region).

And it does help, thanks!

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- Thoth, on June 18, 2011 at 4:26 am said:
  
  Sorry about the delay here: it’s been quite chaotic for the last few days…
  
  That would be an interesting application, although there might be problems with mixed-up formulas and keeping things separate if the tree isn’t also given the ability to switch between various formula somehow. That would be a relatively simple spell though, or you could probably do it manually by simply making sure to dig out the remaining bits of your last set of ingredients a day or so before starting in on a new formula.
  
  You could get even more elaborate by making the tree itself sapient and skilled in Alchemy. That way you could just plant or pile a wide variety of ingredients around it and get it to produce requested alchemical mixtures.
  
  And you’re quite welcome.
  
  Reply
Derek, on June 13, 2011 at 7:30 pm said:

Some times I wonder if I would leave my head behind if it wasn’t attached.

The one question, the important question, that I forgot is does wood magic apply to fungi? Being that fungal spores are everywhere, this means even a wood druid stuck in a empty room could have access to an army. All it needs is growth and animation.

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- Thoth, on June 18, 2011 at 4:46 am said:
  
  Again, sorry about the delay…
  
  In d20 terms, fungi do count as plants. Of course, in d20, rather a lot of mobile, active, and very dangerous creatures also count as plants. the definition seems to be pretty broad.
  
  Reply
Derek, on June 16, 2011 at 6:02 am said:

TPE questions.

There is nothing about multiple casters working on making a single object. Should a feat be required if they are of the same kind of caster (arcane vs divine) or should it only be if they are of different kinds?

Could a large number of casters set up a production line? What advantages (in time, xp and money) might this provide?

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Thoth, on June 18, 2011 at 5:14 am said:

Multiple casters can work on a single item. After all, we know from the SRD that a character can get a spell he or she needs to use to enchant an item from another source – and that a spellcaster can upgrade items that he or she didn’t actually make regardless of who made them originally.

That’s why page 106 of The Practical Enchanter only specifies the amount of gold and XP that must be expended, the time required, and that the item-crafter must have any relevant spells available. (They could also use Orichalcum (from page 154) or – if they’re making a Ward Major – the Cooperative modifier).

Now, the actual caster determines the spell level and minimum caster level – so using a poorly-chosen friend as the source for some spells may make your creation more expensive than it needs to be.

You could set up a production line of sorts, even under the SRD rules: have one caster make something +1, the next upgrade it to +2, and the third to +3. That would save a bit of money (you won’t need as many shops), but it really doesn’t save much else.

Unfortunately for progress, magic – and enchantment – depends a lot on individual talents. A primitive shaman in a hut can turn out magical devices just as well as a scholarly mage in a university of magic – which means that better labs and such just don’t help much. Ergo, an assembley line won’t help much either. When everyone needs the same feat, and access to the same abilities, to make a contribution to the work, there isn’t much point in passing items along a line – save, perhaps, to reduce the time by working twenty-four hours a day instead of eight or so.

I’d be inclined to let multiple qualified artificers work on the same item and divide the time accordingly. After all, page 106 provides a time requirement; it doesn’t say that it all has to come from a single character.

Overall, however, there just isn’t a very big advantage there. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do something though. You might like this article here, on living

magic: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/living-magic-the-harvest/

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Derek, on June 19, 2011 at 9:02 am said:

Shouldn’t it save some time? The spellcasters could work around the clock in shifts. If creating an item means 16 hour days (8 for sleep and regaining spells*), then the time should be cut by a third by just using two casters. Or two thirds if a caster can only use 8 hours per day in item creation. That is huge for industrial production (esp for a culture that doesn’t have machines making stuff). A city could have its shadow burning continual flames** in days rather than weeks.

And you do bring up a great point, one I hope you cover in TPE II- how (or why) can a shaman in a hut do as well as a guild mage in terms of item creation?

*Meals are for the weak.

** Continual flame + a variant of burning hands that only harms undead shadows.

And I very much remember the living harvest. It was my first question here and still my favorite article based on my questions. I hope it will be in TPE II.

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- Thoth, on June 19, 2011 at 11:34 am said:
  
  Oh I just meant total working time. Turning stuff out faster is always possible, if only by visiting (or creating) a plane or pocket-realm with a different time rate. Given that one of the examples in the SRD is a plane with a time rate of one year per second that goes by in the prime material, if you’re really in a rush, and have a Plane Shift effect available, you can complete almost any crafting project in an arbitrarily small interval as measured by “real” time.
  
  I tend to restrict time rate differentials to somewhat more reasonable levels personally. That sort of thing is far too easy to exploit otherwise.
  
  And I must apologize: I fear I’d forgotten that you were the one who asked that question and just pasted in the link since it was related. I’ll leave it there though; other readers may find the reference useful.
  
  Reply
Derek, on June 20, 2011 at 6:05 am said:

Nothing to apologize for. You have what 2000-4000 pages worth of articles here? I have designed over 2000 Mutant Future creatures so I know about forgetting stuff I have written.

But why do think that round the clock creation isn’t faster than normal crafting? I get that planar tricks can make it much faster but you seem to be dismissing the idea of round the clock work completely.

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- Thoth, on June 20, 2011 at 12:03 pm said:
  
  I think we’re just counting the time differently. I’m counting time spent by the enchanters – ergo, if it takes twenty-four total hours of work to enchant an item, three days at eight hours a day works, and so does one day at twenty-four hours a day – but either way the enchanters still spend twenty-four hours of work on that item.
  
  Thus if a group of three mages all work on their own projects, they can turn out three such items every three days. If they all work on the same item in shifts*, they’ll be turning out one per day – which is basically the same, and can even look pretty much the same from the outside if they started on successive days.
  
  *And we presume, as the SRD rules on upgrading items could be taken to imply, that there’s no special requirement for that.
  
  Now, one of the major bottlenecks in enchantment lies in the requirement that the enchanter have access to the spell he or she needs every day. That does suggest a possible mass-production method: create a large item that casts the required spell at the desired casting level an unlimited number of times per day, institute a training program that teaches some minions the relevant item-enchanting feat, and provide some way for them to get experience (probably another feat); Thus the minions can prepare the item, bring it by the casting device to receive the spell in question, and take it away to do whatever has to be done to it during today’s step in the enchantment process.
  
  That spellcasting “Foundry Stone” will be pretty expensive, and the procedure does presume both that the only point in in enchanting where “caster level” is relevant is in the casting of the actual spell and that the spell involved is simply cast rather than gradually being woven into the enchantment – but it might work.
  
  Personally, I’d have to rule that caster level does come into the process, and so this will only work for stuff who’s required casting level is no more than three higher than that of the minions – but that still means that quite a lot of basic potions and scrolls and such could be turned out.
  
  I did put up a relic that allows ordinary folk to make minor potions and scrolls. Relics are expensive to make, but will work indefinitely thereafter. It’s the Philosopher’s Stone, over in this article: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/eclipse-sample-relics-part-v/
  
  Reply
Alzrius, on June 21, 2011 at 6:47 pm said:

What sort of spell(s) would it look like to summon an army for a considerable amount of time?

I recognize that the problems with this request are the inherent relativity of the terms “army” and “considerable length of time.” As such, let’s presume that we’re talking about summoning no less than twenty (though certainly more) 2nd-level fighters (of a standard PC race, such as human) for 1 hour per caster level.

My instinct here was to use the rules for summon monster spells, wherein if you sink a higher-level spell into lower-level creatures, you can summon more of them, but between the number of creatures and the length of time you want them to remain, that rapidly becomes infeasible.

Hence, would a specialized spell that was less flexible than a standard summon monster spell (which allowed for a choice among several monsters, and could be scaled through lower-level summons) allow for such a spell to exist at sub-epic ranges? Certainly, not granting the standard celestial/fiendish template to “normal” creatures (which any standard humanoid race would surely be) would help too.

In short, what would the “summon army” spell look like?

Reply
- Alzrius, on June 21, 2011 at 8:09 pm said:
  
  I really should stop doing additional research on questions I want to ask after the fact.
  
  Having tried to find a good definition for the word “army,” my initial estimate of “no less than 20” seems a bit too small. Wikipedia (in its entry for “army”) tells us that a contemporary western military usually has a given army (e.g. the First Army of the United States) as a corps. A corps is at least two divisions, each of which is at least three brigades, each of which is at least three battalions, each of which is at least 600 men.
  
  That’d make a single corps army have at least 10,800 men, dead minimum.
  
  However, this numbers inflate further when you look at (Wikipedia’s definition of) a field army – three corps, three divisions, plus headquarters and troops (which themselves seem to have an indeterminate number. At the very least, a “troop” seems to have about 50 men). And beyond that are army groups, consisting of several hundred thousand to over a million men.
  
  Obviously, this is beyond impractical for a d20 game, unless some sort of mass combat rules have been introduced. Even then, any such summoning spell would be far and away too high-level for pretty much anyone to ever cast.
  
  So yeah…20 soldiers seems good.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on June 25, 2011 at 6:05 am said:
    
    And the answer here was – once again – long enough to turn into a small article, so it’s over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/d20-summon-army/
Alzrius, on July 10, 2011 at 3:52 pm said:

Purely for crits and giggles, I wanted to ask how you’d stat up the character Malachite, the villain from Suburban Knights.

For reference, that’s a seven-part mini-series consisting of about two hours (give or take) of footage. It’s pretty funny for gamers and fans of fantasy games and movies, but if watching through the entire thing all to get a good reference for one character is too much, let me know and I’ll outline his powers and abilities here.

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- Thoth, on July 11, 2011 at 11:53 pm said:
  
  Well, it will probably have to wait for a couple of days, but I’ll have a look then. Sadly, things have gotten extremely busy lately.
  
  Reply
  - Alzrius, on October 7, 2011 at 8:22 pm said:
    
    I hate to nag, but any forward motion on this particular request?
  - Thoth, on October 9, 2011 at 12:13 pm said:
    
    I must admit that I forgot about it before finding the time to watch it. Thanks for the reminder; things are a bit frantic, but I will try to find the time to take a look and see what the character actually does…
- spellweaver81, on October 9, 2011 at 1:12 am said:
  
  I’ll take a stab at this soon. I’ve watched the first episode and thus far I’ve seen the villain splatter a man’s head and then blow up a car. So far that looks like a magic missile and a fireball spell and not much else, but I still have six more parts to go.
  
  Reply
  - spellweaver81, on October 9, 2011 at 3:19 pm said:
    
    Excluding the Gauntlet, Malachite to me seems at best a Level 5 sorcerer with immunity to aging and a significant number of attack spells.
    
    Offhand, I saw fireballs, lightning bolts, wind wall, clairvoyance, basic hand to hand skills, magic missile, and rope trick. Why rope trick? Well, I am fairly certain that if you hit someone hard enough that they proceed to orbit the Earth twice and then impact the ground where they started again in a matter of a few minutes, you’ve exceeded escape velocity and you’ve exceeded the upper limits of a internet critic’s ability to absorb damage. Ergo, the internet critic was instead shoved into a special rope trick (or maze spell) that made him think he was fired around the world a few times. And while this particular spell is a bit more complicated than most of the others, it was only really demonstrated once he had the Gauntlet. Given that, I am willing to figure that was a power of the Gauntlet and not Malachite.
    
    The hardest one to really describe off hand is ripping a person’s heart out barehanded (and without making a horrendous mess either). Closest thing I can come up with a Finger of Death spell with a special effect to kill the target via the removal of the heart on a failed save. That’s still a level 7 spell though. However it is the one demonstrated instance that using a spell caused Malachite to become visibly weakened afterwards. Ergo, I would lean towards the idea that the spell level was dropped by imposing a “damages caster when used” effect. Throw in that the spell also exhausts the caster and leaves them vulnerable and weakened for a time, plus a shortening of the caster’s lifespan and you might be able to talk the GM into letting you have the spell at spell level 3. If not, well there is the option out there to let you buy down the spell level of a specific spell by permanently sacrificing attribute points (can’t remember the ability off hand and can’t find my book).
    
    That brings it down far enough for our level 5 Sorcerer to cast it, but not frequently.
    
    The Gauntlet I would argue is merely a magic item with a number of use activated spells available for the user to pick from. Those are usually expensive to say the least, so throwing in a limited number of available charges to power said spells and a long and costly ritual to recharge it periodically would seem about in order. That would reduce the cost significantly given the rules for magic item creation.
    
    I also don’t typically charge for theme music and looking like a Matrix extra given that it fits the setting, and in this case it certainly seems to.
    
    I know that isn’t a detailed breakdown on how to build Malachite and the Gauntlet, but it at least should point you in the right direction and presumably provide ideas. Thoth may come up with a much more detailed writeup or completely different way of building him though.
  - burning8bones, on October 10, 2011 at 11:42 am said:
    
    actually you could build it easier with 3 points of mana with the spell enhancement option.
    
    building it with atheria’s world law that allowed purchasing down the level of a spell is not possible out of atheria… but is not unreasonable since immunity to the difficulty of a specific spell sufficient to drop it by one level is likely to come out cheaper than the 12 points to buy back a point of attribute.
  - spellweaver81, on October 10, 2011 at 10:05 pm said:
    
    Ah, you’re right. For some reason I was thinking that was under the rules in the Eclipse book instead of a simple campaign world law. And your idea does end up working out better than mine. Sadly most of the characters I’ve built have been for npc’s to use in the Federation Apocalypse Campaign, and since as GM I get to give them as many character points as needed, efficiency hasn’t typically been an issue.
Alzrius, on July 25, 2011 at 7:49 pm said:

Using Eclipse, what’s a good way for a character to protect themselves from the adverse effects of time travel/manipulation? Is it as simple as just buying “Immunity: temporal paradox” or is there more to it?

Certainly, there are more ways to use time to mess with someone than just trying to kill them before they’re born (e.g. trapping them in alternate universes, scrambling their fate/destiny, putting them on the wrong side entities and organizations that maintain the stability of time, etc). What’s a good way to protect yourself from someone using this very indirect method of attack?

Reply
- Thoth, on July 26, 2011 at 10:22 am said:
  
  There are a couple of different ways to do that.
  
  First up (from the Atrocity Build example): Energy Infusion/Dimensional Energies (6 CP): The user is immune to paradox, can meet him- or her-self without trouble as long as he or she indulges in a little caution, can resist the effects of having his or her past interfered with – and is immune to minor annoyances such as Slow, Time Stop, and similar manipulations. On the other hand, the user takes double damage from Cosmological Energies, and may be harmed or affected by the strange forces released by weird dimensional-destruction weapons that other characters will not even notice.
  
  Of course, the entire Atrocity Build is based around various cheats and abuses. The cheat on this one lies in the mention of Time Stop; this ability won’t stop other people from using Time Stop since it speeds up THEIR time. It prevents YOU from using it (or even lesser effects, such as Haste). Other than that, it works fine – even if it does leave you with weird “Dr. Who” style vulnerabilities.
  
  The next way is indeed an Immunity – but it’s an expensive one; time manipulation isn’t all that uncommon and goes right on up through epic effects. If you’re working in a world that allows characters to be eliminated through changes in the past, it’s effects can be Severe – and you’ll want legendary protection (for a base of 48 CP). Of course, that is controllable, so you can still gain the benefits of such effects. You could, however, Specialize and Corrupt this – leaving yourself subject to the minor, common, effects while resisting major disruptions of space and time.
  
  Other ways tend to depend on how time works in a given setting. For example, in a branching universe, where disturbances in time created new timelines, Temporis the Time Wizard (Champions) had a plane-shifting ability which automatically transferred him and everyone in a radius into the new timeline whenever someone meddled with history. Given that this is not, in fact, generally helpful, in Eclipse you might be able to count it as a form of the “Accursed” disadvantage.
  
  Now, if the old timelines ceased to exist as history was revised, that would be a pretty useful power – probably a rather restricted combination of Reflex Action and Inherent Spell.
  
  One or more of those approaches should cover scrambling fate or destiny, depending on what those actually are or do in a given setting.
  
  The remaining item – “putting them on the wrong side entities and organizations that maintain the stability of time, etc” – is harder. While the previous methods should protect their users against most of the effects such entities might deploy, an immunity to other people stirring up trouble for you seems awfully far-reaching (and dull). In this case I think I’d go with Favors from Major Time-Governing Entities and Organizations. That covers establishing some basic-good will, and you can always say that your “generic favor” is that they look into any accusations or apparent evidence against you thoroughly before coming to any conclusion. That’s also relatively cheap – probably 3 or 6 CP, depending on whether or not the GM thinks that this is a “major” favor.
  
  I hope all that helps!
  
  Reply
  - alzrius, on September 5, 2011 at 7:35 pm said:
    
    Here’s a follow-up: what effect would either of these protections against temporal tampering (either an infusion of dimensional energy or a flat-out immunity) have on an individual’s connection with fate/destiny?
    
    To put it another way, can you look into the future of a creature that’s so altered its connection to time? That doesn’t seem to interact with fate, but people ascribe the future to fate/destiny just as much as the linear progression of time. Would any of the spells with the [fate] descriptor in in Paths of Power I and II work differently on a character like this? Or would this all be GM’s prerogative?
  - Thoth, on September 6, 2011 at 11:20 am said:
    
    Given that there isn’t much information on how “Fate” or “Destiny” works, I’d have to say it’s a firm “It depends!”.
    
    If we go with “You cannot escape your fate!” then making it more difficult for your fate to catch up with you might extend the time until it does. Thus, if your fate is to “Die by the hand of Malindar!” so you shall – but if you kill Malindar, cross half the galaxy, and flee into the distant past, it will probably (but not certainly) be a long time before that fate catches up with your.
    
    Of course, if Malindar was the last one to check your time machine, and left it accidentally jammed on “The Big Bang” in such a way that the instruments don’t show any error (he meant to fix it before putting it back into storage), your attempt to flee your fate will have just brought it about.
    
    Thus if “Fate” or “Destiny” is an external force that manipulates events to bring about certain conclusions, protections against temporal tampering won’t have any effect; that force pretty much has to be outside of time anyway or it couldn’t foresee all those consequences and perform a near-infinite number of simultaneous manipulations. After all, presumably your character is not the only one in the universe with a fate or destiny.
    
    If you CAN “escape your fate” then immunity to temporal tampering might well help you do so; it cuts off a powerful selection of options for meddling.
    
    Now if “Fate” or “Destiny” is a part of time (which doesn’t make a lot of sense given that time isn’t a force, but might result from some sort of “incarnation of time” meddling with the course of history or some such) – then protections against temporal tampering probably would help against it – and would allow your character to be one of the few who can oppose such meddling, and thus doubtless a major target (lucky lucky you!).
    
    As far as looking into the future of a creature that’s protected from temporal tampering goes – that works just fine presuming that your method doesn’t in itself involve tampering with the existing timeline. Now, if the setting default is that “looking at the future sets it” then such precognition will fail since that WOULD be temporal tampering.
    
    As far as the “Fate” spells in Paths of Power go there shouldn’t normally be any interaction; those are spells that (more or less) simply wait for an opportune, vulnerable, moment to strike.
Christopher West, on August 4, 2011 at 10:39 pm said:

Hey Thoth and all others. Started adding my character builds and concepts to my site. most articles should link back to Ruscumag. Let me know if they dont.

Reply
- Thoth, on August 6, 2011 at 11:54 am said:
  
  The automated pingbacks only show up if you reference specific articles – but I’ll just add a link to the blogroll and cross-index things the next time I get time to update the indexes (which is, sadly, long overdue).
  
  And your builds do look interesting! It’s always nice to see what someone else does with things; sometimes people completely surprise me with builds I never would have thought of.
  
  Reply
Derek, on August 7, 2011 at 5:55 am said:

I hate keeping going back over the same stuff but I do have a question related to LoHF (tide of blood and hand of the earth) and the awaken spell:

What level would the effect have to be to be heritable? I find it odd that WoTC never had a version of awaken that allows offspring to be intelligent when they did have a few variants (like awaken ooze).

Reply
- Thoth, on August 9, 2011 at 2:00 am said:
  
  Well, this one got a little long for a reply, so I’ve turned it into a small article over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/d20-blood-and-intellect/
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on August 8, 2011 at 2:04 am said:

Hi Thoth
Interpretation of Inherrent Spell
I want to take Freedom of Movement (4th level spell) consider it as a first purchase of Inherrent Spell.

Dont need any other spells
Reduce the duration so that it activates on auto – much like the ability from a cleric’s Travel domain.

Your thoughts?

Reply
- Thoth, on August 9, 2011 at 12:09 am said:
  
  Well, “Inherent Spell” can be any spell effect the game master will approve, regardless of whether or not it’s an existing spell – so there’s no problem there.
  
  “Freedom of Movement” can normally be applied to others, and has a duration of ten minutes per level. From your description what you want is a personal-only version that only lasts for a minute or so (taking it down to level two) but is triggered by an attack. You could build that as…
  
  An innate enchantment (L2 Spell x L3 Caster x 2000 GP For Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x .4 (Twice Per Day) = 4800 GP or 6 CP and a few XP.
  
  An Immunity to the appropriate movement restraints (Common, Major, Major, 9 CP), Specialized/only available for one round per level per day [thus matching the priestly ability] comes out to only 4 CP, but isn’t quite so easily upgraded and has less overall duration.
  
  The short-term, personal-only, reactive effect does sound like a reasonable third level spell – and so can be purchased as an Inherent Spell for 6 CP.
  
  Hopefully one of those options will be a good match for what you want!
  
  Reply
  - Christopher West, on August 9, 2011 at 1:39 am said:
    
    Hi Thoth
    
    Thanks for feedback. Was leaning towards a variant immunity (ie save bonus, check bonus) followed up by a Ref Training – on success save/escape gain a standard action.
    
    Never thought of lowering the level of the spell. :)
    
    Thanks again
  - Thoth, on August 9, 2011 at 2:04 am said:
    
    Oh, you’re quite welcome.
    
    And that will work too; like most things, there are a lot of ways to build any particular effect; all you need to do is to pick the one that’s closest to what you want.
    
    Have a good time there!
Christopher West, on August 21, 2011 at 6:00 pm said:

Hey Thoth – Question re Spirit Weapon.
Default damage dice? What is it?
I initially assumed it was as the weapon you choose – or can this be changed every time ?
Thanks

Reply
- Thoth, on August 25, 2011 at 11:09 am said:
  
  Sorry about the delay; things have been a bit frantic…
  
  Basic Spirit Weapons generally have the same base attributes as the weapon they’re emulating, which is chosen when the power is taken. You’re paying for the ability to smuggle it into “weaponless” situations, for being able to simply re-manifest it if it’s somehow broken or you get disarmed, and so that no one else can use it. They work nicely for various cyberweapons too.
  
  Spirit weapons, and the missiles they fire if you’re simply manifesting those, vanish a few moments after leaving the user’s hands.
  
  Of course, particular settings may modify things. For example, this character – https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/atheria-d20/matthew-paladin-archer/ – was for a world that allowed modern weapons. On the other hand, the game master liked “archaic” spirit weapons. Ergo, big, flashy, spirit weapons got an extra die of damage (so as to keep them competitive with guns) but that only muscle-powered weapons could be used as templates for spirit weapons.
  
  Reply
Alzrius, on August 22, 2011 at 6:04 pm said:

Immunity/aging seems to be a relatively cheap ability to purchase, costing from 2 to 4 CP (that I’ve seen here – it seems to vary depending on if you want to live for a long time, or a very long time, or indefinitely unless killed).

My question is, does purchasing this immunity affect the ability score modifiers that go with aging in d20? Will this make you immune to the penalties to your physical ability scores? Will it still let you earn the bonuses to your mental ability scores? If the answer to the latter two questions is yes, then what’s to stop someone from taking this immunity at character creation and declaring that their character is starting their adventuring career at venerable age, and earning a free +3 bonus to their Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma?

Also, given that you can presumably purchase this anytime, what’s the in-game rationale for why most characters don’t make the relatively small investment required to become virtually immortal? Fear of death seems universal, so only 4 CP to live forever seems like it’d be worthwhile; given that, why don’t we see societies where deathlessness is common?

Reply
- spellweaver81, on August 22, 2011 at 7:23 pm said:
  
  A lot of this depends on what you define as “aging”.
  
  The physical and mental deterioration of a human being is a complex process involving a number of factors. One of the most important is the lack of replacement cells that eventually occurs. Another is the accumulated genetic damage caused by oxidants, mutagens, UV, and random copy errors. Then you get the various forms of tissue and organ damage that occur as a natural part of living (i.e. teeth wear, bone loss, accumulation of scar tissue in the heart, and lead accumulation in the body). That isn’t even beginning to address the more minor issues like the fact that memory retention appears to be largely finite (even if it is still amazingly good from an engineering standpoint).
  
  Let’s say that your immunity grants you the ability to continually generate replacement cells as needed through the course of “normal” experience. That will stop a great number of the issues we associate with aging, but is also going to make diseases like cancer inevitable at some point. After all, everyone will get cancer if they live long enough, it’s just the accumulation of enough errors in the genetic code to cause out of control replication of cells. Such a person could live for quite a long time if they are careful, but eventually something will get them and their body will still deteriorate, just at a substantially slower pace. That one is probably worth 2 cp.
  
  So you throw into this immunity the ability to ignore the buildup of damage to the various organs, tissues, and even genetics involved in keeping a person healthy. That will make the cost of said immunity higher. This is also going to protect said person from a lot of things besides “aging”, like tooth decay, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, liver damage, smoking, and cataracts. That is going to cost more, probably in the 4 cp range.
  
  If your immunity is stopping even more than this, then expect it to cost more unless you throw more disadvantages at it to compensate.
  
  Next up is the question of what those ability score changes represent and what your aging is preventing. Offhand, I would say the 2 cp version I just described would delay the onset of the physical attribute penalties without doing much to delay the mental ones. The 4 cp version would delay the onset of both the mental and physical attribute changes substantially. After all, there are indications that memory formation is a form of brain damage, and if your immunity is repairing said damage slowly, it is hard to become a more mature individual isn’t it? You might do well enough in the short term, but you could expect to start losing skills and memories you don’t use very often over the years and decades that follow. That space for new memories has to come from somewhere after all.
  
  While I might allow a character to be brought into my campaign that has immunity to aging and has been around for sometime, I am going to be asking for a lot more from the player in terms of what that character has been doing all this time, where his stuff is, and why did he choose now of all times to recklessly go adventuring. That could provide enough plot hooks, trouble, and character background to easily pay for what would seem like a “free” attribute boost. I would also be demanding at that point that the character have points investing in something besides being an adventurer. After all, he has to have been paying the bills up till now somehow.
  
  Finally, I would say the reason why you wouldn’t find entire peoples with this advantage is the same reason you don’t typically find it in nature: it doesn’t enhance breeding advantage all that much in the long term. While a nigh-immortal might be able to have hundreds or thousands of children over the millennia, they are all going to be likely to suffer from the same adaptive issues (i.e. disease vulnerability) he would. Whereas that village doing things the old fashioned way has been constantly reshuffling combinations of adaptions every generation until everyone in a generation had the better adaptions to the local environment. Not to put too fine a point on it, but death serves wonderfully at getting the old combinations out of the way to provide room for newer and possibly better combinations. Then there is the double whammy that populations that live longer also tend to have fewer children.
  
  Personally, I look to the note included with the Immunity power in the book: can be taken at GM discretion. That typically means that it isn’t something the average person is going to be able to take, and only exceptional people (like adventurers) are likely to be able to take it.
  
  Just my two cents, although I imagine Thoth might have his own to put in.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on August 25, 2011 at 12:47 pm said:
    
    Ah entropy. What doesn’t it take the blame for in the end?
    
    A fine and useful answer indeed (and thank you very much for stepping in while I was over-busy Spellweaver81!). That is the wonderful thing about the more sci-fi settings; you can provide details…
    
    That lack of replacement cells may be fixable though; most human body cells can normally only divide themselves a limited number of times; once they hit that limit, no more replacement cells can be produced – and the end is nigh. Thus most “higher organisms” are pre-programmed to die off and make room for their descendents. Why? Because this accelerates the rate of change in the species – and thus helps keep them ahead of the competition. If longer lives are an advantage for a particular species genes (or whatever), longer-lived individuals will soon predominate – and the average life span for a species will go up.
    
    Depressingly, that means we’re about at our optimal aging rate from an evolutionary standpoint; we probably won’t be “evolving into immortality”.
    
    Now, for d20 worlds with less relationship to real-world physics – where “aging” may be the result of a mystical drift “away” from close contact with the positive material plane, or where everyone is born with a fixed quantity of life force*, or aging is the result of some curse, or is the will of the gods to keep everyone humble and downtrodden, or is the result of accumulating disharmony between the body and the spirit, or some such, the situation may be very different.
    
    *Some early versions of wizards used that theory; magic gradually used it up – so every spell you cast weakened you permanently. Thus older wizards knew powerful magic, and had studied for years to make it as efficient as possible, and very rarely used it – while young wizards tended to see their reserves as near-infinite, and threw far more spells than was wise. If they didn’t quickly BECOME wise, they soon became dead.
    
    Thus I lean a bit more towards “how does the game mechanics work in building a character” with general questions (after all, I wrote the mechanics); to go into detail on how things work, you need a lot of details on the setting.
- Thoth, on August 25, 2011 at 11:11 am said:
  
  Well, this once again got kind of long for a comment (and meandered, as such things so often do) – so it became a small article over HERE: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/immunity-to-aging-and-other-peasant-powers/
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on August 22, 2011 at 8:09 pm said:

Nice reply Spellweaver81. Also at the end of the day how often do adventurers ‘live’ to see old age? Does been ‘immortal’ fit the character concept? Why would he have it. Using Eclipse is not just about taking the powers that sound cool or look good, you have to have the concept or idea before you begin.
Personally I would never have a character with immortality (or Timeless Body as the monk ability is called) – I just don’t see the point. But it might fit in other regards – your monk that is 100 years old, but still has the body of a twenty year old. Mostly this kind of immunity simply prevents the physical ability scores from decreasing as you age.

Reply
Christopher West, on August 25, 2011 at 7:12 pm said:

Thanks for the reply Thoth. All good.

Reply
Derek, on September 6, 2011 at 7:04 am said:

Thoth, you mentioned in Eclipse that rangers had a reduced number of “offensive, illusionary, or stealth based spells” from 3.5 from 3.0

I was looking at both spell lists (3.5 here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/rangerSpells.htm and 3.0 in the book) and have no idea what you mean. There are a few changes but nothing like gutting the offensive spells that you seem to imply.

Please clarify.

Reply
- Thoth, on September 6, 2011 at 10:43 am said:
  
  Ah, that’s an easy one; it’s simply that – at that time – 3.0 Rangers had been given a lot more spells in various 3.0 supplements, but 3.5 hadn’t yet expanded their selection much.
  
  Later on the 3.5 Ranger list expanded again – which is a secondary reason why that particular modifier got dropped from the level-by-level Ranger breakdown. You can find that in Eclipse II or over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/3-5-d20-level-by-level-base-class-breakdowns-part-iii/
  
  Reply
Derek, on September 8, 2011 at 5:56 am said:

The modifier is gone but the comment remains in Eclipse II.

Reply
- Thoth, on September 14, 2011 at 11:06 am said:
  
  Sorry about the delay; things have been a bit busy…
  
  In this case it’s not really quite the same note. The original note simply referred to a reduced number of spells. The later version is referring to a restriction on the spells that Rangers can develop and use*. The lengthy list of 3.5 domains pretty well established that almost any arcane spell was fair game for a divine spellcaster provided that it was in-theme – and a Ranger’s theme certainly includes the “Scout-Commando” role.
  
  A 3.5 Rangers spell list might thus include Fireball (most commandos carry some explosives after all), Call Lightning, Invisibility (for slipping in and out of enemy camps), Hallucinatory Terrain, Dimension Door, Silence, Envenom Blade, and many similar spells.
  
  Thus a commando-style Ranger might become Invisible, Dimension Door into an enemy strong point, stab the commander with a venomous blade, and drop a Fireball on the pursuing troops during the daring escape – but none of those spells are on their list, despite fitting into many ranger concepts and their obvious utility. Ergo the restriction.
  
  Reply
Phantom, on September 28, 2011 at 2:54 pm said:

Psychic construct (Practical Enchanter)

What do you consider reasonable upgrades to each aspect of a psychic construct when metamagic Amplify is applied to that spell/power? Some of the columns from the psychic construct table are pretty easy to visualize, but not all. For example how many additional menu choices per spell level increase from Amplify?

How would you duplicate the Boost Construct feat (Expanded Psionics Handbook) with Eclipse?

Thanks in advance,
Phantom

Reply
- Thoth, on October 5, 2011 at 2:49 am said:
  
  Oops, almost missed this one. Sorry about that.
  
  As far as the Amplify metamagic goes, it’s usually the other way around; the user describes what he or she wants to add and the game master tells him or her how many levels of amplification it will take. Still, for a quick rule of thumb, if you’re boosting specific aspects of “summon construct” with Amplify, I think I’d just say “Pick a column; bump up two spell levels for each level of Amplify devoted to that purpose. No more than four for any one aspect”. You might have to extend the tables a bit if that goes over level nine, but the patterns are fairly straightforward – and you can’t really get it “wrong”. If the characters are playing around with amplifying things past ninth level, a die or minor power more or less won’t make that big a difference.
  
  As far as “Boost Construct” goes, you’d want Metamagic / Amplify and Streamline, both Specialized and Corrupted / only with “Summon Construct” effects, only to provide one extra ability from a menu that the construct is already qualified for (4 CP).
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
  - Phantom, on October 5, 2011 at 6:01 am said:
    
    This does help.
    
    Thank you.
  - Jasruv, on May 24, 2012 at 4:27 am said:
    
    How many levels would you charge to give them an ability from a higher table?
    
    I ask because I’m looking at making a character would could do an effect similar to Kage-Bushin from Naruto and was thinking of using streamline to add the level C mindful ability to all of his constructs.
  - Thoth, on May 27, 2012 at 5:24 pm said:
    
    Hm. I’m busy for a couple of days and the questions abruptly start to pile up… In this case I think I’d go with +2 levels. That’s Metamagic/Amplify (6 CP) and Streamline x2 (12 CP), both Specialized and Corrupted / only to add the Mindful ability to all constructs (final total of 6 CP).
    
    That should be useful, without being overwhelming. There are some abilities I might want another level of Streamline for, and a few which might get by one one – but the difference would only be a few CP in any case.
Christopher West, on October 7, 2011 at 1:41 am said:

Hi Thoth
Me Again.
Query: Kinetic Master (Dragon Path) – could you use it to make attacks with pure force or by picking up a weapon and stabbing someone. (I have already thought of picking up rocks/items and dropping on people :))
Cheers

Reply
- spellweaver81, on October 8, 2011 at 2:24 pm said:
  
  I’ll take a stab at this one. Personally I would be putting a number of limitations here.
  
  First off, while I would allow someone to use Kinetic Master to wield a weapon, I would be applying various bonuses or penalties depending on the circumstances. For instance, the typical human is pretty well optimized for throwing things, but it includes a number of assumptions of where the hand is in relation to the eyes. Ergo, telekinetically picking up a rock 30 ft to my right and flinging it at an opponent ahead of me and to my left is going to be moving something at an angle the brain isn’t really adapted for. Ergo, a circumstance penalty on targeting. You might get a bonus on the other hand for throwing something with your hand and then using Kinetic Master to help correct the aim in mid-flight.
  
  This also leads to the inevitable discussion of trying to use this for multi wielding various weapons. In this respect I would be arguing that the Kinetic Master ability is in many ways simply a third hand. If you want to use this in conjunction with your own hands in really complicated and semi-independent fashion, then I would require that the character take the various multi weapon or dual weapon abilities listed elsewhere. (if I recall, those end up falling under Bonus Attack corrupted to require an additional weapon in another hand, but I don’t have my book in front of me)
  
  Unfortunately, pure force attacks are where things get complicated. The lack of a simple action-reaction makes things difficult to find easy analogues in the real world to use as a guide. So you have to make a number of assumptions at this point regarding the nature of momentum, kinetic energy, inertia, and how these are all interacting with whatever you are trying to attack. Personally, I would argue that the effect of Kinetic Master is being applied to the object (or person) as a whole and thereby attempts to crush a person’s chest in simply by pushing them too hard will only result in pushing the whole person backwards. That still leaves open the possibility of then flinging said target against a hard surface like a wall.
  
  I would also allow the purchase of an additional ability to more specifically target portions of a person or object so that one might rip off limbs, crush organs, snap doors into so much splinters, and such. In that case what you would be buying is the ability to apply forces with different magnitudes and directions to the target simultaneously to make a direct attack or simply not transferring momentum, kinetic energy, or inertia to the target as a whole.
  
  On an interesting side note, there has been a significant debate in military circles for years whether it is energy transferred to the target or hydrostatic shock that ultimately leads to greater “stopping power.” This has a number of implications on what it means to attack someone with force and whether you are transferring momentum, kinetic energy, or inertia to the target (or some combination).
  
  Thoth will probably have his own answer to this question though.
  
  Reply
  - Christopher West, on October 8, 2011 at 9:13 pm said:
    
    @Spellweaver81. Thanks for the reply mate.
    
    My thinking is any ‘weapon’ or taking an object to attack with might very well apply the -10 (as per Sleight of Hand etc) or perhaps been a bit more lenient, and apply a -4 non proficiency?
    
    The description does say manipulates ‘objects’. I would probably think that that does not apply to living creatures or animated things like constructs or undead.
    
    In hind sight, would agree that you could not use it to deal direct force damage. (My character only has an effective Strength of 5 in it). Anyway, thanks again :)
    
    Could probably organise ‘feats’ to improve it.
- Thoth, on October 9, 2011 at 12:11 pm said:
  
  Well, simply in terms of the game mechanics, Kinetic Master doesn’t generate “pure force” since it only manipulates objects – and so can’t be used to attack that way (and so isn’t much use against noncorporeal opponents).
  
  You could shove someone’s clothing against them and push or hit them with it – but given the very limited strength this isn’t likely to be more than annoying, like any other unskilled unarmed attack. In theory you could also “hit someone with the dirt on their skin” or a focused blast of air; in practice, you need to be able to see or feel groups of particles to manipulate them well – so you’re back to the “-10” penalty unless all you want is a bit of an unfocused draft.
  
  You certainly can pick up weapons and stab people; although the low strength is (once again) rather limiting. Since d20 doesn’t have facing, it’s reasonable enough to rule that that the disadvantage of flinging stuff at an opponent telekinetically (not being used to judging the angle when the attack isn’t coming from where you are) neatly balances the advantages of attacking from an angle while the opponent is (presumably) focused on where his or her opponents actually are and of being able to somewhat correct the shot in flight. That’s a good desperation or surprise tactic, but not really all that effective.
  
  Actually trying to – say – fence with an opponent is going to be subject to the -10 penalty; you aren’t getting the constant kinesthetic feedback about where your blade is, are too far away to see details properly, and are – sadly – working in a fashion that’s a lot less instinctively polished than using the motor centers of your brain.
  
  Overall, the main utility of the basic ability is probably going to lie in less direct assaults, such as sending a staff floating ahead of you to check for tripwires, cheating at darts and cards, pushing buttons you don’t want to be standing near, getting the keys to your cell off the wall and into your hands, flipping your pancakes without tools or burning your fingers, pulling your sword back into your hand when you’ve been disarmed, getting a rope up that wall, distracting guards, tugging someone’s arm when they’re trying to cast a spell, getting gems out of that pool of acid, or wafting that hand grenade into position and preparing to pull the pin.
  
  If you want it to be more effective in combat, I’d suggest something like a martial art that uses Telekinesis as a weapon; You might even be able to persuade your game master that it should be Intelligence based.
  
  Take – say – Strike, Power III (for 1d12), Versatility, Whirlwind, and perhaps Inner Strength and Wrath (Fire). Now you can use your ability to slash, bludgeon, impale, or subdue, to attack small areas, and even to generate small blasts and storms of pyrokinetic flame.
  
  OK, you’re still going to have poor base damage from that lousy strength – but there are plenty of ways to improve that.
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on October 9, 2011 at 4:31 pm said:

Thanks Thoth. Dont know the Martial Arts all that well (well actually have not looked at that section at all). Wanted the power more for utility than anything.

Thinking damage wise like that Kinetic guy in Heroes. S… cant recall his name. But that might lean towards the Martial Arts you are suggesting.

Thanks again. :)

Reply
- Thoth, on October 10, 2011 at 11:49 am said:
  
  You’re quite welcome.
  
  I’ll admit that, so far, I’ve been pleased with the martial art rules. They may be only four pages – but I do try to make my pages work as hard as possible.
  
  Reply
Derek, on October 17, 2011 at 5:20 am said:

Yet another question about ritual magic in LHF. On page 108 you mentioned how memorizing a specific rite is worth +5 (on it alone). Is that/should that be a feat, a skill point or two or just a listing like spells?

Reply
- Thoth, on October 17, 2011 at 11:12 am said:
  
  It’s a specific knowledge. In Legends of High Fantasy those are just a bit further on – in the “Skills” section after the Ritual Magic examples.
  
  That’s page 117 (at least in the print version and by the page numbers); the final paragraph of the lower right hand column.
  
  As a side note, it’s very common in d20 to underestimate what “a few skill points” really mean. They’re a casual side issue in many games – but the difference between a bright high school student and a graduate engineer comes down to four skill points or so in a particular specialty and maybe four more scattered around in skills like “socializing”, “job hunting”, “driving”, and a secondary technical field.
  
  “One skill point” represents rather a lot of work and study. A feat… well, a normal person would be lucky to master one of those with a year of hard work and dedicated study.
  
  Reply
  - Derek, on October 19, 2011 at 4:31 am said:
    
    Thanks. Now I have a question about investing skill points (p. 117). What variable does the +d20 apply to for a spell? I get the rest of the column but I have no idea why anyone would invest skill points into spells- that is what metamagic feats are for.
  - Thoth, on October 19, 2011 at 11:25 am said:
    
    Ah, that one’s easy; that’s for wizards who want to get along without spellbooks – and thus the reference to the Spell Mastery feat and otherwise needing tomes. If your roguish wizard suspects that he may be locked up without his spellbook at some point, he may want to spend a couple of skill points to allow him or her to prepare – say – Sleep, Unseen Servant (1 SP for two first-level spells), and Knock (1 SP for a spell of level 2-3) without a spellbook.
    
    The die-roll bonus would, however, apply to Spellcraft checks to recognize those spells being cast or to recognize their effects. That isn’t usually very important though. Even if you’re really into counterspelling you’d be better off just building up your Spellcraft skill for that.
    
    In Eclipse, where you can Specialize and Corrupt things to modify their costs, and where there’s no longer a firm division between skill points and feats, you just use Spell Mastery – so this particular option doesn’t appear amongst the Specific Knowledge options there.
Alzrius, on October 18, 2011 at 12:39 pm said:

One of my fellow players requested this a little while back (and I’m only mostly sure he was kidding): How would you put together stats for a sentient couch? And, for that matter, how would you put together other “living” things that are normally inanimate objects?

Presumably, these would be like the living furniture in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, but that’s just a guess.

Reply
- Thoth, on October 18, 2011 at 2:32 pm said:
  
  I may go into this in more detail later on – but for the moment, this might help a bit; One of the local players once wanted to design a WWII Cruiser – the USS Charleston – as his character. That might help for the moment.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on October 20, 2011 at 8:52 pm said:
  
  And here is the first segment – a quick template (and a bit of a humor intro) for turning the statistics for animals into animated objects of various types.
  
  The Life Cycle of the Couch Tiger
  
  Reply
Derek, on October 27, 2011 at 6:33 am said:

I have a request. In Eclipse II, there is a couple articles (Spooky Powers) for characters who have died or have access to negative energy.

How about an article that involves positive energy? Not that namby-pamby 3e healing is positive energy, but rather the 1/2e plane that creates and destroys life and gives the mummy the ability to destroy life (its rot was life energy overwhelming life).

There has been so much about the negative energy plane and yet almost nothing about its opposite. 2 creatures (the ravid and xag-ya) and almost nothing else. It would be nice to see what you (either of you) can come up with.

Reply
- Alzrius, on October 27, 2011 at 5:12 pm said:
  
  You know, it’s never made sense to me that mummies were tagged as “positive energy” undead. I can understand creatures like Third Edition’s “deathless” type, as it’s the polar opposite of the undead, but mummies as positive-energy creatures? Pshaw.
  
  I think there’s some evidence that Gary felt that way as well. On page 47 of Mongoose Publishing’s Slayer’s Guide to Undead, Gary writes a notation (albeit in-character as “Zagig”) decrying the idea of mummies as positive-energy undead, saying that it was a mistake he made once, that has now been endlessly repeated.
  
  Ultimately, some may take the notation as less-than-serious, but I think it was his way of trying to set the record straight.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on October 28, 2011 at 11:45 am said:
    
    I suspect that it comes from the original Egyptian notion that the properly-preserved corpse remained “alive” as host for a vital fraction of the deceased’s eightfold soul. It wasn’t “dead”, or even “undead”. It wasn’t a creature of destruction, or a guardian, or a demonic horror possessing a corpse (like the classical Vampire) – it was a bank vault for the owners life force and a gateway to immortality.
    
    That was the notion that went into the original “Mummy” movies as well; the Mummy was still alive – it just didn’t have the vitality to move without the help of those Tana leaves (possibly the most powerful stimulant ever imagined).
    
    The “Positive Energy Mummy” may have been a mistake in terms of the game system – but the mistake may lie in the fact that Mummies were more or less written up as undead horrors with a “positive energy” label slapped on rather than as much more unique entities. The labels hung on through quite a few revisions and sets of errata after all, which usually means that the underlying idea is strong, even if the implementation is weak.
- Thoth, on October 28, 2011 at 11:28 am said:
  
  Well, why not? It may be a few days though (not in time for Halloween I fear) since I’ve been too busy to even keep up all the logs – but there’s no reason not to do something with the notion that pure life force is just as dangerous as pure entropy.
  
  After all, the naked flame of life should be as pure and terrible as the fire at the suns heart, a spark that – if uncontrolled – will cancerously overwhelm and destroy as relentlessly as the entropic darkness of the powers of death will drag the cosmos slowly into itself until achieving final oblivion.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on October 30, 2011 at 9:24 pm said:

This is a Request for Clarification.
I am shortly to embark on actually running my first ever Eclipse campaign, and I am having trouble understanding your intent on a few points.
In Codex Persona (which I actually bought physical copies of), on page 9 it says “instead of Feats (for certain levels), you get +6 CP.”
In the sample builds on your website (for example, the prominently presented, level by level build for the Merchant), I see the Feat-equivalent points accounted for at first level, but no extra 6 points being accounted for at level 3, 6, etc.

And the reverse applies to 3.x-style attribute gain: On the Same page in Codex Persona, it states that you Don’t get these, but can achieve similar results through the “development” ability (and that’s a Fine rule). BUT the Merchant build mentions “the free attribute raise” at a certain level.

This is generating a bit of cognitive dissonance for me, and will for my players as well (which will make it hard to ‘sell’ them on the variant. So ANY guidance (especially prompt guidance) you can offer would be Most Welcome.

Reply
- Thoth, on October 31, 2011 at 2:19 am said:
  
  The trick with the Merchant build was that it’s set up to illustrate “building your own class as you go”. Thus the Free Feats = Character Points relationship was listed with the first level point total, but the level-based bonuses – both “feat” and attribute – are discussed in the italicized segments after each level. That avoided cluttering up the progression with varying points-per-level and hopefully kept it useful to those using variant bonus feat and/or attribute increase progressions. (The better-formatted version in the web expansion may be easier to read).
  
  Eclipse characters normally gain free levels of Improved Self-Development in place of the usual +1 bonuses to attributes (thus the “instead of… character’s gain” wording). That was necessary for back-compatibility – although the Eclipse version does make it worthwhile to invest in improving a bad characteristic, since you get a bigger bonus if the attribute is very low. Sadly, you can’t normally convert those bonus levels of self-development into character points.
  
  Most of the other higher-level characters on the site are examples from pure Eclipse games – and so simply figure in the bonus feats from whatever progression was in use for that game directly into their total.
  
  There’s a Primer and a Cribsheet (with links to rather a lot of character examples) up as well.
  
  I hope your game goes well, and if there’s anything else you’d like clarified, please let me know.
  
  If there’s something you’d like an example of, let me know about that too; there may well be something relevant up already; there’s a lot of stuff around here.
  
  Reply
  - Jasper Merendino, on November 1, 2011 at 2:47 am said:
    
    Thank you for your prompt reply. I understand now.
    
    THis brings up another question: Since you have a default equivalent for Feat worth (6 CP), WHY did you not just fold that into the base starting points? +6 for everyone. +12 for Master Ra… er, humans?
    
    Taking that notion further, why not do the same wit the point equivalents for Feat/ levels, and Stat Raise/4? 6/3 + 12/4.
    This keep big lumps of points from arriving all at once (something I tend to think is Bad for character development).
  - Thoth, on November 1, 2011 at 4:43 am said:
    
    You’re quite welcome. The blog is faster than the Email ever was anyway really; I look at it a lot more often.
    
    There are a couple of reasons why we didn’t fold the bonus feats and bonus ability points into the base point allotment.
    
    First up was simply back-compatibility; Eclipse was intentionally set up so that you didn’t have to rewrite existing characters; you just gave them a few bonuses to cover the greater efficiency of just buying what you wanted and tossed them into the game. That allowed easy use of the mountains of modules, NPC’s, and other writeups available as well as accommodating mixed groups of Eclipse and Non-Eclipse players. Folding those points into the base would have made that far more awkward – and have rendered the book less useful to those using variant progressions for feats or attribute bonuses.
    
    The notion of Bonus Feats serves a useful purpose anyway however – as an allotment of points that don’t need to fit into a character’s concept at all. That lets them represent things that a character had simply have picked up from their experiences or other characters independently of their basic description. If your mighty barbarian-type decided that, on a vision-quest in the northern forest, he or she had communed with the glacier and picked up a touch of Ice Magic (perhaps represented by taking Occult Talent) then so be it.
    
    As for the attribute increases… Well, the trouble with turning those into points is that some character concepts have very little use for attribute increases. Sure, that Wizard might go for +5 Intelligence, but many other characters would prefer to spend those 60 CP buying ten extra Feats. That fouls up back-compatibility again – and if attributes can increase at all it seems reasonable enough that all that adventuring will lead to some increase. Simulating that would involve requiring that a certain allotment of character points be spent on attribute increases – which takes things right back to where they started except with extra math. Splitting up the attribute raise into “in a specialized situation” and “in general” would work – but the gain didn’t seem worth the extra bookkeeping.
    
    There is a table for splitting up various level-based benefits in the web expansion – but I must admit that that is one of the few things in the rules which hasn’t seen much of any use in our local games. Too much work, too little benefit.
Jasper Merendino, on October 30, 2011 at 9:26 pm said:

Also, is your company e-mail, mentioned in Codex Persona, still working? I tried to send the above query to that address, and it bounced.

Reply
- Thoth, on October 31, 2011 at 2:32 am said:
  
  Sadly, for the most part it did nothing but accumulate spam – while the actual questions and requests tended to wind up here. Given that putting things here gives other people a chance to find the answers to those questions and requests anyway, and that various products should be updated to direct people here, it’s been shut down for some time.
  
  If there’s enough interest at some point I may reactivate it.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on November 2, 2011 at 3:09 am said:

Got a New one for you –
I have frequently had characters (or their allies) beset by those who try to disarm, or Sunder, out weapons. And the “Block” Combat Augment is another trouble.
When running/playing a hero swordsperson in a Hero system game, I designed a Talent I called “Lightning Disengage”, which made it harder to block my attacks (in Hero, +2 OCV, only for Block contests).
I Know the mechanics I want to use – just make all contests involving attacks on weapon, or attempts to actively parry it, 2 harder (thus, for example, the Block target roll becomes 22).
My question is, HOW to I price that? I find no ability that just hinders an opponent’s roll (usually just buffs your own) . . . but then, there’s a lot of abilities, I may very well have missed one.

Reply
- editorial0, on November 2, 2011 at 9:47 pm said:
  
  Although Cristopher noted we have a couple already-named abilities, those are also just specific examples of a very weak form of Immunity. With a little creativity, Imunity is an extreely flexible feat which can cover for surprising number of abilities in the game. If you want something unusual, Immunity is often a good way to figure out a price.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 11:47 am said:
  
  I’m busy for a day or so and look what happens…
  
  Anyway, that’s mildly tricky, simply because the subsystems use two different sets of mechanics at the same time: Disarm/Grabbing Something and Sunder versus an opponents weapon call for opposed attack checks – while trying to Sunder something that’s being worn or carried by another character calls for an attack roll against it’s AC (apparently even if, say, it’s inside their armor but you’re aware of it somehow) and has a special exemption that keeps people from sundering worn (but not carried) armor – although shields aren’t apparently so protected.
  
  That calls for a bit of GM judgement of course; the rules may not say it, but unless the situation is rather weird, or the setting is more than a little cartoonish, you probably will not be allowed to grab someone’s underwear through their plate armor and give them a spinning combat wedgie.
  
  It’s a little easier in Pathfinder, where all of that has been lumped into your combat maneuver bonus and you can simply buff up your BAB, Specialized in Combat Maneuvers.
  
  Block, of course, using a saving throw. It could have been set up with an opposed attack check – but it was supposed to be usable to represent characters who were just good at dodging, or defending, or lucky, or who erected mystical/psychic shields as well as expert fighters while still never being 100% reliable. It does include the option to make the save harder by giving up some BAB to it though, thus allowing skilled fighters to get by inexpert blocks.
  
  If you want to be good at special maneuvers in general, you’re best off buying some extra Base Attack Bonus and Corrupting and/or Specializing it to limit it to what you want. If you want to be really good at a particular ability, such as “getting by a Block” you can use Specialist (page 54), labeling it “when giving up some BAB to make blocks harder”. That would essentially give you a +4 on the DC of the Block save. I might even allow such purchases to be considered “Corrupted”; after all, used offensively they’re under your control. Used to defend against Sunder or Disarm, or used to help penetrate Blocks, they’re totally useless unless you’re up against an opponent who wants to use that particular tactic. Ergo: Three incidents of Specialist (Versus attempts to Sunder the user’s weapon, attempts to Disarm the user, and attempts to Block the user), Corrupted/relies on opponents using the appropriate maneuvers to be of any use, comes out to 6 CP and provides a +4 bonus. If you only want a +2, Specialize it for Half Effect – and Half Price.
  
  Potentially well worthwhile if those particular tactics come up too often.
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on November 2, 2011 at 6:52 am said:

Hey Jasper. I think Specialist (in Eclipse: 6cp I believe, gives a +4 bonus to x ability ie sunder) and specialise or corrupt that. I think that can be either Defending or Attacking but would have to buy per benefit.

If you only want a +2, then I figure 3cp for the Sunder version and 3cp for Disarm.

There is also Feats that still grant AoO if someone tries to sunder or disarm you, even if they improved.

and remember, with Block you can always take neg on your attack roll to increase their DC. (and in that sense you could take Augment Attack specialised only for Block DC’s)

Reply
- Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 11:48 am said:
  
  And beaten to part of that. Thanks for filling in while I was busy there!
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on November 2, 2011 at 6:54 am said:

Correction Specialist on page 54 is only 3cp for the +4 bonus. So for above, a total of 6cp would give you +4 bonus on each.

Dont see why you cant ‘specialise’ that to Block attempts. Ie increasing the DC of the Block to get through instead of adding the bonus to your Attack Roll.

Reply
- Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 11:51 am said:
  
  And indeed you can. Thanks again for filling in!
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on November 2, 2011 at 2:45 pm said:

Okay, thanks, I clearly misread that part of the Block rule.

Reply
- Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 11:51 am said:
  
  Really easy to do with Eclipse I fear. It was always a tradeoff between “examples” and “page count”. Thus, of course, this blog and Eclipse II; examples without making the basic book so bloated as to be unusable.
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on November 2, 2011 at 4:35 pm said:

No worries there. Hope I helped.
Also thought of Specialising War Craft for use in Blocking Only. :)

In our games,we also ruled that the Blocker has to choose which attack to block before attack rolls are made (thus can waste attacks) and creatures also add their size modifer (like grappling) to the DC of the Block.

Reply
- Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 2:22 pm said:
  
  Both of those work quite well. Sadly, combat is one of those places in d20 where the abstract “everyone gets their own private turn” structure can make things really counter-intuitive.
  
  Older-edition simultaneous-action systems are a lot more realistic in many ways, but can be more complicated too. I put one into the Mad Scramble rules over on RPGNow – but it does increase complexity in some ways.
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on November 2, 2011 at 10:21 pm said:

Good Point there Editor. Never thought of Immunity (usually rises the eyebrows in our group :))

Reply
Jasper Merendino, on November 2, 2011 at 11:24 pm said:

@Christopher:
*I* thought of it. But Immunity struck me as such a ham-handed approach, when all I wanted was a little bonus (= just enough to throw the cheese weasels off their carefully calculated sweet-spots).
And How on earth would I calculate the cost of a +2 from a total immunity?
Besides, I Like the notion of a continuous scale for opposed rolls, as opposed to a flat out negation.

Reply
- Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 2:36 pm said:
  
  Well, Immunities generally aren’t total – unless you pay for a level beyond any reasonable attack. Immunity is a bit ham-handed in a lot of ways though, since it is a general catch-all for oddities. Thus, for example, “Immunity to the normal limits of a particular skill or ability” – allowing the user to use that ability in ways that go well beyond what the game normally permits. For an example of that, we have Haurgrim and the advanced Heal skill:
  
  d20: Haurgrim the Sagacious
  
  In this case you’d probably be looking at the segment on adding bonuses.
  
  Reply
Christopher West, on November 2, 2011 at 11:33 pm said:

Hey Jasper

One section was if Resistances Dont Fit add typless bonuses…
Trivial adds +2, Minor +4 etc.

Just above the description of Improved Precise Shot.

:)

Also, you can name an ability ‘anything’. :)

Reply
- Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 2:37 pm said:
  
  Ah, and partially beaten again. Once more, thanks for stepping in there.
  
  Reply
- editorial0, on November 3, 2011 at 5:09 pm said:
  
  Christopher, I’m starting to think you know this better than I do now!
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on November 3, 2011 at 11:52 pm said:
    
    Well, I suspect he has read completely through the book a lot more recently than either of us.
Jasper Merendino, on November 18, 2011 at 12:38 am said:

Two more issues.
1) During character generation session, someone asked me about starting wealth, and I SUDDENLY realized that this was classed-based in 3.x, and Eclipse is a classless system!
Did I miss something? Any advice on how I should proceed?

2) The Ritual rules in Codex (page 96)seem awwfully thin.
I had the impression that they might be expanded in Complete Enchanter, but I could not find it (and I have Two, slightly different versions).
Again, just because I can’t find it doesn’t mean it is not there. Did I miss something?

Reply
- Derek, on November 18, 2011 at 7:39 am said:
  
  Can’t help with #1, but the expanded rules for ritual magic are not in the Practical Enchanter, but rather Legends of High Fantasy.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on November 18, 2011 at 4:32 pm said:
  
  Well, the answer on starting wealth turned into a small article – so it’s posted over HERE as part of my attempt to get caught up after several hectic weeks.
  
  Ritual Magic in The Practical Enchanter is a bit limited, simply because the book is primarily concerned with putting effects into devices rather than with where you get the effects in the first place. You’ll still find a far more detailed system under Applied Spellcraft (pages 120-124) once you get into the Combined Effects – especially if you use the applied spellcraft rules in conjunction with the Arcanum Minimus and/or the High Magic feats from the feats section.
  
  As Derek noted, Legends of High Fantasy also includes a more elaborate ritual system – although it’s approach is radically different from the systems for applied spellcraft.
  
  Reply
  - Jasruv, on January 31, 2012 at 2:05 am said:
    
    I had a question about Apllied Spellcraft from TPE.
    
    Is there a more complete explaination for how long it would take to make one of the diagrams and how much space they would take up?
    
    Other than a few examples that don’t have breakdowns for how the time and space were figured, I can’t seem to find any guidlines. (Other than larger than 3 x 3 feet)
    
    Also the part where it says it takes (Spell Level / 2) 8-hour work days? What if you want to make a power amp or caster level modifying disgram without a runic formula as part ot the diagram?
  - Thoth, on February 1, 2012 at 4:05 am said:
    
    Well, each effect does have it’s own timing note in the descriptive paragraphs:
    
    It’s (Spell Level/2) eight-hour days for Runic Formulas – with a special note that building them into megalithic structures may take years.
    
    It’s an hour (plus or minus a bit according to GM whims) for caster level modification pretty much regardless of the medium. They just aren’t very complicated.
    
    Power Amplification setups require about a day to set up in easily-disturbed media, a week or so as paint, months as inlays, and years as architecture.
    
    Now, if you want to combine more than one of those, just add up the times and double the total.
    
    Thus the first example (Fabricate) takes 2.5 days (Level Five) plus an hour (Caster Level Modification) plus a Week (Power Amplification in Paint) = a few hours short of ten days of work. Doubling that makes it a little under twenty days of work – or about three weeks.
    
    If you’re working in chalk, that’s only an hour for the Power Amplification instead of a week – for a net time of (2.5 days + 1 Hour + 1 Hour) x 2 = five to six days.
    
    Of course, if the characters are prepared to spend a week to a month working on this kind of thing, precise time usually isn’t all that important anyway.
    
    I hope that helps!
Jasper Merendino, on November 19, 2011 at 7:47 pm said:

Many thanks for the timely answer on starting $$.

New questions:
1) Overwhelm lets me push a guy back one with a successful attack. How much Extra to make it multi-directional – that is, I can knock him sideways if I like? Double?
2) Is there a way to “Finesse” the defense of an attack?
For example, could I design a Trip where the defense is a Will or Refl save? A pain-inducing Disarm, where the defense is a Fort save?
I suppose that could be bought as Immunity to AC?

My intention is to create a maneuver like the “Positioning Strike” 4th ed (hisss!) Rogue encounter ability. If I can baffle you with my footwork, I’ll hit you and you’ll stagger in the direction I want. If you keep your presence of mind, you’re safe.

Reply
- Jasper Merendino, on November 20, 2011 at 12:50 am said:
  
  Upon a careful read through of the rules, I think I can build #2 by basing it on “Immunity to AC in excess of target’s Will+”
  Common/Major/Major
  Everything after that is details.
  
  I see what you guys mean about Immunity being a powerful emulation tool.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on November 20, 2011 at 6:26 am said:
    
    That will also work nicely. There are usually quite a few ways to build anything in Eclipse, although it does take some practice to develop a knack for picking out best one for any particular purpose.
    
    That is one of the things I enjoy about Eclipse really; other people’s builds are almost always nicely distinct from mine. It helps keep the characters unique.
    
    And Immunity can be used to simulate a very wide variety of special abilities. Of course, that does mean that the game master has to keep a bit of an eye on it.
- Thoth, on November 20, 2011 at 6:03 am said:
  
  Ah, Overwhelm… Rarely used in most of the local games due to most of them being played without maps – but useful when you do have a map, if only for shoving people into hazards, over cliffs, and into your allies attacks of opportunity.
  
  The quickest and cheapest way to do part of that is to take a five-foot step to the opposite side from the way you want your opponent to move and attack from there. That may not always be practical, but it is free.
  
  Effectively being able to attack from any desired direction could be taken to represent fancy footwork, an ability to force an opponent to step where you want them to, or the ability to acrobatically dance around an opponent. The quickest mechanical implementation there would be Immunity/static positioning; the user may presume that his or her attacks are being made from any desired facing. Since d20 lacks facing rules that’s generally (Common, Minor, Minor, for 4 CP). If you want, Corrupt that (Only from the front and sides, 3 CP) to represent not being able to leap over opponents entirely.
  
  There are a couple of ways to alter the defense that applies to an attack. The simplest is just the note that variants are fine in the “how do I use this product” section. Under that same clause you could use Finesse to do it, or you can just set it up as a Trick or another Immunity – which is good for simulating a lot of oddball abilities.
  
  The most efficient way to learn some special combat tricks may be to buy some Innate Enchantment and buy some mutually-exclusive use-activated weapon-boosting spells like the Bulwark build does; a weapon infusion effect that lets you move an opponent you hit and who fails to resist five feet seems pretty reasonable. Of course, that approach is pretty vulnerable to special defenses and dispelling.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on November 19, 2011 at 7:55 pm said:

Oh, and one more . . .
Codex. page 11+. Bottom of page tells me spells cost 1 CP.
Is that to buy spells Up To the “spells known” number for your magic level?
Or in Addition To those spells?

Says “spells known” only useful to those with “Studies” limit.
So . . . does that mean that the “spells known” number meaningless for others, who buy their # of spells straight?
Does that mean that those With Studies limitation CAN’t use the 1CP/spell mechanic to buy them?
That seems slightly backwards.

Reply
- Thoth, on November 20, 2011 at 6:19 am said:
  
  Buying spells comes in multiple levels – but basically it’s “in addition” to the usual allotment (discovered and purchased spells for casters with Studies who prepare their spells and their innate list for spontaneous casters with the Studies limitation).
  
  For 1 CP you’re simply acquiring access to a spell formula. If your Wizard really wants Fireball, but can’t find anywhere to acquire the formula from, he can just spend 1 CP and add it to his or her books. This is why the standard Wizard built is listed with Fast Learner Specialized in acquiring spell formula for double effect; that lets the automatically add two spells of any level they can currently handle to their books each time they level up.
  
  For 2 CP your wizard may similarly acquire an original, customized, spell that no one else has without all the trouble of researching it.
  
  It’s cheaper in CP to find or research spells, but requires more time and resources.
  
  Spontaneous casters normally get their specified allotment of inherent spells (original or not) automatically – but if there’s an extra formula or two they really want to get, they can pay twice the cost to go ahead and add a spell to their “known” list.
  
  Effects which can be cast spontaneously and which can be augmented – pumped up with extra power to do more – cost three times the basic one or two point cost; they’re effectively a package of spells in one.
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
Alzrius, on November 19, 2011 at 7:55 pm said:

If you’re playing Pathfinder, you can do that already, as outlined in the Advanced Player’s Guide.

Reply
- Alzrius, on November 19, 2011 at 7:56 pm said:
  
  Sorry, that should have been left in reply to Jasper’s comment about repositioning enemies, above.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on November 20, 2011 at 6:20 am said:
    
    Not a worry I think. Thanks for answering there!
Jasper Merendino, on November 19, 2011 at 8:13 pm said:

I got that, Alzy.
But I’m not. So what’s the extra to be to in a world where most can’t?
Also, that maneuver doesn’t let me do damage (though I suppose I could get ’round that with as Reflex Attack).

Reply
- Thoth, on November 20, 2011 at 6:29 am said:
  
  Since that got answered up above, I’ll just stick in a link here for the benefit of anyone looking for the answer… https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/atheria-d20/#comment-14267
  
  Reply
Jasruv, on November 26, 2011 at 11:34 am said:

About puchasing spells with cp, what modifier would there be if I wanted to pick up a spell or power that my character couldn’t cast normally? Either because it isn’t on the normal spell list or is just higher level than the character can cast.

I was thinking of having a character who would use the spell enhancement option of Mana to reduce the level of a higher level spell to something he could normally cast.

Reply
- Thoth, on November 26, 2011 at 2:02 pm said:
  
  Buying a spell formula does require that you be able to cast the spell in question – but using some special power to boost your abilities to let you do so works just fine.
  
  If you really want to have some formula that you can’t currently cast stuck in your head using up your character points, I’d probably let you get away with that too – with the provision that you couldn’t teach it to anyone until you’d actually been able to use it a few times.
  
  Sadly, spells usually count as a form of “Specific Knowledge” as far as powers like Enthusiast (or any other source of temporary CP) go – so you can’t normally come up with one with a bit of study or some boosting effect, write down the formula, and then trade out the temporary character point(s) for something else. Otherwise there’d be no need for spell research.
  
  The game master may let you get away with calling it an “intuitive understanding that cannot be taught”, or with taking an immunity to that restriction – perhaps to simulate a comic-book style sorcerer who’s spells vary from time to time. Perhaps…
  
  Double Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted for Triple Effect/only for spell formula, spells are intuitive and cannot be taught, spell selection is up to the game master, and depends on the (very rarely repeated) time of year and positions of the stars and planets (6 CP).
  
  That would give your sorcerer-type a trio of floating spells that the GM could change regularly to suit himself or herself – and the demands of the plot. Thus, just as in the comics, your sorcerer could occasionally haul out just the spell that he or she needs – and then it may never show up again, no matter how convenient it would be in a later story.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on November 30, 2011 at 7:33 pm said:

Codex, page 25: Augmented Bonus.
In the text, it states that Paladins, for example, buy the Improved version of this 3 times (to apply to all 3 saves.
Does this mean they spend 6 (base) + (3 x 6) (Improved x 3)?
OR
(6 + 6) x 3 ?

Examples on page 179 imply the former. Is that intentional?

Reply
- Thoth, on December 1, 2011 at 1:11 am said:
  
  They’re buying Improved Augmented Bonus (Cha Mod to a particular saving throw) at a cost of 6 CP (the Augmented Bonus part) + 6 CP (the Improved part) three times. That would be 36 CP – but they’ve specialized the entire package, bringing the cost down to a total of 18 CP.
  
  In this case, they’re just buying the basic ability three times and applying it to similar situations.
  
  The triple-cost rule would apply if someone wanted to add three modifiers to a single roll – lets say they wanted to apply their Charisma, and Intelligence, and Dexterity modifiers to reflex saves. Adding the second modifier costs 12 CP (Improved Augmented Bonus) – but adding a third costs another 36 CP, since that triples the cost of Improved Augmented Bonus.
  
  That’s almost certainly not worth it – but it’s not forbidden, some weird build might call for it.
  
  Reply
Derek, on December 4, 2011 at 11:11 am said:

Again, thanks for the positive energy articles!

When I was reading them, something came to mind. When the two original energons (sp?), the inhabitants of the energy planes (yag-ya and yeg-yi or something similar), came into contact, they exploded. I wonder what kind of energy would result from that. It isn’t positive or negative as those are canceled by the reaction. Any thoughts on that?

Reply
- Thoth, on December 5, 2011 at 1:08 pm said:
  
  You’re quite welcome – and there may be another along eventually. So many notions, so little time…
  
  As for positive-negative energy explosions, I can think of a number of ways to see those.
  
  1) The contact triggers a massive energy-surge from the positive material plane – only a small part of which can pass on into the negative plane. The explosion is positive-energy based, and does Sacred damage, possibly with fire and lightning side effects.
  
  2) We go with physics, and say that waste energy normally goes to heat (or, since some of the “waste energy” will be negative energy, to heat and cold).
  
  3) The damage results from two opposing fundamental forces neutralizing each other, tearing apart the structure of the prime material plane in the area. That could be a disintegration-type effect, it could be physical damage as “cracks” spread momentarily through nearby space like a network of infinitely-sharp cutting blades, or it could be dimensional-distortion effects – crushing some areas while bloating others, with the damage occurring at the interface.
  
  4) Negative energy, being an active, life-devouring, thing surges into the material plane when such a contact is made – causing entropic decay to everything in the area (profane damage or disintegration again), or draining local life forces (inflict wounds or negative levels).
  
  5) The two do indeed neutralize each other. While this would result in nothing happening if it was perfect (and boring), we can presume that there’s a repulsive factor involved; otherwise just setting up a permanent gate between the two planes could cause major damage to the universe. When positive and negative energy are forced into contact, there is a massive explosion (force damage) and whichever one was present in greater quantity floods the immediate area. If the two quantities were equal, some spots get blasted with negative energy and some with positive.
  
  6) Depending on whether positive energy is related to magic, there may be side effects on spellcasting and supernatural abilities in the area – at the least, a disruption equivalent to a Dispel Magic spell, at the most a Disjunction effect (if the contact is large enough).
  
  Reply
Jasruv, on December 9, 2011 at 4:17 pm said:

How would you buy the ability to use a two handed weapon with one hand? Specifically, a spiked chain.

I’m leaning towards an Immunity at the moment but was curious if there was another way to accomplish this.

I’m making a character like a soulknife using a Spiked Chain as the base for the spirit weapon ability and exotic appearance of a segmented blade but want to keep one hand free for other things.

Reply
- Thoth, on December 9, 2011 at 7:12 pm said:
  
  The easiest way is probably Anime Master (Specialized and Corrupted in a particular weapon); that will turn the specified two-handed weapon into a one-handed weapon for the user for a mere 2 CP. That still leaves the -2 penalty for using an inappropriately-sized weapon (if the GM thinks that’s appropriate) – but for that you can buy +2 Warcraft, Specialized and Corrupted/only for use with a particular type of weapon, only to make up for mismatched user and weapon size penalties, 4 CP).
  
  That’s a total cost of 6 CP or one feat – which fits in nicely for most builds.
  
  Reply
- editorial0, on December 9, 2011 at 7:12 pm said:
  
  One way would be to buy Inherent Weapon and upgrade the damage. You could also just fudge the rules. There’s no reason a character with enough strength couldn’t weild a larger weapon, or a heavier one. If he doesn’t have the strength, it might not make sense regardless.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on December 13, 2011 at 1:20 am said:

In Eclipse, using the Disabling enhancement from Augment Attack, you can’t drop a target’s Move below 10′.
But the Scorpion Style Feat from Pathfinder (which I dare say is the conceptual father of this Special Ability), drops it to 5′.
How do I do a buy that matches Pathfinder?
Immunity? (it’s always Immunity?)
“Immunity to Normal Limits on Disabling”?
Common, Minor, Minor?

Any other ideas?

Reply
- Thoth, on December 13, 2011 at 3:47 am said:
  
  Well, first a correction; Eclipse is three years older than Pathfinder – so, if there is any relationship, it would be the Scorpion Style Feat which is derivative. I’ll admit that I do find it pleasing that I haven’t seen anything in Pathfinder yet that you can’t do in Eclipse.
  
  There probably isn’t any direct relationship though. After all, the notion of hitting a target in the leg so that it can’t move as fast seems to go back well before humans existed.
  
  In any case, the Pathfinder version of this general ability requires that the strike be unarmed (fulfilling the Eclipse requirement for “a specific situation”) and also provides a saving throw and a limited duration, rather than for the duration of the encounter. Ergo, to build a rough equivalent buy Augment Attack/Disabling (when making unarmed attacks), Specialized and Corrupted (allows a saving throw and wears off quickly) for increased effect – raising the speed reduction to 30′ and reducing the minimum to 5′ (or, arguably, even 0′).
  
  Immunity is very useful when you’re building really odd powers, but it isn’t really necessary in this case.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on December 13, 2011 at 11:55 am said:

Thank you for your prompt reply.
I stand corrected re derivation.
Still a little hazy on some of this justification.
I Get that It’s an Augment Attack; I get the unarmed = the specific situation required.
But the Base Augmented Attack rules spell out that “Creatures . . . who make a Fortification check are immune . . . to Augment . . . effects.”
I have looked all over Eclipse, and 3.x, and can find no reference to “Fortification”. Was that supposed to be “Fortitude”? If so, does this not mean the saving throw is already built in (and thus not grounds for Corruption)?
Also, would you really call it specialized for an attack to wear off in (level) rounds? How long does the average D20 encounter last?

Reply
- Thoth, on December 13, 2011 at 7:04 pm said:
  
  Fortification is a standard system reference document magic armor property that can negate sneak attacks and critical hits on a 25%, 75%, or 100% chance for Light (+1 equivalent), Medium (+3), and Heavy (+5) Fortification. Whether or not it’s worthwhile is a bit debatable; most d20 opponents aren’t too big on sneak attacks.
  
  The Specialization is in allowing a simple saving throw (which every opponent gets) versus not allowing the vast majority of opponents to resist unless they’re wearing magical armor with a specific, and fairly uncommon, function.
  
  Wearing off relatively quickly (in a number of rounds equal to the user’s wisdom modifier (not level)) is being taken as a corruption; for most characters (Wis Mod) rounds is indeed a rather short time – it greatly reduces the effects utility when you want to escape something, during extended encounters, during long chases, and in similar situations.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on December 13, 2011 at 8:57 pm said:

AAhhhh! THANk you for finding that for me – while I thought I remembered such a game mechanic, I did not remember the name, and “Fortification” does not appear in the index of my 3,5 DMG.

Ditto pointing out my error re duration.

You know, one of the few things nicer than a well designed system, is being able to actually Ask the DeSigner when you come across something you don’t quite get. (Are you listening , Steven Long?)

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- Thoth, on December 14, 2011 at 1:31 am said:
  
  You’re quite welcome. At this point I’ve been back and forth through the SRD so many times that it’s halfway memorized anyway.
  
  Pathfinder not so much so – all the local games use Eclipse – but they’ve got a nice online database.
  
  And thanks for the compliment there! (Although I must admit that, if Eclipse was one of the most popular d20 variants, I’d probably have to make answers to questions more of a “check the index to see if that’s been asked before first” sort of thing).
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on December 14, 2011 at 4:17 pm said:

Well, then . . . thank you for not FAQing us. Yet.

And I guess here’s to you remaining obscure (?)
: )

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- Thoth, on December 15, 2011 at 4:51 pm said:
  
  Ah well. Perhaps one of these days I will compile a FAQ page. The only trouble is that I hardly ever get the same question twice anyway…
  
  Publicity and such, or at least some reviews, would be nice – but I sent off review copies of the various books to an assortment of reviewers and got no response. Just too far outside the usual d20 box I suppose. I fear I’m better at writing systems than I am at publicizing them.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on December 15, 2011 at 3:35 am said:

Suppose you want to use an oversized version of a weapon you already have a Proficiency for – say, a bow, or throwing axe.

I see Anime Master lets you do that . . . but does it do that by itself? Or do you also need a separate (Exotic?) weapons Proficiency?

Reply
- Thoth, on December 15, 2011 at 4:44 pm said:
  
  Anime Master will cover that by itself, pretty much the same way you could use a colossal bow normally if you happened to be under the effects of a spell that put you in that size category.
  
  The +2 BAB in the spiked chain example was to make up for the penalty for using a (presumably) medium sized weapon two handed weapon as a one-handed weapon for an (effectively) large-size wielder.
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
editorial0, on December 16, 2011 at 10:12 am said:

There’s a weird issue in d20 where they never quite figured out how to deal with weapons of various sizes. I would prefer a specific “line” of weaponry for each type of blade, mace, or whatnot, and then let people scale them to their own size categories (a weapon of your size is one-handed, one higher is two-handed, one lower is a Light weapon, etc). The basic game tends to assume that every character uses the medium size chart, despite the presence of halflings and gnomes, various shape-changing spells, and other weirder races. But this is what we’re stuck with for now.

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Alzrius, on December 17, 2011 at 2:41 pm said:

What are the consequences of borrowing power from a patron (that is, a sentient entity, typically extraplanar), such as when using the Compact metamagic theorem? Specifically, what happens if you try to renege on the debt you owe it for the borrowed energy?

To put it another way, does borrowing power create a purely “economic” debt, in that it has to enforce collection through mundane methods (e.g. pay us back or we’ll break your thumbs, burn your house down, beat up your friends, etc.)? Or does the act of borrowing their power leave you open to metaphysical consequences (e.g. they drain some of your vitality, or can take control of you a la dominate monster, or affect where your soul goes after you die)?

Further, what other ways are there to use a patron’s power besides Compact metamagic or being a divine spellcaster (and, I beieve, using witchcraft)?

Reply
editorial0, on December 18, 2011 at 8:08 pm said:

First, the answer is Yes. It all depends on exactly from *whom* you’re borrowing the power from. You don’t get to use a “generic” patron unless your GM is very lenient, so you have to specify where the extra mojo comes from.

This should guide you in terms of what the patron can do. However, if virtually every case, stiffing a patron will comes back to haunt you. Any beign with enough power to sell to spellcasters on demand has energy to burn, lots and lots of friends and favors owed it, and likely a lot of very unpleasant abilities to use on those who do the aforementioned stiffing. That said, patreons vary a lot, and what resources they can bring to bear varies greatly as well. As rules of thumb, a Patron…

1. Knows exactly who is using their magic, including name, species, rough abilities* and description. They can usually find out a whole lot more, and a patron you owe a great deal will know everything you do, magically speaking.
*Since players use Compact to push their spellcasting, this means they know mostly what kind of magic you can use, or however else you use Compact.

2. Has some way of punishing those who don’t pay. Quite often, they byuild geases into their power, and failure to pay can trigger an automatic and difficult-to-remove curse.

3. Has immense magical energy and enough magical skill to funnel it in the ways you need from another plan, which usually means Godfire. If you piss them off enough, they can indeed use Godfire to do very horrible, unavoidable things to you, or get someone else to do it for them. Removing such curses or dooms involve services equal to paying that Godfire back twice over – at least one epic adventure! Of course, lesser crimes might manifest in lesser curses, or perhaps in a whole sequence of them at the most obnoxious times.

Use the Witchcraft rules for some tips on how sample pstrons might behave. In short, Law won’t usually take revenge but will completely cut you off and spread word you’re untrustworthy, Chaos is extremely unpredictable and might vary from unstoppable vengeance or simply ignore it, Evil will respond with especial cruelty and malice, and Good forces will often show up (in overwhelming force) to ask some extremely pointed questions about the matter.

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Jasper Merendino, on December 22, 2011 at 10:28 pm said:

Enhanced Strike’s various options are all full attack actions.
How would you go about constructing a version that is not?
(or, for that matter, anything Else normally requiring full actions?)

Reflex action (Move) would not appear to work, as it would have to be before Or after. Opportunist?
Whichever mechanism you suggest, could you spell it out a bit? I see, to be a trifle dense about these things.

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- Thoth, on December 24, 2011 at 3:01 pm said:
  
  The answer to this one – once again – turned itself into a small article, ergo it’s up over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/eclipse-questions-reducing-action-types/
  
  Thanks for the questions though; they so often turn into good topics!
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on December 24, 2011 at 2:06 am said:

Here’s another one:
In D20 here is a Feat in the Improved Unarmed Strike tree, called Versatile Unarmed Strike; lets you change unarmed strike type to cut or pierce,

Your Martial Art SKILL system allows for that, an ability available at 7 ranks.
Is there a way to change the damage type outside of that?

Reply
- Thoth, on December 24, 2011 at 7:06 pm said:
  
  There are several;
  
  At the simplest, the “Martial Arts” ability is generic and represents all forms of natural weapons – hence the type of damage it does is not specified. Even if the game master won’t let you stretch it to cover a couple of simple physical damage types (after all, quite a lot of creatures can both claw and bite, but usually only buy their unarmed attack once) you can always simply buy the ability again, specialized and corrupted/only to change the damage type. That way, if your martial artist wants to ignite his “Godfire Palm Technique” to battle the undead (and bypass some annoying damage reduction), he or she can.
  
  Imbuement will also work; the ability to shift weapon damage types is, I recall, a mere +1 equivalent. While I can’t recall offhand if that one is a core function, it’s certainly reasonable enough. Even better, at higher levels you can get additional bonuses this way.
  
  Augment Attack is related – and it’s another ability that can be used to represent a wide variety of types of bonus damage, since it’s damage type is likewise unspecified.
  
  Alternatively, as you note, you can use the Martial Arts system – which is, indeed, what I’d recommend. Since established martial arts – with key ability scores – do get to use the overall skill level to determine the number of abilities available, a +3 attribute bonus can put an advanced technique – such as Versatility – within easy reach of a first level character for a mere 3-4 skill points and will include some other worthwhile bonuses as well. If you want to drop those other bonuses for the moment, or the game master won’t agree that there’s an existing art that does what you want, simply Specialize your art (for double effect) in reaching Versatility – and you can again do it with 3-4 skill points, albeit without the lesser bonuses.
  
  You can do some exotic things with Innate Enchantment (see the Mutants of the Eclipse series – especially the Paragon and the Stealth Expert), Inherent Spell, and a wide variety of other abilities as well, but that’s headed off into a generic discussion of how to buy “martial arts abilities” – which could take up several pages.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on December 24, 2011 at 7:37 pm said:

Again, thank you for your swift replies.
(And season’s greetings – may the Dark Gods of the winter Solstice eat only a tiny portion of your soul)
I must admit, I never thought about Specializing the Martial Arts skill to reach one Advanced Technique. The resulting points cost is about where I think it should be. Seems to be a blind spot for me, as I am always thinking about getting prices down, rather than expanding effects.

Reply
- Thoth, on December 24, 2011 at 11:28 pm said:
  
  You’re quite welcome.
  
  And when the Elder Gods arise, and we ride the Shantak-Birds beyond the miniscule circles of the mundane earth, I shall save you a seat…
  
  More seriously, Specialization and Corruption are extremely powerful tools – and I am still often surprised by other people’s character designs using them. They often build abilities that would never have occurred to me – which is a lot of fun to see and it helps keep things fresh.
  
  I wouldn’t worry about blind spots; I’m still finding new combinations myself, and I wrote the thing.
  
  Reply
Derek, on December 25, 2011 at 6:02 am said:

Using Eclipse’s epic spell system, what level would a spell need to be to create a planet, star or other cosmic feature? It is a bit confusing as the spell to regenerate a star is of higher level than the one that allows the creation of a solar system within a demiplane.

And gravity isn’t an issue as the setting is Spelljammer.

Reply
- Thoth, on December 28, 2011 at 12:55 pm said:
  
  What’s going on there is that – at least in d20 – a lot of the traits and contents of a new dimension are determined by the creator. Ergo, the primary difficulty involved is simply a matter of scale; even if you want to fill in the details later, you just make the place highly accepting of your creative efforts.
  
  Rejuvenating a realistic, existing, star where the dimensional traits aren’t so obliging is a lot more complicated. Stars can blow up for all kinds of reasons – and dumping a lot of new hydrogen into the core of an existing star is just asking for it to do so. Governing all the complex feedback loops, and basically rebuilding that star bit by bit – breaking heavy elements back into hydrogen, removing excess heat, re-balancing radiation pressures, and so on – is a lot more trouble than adding stuff (even a great deal of stuff) to a dimension that you’ve set up to suit yourself.
  
  For Spelljammer, creating simple chunks of basic matter – stony or iron-bearing asteroids, superheated hydrogen, water, ice, or clouds of gas and dust – is fairly simple; the basic spell is about level three (for your choice of basic material and a bit of sculpting). From there you can simply scale up – about +7 levels for a castle-sized chunk, +10 for your basic asteroid, +11 for a large asteroid, +12 for a continent-sized mass, +13 for a good-sized moon, +14 for a stony planet, +15 for a gas giant, +16 for a small star, +17 for a large star, and +18 for enough materials for a solar system. All of these will, however, get a -3 level credit as independent spells for their masses of built-in metamagic – for a net spell level of ten to eighteen.
  
  Summoning up appropriate inhabitants calls for an additional effect; conjuring a simple plant is only level one (“Summon Basil Plant” just isn’t that hard, regardless of how handy it is for a chef) – and the massive dose of scaling metamagic will handle taking “a tomato plant” to “a massive forest”. Given that, and for a quick approximation, call it L3 for animals, L5 for monsters and relevant spirits, and L7 to get a poor confused “native inhabitant”. I’ll figure that each of these covers the lesser effects as well.
  
  So “Create a Complete World (In an existing dimension)” calls for a L7 primary effect (inhabitants), +2 levels for the secondary L3 elemental creation effect, +14 levels of area, and -3 levels for built-in Metamagic – for a level twenty effect. You could drop it to L17 for a good-sized asteroid, or – for that matter – raise it to level twenty-four to create a Dyson Sphere.
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
  - Derek, on December 29, 2011 at 7:33 am said:
    
    Yes, it does.
    
    And it gives me an idea for a level 18 spell: create sargassum sea- the giant patches of plants that have an anti-magic quality.
Jasper Merendino, on December 26, 2011 at 4:32 pm said:

1) The “Doubled Damage” combat ability requires a “very specific situation” for use. Would a requirement of a Full round action, AND a -2 attack, be sufficient?
(Drawing from the “Decisive Blow” option for Monks in Handbook II)

2) If an Ability has another as a prerequisite (e.g., a certain Strength), and can thus be ‘turned off’ by the right ability drain, is that worth Corruption?

Reply
- Thoth, on December 29, 2011 at 11:34 am said:
  
  Well, the Monk version is also limited to unarmed attacks and monk weapons – which certainly seems workable. It would come closer to the Player’s Handbook II version if it simply halved the number of attacks you got during a full attack. The per-level upgrades would require a few more points here and there – but then it is supposed to be a bit more effective than the basic Flurry of Blows it’s replacing.
  
  I, personally, don’t think I’d let it apply to Attacks of Opportunity though. “I see an opening in passing and take a quick shot!” really doesn’t seem compatible with “I take extra time to focus on a precise and more damaging attack”.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on December 30, 2011 at 1:24 pm said:
  
  Oops, I was interrupted and missed answering the second half; ergo, here it is.
  
  As a rule, adding prerequisites isn’t worth a price break. There are several reasons for that;
  
  Firstly, in an open system you aren’t giving up anything up front. Since you’re picking your own prerequisite, you will, of course, pick something you easily qualify for.
  
  Secondarily, prerequisites are rather difficult to take away. In the case of strength, how often do you run into strength-reducing effects? And how easy are they to fix? That can wind up with a character with a “corruption” that almost never affects them – and then only for a few seconds.
  
  You can get around that of course by adding an element to the Corruption that requires natural, or at least slow, recovery of reduced attributes – but that risks running into all-or-nothing bottleneck designs; the character is extremely powerful until a trigger condition comes up – and then is useless. Such characters rarely play well.
  
  Of course if someone simply wants to save a enough points for an extra feat by shaving a bit here and there it doesn’t much matter; marginal power-level differences don’t mean much if you’re presenting a fairly wide range of challenges anyway.
  
  Reply
  - Jasper Merendino, on December 31, 2011 at 2:01 am said:
    
    I will dare to offer a disagreement, there.
    Party I am currently reffing got worn down (how did That happen!?) use up all their heals . . . and then two of them lost Wis to sanity challenging art, And another had caught a seVere case of rate bite fever. Now, as it happens None of them were depending on prerequisites, but it Can happen.
  - Thoth, on January 1, 2012 at 12:39 pm said:
    
    Oh it certainly can happen – and if various forms of draining and disabling effects are common in a particular setting that would indeed be a worthwhile corruption. Setting-dependent limitations do vary though – “only works at night” is usually Corrupted (since the characters can often choose when the activity takes place) – but in Asimov’s “Nightfall” setting it would mean that your power was only usable for a few hours every thousand years (that’s WAY past Specialized). It usually works better in more structured settings, where the characters aren’t free to simply purchase anything they like. I tend to run wide-open games though, and – at least in those (and to a lesser extent in other settings) – there are some problems with it to watch out for.
    
    -If an attack form is common, it’s hard to blame the characters for investing a bonus feat or a few points in a defense – and harder still if it keeps neutralizing their powers. Thus, if a character relies heavily on abilities with attribute prerequisites, and keeps getting hit with attacks that reduce his or her attributes, then investing in things like Grant of Aid, Inherent Spell (Restoration, Lesser Restoration, Protections, Etc), or an Immunity is only natural. If they take that route, soon enough their prerequisites will no longer be limiting – and thus will no longer be worth a price break. Of course, if you make them buy off those limitations entirely, now the protective abilities they had just purchased have far less value. It’s awkward either way.
    
    -Players are generally quite accepting of situational limitations; if their character’s powers don’t work underwater, they try to avoid that situation – and steer clear of underwater adventures or take special precautions. It their Sacred Blow power only works against undead, then that’s the way they bought it. Inflicted limitations are another matter though; quite a few players will – unfortunately – see them as “the game master is specifically targeting my character with crippling effects!”. That’s usually a false perception – but it can be hard to avoid when a limitation is invoked by a particular attack.
    
    -I, personally, usually find it a bit flavorless. That’s purely personal though.
    
    Either way, if it works well for your games, that’s the only criteria there is for “doing it right.” That’s why there’s no rigid list of “what is Specialized” and “what is Corrupted” in Eclipse; that will, inevitably, vary from setting to setting since things that work well for one game master may not work at all for others.
    
    And thank you by the way; that’s one of the more complex questions about the “why?” of various features of the Eclipse rules that’s come up so far. That’s always interesting!
Jasper Merendino, on December 31, 2011 at 2:06 am said:

And now a new one,
If a character buys Journeyman, at the intro level, but only usable for his first level build (only to buy up some skills to 5, and only for the initial character build), is that Corruption, or would that qualify for Specialized?
I am thinking the value of that disad depends on how higfh the character is expected to get. If he dies/retires at level 3, it’s not that big a deal; if he goes to 20, MUCH greater reduction in utility

Reply
- Thoth, on January 1, 2012 at 12:48 pm said:
  
  It would usually – at least in my games, which I do usually mean to last for a long time, qualify as “Specialized”.
  
  Of course, in practice, this usually means that “I want to save a few points at first level!” since – in longer games – such limitations are usually bought off later.
  
  For very short term games such a limitation would be pretty meaningless (and would be a complete waste of points for characters who were being built at second level or higher).
  
  I’d guess that someone wants to reach a particular ability available at skill rank five? A skill specialty or package deal or some such might work better.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on January 2, 2012 at 3:07 am said:

1) One of my players wanted me to tell you he has the intention of giving your channeling system a thorough test.

2) I think I may have found a flaw, and omission in your otherwise excellent framework.
The rules let me have the internal equivalent of pretty much any magic item, whether through Innate Enchantment, Inherent Spell, or Spirit Weapon . . . but the only mechanism I can find for specifying EXternal enchantment is Really clunky.
Equipage, with the Signature, lets you specify a Very expensive set load-out, which self replenishes. I suppose if it doesn’t replenish, that’s a Specialize. But then its an overPowering amount of $$/gear (at least, at 1st level) for just 9 (or less!) points.
I think you would do better to just have a simple Wealth system. EIther a continuous scale of points, or a simple doubling function.

Reply
- Thoth, on January 3, 2012 at 6:42 pm said:
  
  Well, for the player, I hope he has a good time with the system. The rules can always use a good workout!
  
  As for the external equipment question, the answer to that one got a bit long (and took a few days to finish up) – but here it is at last!
  
  Reply
Brett, on January 6, 2012 at 5:07 pm said:

I was reading Eclipse and Eclipse 2 and saw something that I can’t explain in how the Aquatic Elf’s swim speed is bought with Celerity.

As I understand it (which I assume to be wrong) the package would work as follows to get the 40′ Swim speed listed in the MM.

Additional Mode: 10′ Swim [12 CP]
Celerity: +10′ to Swim, total Swim 20′ [+6 CP, 18CP total]
Improved: +10′ to Swim, total Swim 30′ [+3 CP, 21 CP total]
Improved: +10′ to Swim, total Swim 40′ [+3 CP, 24 CP total]
End result being Swim 40′ for a total of 24 CP.

The listed CP cost in Eclipse 2 is “Celerity/Swim +30 (12 CP)”.

So again from my understanding it just presumes that because elves can swim (just by taking a 10 on the skill untrained) that the only thing that needs to get added is the first +10 which costs 6, then two more +10s for a cost of 3 and 3, totaling 12 for a +30′. This matches what is in Eclipse 2 but I do not know if that is the intended.

A separate concern is that the Celerity ability is counted as “bonus movement for the purposes of skills” which I take to mean it would not impede the use of Hide, Move Silently and Survival (for tracking) and other situations in which a character must limit their speed or have a penalty to some other skill.
Would this then mean that all purchases of Celerity could be Corrupted: counts as normal total speed for penalties based on movement” or something approximate.

Thank you for your time.

Reply
- Thoth, on January 7, 2012 at 8:54 pm said:
  
  For the Aquatic Elves that is, indeed, the case; Elves can already swim, so it’s not a new movement mode. Something like an Iron Golem – which presumably, thanks to it’s density, cannot swim – would need to purchase a new movement mode, and so has to pay more.
  
  For humans and other creatures who can already swim, learning to swim more quickly is a lot easier than learning to do something they can’t do – such as a human learning to fly.
  
  For Celerity in general, you’re quite right; it doesn’t count when assessing skill penalties for movement. Whether or not that’s sufficient to count as a Corruption is up to your game master. If – as in many games – such penalties rarely come up, he or she will probably disallow it. If they do often come up, then it may well pass.
  
  Sadly, that is the price of a flexible rules system; some game masters will find options that are perfectly acceptable in other games unacceptable in theirs – and vice-versa. Thus the importance of the Campaign Options checklist and page 163.
  
  I hope that helps – and questions are always welcome.
  
  Reply
  - Brett, on January 13, 2012 at 1:46 am said:
    
    So to give a character a Climb speed of 30′ would be
    Celerity +10′ (Climb 20) 6CP
    Celerity +10′ (Climb 30′) 3 CP, 9 CP Total
    Would that be correct?
    
    As a random bit of trivia, IIRC the Alexandrian made a calculation about the density of an iron golem based of of its 3.5 MM listed weight, it turned out they were mostly hollow and arguably would float like a cork if they were water tight, and if they weren’t a separate issue of freezing water expansion comes up.
  - Thoth, on January 15, 2012 at 5:43 am said:
    
    Well, your prior question will take a little longer, but these are much simpler;
    
    That would indeed give a normal humanoid character a climb speed of 30′ – although a centaur would probably have to spend some more points, given that they don’t naturally climb much of anything.
    
    For iron golems, that’s quite true as far as it goes; calculating weights for golems is an old routine that goes back at least to the early issues of Dragon Magazine – in particular the “How heavy is my giant” article (Dragon Magazine #13, back in 1978) – however, unlike earlier editions (which mostly did not give a weight), the current illustrations for an Iron Golem appear to show animated suits of superheavy armor – and appear to be anything but watertight.
    
    Fortunately, when water can easily escape, water expansion from freezing is far less of a problem; the excess will simply be pushed out – which is why the expansion of freezing water does not normally crush boat hulls or smash dams.
Derek, on January 9, 2012 at 6:41 am said:

I want to develop a setting where ritual magic ( as per LHF) is the only form of magic the PCs have access to. However I still want them to be able to make some magic items. I am going to replace all the creation feats with the ritual magic skill. Might you have any suggestions on modifiers for this?

Reply
- editorial0, on January 9, 2012 at 1:21 pm said:
  
  Rather than modifiers, you might use the Create Artifiact ability. That can include rituals, of course, and lets you arbitrarily add whatever modifiers, materials, or other nuisances you care for.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on January 9, 2012 at 1:30 pm said:
  
  Well that depends a lot on what you want the characters to be able to make.
  
  As a general rule, the main control mechanism should probably be the required ingredients. No matter what difficulties you assign, if they’re possible for a reasonable number of NPC’s to make, a PC who decides to work at it will easily blow past them. Ergo, it’s all right to have a reasonably low DC – provided that the ingredients are hard enough to come by to keep anyone from setting up for mass production. After all, you probably don’t want the characters to have access to stacks of magic items in a setting without direct spellcasting,
  
  Of course, this also means that magic items should be worthwhile and – at the high end – often unique. If the characters get their hands on some “healing potions”, then they should heal quite a lot of damage – and probably be useful against diseases, poisons, and similar problems that are difficult to heal without magic.
  
  For one-shot, and not especially powerful, items, it’s generally best to use ingredients that can be produced – but only slowly. If producing a “healing potion” requires water that has passed a cycle of the moon being purified on the high altar at one of the three great temples of the kingdom, then “healing potions” will be available – but there will only be a few per kingdom per month. Expect the great temples and the local ruler to have a small stockpile, for one to be dispensed occasionally as a minor miracle of the church, and for major individuals to be able to get one once in awhile – albeit more often for the “save my dying child” sort of motive than for “save myself a week of healing up”.
  
  In one of our playtest games one character wanted to forge a holy sword – and wound up chasing all over the map to reassemble the lost formula from the fragments in ancient libraries, then chasing halfway around the world after the components. Actually making the thing was the easy part.
  
  I hope that helps. If it was something else you had in mind, please let me know.
  
  Reply
Derek, on January 12, 2012 at 5:49 am said:

Do they (both replies) help, yes. Are they what I was looking for, not so much. What I was asking for were numbers like caster level* X3, X 2, X1, X.5 or something else as a modifier to the ritual magic skill check. Considering that you have been using your system for a while and know the balance issues much more than I, what modifier would you use?

*As in CL required to make said item

Reply
- Thoth, on January 15, 2012 at 3:50 am said:
  
  Well, if you’re using the Legends of High Fantasy ritual system, the basic DC for enchanting a “permanent” item via ritual is going to be Area (-), Duration/Eons (+20), and Effect/Severe (+10) or Grandiose (+20). You could throw in a special modifier for the items caster level – but each such item is going to be a semi-unique project calling for weird ingredients anyway. Legends of High Fantasy doesn’t allow as many modifiers and bonuses as Eclipse.
  
  Going with the basic Eclipse system, the basic DC is ten plus twice the caster level of the item you want to make – since that’s twice the level of the character who’d be needed to do it normally. Thus a ritual to create an item with a caster level of 12 would be DC (10 + 2 x 12) = 34. Given that you want a permanent or semi-permanent item without any erratic curses or limitations, you want the absolute minimum possible side effects – ergo, you want to get at least DC + 10 (for “Minimal side effects”( or – preferably – DC +20 (for minimal or nonexistent side effects). Ergo, what you’re really shooting for is DC 54. Even with Luck, that calls for a +34 bonus.
  
  That kind of DC can be overcome of course – but it generally will call for scraping up some special bonuses, which takes things right back to ritual components – which means that, if you want that Wand of Lightning you’re going to be hunting for a stormfruit from the Tree of Winds which (blooms at the edge of the world once every hundred years) and a dagger blessed by the King of the Fire Elementals.
  
  I hope that that was more what you wanted to know!
  
  Reply
  - Derek, on January 17, 2012 at 8:04 am said:
    
    Yes, it is and it looks like I will be doing some modifications so the Eclipse system.
    
    I don’t know if you get a notification for every response made, but I was looking through some of the older articles you wrote to answer my questions and I noticed I did not answer a question of yours. It is in one of the alchemy articles and I finally provided the s15 info for the EN World magazine article. Sorry about that.
  - Thoth, on January 18, 2012 at 11:46 am said:
    
    Well, modifications and recommendations as to what to allow and not to allow are always possible of course. I think I could help a bit more with a better idea of what kind of results you want since each tweak has various consequences.
    
    Ritual Magic is normally there to let the players do unique things – and to substitute a bunch of little side-quests that they can manage for some major act that they can’t.
    
    A high, but reachable, DC in Eclipse is functionally just an announcement that “you’ll need to buy some highly specialized abilities to do this – but then will be able to do it fairly routinely”. The intent with ritual magic is that doing without the little side-quests that make it interesting should be expensive enough to make simply buying the abilities you want directly more attractive.
    
    Still, if all you want is to brew a few potions (caster level one), the net DC for that in the standard system is a mere 12 – and a temporary item can afford a few side effects at DC 22 if you can’t reliably make the DC 32 check for none at all. Of course, this implies that Luck with Bonus Uses (Specialized in making Potions only, 6 CP), or some skill boosting abilities specialized in ritual magic, are fairly cheap – and that it will be easy enough to find a potion-seller who’s capable of making low-end potions pretty much on demand. That is, after all, the d20 default.
    
    Do you want – say – low-end potions and temporary charms to be fairly readily available while keeping powerful items rare, wonderful, and requiring quests to make? The standard system will handle that – but, if no more direct magic is available, you can expect your would-be magicians to be hauling around arsenals of one-shot gizmos in batman-style utility belts.
    
    Do you want major enchantments to be fairly readily available to the wealthy? Let rituals for making major items require relatively common, but very expensive, components. Now there’s no questing involved; just lots of cash.
    
    Do you want even potions to be rare objects of wonder? This will require a larger tweak, since that’s a LONG ways from the d20 default. Ergo, the long-term storage of any magic may require some very special catalyst or be of great difficulty. That keeps stuff off the streets, but once a character CAN handle that, they may be able to make a wide variety of permanent items. Still, this is a pretty simple world law.
    
    If you want a more first-edition style – where potions required specific and somewhat hard-to-come-by ingredients – then you may want to use “Create Artifact” as the magic-item creating basis and simply make a ritual magic check a final component of assembling your item. Thus making a healing potion might be a pretty simple ritual – once you had a thread from a saint’s garment, or a shaving of unicorn horn, to provide the healing power for the mixture.
    
    And thank you for the reference. Perhaps I’ll be able to find the OGC portion online somewhere.
Brett, on January 13, 2012 at 1:42 am said:

To ask a completely separate question, in the 3.5 PHB2 the Druid is given an alternative for Wild Shape and Animal Companion. This allows at will Swift action shifting to a form that starts out as a generic quadruped (that can be skinned to look like any the user is familiar with allowing a VERY good disguise option) with a modest strength and natural armor boost, 1d6 Bite and a base move of 50′, which is true for any of the previously mentioned skins. It also has a few more advanced shifts at higher levels getting a flight based one at 5th and a Large bruiser one at 8th

The obvious ways I see about how to replicate this would be one of the following; Path of the Dragon, Innate Enchantment and a modified version of Shapeshift.

The Path of the Dragon version would seem to be the most simple to build as a direct replication. In general use the same build idea as the Warlock to buy the different forms as an effect.

The Innate Enchantment would use an Alter Self variant and progress out from there.

The Shapeshift options presents some of the largest problems. The # of uses per a day is just something that would need to get worked out between player and DM along the lines of “How many bonus uses do I need to buy in order to handwave the whole thing”. Likewise the swift action has a ready answer in using a version (possibly corrupted) of reflex action to “grant an additional standard action after using shapeshift to change to or from a shape”. The real point of contention seems to be in that Shapeshift is based around assuming specific forms and becoming a generic (10s and 11s scores with mods) and all of the ancillary abilities. The PHB2 option is based around a generic framework that has a set of static boni that are added to a characters natural scores.
In Shapeshift it would be built as having the Attribute Mods option. It also might have the entire package be corrupted or specialized as despite looking like a different creature the form is always the same with a different appearance.

On a somewhat related note to my first question, could you explain in greater detail what exactly is meant by the Variants options and its exact implementation and rules. IE is it really like just having Alter Self up at all times, such that you could become any presumably humanoid that you wished subject to HD caps?

I also would like some clarification on the Power Words ability. What and where do the spells that it stores come from, is it only giving you an ability to cast a limited number of your own spells from a possibly separate pool as a move action or is it capable of storing any spell you could somehow put into it? If the latter, how do you charge up that pool?

Reply
- Thoth, on January 18, 2012 at 12:09 pm said:
  
  The basic shapeshift response has turned into a fairly long article, which is not yet done (pesky real life; it’s put the entire blog behind) – but the last couple are easy enough;
  
  Variants is basically identical to Alter Self. A shapeshifter with that ability doesn’t really have a “default” form when transformed and may make small changes at will without it counting against their shapeshifting limit; they may change their hair color, facial features, and all other details within the bounds of the basic form. Thus, if they’re being a human, they could be an immensely fat human, a midget, a towering seven-and-a-half foot “giant”, a weird mutant with claws, or whatever.
  
  Power Words is simply a spell-storing ability. You can fill your storage capacity with your own spells or with spells provided by any other cooperative source as you would a Ring of Spell Storing or similar device. As for the exact procedure… I can think of many special effects, but it mostly comes down to “Are you ready? I’m going to be releasing the spell into the spot you’re focusing on – ah, your cupped hands, yes? – in 3… 2… 1… Now!”.
  
  For a more technical comparison, it’s a bit like charging a battery or a capacitor.
  
  When I get the shapeshifting article done I’ll put up another response here to link to it.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on January 21, 2012 at 5:41 pm said:
  
  And here we have the shapeshifting article; https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/variant-eclipse-shapeshifting-the-war-forms/
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
Phantom, on January 13, 2012 at 10:18 pm said:

Do you have any thoughts on the announcement of 5e?

Reply
- Thoth, on January 15, 2012 at 5:13 am said:
  
  Primarily that it’s not exactly news. A games company that’s looking for reasonable profits needs to sell lots of material – and the RPG market is relatively limited. Modules only appeal to a small section of that already-limited audience. Selling expansions and new “core” books and materials soon reaches saturation; the people running the game don’t really need any more materials after a point – and may find the rules set becoming impossibly unwieldy, leading to them not wanting any. Ergo, you appeal to the players by introducing ever-more-powerful stuff for them – which soon leads to game master rebellion as they refuse to allow the new options.
  
  Thus each new book sells less and less – and the only way to reset the process is to sweep away all the old material, tell everyone that it’s obsolete, and produce a new edition. If you try to stay back-compatible, people will just keep using the old stuff and you won’t get that fresh start. Thus my old Champions books are still mostly compatible with the current rules – and so I don’t buy much new Champions material; I’ve got plenty now.
  
  Personally, I suspect that a section of the design department was put to work on exploring options for the fifth edition pretty much as soon as fourth edition was sent to the printers.
  
  I also suspect that the results may be disappointing; at this point the fanbase is so divided that a new edition may not make that much of an impression.
  
  Reply
Jasruv, on January 25, 2012 at 12:12 am said:

Is the Stable modifer for Extradimensional Spaces (pg 73 in TPE) meant to be +0 or was the number omitted? And can I apply Stable to the Wizard pack spell listed previously?

Reply
- Thoth, on January 25, 2012 at 12:46 pm said:
  
  Looks like it got omitted somehow; an item for errata there (fortunately, the errata list is pretty short). It should be +1 for tolerating small, well-contained, portals (bags of holding and similar) and +2 for larger gates.
  
  While you can apply Stable to a Wizards Pack spell, putting one extradimensional space inside another will not further reduce the weight; that 5% figure will just be transmitted up the line.
  
  Reply
Jasruv, on January 26, 2012 at 9:45 pm said:

About Action Hero – Crafting:

Do you think a gp value equal to (AP)^2 * 1000 gp is about right?

I had someone interested in specializing it for effect and came up with that by comparing the stated examples. It does seem to break down at the Grandiose level though.

Reply
- Thoth, on January 28, 2012 at 5:26 am said:
  
  The formula your player is proposing works reasonably well as a guide to what fits into each category. It does get wonky for epic items though; that x10 cost modifier throws things off. At that level it’s probably easiest to just consider the 21-point “Epic” purchase as “and up”.
  
  If he’s proposing treating it as an amount of cash to spend, that probably should not be allowed;a first level characters action points would thus have a value of 9000 GP – perhaps twelve wands of first-level spells. At second level that character would be adding another 16,000 GP worth of gear, then 25,000 GP worth at level three, and so on. It also doesn’t work well if one character – say – spends his AP on separate occasions (getting a total of 3000 GP worth of gear out of them), while someone else spends all three at one time to get 9000 GP worth of gear out of those same three points.
  
  Overall, of course, Action Hero / Crafting and Money are normally modeling somewhat different things – which is why Crafting doesn’t cover the monetary costs of creating an item or bypass other prerequisites. Otherwise a sixth level character could nearly max out his or her action point pool at level six (saving up points over levels four through six to accumulate 21 points with a maximum pool of 22) and craft an epic item. Thus Crafting normally only covers the time and experience point requirements – leaving those upper-end and epic items safely out of reach of low-level crafters.
  
  Now, if you let someone Specialize it for increased effect – expanding bypassing the XP cost to cover bypassing the monetary cost as well and expanding bypassing the time to bypassing prerequisites as well (instead of, say, doubling the number of action points they get) – then you do have the potential for some game-breaking tricks. I wouldn’t suggest going with this variant.
  
  Inverting the effect – bypassing the monetary cost instead of the XP cost – has some precedent from first edition days; a very early Dragon magazine article (Dragon #5) suggested allowing wizards to create instant enchantments of great power by burning rather a lot (200,000 for a wizard blade, 300,000 for a ring of power) of experience points and 1d8 permanent hit points – but third edition costs are nothing like that. Unfortunately, relatively small amounts of experience points are fairly easy to come by in comparison to vast amounts of gold – so this option (or, game master forbid, a combination of this option and the standard one) pretty much amounts to “a big heap of free gear”. That does come at the cost of a modest character point investment, but it’s still probably over-efficient.
  
  Hopefully one of those is what you had in mind and helpful; if those aren’t answering what you and your player wanted to know, please just drop me another line.
  
  Reply
Derek, on January 30, 2012 at 10:34 am said:

I don’t know if you two buy other companies material for ideas, but I just found a couple pdfs with spell ideas that are not in the metamagic section of Eclipse. Necromancers of the Northwest have Advanced Arcana and Advanced Arcana II.

AA- spells that take up more than one slot (they are more powerful than others of their level) and spells that can be cast at two different speeds (immediate or standard) for two strengths.

AA II- spells with two possible effects (use one or the other, like fire shield), spells that can gain a boost from the environment (night time boost darkness spells) and spells that can take up more than one slot (instead must take up more than one).

No, I don’t work for them and this is simply an FYI.

Reply
- spellweaver81, on January 31, 2012 at 12:24 am said:
  
  I’ll take a crack at this, but since I haven’t seen specific examples of spells so modified I am going to have to use generalities:
  
  “Spells that take up more than one slot” – This sounds like a corrupted variation of the Spell Pool feat that doesn’t allow you to break apart the spell levels but still allows you to add them up. Perhaps 1/2 cost. I might also allow this as two separate spells: a metamagic-mimicking power boosting spell and the base spell. It would take two actions to cast (one for each spell) and still be subject to the limitations of maximum level of a spell that could be cast. If you wanted to still keep it as a single action, then that might be an application for Reflex Action (for casting a preparatory spell).
  
  “Spells that can be cast at two different speeds” – If the base spell is the faster one, then I would say the slower spell is under the effects of Compact to slow it down and another metamagic to boost the power accordingly. If the base spell is the slower one and you are boosting the speed, then that sounds like a combination of Easy and Compact.
  
  “Spells with two possible effects” – This sounds like a use of the Multiple – Combine metamagic with a Compact option (i.e. you have to choose which effect occurs). Offhand, I would rule that one is worth a -1 Spell Level for Compact purposes.
  
  “Spells that can gain a boost from the environment” – If the environment is somehow complimentary to the spell effect (i.e. fireball cast in a room filled with gunpowder) then I would give some sort of bonus for free. If the relationship is less direct, like casting spells relating to lycanthropes on the night of the full moon, then I would suggest that this is a combination of the Compact (for working at an appropriate time or place) and some other metamagic for boosting the power accordingly.
  
  “Spell that can take up more than one slot” – I am going to presume that means you can add an arbitrary number of additional spell slots as opposed to the one discussed above which I presumed required a specific number of spell slots. Again, this sounds like the Spell Pool feat used to add metamagic to a spell by combining the spell levels of multiple lower level spells. Since the version I proposed above wasn’t subject to a limit of how many you could add together beyond basic maximum spell level casting limitations, I would say the same answer applies.
  
  Now all of these can be used by a spell caster willing to put in a little research to build the metamagical effects into a base spell to create a version that does this automatically for you. That way your spell caster can whip out different versions of a spell to suit the situation seemingly on the fly with a little preparation.
  
  Hope that helps.
  
  Reply
  - Thoth, on February 1, 2012 at 4:08 am said:
    
    Which is, of course, a differing approach from mine – and thank you for that; it’s always good for there to be lots of ways to build any particular effect.
- Thoth, on February 1, 2012 at 3:41 am said:
  
  Well, I generally don’t buy material for ideas. After all, ideas are easy – it’s just finding the time to work them up that’s hard.
  
  Now, from what you’ve said here, it sounds like you’ve got five basic effects – most of them usually taken as metamagic built into the spell formula.
  
  1) Spells that take up more than one slot. Under Lerandor’s Rule (from The Practical Enchanter) taking up two slots is equivalent to adding +1 spell level in terms of raw power (not complexity). In Eclipse that’s the Compact Metamagical Theorem; using a second slot falls under “using expensive components or foci” – also saving one spell level. Thus, for example, a Fireball designed to take up two spell slots would be second level.
  
  2) Spells that can be cast at two different speeds for two different strengths (presumably the faster version is weaker). That’s Easy (Temporal), with the provision that using the temporal modifier drastically weakens the spell so that the “Easy/Temporal” modifier will be a good deal cheaper. That’s not one of the explicitly-listed variants, but that’s why there’s a note stating that “The matamagic feats listed below aren’t limited to just the effects mentioned here”.
  
  3) Spells with two or more possible effects are actually fairly common. First edition had quite a few of them – such as Chromatic Orb, or the various “Rainbow” spells. You can find more in The Practical Enchanter (such as Greater Invocation) or Paths of Power (II or Complete: the Weave of Magic path contains a selection of such spells). The general rule has always been that more options at a given level means either a higher price or weaker options – but it’s easy enough to design such spells either way. There’s no apparent need for metamagic there at all.
  
  4) Spells that can gain a boost from the environment aren’t new either (for example, using electrical spells underwater in first edition). Putting that into a spell formula is the equivalent of adding a level of the Amplify metamagic to provide a large boost when the spell is cast under specific conditions, rather than a smaller boost all the time. That’s just another application of Amplify.
  
  5) This is actually pretty much the same as (4) except that I suspect that the boost is middle-of-the-road rather than major since it’s easier to control when you want to invest extra slots in a spell than it is to control the environment. Thus in this version your boost condition is simply “when I’ve invested more slots than usual in this spell” – another minor bit of built-in Metamagic.
  
  Now I know that you weren’t exactly asking “how to do it in Eclipse” – but it really is hard to be very original in writing rules for games. There are enormous thickets of rules now.
  
  Reply
Derek, on February 1, 2012 at 5:49 am said:

Thank you spellweaver and Thoth for those ways of using these spells.

The one thing I forgot to mention is that the segmented spells (those with more than one slot) is that each slot requires a casting. So a three segemented spell takes 3 rounds (or 3 whatevers) as well as 3 slots to cast.

Reply
- Thoth, on February 2, 2012 at 1:53 pm said:
  
  Ah, that sounds a lot like the old modular magic system. The classic example there was four level one effects – “Flaming Touch”. “Amplify Energy”. “Add Range”. and “Add Area”, all of which thrown in sequence added up to “Fireball”. Some players used to have a lot of fun with that system back in the hallowed days of first edition.
  
  Given that, I’m not really sure you need metamagic at all; it just sounds like “This very complicated spell formula includes several subspells which each contribute to the effect when cast in sequence. Any one by itself is useless”.
  
  Reply
  - Derek, on February 6, 2012 at 8:49 am said:
    
    I don’t see it that way at all. A standard segemented spell (those that require more than one slot and casting time) allow lower level characters more access to more powerful spells with a significant risk. How many spellcasters are going to be ignored when they are obviously building power for more than 3 rounds?
  - Thoth, on February 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm said:
    
    I’m not sure where there’s a mechanical difference really – although I, of course, don’t have the sourcebook that this is from, so I may be missing something that’s obvious there.
    
    On the rules side, that’s simply a note that casting a segmented spell – a series of spells which each contribute to the effect when cast in sequence – can be disturbed at any point, since you’ve got to hold each partial spell ready to go while you cast the rest.
    
    That takes more time, occupies multiple spell slots, and can be disrupted at any point – but the caster is indeed building up power for a major effect (one probably beyond his or her normal limits or this wouldn’t be worth bothering with) over several rounds. It’s also going to be very tricky to design…
    
    That classical “modular spell” effect was fairly effective at lower levels, but got pretty expensive at higher ones; in current terms, combining those four first level slots and four rounds worth of casting to get a Fireball effect isn’t so bad if you really need a Fireball – but the expansion is geometric. It takes eight first level slots to build a fourth-level spell, and so on – which rapidly gets prohibitive. The practical limitation is usually picking up two or three spell levels.
    
    The effect got ported over to d20 as Lerandor’s Rule (from The Practical Enchanter) and was used in the Runesmith build – which is pretty good for a higher-level character with some magical abilities on the side.
    
    Eclipse – Lerandor’s Rule and the Level One Runesmith Build
    
    Anyway, I hope that helps out.
Jasruv, on February 5, 2012 at 4:09 pm said:

About Siddhisyoga: If you get Fey or Efficient, do they apply to things aquired before you got them?

Example: Gained Siddhisyoga at level 2, sacrificed 5000 gp to pick up various abilites.

Then at level 6 you get Fey. Do you just increase sacrifices done later or can you spend xp to improve the 5000 gp used earlier?

Same with Efficient, do you get 2/3 value of sacrifices from then on or does it apply retroactively?

Reply
- Thoth, on February 6, 2012 at 1:31 pm said:
  
  Normally Fey and Efficient only apply to later purchases; trying to go retroactive can produce a lot of awkward bookkeeping – and once you have an innate enchantment it’s usually a done deal. It’s pretty much the same as buying an upgrade to item crafting that would have let you make twice as many (or better) wands; the one’s you’ve already made won’t automatically be improved or multiplied.
  
  Of course an Immunity (or a generous GM, which always works) might let it apply retroactively – but it would mean cooking up a reason why your old powers quit working suddenly until you spent some XP on them.
  
  Reply
Jasruv, on February 6, 2012 at 3:17 pm said:

Ok. The wording seems to imply that sacrificing treasure/GP sets a maximum budget that you then use to get enchantments with. I thought that maybe Fey and Efficient would boost that budget to allow for more enchantments.

Reply
- Thoth, on February 8, 2012 at 2:00 am said:
  
  Well, there’s no wrong way as long as you’re having fun with it and your game master will allow it. After all, anyone who wants to invest in Siddhisyoga at all seriously will probably buy the upgrades as soon as possible anyway – so it will probably never involve a particularly large sum.
  
  Either way you wind up going, I hope you’ll have fun with it!
  
  Reply
Derek, on February 7, 2012 at 7:16 am said:

I forgot about the runesmith. I will have to reread it in Eclipse 2.

I have a TPE question. I want to apply the conditional idea to potions. There are three basic ways that I thought of on applying it: internal versus external, environmental and species specific effects.

If a potion has a different effect for each the 6 basic races (ignoring half elves), how should I price it? Or if it has a different effect above and under water?

I would post a link to some examples, but I don’t know if you would want that on your blog.

Reply
- Thoth, on February 8, 2012 at 2:31 am said:
  
  Hm. Well, if the complexity is in the spell formula, that would just be a standard potion – so that’s probably not what you mean.
  
  As far as stacking multiple conditional formulas into a single potion go… that’s potentially useful, but you only get to use one of them. Thus if you have – say – three formulas, then your base costs would get a cost modifier (page 106, probably in the “Special” category) of about x.4. After all, there’s a two-in-three chance for each effect that you wouldn’t get to use it.
  
  Since that chance goes up as more effects are added, x.2 each for a set of six seems reasonable.
  
  Generalizing that pattern gives us a cost for each sub-effect of x (1.2 / the number of effects).
  
  And I’d be delighted with a link to some examples; relevant links (as opposed to all those annoying spammers) are always welcome.
  
  It’s kind of late here, and so I may be overlooking something obvious – but I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
Derek, on February 9, 2012 at 6:57 am said:

Keep in mind that they are in Labyrinth Lord format and I didn’t use the spell lists for ideas. They are the result of brainstorming. Still some ideas on how to price these things (if different from you suggestions above) would be more appreciated.

http://skirmisher.com/node/405

Reply
- Thoth, on February 12, 2012 at 12:30 pm said:
  
  Not a problem – and I will try to find a little time to do some deconstruction on them.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on September 11, 2016 at 1:12 am said:
  
  Given that the link is dead, I’ve recovered the page from the wayback machine – and here’s the content. Hopefully Derek will not mind.
  
  Complex potions are those that have more than one effect or require some sort of environment to function correctly. There are three basic types: external versus internal, environmentally or magically enhanced and species specific effects. Some act as cursed items if used incorrectly and others are just plain cursed. Some examples in LL format (keeping in mind my ability to come up with names sucks):
  
  Potion of the Insect turns the character into a giant insect for 2d4 turns. Humans are turned into giant ants, halflings into giant locusts, dwarves into giant ground beetles and elves into giant wasps (with a non-lethal poison).
  
  Potion of Horror turns the user into something permanently. If taken aboveground, the drinker becomes an illithid head. If taken out to sea, the result is a morkoth. If taken underground, the result is a hellhound. A save versus poison negates the effect.
  
  Darkness’ Blessing acts a poison when the user is exposed to sunlight, a healing potion when the user is in darkness and extra-healing at night.
  
  Wolf Slayer turns werewolves to stone the moment they are touched by direct moonlight.
  
  Battlefield Corpse changes the appearance of the drinker to a hacked up carcass and acts as a feign death spell for d4 hours
  
  Rootbound is a potion that is usually used by druids. It turns the drinker into soil and allows an extended version of commune with nature. It lasts 2d4 hours and allows a question per hour.
  
  Troll Blood Potions are tricky. If made in correctly, the potion is cursed and turns the drinker into a troll over 3d4 hours in a very painful manner. Those that are made correctly act as a regenerate spell for humans and halflings, a neutralize poison spell for dwarves and will either animate dead elves or turn their corpses into a plant growth spell (GM or player’s decision).
  
  Fallen Starlight allows a line of sight teleportation during the day and astral projection at night. Alternatively, at night it allows the character to wander the stars, however the GM defines that.
  
  Fallen Moonlight turns the user into a wolf during the day and a giant bat at night. This lasts until sunset or sunrise.
  
  Fallen Sunlight makes the user glow. If taken during the day, the glow has a 30′ diameter. If at night, the diameter is 100′ and it automatically drives off undead weaker than a lich.
  
  Potion of Elder Insight gives a wisdom bonus for d4 hours. Elves get +4, dwarves (and gnomes if you use them) get +3 and everyone else gets +2.
  
  Potions of Slime convert sweat and bacteria on the skin into a grey ooze. Aboveground, it attacks the drinker. Below, it serves the drinker. In either case the ooze is permanent but the control only lasts d6+6 turns, then the ooze turns feral.
  
  Potion of Inner Strength adds to one feature of one’s race. My suggestions are humans can not be tired, halflings hide in shadows as elven cloaks, dwarves can not become lost under ground, elves gain 2 caster levels and with the AEC, gnomes gain speak to plants and animals and half orcs gain +2 to strength and +2 to constitution.
  
  Potion of the Peasant’s Feast turns 50 pounds of objects into food. Metals provide one meal per 10 pounds, stone provide one meal per 8 pounds, wood one meal per 5 pounds, soil one meal per two pounds. Magic items are immune to this potion. It is meant to be a food version of sweetwater.
  
  The one I am not sure of how to do exactly is the Potion of Creation. It allows the consumer to take an object from his dreams (minimum 4 hours sleep). It can cost no more than 500 gp. What I can not figure out is how race and/or alignment would affect what objects can be created.
  
  I have no idea how to price any of these. Have any suggestions? How about suggestions for more complex potions?
  
  Reply
Jasruv, on February 17, 2012 at 2:20 pm said:

How would I go about making a character who could apply metamagic thorems to an inherent spell or innate enchantment?

I have a character who I want to have a usuable-at-will magical attack as well as a normal spell progression with several metamagic thorems and I wanted to use the rationale that he advanced his metamagic abilities by experimenting wirh his magical attack instead of book knowledge.

Other than an Immunity( to being unable to apply metamagic to innate spells or innate enchantments), I don’t really see a way to do this.

Reply
- spellweaver81, on February 17, 2012 at 7:30 pm said:
  
  Personally, I would look long and hard at using Enthusiast to buy either the Inherent Spell or Innate Enchantment. Normally Enthusiast is 3 cp spent to get 1 floating cp, but if you specialize it so that it can only be applied to a specific set of abilities, you can typically get 2 floating cp for every 3 cp spent. Choose the higher level spell slot you’ll need to support the metamagics you want to cast on the base spell and then figure out the point cost for that slot.
  
  Add a 50% markup to represent the Enthusiast cost and that should cover what you are looking for. You’ll now be able to cast an Inherent Spell or use an Innate Enchantment with varying metamagics applied to it. You’ll be stuck with a 72 hour lockout before you can swap out what metamagics you’re using though, unless you buy another ability to speed that up further.
  
  It’s certainly not a cheap way of doing things, but it avoids having to ask permission for that Immunity power (which I feel is always a positive). Plus I’m a fan of Enthusiast despite it being one of the less used abilities in my experience.
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on February 18, 2012 at 8:36 pm said:
  
  Inherent Spells and Enchantments are usually fixed effects, rather than being open to being filled with any kind of effect like a spell slot – but there are still several ways to go about that.
  
  The simplest way is to buy your metamagics and Streamline – possibly Specialized and Corrupted to apply to a few inherent spells or innate enchantments. Both Inherent Spells and Innate Enchantments can be upgraded – and an “upgrade” that doesn’t add any spell levels doesn’t cost anything. That way, for a relatively modest number of character points (the Streamline cost), you could experiment with a wide variety of boosts to your magical attack. The Shadow Elves from Eclipse II take this approach.
  
  To do things another way you could use a variation on Greater Invocation from The Practical Enchanter, and simply take a spell that produces an extremely narrow range of effects – such as “Flame Dart (L1) with +1 Level of any Metamagic (+2 levels or so). That’s likely to be more expensive in terms of character points, but doesn’t limit things to metamagics you’re currently familiar with.
  
  The Immunity approach – say paying for a second-level Innate Enchantment or Inherent Spell while only taking a first level effect and buying an immunity to let you swap in +1 level of metamagic to fill the
  rest of the slot – would work, but it does seem like a rather clunky way to go about it.
  
  The Path of the Dragon – a Specialized version of the Pulse and Heart of the Dragon abilities – would let you get away with creating spells that included the equivalent of various metamagics on the fly – but that will only work as an unlimited attack in games where the game master is willing to let you get away with a liberal interpretation of things (or you take an appropriate immunity – but an immunity to a rules requirement also requires special permission).
  
  The Enthusiast approach that Spellweaver kindly mentioned is the most versatile way of all, since it can easily be upgraded to put those floating points into all kinds of other abilities – or even into specialized abilities to fit particular quests. (For an example of that, see https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/you-have-no-power-over-me/ )
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
  - Jasruv, on February 23, 2012 at 11:52 pm said:
    
    Thanks for the help and ideas.
    
    But I do have a question about Enthusiast. Does Adaptation need to be multiple times if you get Enthusiast more than once?
    
    Most abilities say if an upgrade only needs to be bought once to apply to an ability bought more than once (Create Item for example). Adaptation could be read either way.
  - Thoth, on February 25, 2012 at 7:57 pm said:
    
    Adaption need only be purchased once. Sadly, the flip side is that bit about “redirect a CP”. That limits things to shifting around 3-4 CP a day. Still, that’s still only a couple of days to swap out a basic 6 CP feat; it just means that you can’t swap around a bunch of CP overnight.
    
    And you’re quite welcome there. Questions are always welcome!
Derek, on February 20, 2012 at 5:18 am said:

In Paths of Power, the third appendix is “Other SRD Domains”. Looking at the SRD, I can’t find them. What is the source(s) for these?

Reply
- Thoth, on February 20, 2012 at 12:24 pm said:
  
  Ah, that one’s easy. Almost all of them are under “Divine Domains and Spells”, but the Mind domain (which may be the one you’re looking for) is under “Psionic Spells”.
  
  Reply
  - Derek, on February 21, 2012 at 6:22 am said:
    
    Damn. I have always used http://www.d20srd.org/ and now I find out that it is incomplete.
    
    Thank you for that insight.
    
    And an FYI- the preview pdfs on OBS for your stuff leads to a dead site. You might want to contact them with some new ones.
  - Thoth, on February 22, 2012 at 3:32 am said:
    
    It’s in there – it’s just that the original RTF files aren’t all that well organized, and that’s been carried over into a lot of the online presentations.
    
    And botheration. The preview links were now supposed to link back to the first few pages of the OBS files. Evidently that’s not working; I’ll have to see about fixing it.
Alzrius, on February 21, 2012 at 5:41 pm said:

It’s not incomplete, you can find it right here.

Reply
Jasper Merendino, on February 21, 2012 at 9:05 pm said:

One of my players want to know if they can use the Shaopeshift mechanism just to by Large. No intent of an animal form – just want to be big.

Reply
- Christopher West, on February 21, 2012 at 9:12 pm said:
  
  There are several ways to do this. If they want to be a big Human for example, you could custoimse the human ‘race’ template.
  Personally I see no reason why you can’t use shapeshift to be large (specialised effect) – still limited to daily uses however.
  Alternative is Inherrent Spell – Enlarge Person (Self Only)
  
  Reply
- Thoth, on February 22, 2012 at 4:20 am said:
  
  In this case the base ability is insufficient: the problem with Shapeshift is that you take on both the advantages and limitations of a form – and it has to be an existing form.
  
  Ergo, what you need is Shapeshift (6, the base ability), Dire (3, to cover a “giant person” form), Growth (3, also to cover being an oversized creature), Attribute Modifiers (6, so that you keep your own base attributes instead of an average set for your new form), Hybrid (6, to stay mostly whatever-you-are and to retain your own racial abilities, +6 for clear speech), Variants (3, to look like an normal-if-oversized member of your species), and Exemption (3, to keep your gear from vanishing on you).
  
  That’s 36 CP. To make it physical (and thus immune to antimagic and such) we’ll want to specialize it for increased effect – and to bring the price down we’ll want to corrupt it. Ergo… It’s a physical change, leaves the user unable to fit through many doors or into many places, makes the user stand out, makes him or her a target, results in having to pay extra for gear, in having to eat a lot more, to being unable to use most mounts, and so on. It cannot be turned on or off, or changed, or used for any purpose other than being one size category larger than usual, and these limitations cannot be bought off later.
  
  All of that comes out to a net cost of 24 CP.
  
  It also takes us to one of the few spots in Eclipse where I’m personally torn about a cost. Growth is listed with a cost of 48 CP per level. That’s because it comes with big bonuses to Strength and Constitution and can be really useful in a fight. In a game that mostly revolves around fighting things, and where the game master doesn’t play up the problems with being so much larger than the other characters, it’s worth it.
  
  In games which rely less on combat, not so much so – which is why whether or not Growth can be turned on and off is unspecified. That leaves game masters free to rule on it either way – with the expectation that those running combative games will probably rule that it can’t normally be turned on and off, and those running more subtle games ruling that it can be – and thus opening the door to halve the cost to 24 CP (not coincidentally the same cost as the effect being bought above) by adding “Specialized / physical feature that cannot be turned on and off and otherwise suffers from the problems noted above”.
  
  In games where straightforward physical combat in open spaces is a rarity, a cheap spell will work just fine since the game master will see it as a rather limited power anyway.
  
  I hope that – rather lengthy – reply helps out with what you want to know though!
  
  Reply
Derek, on February 28, 2012 at 6:20 am said:

With path magic, how does researching new spells work? Is the research costs in addition to the path’s cost or is it included?

Reply
- Thoth, on February 28, 2012 at 1:48 pm said:
  
  It’s included. When you research a path according to the rules on page 28 of Paths of Power you’re researching all of the spells on it as well.
  
  The GM might give you a break on the price and/or time required if you already know some of the spells on it from other paths – but given the limited number of Paths a character can have, they’re usually better off filling them up with spells they don’t already know.
  
  Reply
Derek, on March 1, 2012 at 7:06 am said:

Ah, I thought so but it wasn’t entirely clear to me.

I have a request. Could you please write a book on magical biotechnology and monster creation (as in spellcasters who make monsters, not GM monster design)?

Looking at most of the existing examples in d20 land: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?553878-Sources-for-making-monsters-(wizard-edition) I find most of them lacking. There are plenty of good ideas but there isn’t a single source that I can say “that is the best of the best”. I know you guys know your stuff and obviously can write at the lengths the subject needs. What I am hoping for is a fantasy version of GURPS Biotech for d20.

Might you consider this?

Reply
- Thoth, on March 6, 2012 at 1:04 pm said:
  
  The response here got rather too long for the comments section – so it’s up over HERE.
  
  Reply
Derek, on March 23, 2012 at 6:41 am said:

Two questions

In Eclipse, the multiple metamagic feat allows for combining spells by adding their levels and then subtracting one. Doesn’t that mean first level spells can be cast freely as long as they are combined with another spell? (3+1)-1=3

And back to living magic: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/living-magic-the-harvest/

What would be the modifier for a breeder caste creature. For example, an ant queen that produces workers that cast light or mage armor at will.

Reply
- Thoth, on April 10, 2012 at 11:02 am said:
  
  For the first part… as far as the Multiple metamagic goes, I think you’re looking at the Combine option. In that one it’s not the spell level that’s reduced by one. That lets you pack a total number of spell levels equal to the slot level minus one into a higher-level slot. Thus you could pack five Magic Missile spells into a single sixth level spell slot and have them all go off at once. Useful at times, but hardly the worst thing that’s ever been done with metamagic and a sixth level spell slot.
  
  Reply
  - Derek, on April 11, 2012 at 5:42 am said:
    
    So, it doesn’t allow combining Mage Armor with Shield and Shocking Grasp?
  - Thoth, on April 11, 2012 at 6:23 am said:
    
    It does indeed allow that; it’s just that stacking together three levels of spells requires a fourth level spell slot since the slot used must be one level higher than the total levels of spells put into it.
    
    Sadly, today will be full of meetings. With any luck I’ll be able to get to the second part of this late tonight.
- Thoth, on April 13, 2012 at 3:39 am said:
  
  For the second part… Creatures that cast spells at will are simply using an Unlimited-Use Use-Activated effect rather than spell storing. That will require another extension of Enchantment (Living Magic and Multiple) and switching from an immobile plant to a “queen” – which may eliminate or reduce the “immobile” price break depending on how mobile the “queen” is.
  
  The creatures themselves are pretty straightforward; if their spells only affect themselves, the personal-only modifier is in order (and a low caster level will be fine; who wastes time dispelling spells on the giant ants who keep popping up?). If they’re pets who can also protect and aid their masters, than you’ll probably want a higher caster level.
  
  They’re still generally considerably more expensive than those first-level cure light wounds wants though – and so the “production” will be relatively small. In this case it will probably be more effective to add a small template to some existing creatures – which takes us back to biomancy and monster-making.
  
  Those articles are underway – but my gaming and game-design time has really been getting squeezed lately (as you can see by the article shortage). I may have to just give up on catching up and just go for alternate days or something, much as I hate to do that.
  
  Reply
Derek, on April 10, 2012 at 8:02 am said:

Hello? Any chance I could get an answer to either of those questions?

Reply
- Thoth, on April 10, 2012 at 10:53 am said:
  
  My apologies there: I fear I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to keep up with even the quick-and-simple Exalted stuff, and forgot all about this set of questions. Ergo, inserting some answers…
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on April 12, 2012 at 8:01 pm said:

This question is about the lower limits of Leadership. Specifically, translation of 3.x fractional CRs into the 0 or negative levels found in Eclipse, and how that might impact the lower end of application of the Leadership ability.
The formulae, on face value, seem pretty straight forward, appearing to set a ‘floor’ limiting effective use of the ability until 4th level (barring Journeyman or such) – level-3, and can’t be <1.
HOWever, noting the italicized paragraph about youths and small children on the same page, AND then considering the table with effective levels from t\he "Children, Growth, And Adventurers Table" (Page 9), I got to thinking, what Other sorts of critters might qualify for 0, or even negative, levels on that scale?
For perspective, most of 3.x recognizes fractional CR levels. Pathfinder has pages and pages of them, some quite detailed. For example, a goblin commoner is CR 1/3, and a goblin child is 1/4.
The reason I ask is, given your "dozen or so" guideline for what are effectively "-1" level followers (and depending on what sort of conversion could be agreed upon for translating 3.x fractional levels into Eclipse negative levels) , might, for example, a mere second level Druid use Leadership with Beast lord to command a rather large flock of, say. ravens? "Dozen or so" per ECL…

NOT trying to break the system – trying to get guidelines on expanding its application.

Reply
- Thoth, on April 13, 2012 at 4:21 am said:
  
  You’re quite right; you can indeed translate. CR 1/2 is effectively level zero, level “-1” covers down to CR 1/6’th or so – and anything lower than that is level (-2) and typically totally irrelevant, even for low-level characters. Offhand, I can’t recall any creatures with CR’s much under 1/4’th; anything that inconsequential usually gets represented as a swarm if it’s worth actually bothering to write up.
  
  The bit about level zero youths and level (-1) small children is set off a bit because it can easily become gamebreaking at low levels in the hands of a clever character. There’s nothing wrong with your Charisma eighteen Warrior Lord having a swarm of pages. Similarlily there’s nothing really wrong with your Charisma eighteen Druid taking Leadership and Beastlord at level one and getting (Level + Cha) x 12 small animals of CR 1/4’th or less – perhaps, as you say, a flock of ravens (after all, variant abilities are specifically allowed). That can be annoying when Mr Druid has them swarm some low-level opponent – but it’s hardly the most annoying thing that can be done in Eclipse. Being able to reproduce the stuff from almost any other d20 sourcebook meant putting in ways to reproduce a lot of really broken things, which is why there’s a section on keeping things under control and GM oversight is a must.
  
  The real problem comes up when you take Emperor’s Star and use it to give each raven in your mighty flock Cure Light Wounds and Magic Missile twice a day each or some such. Now you suddenly have your own personal aerial legion of doom. That’s not forbidden of course, but pet-spamming is one of the easiest ways to reach epic levels of cheese and it’s almost certainly asking the game master to haul out the cosmic anvil of doom and drop it on your character.
  
  As long as your game master is aware of the potential problems and keeps an eye on things though, this works just fine.
  
  Reply
verequus, on April 23, 2012 at 5:57 pm said:

I’ve been wondering about a possible discrepance regarding the companion and leadership feats. Looking over the companion benefits I calculate:

* Link (8 CP): +4 competence bonus (2 CP), specialized to count only for animal companion and Reflex Training (6 CP)?
* Share spells (13 CP): Spell Transfer (6 CP) + Spell Sharing (6 CP), Spell Transfer requires Mindspeech, which RAW the druids don’t receive. Closest would be Immunity against one specific prerequisite/Uncommon/Minor/Trivial (1 CP), which seems fine as the character won’t receive the benefit of the prereq anyway.
* Evasion (6 CP): Fortune variant
* Devotion (6 CP): Resist variant on Will saves against enchantment spells and effects.
* Multiattack (6 CP)
* Improved Evasion (6 CP)

That makes overall 46 CP, which you pay for only 6 CP. But that is not a fair comparison, as except for Link and Share Spells it’s the companion who benefits. So I’d say, it’s only 21 CP, which is still 3.5 half times more than you invest. Do I overlook something?

Other questions I’ve thought of while mulling over this:
Mindspeech + Mind Link allow you to establish a link with one person within 60′ and to keep this link indefinitively? Also, if you’d switch to a second person you can’t switch back to the first one, if she is out of reach? Is switching a free action?

House rule question: My GM exchanged Link with the familiar’s Empathic Link, but with clear thoughts. Do these count as: Mindspeech (3 CP) + Beastspeech (6 CP) + Mind Link (1 CP), specialized for: Allows only animal companion as target, reach is limited to 1 mile, which I count here as twice specialized. 1 mile is limiting. Or is it too much specialization?

And if I still may be bold to make one request: Can you build an Eclipse Kitsune? I’ve seen that you did something like this for another system, but I’d prefer something more Japanese myth like. I’ve bought “Kitsunemori” which is a wonderful book about these spirits, but their kitsune are kinda balanced to allow no ECL, as their abilities are spread over 20 levels and require also feats. This makes them feel to lack the oomph – it doesn’t sit well with me, if you – going pure fighter otherwise – need 20 levels to get sufficient abilities which can be duplicated and surpassed by a 5th level wizard. I prefer having abilities up-front, even they cost a dip in power in other areas.

Reply
- Thoth, on April 24, 2012 at 5:50 pm said:
  
  The difference is basically that a Companion is more or less an aspect of the character. It’s tightly linked to him or her, its powers are what the character gives it, and it improves in power along with him or her. Its powers are only important insofar as they benefit it’s master. Ergo, as the characters power increases, so does that of his or her companion – or it would soon stop being useful or become a point-sink rather than a net benefit.
  
  Leadership gains you followers (potentially in large numbers) which can go off and act independently, and can have powers unrelated to yours – but they’re generally enough weaker that most of them function as support staff, rather than as fellow adventurers.
  
  Either can be a very efficient way to gather power – but most actual adventures focus on the individual player-characters involved, rather than on background figures.
  
  Mindspeech lets you mentally converse with as many people as you like within sixty feet, with no special link required.
  
  Each Mindlink you can maintain lets you contact someone within 60′ and then stay in touch no matter how far away they go – but once you drop the link, you have to get them back within 60′ to set it up again.
  
  As an alternative version of Mindlink, you can spend 1 CP on setting up a permanent bond with a specific character. That lets you reach that particular individual at any range, bypassing the 60′ limitation – but the choice of target is permanent.
  
  House rules questions… Well, you wouldn’t need beastspeech. A familiar is sensibly intelligent and shares your skills – including your languages. It would be quite reasonable to count it as Mindspeech (3 CP) + Mind Link (1 CP), specialize and corrupt it (only for companion, only one mile), and call it 1 CP. The link is only a subsidiary aspect of taking a familiar after all.
  
  As for building a Kitsune… Why not? I would have to request some information on what version you’re looking for though. There really isn’t a lot of consistency to the original source material, and even less in more modern adaptions.
  
  Reply
  - verequus, on May 1, 2012 at 6:25 pm said:
    
    Now I am a bit confused: You state in Eclipse several times that people prefer Leadership + Beast-Lord upgrade over Companion. But if followers are more support stuff what is then their advantage over companions? An animal still doesn’t receive an Intelligence increase, yet you state that companions are less reliable.
    
    Also, some further questions tying back to my first post:
    
    Can you improve the house-rule option by buying off the specializations/corruptions? I’ve been thinking of expanding Mindspeech to include my party as well.
    
    Companion-Template: May it increase the Intelligence score as well? If you can increase, how does this play with Leadership + Beast-Lord options?
    
    Regarding Leadership: Am I assuming correctly that your followers also level up once you do it yourself?
    
    While reading through Eclipse again, I’ve noticed the combination Mystic Link + Communications + Transferable. How does it differ from Mindspeech + Mindlink?
    
    Regarding the Kitsune write-up: I have to admit that I’m not that well versed in original Kitsune myths. I have seen a few (modern?) interpretations of the originals and I don’t know how off the mark they actually are. If you think I missed something interesting, I’d like to hear it.
    
    From what I have gathered, they are fox spirits (which makes it reasonable to set their type to Magical Beast I suppose). They live at first as normal foxes for 100 years until they gain their second tail and their sentience. For every additional 100 years, they earn another tail, until they die at 1000 years. Their power increases for every tail they earn. They are tricksters which prefer to play pranks, although on whom depends on if a kitsune is Myobu or a Nogitsune. Myobu follow the god Inari and are generally protectors of humans, so they focus on mean people. Nogitsune follow no gods and are neither discriminating in their victims nor in their methods.
    
    Regarding powers, kitsune have many: They are talented illusionists, able to enchant minds and can also shapeshift into different forms. They seem to be capable to create own pocket dimensions or to cross over into some parallel world. They can enter peoples’ dreams, turn incorporeal, possess other’s bodies or simply control them from afar.
    
    BTW, thanks for taking time to answer all these questions. That’s really cool. :)
  - Thoth, on May 2, 2012 at 11:47 am said:
    
    I think you might be referring to the note under Companion that “If you want a normally sentient sidekick, take Leadership ability instead.”
    
    That’s not really a preference; it’s that Companion turns a normally non-sapient creature into an extension of the character – although more powerful companions are necessarily more loosely bound and ones with animal mentalities may not always understand what you want or how to behave themselves.
    
    Followers gets you NPC’s who work for you. That means that they can lose their nerve, be blackmailed, be distracted by their families, want occasional favors from you, and so on. They’re reasonably loyal, but they’re not you – and fundamentally aren’t reliant on you. If you drop dead, they may remember you fondly, or transfer their loyalty to someone else, or just go on with their lives.
    
    If you want a familiar, a mighty mystical war-steed, or a pair of deadly hunting cats bound to your life force with mystic energies to join you on your adventures, you want a Companion. If you want to stack templates and boosts on the creature to turn it into Godzilla Junior, you can – but getting a second Companion will call for more character points. On the other hand, you get to design your own Companion.
    
    Followers – including animal followers gained by the Beastlord extension – are designed by the game master with some player input and tend to come in mobs. If you’re – say – a 12’th level sorcerer-type with a +5 charisma modifier and you have Leadership you get 34 levels worth of followers of up to ECL 9.
    
    So: Take two helpful sidekicks (Say a L9 fighter-type and a L9 cleric type, for a total of 18 levels; since you only automatically get +2 ECL’s to spend on upgrades per level, there’s no point in trying to have more than two sidekicks), a L6 Beastmaster to train your animals and run avian security patrols around your mystical tower (up to 24 levels), a L4 Captain to supervise your tower (28 levels), a L3 Alchemist to brew some potions (31 levels), and – just in the spirit of wish-fulfillment – six cute youthful concubines (three sets of two L0 types counting as 1 level each), and you have your followers.
    
    When you go up to level thirteen, the limit on your companions goes up to level ten – and you get another two levels worth of companions. You can either use those to upgrade an old companion (perhaps raising the priest to L10 and the Alchemist to L4 – or you can get some new companions.
    
    Followers can be quite useful – and the sidekicks can be helpful on adventures, especially since their powers have nothing to do with their leaders – but they’re substantially weaker than the character and are NPC’s with lives of their own. If your friend the cleric is busy with his delinquent son, then he’s just not available to go assail the Keep of the Necromancer. Furthermore, unlike Companions, Followers can’t be easily upgraded in weird ways; there are usually just too many of them.
    
    The less-tightly bound Companion options, such as Animal Companions, remain animals and may behave erratically – but they don’t come with personal lives. They don’t wander off on their own and they don’t ask for major favors. Your pet grizzly bear with the flaming breath weapon and kung-fu action will never be busy with a sick cub when you want it to come along with you. That’s why Companions are more reliable than followers – and why there’s no direct relationship between the Companion and Follower lists; they’re doing different things.
    
    For the general questions…
    
    As a general rule there’s no problem with buying off Specializations and Corruptions that limit a power. Removing modifiers that increase it’s effect is more problematic, and your GM is likely to ask for a good explanation; abilities rarely become more general but less powerful.
    
    Templates may increase a companions intelligence. In fact it is possible to take a freely-accepting intelligent creature and make it a Companion – but you’re overwriting large chunks of it’s mind to do it, an act most characters find more repugnant than enslavement.
    
    For Leadership your total ECL allotment goes up slowly with your level and charisma modifier, and faster if you buy enhancements; you can assign those levels wherever you please.
    
    Mindspeech and Mindlink can do a few equivalent things early on – just as there are many different ways to get a character the ability to cast a Cure Light Wounds spell – but develop differently; Mindspeech starts as a ranged telepathic ability and develops into the ability to establish links at long range, to contact entities in other dimensions without direct links, and so on. Mystic Link never develops any way to create a link at range (although how quick it is depends on the setting). It develops into the ability to travel, to transfer supernatural powers over the link, and to remotely draw on items and places of power. It doesn’t even require that the target have a mind – but you have to buy an upgrade to be able to change what you have a link with at all.
    
    As for the Kitsune, it sounds like you’re mostly thinking of the classical version. That’s both good (a relatively limited selection of available source material) and bad (the original myths follow the usual fairy-tale pattern of “whatsoever is convenient for the story”) rather than really trying to be consistent). From your note that most of the abilities you’re looking at can be duplicated by a relatively low-level wizard, I’d guess that you’re not looking for the ability to take the place of the moon, create entire cities, or other grossly overpowered abilities – at least not without the character spending a LOT of effort developing their racial talents. That should be straightforward enough.
    
    And you’re quite welcome on the questions. That’s one of the things the site is here for.
  - Thoth, on June 15, 2012 at 8:05 pm said:
    
    All right… this took awhile to get to and still isn’t quite done – but here are the first couple of segments: Kitsune Basics, and One-Tailed Kitsune. Multi-taled Kitsune will have to wait for the next article.
  - Thoth, on June 27, 2012 at 12:26 am said:
    
    And here we have the multi-tailed kitsune article… Hopefully that’s more or less in line with what you wanted! https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/kitsune-of-the-eclipse-part-iii/
Jasruv, on May 1, 2012 at 5:41 pm said:

I have semi-related questions.

What ways are there to convert Power, Spell Levels, and Mana into one another? I’m planning on using Rite of Chi with a corruption that it drains equivilent Power for the Mana generated.

And.

Is there a way to make Rune Magic more efficent if I want to run it off of Power instead of Mana?

I have a character in mind who is going to be primarily a Psychokinetic (Done as Kinetic Master and Will of the Dragon) and I want to use Rune Magic to represent his abilities in areas other than straight on shoveing around and lifting.

Reply
- Thoth, on May 2, 2012 at 8:19 pm said:
  
  As a rule, Mana is more or less Eclipse’s version of “Cosmic Power” – a primordial energy that can be used to drive pretty much any ability. Thus it’s fairly easy to convert Mana into Power and/or Spell levels, but relatively hard to turn it back. Rite of Chi is the best solution there; since you’re only using it for power conversion, it can be specialized and corrupted (you aren’t really making a profit) and will cost about 15 Power per use (just above the 14 it would normally yield).
  
  And yes, that’s expensive.
  
  The trouble is that Rune Magic is about the most basic form of magic available (“I take some raw power, crudely shape it into something approximating what I want, and fling it at my target”). Thus it’s cheap to buy and has few special restrictions – but the price of that ease and simplicity is inefficiency.
  
  Making Rune Magic more efficient… calls for more sophistication. That’s more skills and a casting level – which takes us to one of the more advanced magic systems, such as Theurgy or Dweomer.
  
  The simplest way to get what I think you want is to take the Magician modifier on Rune Magic (6 CP) and convert the available spell levels to Power (Multiply by 1.8, as per the rules on page 12). Now your rune magic spells will work off Power like psionic disciplines – and you have a power pool that can be expanded in a variety of ways (perhaps the most effective in the long run is to just buy self-development for your “casting” stat for rune magic purposes only (6 CP per +1, may be specialized to be just for bonus slots if you wish).
  
  Reply
  - Jasruv, on May 4, 2012 at 10:22 pm said:
    
    Thanks for the advice.
    
    It does bring up a question for me though. How would the Invocation ability interact with someone using power instead of spell levels? Especially with the options like split, double, and mighty.
    
    And does the Magician option on Rune Magic count as a spell progression?
  - Thoth, on May 5, 2012 at 1:16 am said:
    
    Oh, you’re quite welcome. It’s always fun to see what other people do with the rules. They tend to produce nice fresh concepts and approaches that would never occur to me.
    
    For a Psychic, Invocation will normally provide one free use of any of the user’s powers. Split would turn it into enough Power Points to use the user’s most expensive psychic ability once. Double would double that supply of Power Points. Mighty is a little bit different for a psychic; it would open a chance to use a power beyond the normal point-cost limits – but that could be a very high-order power, something loaded with metapsionics, or simply something being augmented beyond normal limits AND it would contribute the appropriate number of Power Points to the user’s pool.
    
    The Magician option on Rune Magic isn’t technically a spell progression – but it’s certainly close enough to one to be treated as one for most purposes. If you want to modify it using some of the progression-related effects – well, variations are explicitly allowed if your GM is willing to allow them. I think that I’d have to be a bit clearer on what you wanted to do to give you a better answer than that.
Jasper Merendino, on May 10, 2012 at 11:04 pm said:

I have a challenge for you – something I can’t seem to translate into Eclipse on my own.

First, let me preface this by saying I am pretty good at translating between game systems. I have translated a Lot of D&D4e into Hero and 3e, mostly without too much trouble.

But now, I’ve found an ability, from 4e (a relatively low-level one, just to make a little more embarrassing for me), that I can’t seem to translate into Eclipse. So I present it to you.

The ability is a a “per day” ability for 4e Monks, called “Whirling Mantis Step”. . It sakes a standard action, and does three things:
1) You “shift” (= move without taking AoO) you move.
2) Every enemy you pass adjacent to, you may slide one hex in any direction.
3) up to three of these have to make a Fort save, vs. a DC based on your Dex, or take 2d10 (save = half damage)

I see that that’s a tall order. Several parts of the above (save for half, once/day) led me to think of trying to use Inherent Spell. But I have run aground trying to model the spell level.

I can do this in Hero, but this seems to be beyond me.

If you yell me it is beyond the system’s capacity to model, I will accept that. But I wanted to at least present it to you.

Reply
- Thoth, on May 12, 2012 at 1:54 pm said:
  
  It would indeed be easiest to just to just arbitrarily assign a spell level to the effect and make it an inherent spell – but for illustration purposes I prefer to buy the sub-abilities separately. To do that take:
  
  Evasive (Move without provoking attacks of opportunity, 12 CP), only works for one turn per day, only allows normal movement.
  -A movement power the only works for a few seconds per day? Personally I think that qualifies for double-specialized, and the “only allows normal movement” is still a Corruption – leaving us with a net cost of 2 CP.
  
  The “Shove someone five feet” part is a bit of a problem simply because – in 3.5 – when you use an ability which affects an opponent they normally get a chance to resist. It can also be rather more effective in 3.5 where, when you shove someone over a cliff or some such, the damage has nothing to do with the attackers level.
  
  On the other hand, shoving someone ten feet with a save for half certainly seems like a first level effect. The old “Push” spell comes to mind. Ergo, it will be simplest to use Presence (an aura that moves opponents). That would be a stretch – an aura that shoves people away is kind of weird, and could be FAR too convenient for a spellcaster – but the old “flare my aura and throw people away” routine is common enough in anime and a few other settings. You’d want to either play up the problems (no one can touch you to help you either) or restrict it a good deal. As a compromise, I think this needs to be Specialized for Increased Effect.
  
  Of course, we are restricting it a good deal – to during the course of a single normal movement action once per day, opponents are presumed to automatically make their saving throws (and so are automatically moved 5′), only works in conjunction with the previous movement ability. That, once again, looks like it’s double-specialized and corrupted. (Once a day for things that you can normally use all you like really is quite limiting). Ergo, our net cost is – once again – 2 CP.
  
  Finally we have “at the end of your move you can make an attack against up to three adjacent enemies. This inflicts 2d10 damage and slows them until a save is made”.
  
  Disregarding the difference between third and fourth edition saves (once versus a fixed duration versus again each round until made) we can compare this to a slow spell; it’s replacing a single attack so it’s a standard action (no change), it has no verbal or material components – but inherent spells normally don’t have minor material components either (+1 level), it has no range (-1 level), it affects a more limited number of targets (-1 level), duration is presumably unchanged (no change), and it’s contingent on a successful physical attack on each target (-1 level since it already allows a save). That gives us a base level of one for this effect.
  
  The 2d10 physical attack effect could be built in several different ways – but it’s simplest to throw it in as part of the spell effect. I think I’d prefer to do it as an attack-boosting spell of about level two – “Adrenal Strike; L2 Transmutation, target gains a brief burst of incredible speed, during which he or she can make three normal attacks at your full BAB against adjacent opponents. Trying to use this effect more than twice in any one encounter will lead to fatigue, muscle injuries, and overstress.”
  
  That doesn’t precisely match – you don’t automatically get 2d10 base – but you will get to use any other boosts to your attacks that you’ve purchased. I could build the 2d10 effect, but it would take more comparisons (probably with Ice Storm) and I rather prefer an ability that will scale effectively.
  
  Stacking a secondary first-level effect onto a second level spell costs +1 spell level – for a net level of three. That’s standard for Inherent Spell (6 CP). Given that this doesn’t look much like magic (“I spin around and kick some people so hard they’re unable to move at full speed for a bit”) and has already bought off the spell-style limitations, calling it an extraordinary ability without bothering with the “internal” modifier is fair enough. Of course it’s only usable in conjunction with the two previous abilities and requires that the user be entirely free to move – Corrupting it for a net cost of 4 CP.
  
  Altogether that gives us a net cost of 8 CP – which seems pretty reasonable for a once-a-day ability of this nature. For about another 8 CP you could relax some of those limitations and get some bonus uses on the Inherent Spell – turning this into a per-encounter ability.
  
  Anyway, I hope that helps!
  
  Reply
  - Jasper Merendino, on May 13, 2012 at 2:29 pm said:
    
    Oh, it helps mutchly! (you a Genius, man!)
    Some slight differences from your proposed structure:
    1) The maneuver takes standard action, not just a Move (But is already so limited, that’s probably not significant)
    2) The 5′ “Push” is a “Slide”, can be in any direction, not just away. (You once told me that is an Immunity, but I reckon I could specialize it for omnidirectionality)
    3) I think I may have to mak the damage portion a proper areaspell/supernatural ability, as having to hit And giving a save just defangs it too much.
    Thanks again!
  - Thoth, on May 13, 2012 at 6:21 pm said:
    
    Oh, you’re welcome – although it’s really pretty easy to be familiar with the system when you wrote it.
    
    This version of the ability is actually a full-round action though – a move action to move plus a standard action to invoke the spell effect. I shouldn’t have buried that down in the “slow” effect modifiers though.
    
    Not to worry on the slide; the basic idea was “an aura that moves opponents”; it’s just that the vast majority of the times I’ve seen that effect it’s been pushing people away.
    
    And please do tweak away! It’s your game! I was just trying to stick with the 4e version – which seemed to say that it required an attack check to do the damage and then allowed a save against the slowing effect. (I’m not all that familiar with fourth edition I fear; so I may well have read it wrong. Our games tend to spend very little time on combat and a lot on research and puzzles – which just didn’t work so well when we tried using fourth edition to run it, so I’m short on practice there).
Derek, on May 12, 2012 at 4:38 am said:

Something you might want to think about while you are writing the biotech articles- things that aren’t monsters. Things like magical herbs and other plants and fungi.

Reply
Jasper Merendino, on May 13, 2012 at 7:33 pm said:

Thoth,
Re the original 4e version ,of that ability, there Is an attack roll, but it still does half damage on a miss, which I find functionally identical to a save mechanic.

And yes, 4e is clearly a combat game – no professions, no perform skill, most knowledges gone. All very disappointing. It’s like the ‘New Coke’ of the role-playing community.

Reply
- Thoth, on May 13, 2012 at 7:49 pm said:
  
  Ah, I fear I was reading the description wrong then; I thought a miss was a miss. (Hopefully the original book is clearer than the online notes I found, since whatever book the fourth edition monk appeared in, it wasn’t one that I bought).
  
  We did try 4’th back when it first came out – there’s a review up somewhere on the site – but it only took a few sessions to bore everyone.
  
  Reply
  - Jasper Merendino, on May 13, 2012 at 8:05 pm said:
    
    Most of the 4e “per Day” Class abilities are “auto-hits”, doing at least half damage on miss. It seems to be sort of their central assumption for such abilities.
    
    And I quite agree about boring. As I said, ‘New Coke’.
    Still, there are occasional kernels of interest in 4e. For instance, I used it to test my capacity to translate into Hero. The resulting abilities were pretty lame, but it was doable.
Jasper Merendino, on May 14, 2012 at 11:00 pm said:

In Eclipse, do targets/subjects of default “Presence” effects get saving throws? It does not appear so from the wording of the effect in Codex Persona. BUT, in your above discussion about using Presence to push people around, you imply saving throw.

Reply
- Thoth, on May 15, 2012 at 11:19 am said:
  
  For the basic minor emotion-influencing options, no – if only because most of the non-villain user’s stick to positive effects so as not to penalize their allies.
  
  If you’re opting to emulate a first level spell though, then whether or not there’s a save depends on the spell being emulated. You have to take the bad with the good.
  
  Of course, given that that opens the field to “any first level spell you can come up with”, the standard “subject to GM Veto” caveat always applies. An endless aura of – say – Cure Light Wounds is generally out. A special divine gift of a healing aura you can only use a few times per day or at some cost? Much more workable.
  
  That is one of the things to watch for in Eclipse; trying to set up a system that covered pretty much “everything d20” necessarily meant putting in ways to reproduce the broken stuff as well as the reasonable stuff. Thus page 163.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on May 16, 2012 at 10:54 pm said:

I went through your internal search system, and couldn’t find this, so I’ll present the question here: ANy thoughts on the how to cost out a Pathfinder Alchemist? Just the first couple of levels worth of abilities would be all I ned to get me started.
The “spell” (formulae) progression is not exactly like any of the others. It’s kinda like a sorcerer, only without the level 0’s, and even fewer spells.

Reply
- Thoth, on May 17, 2012 at 2:18 am said:
  
  Ah, this one is easy – although I must admit that the search functions here leave something to be desired. I MUST get the indexes updated…
  
  Eclipse Pathfinder – the (Expanded) Alchemist
  
  Most of the Pathfinder classes got converted some time ago.
  
  Reply
Jasper Merendino, on May 17, 2012 at 11:17 am said:

Again, thank you for your prompt response.
I thought I remembered the Pathfinder classes being done, but just could not find them on the site on my own.
Since I was only interested in low level abilities, the keys for me were the assignment of Bardic progression cost (which I must admit never occurred to me) and Bombs as a Inherent Spell The second is obvious, once you point it out, but I have some questions about the first.
Bards have 0 level effects, alchemists don’t (though arguably a lot of their 1st level effects equate to 0 level spells). And their “use/day” and “effects known” ratio is different from Bards. So I gather this is a case of ‘Best Fit’. Any guidelines on your thought processes there?

Reply
- Thoth, on May 19, 2012 at 1:21 pm said:
  
  Simple enough: The Improved Specialist ability grants this build one extra slot at each level of “spell”/extract they can use. While this makes the progression a very good overall match, it is often off by a spell or two at lower levels. For example…
  
  At level five this version has four cantrips and 4/2 spells/extracts instead of 4/2 spells – and is ahead by four cantrips.
  
  At level ten this version has four cantrips and 4/4/3/1 spells/extracts instead of no cantrips and 5/4/3/1 spells – ahead by four cantrips and behind by a first level spell/extract.
  
  At level fifteen this version has 5 cantrips and a progression of 5/4/4/4/3 instead of 5/5/5/4/3 – ahead by five cantrips and behind by a first and second level spell/extract.
  
  At level twenty this version has 5 cantrips and a progression of 5/5/5/5/5, just like the 5/5/5/5/5/5 of the basic version. This version is still ahead by five cantrips, but by level twenty a few cantrips don’t matter much.
  
  I could have matched the progression precisely – but it would be far more effort than it was worth; nobody playing Eclipse ever actually follows a standard progression very far anyway. If someone wants to trade in the cantrips for an extra spell/extract at some levels to exactly match the original progression… well, so be it; the difference is trivial and minor variants are explicitly allowed.
  
  In my experience they’re far more likely to use Mana to get some generic spell levels to boost the number of low-level effects they get per day, or Rite of Chi, or some such anyway.
  
  There isn’t actually any difference in the number of formula known though; the Alchemist is using the “formulas must be found and mastered” variant on studies, rather than the “limited number of inherent spells” option.
  
  I’m going to copy your question, and this reply, over to the Alchemist entry in case anyone ever asks the same thing; I hope you don’t mind!
  
  Reply
  - Jasper, on May 19, 2012 at 4:12 pm said:
    
    My 15 minutes of fame. Well, I suppose I couldn’t stay in Witness Protection forever . . .
Erik, on May 22, 2012 at 1:33 am said:

Is there any way to have a spirit tool set instead of a spirit weapon and or in addition to being a weapon. Example: be able to form a lock pick set to aid in picking a lock through spirit energy.

Reply
- Thoth, on May 22, 2012 at 2:01 am said:
  
  Certainly; That falls under the “minor variants” rule. You could either buy it as “Spirit Tools” (3 CP – giving up the weapon function like not buying range), taking Specialized version of the basic Spirit Weapon ability (not useful as a weapon), buy Immunity/penalties for being without (various sorts of tools). You could also look into Summon Tools (The Practical Enchanter, Page 12). A lesser-duration version of that effect would make a simple and convenient Innate Enchantment. There are other ways, but most of them are too roundabout to bother with.
  
  Reply
verequus, on May 22, 2012 at 12:23 pm said:

I’ve been looking at your conversion of the Arcane Archer class. I’m thinking of talking a player into taking some of the abilities, as she has a lot of fun when firing explosive arrows at and into enemies. Instead having a limited amount of special arrows, it would surely help to improve them (bought as well found) on the fly. … Pun intended. :P Anyway, looking at your entry in Eclipse, I see:

* Imbuement (Missile Weapon only): 12 CP
* Inherent Spell 5: 30 CP

Imbuement is easy: Missile Weapon only means Corrupted, so we get the Basic, Improved and Superior options for 4 CP each. But I have trouble with Inherent Spell. Looking at Inherent Spell I see only the Advanced option which mentions something like grade 5, but that would cost more than the allotted CP. More likely is that you mean to buy Inherent Spell 5 times. This would correspond to the 5 other abilities: Imbue Arrow, Seeker Arrow, Phase Arrow, Hail of Arrows and Arrow of Death.

Taken from SRD:

“Imbue Arrow (Sp)

At 2nd level, an arcane archer gains the ability to place an area spell upon an arrow. When the arrow is fired, the spell’s area is centered on where the arrow lands, even if the spell could normally be centered only on the caster. This ability allows the archer to use the bow’s range rather than the spell’s range. It takes a standard action to cast the spell and fire the arrow. The arrow must be fired in the round the spell is cast, or the spell is wasted.

Seeker Arrow (Sp)

At 4th level, an arcane archer can launch an arrow once per day at a target known to her within range, and the arrow travels to the target, even around corners. Only an unavoidable obstacle or the limit of the arrow’s range prevents the arrow’s flight. This ability negates cover and concealment modifiers, but otherwise the attack is rolled normally. Using this ability is a standard action (and shooting the arrow is part of the action).

Phase Arrow (Sp)

At 6th level, an arcane archer can launch an arrow once per day at a target known to her within range, and the arrow travels to the target in a straight path, passing through any nonmagical barrier or wall in its way. (Any magical barrier stops the arrow.) This ability negates cover, concealment, and even armor modifiers, but otherwise the attack is rolled normally.

Using this ability is a standard action (and shooting the arrow is part of the action).

Hail of Arrows (Sp)

In lieu of her regular attacks, once per day an arcane archer of 8th level or higher can fire an arrow at each and every target within range, to a maximum of one target for every arcane archer level she has earned. Each attack uses the archer’s primary attack bonus, and each enemy may only be targeted by a single arrow.

Arrow of Death (Sp)

At 10th level, an arcane archer can create an arrow of death that forces the target, if damaged by the arrow’s attack, to make a DC 20 Fortitude save or be slain immediately. It takes one day to make an arrow of death, and the arrow only functions for the arcane archer who created it. The arrow of death lasts no longer than one year, and the archer can only have one such arrow in existence at a time.”

Of these five abilities, only 3 explicitly state they are usable once per day. Imbue Arrow requires area spells instead, which are likely to be in supply more than one. Arrow of Death has a stricter limitation, on the other hand, upgrading this would make this ability more useful and more comparable to the Assassin’s Death Attack. The Assassin can use Death Attack as often they wish, but requires 3 rounds of preparation and the opportunity to sneak attack, which is problematic during a fight. Effectively a once per encounter power.

Imbue Arrow itself doesn’t seem to be something what I consider to be spell-like anyway. That’s more a feat, and Corrupted or even Specialized as well thanks to the limitation regarding the usable spells. Seeker Arrow seems to be a True Strike with different tradeoffs. True Strike is level 1; Inherent Spell gives for 6 CP two level 1 spells which are usable twice per day. So I double specialize it for only one spell once per day.

Phase Arrow is a more limited Blink spell: Only one round, so I’d say the effect is only level 2. Again it is specialized for half of the effect. Hail of Arrows stumbles me. First of we have this level limitation, which doesn’t make sense in Eclipse. Then we have more than one attack at full BAB. I don’t know any effect which would allow anything similar, not even considering level 3 spells. Arrow of Death doesn’t seem to be spell, but again a special ability like the above mentioned Death Attack. This is simply Trick (Death Attack), double specialized for both usage limitation (1/day instead 3/day) and crafting these special arrows.

Overall, I can’t seem to replicate your conversion notes. :( What do I miss?

Note regarding Imbue Arrow: I wonder how useful “use your bow’s range instead of the spell’s one” actually is, as area spells have likely bigger ranges anyway. I suppose you still have to roll an attack (Against what DC? 10? Where does the arrow land if you miss? When you fumble?) compared to simple casting, so this seems to be actually disadvantegous. If you could put any spell on it (even Personal, as such spells are actually beneficial) then for exmaple you could turn touch attacks into range touch attacks – something worthwile indeed.

Seeker Arrow looks kinda weak as well. I’d rather use True Strike instead four times per day and pay the full 6 CP.

Reply
- Thoth, on May 23, 2012 at 12:13 pm said:
  
  What’s going on here is simply that a character can have any “Inherent Spell” that the game master is willing to approve at a given level – regardless of whether or not it’s ever appeared in a sourcebook.
  
  Ergo…
- “Imbue Arrow” essentially falls under the “Add Metamagic” effects – it gives you an extended range, but now requires an attack roll and – obviously – only works on area effects. Honestly, that’s not really all that advantageous most of the time. Ergo, level one.
  Seeker Arrow is mildly interesting – but really isn’t especially effective when compared to True Strike. Ergo, level one again. Since it’s only once per day – instead of the four times a day you could get with this purchase – it’s Specialized and Corrupted for (2 CP).
  
  Phase Arrow is, once again, mildly interesting – but still really isn’t especially effective when compared to True Strike; it’s application is pretty specialized. Ergo, level one again.
  
  Hail Of Arrows does allow a lot of “attacks”, but they still require a roll to hit each. I think that the best comparison is something like “Scorching Ray” (at level two) – which may not have quite the potential for damage as an Archer with +1 Flame, Acid, Lightning, Cold bow, but does allow for multiple shots at a single target and is a touch attack to boot. For a quick judgement call… level five (as presented in Paths of Power II).
  
  Arrow Of Death really looks pretty comparable to “Slay Living”. The DC is a bit higher, you do arrow damage on a hit instead of (3d6+Caster Level), and it has range – but a version of “Slay Living” where you had to specify your target when you prepared the spell and which couldn’t be cast spontaneously would either drop notably in level or get some substantial improvements; it’s a LOT less useful. Ergo, level five.
- Inherent Spell: Imbue Arrow. That’s only level one, so put it into both available slots. If you really want effectively unlimited use, add +4 uses per day to each slot (+6 CP) for a total of twelve uses and (12 CP). That really ought to be quite enough.
  Inherent Spell: Seeker Arrow (L1). Since it’s only once per day – instead of the four times a day you could get with this purchase – it’s Specialized and Corrupted for (2 CP).
  
  Advanced Inherent Spell I: Phase Arrow (L1). Once again, since it’s only once per day – instead of the four times a day you could get with this purchase – it’s Specialized and Corrupted for (2 CP). I’ll ignore the fact that Advanced Inherent Spell I could get you a much higher level spell effect once per day and go for the low cost instead. You don’t HAVE to have a higher level spell if you don’t want one.
  
  Advanced Inherent Spell II: Hail of Arrows (L5): Advanced Inherent Spell II allows a level five effect – which is just what we need (6 CP).
  
  Advance Inherent Spell III: Arrow of Death (L5). This would allow a level six effect, so we’re once again overpaying a bit – but not enough to really matter. Once again, (6 CP).
- Masterful Shot (True Strike), Corrupted for increased uses (6) per day/only with bows (6 CP).
  Arrows of the Storm (Electrical variant on Scorching Ray), Corrupted for increased uses (3) per day/only with bows (6 CP).
  Explosive Arrow (as per Fireball, trading a potential range boost for requiring a bow and a roll to hit), 1/Day (6 CP).
  Arrow of Appearance (as per Dimension Door, trading a potential range boost for requiring a bow, a roll to hit, and line of sight) (6 CP for Advanced Inherent Spell I).
  Crippling Shot (as per Bestow Curse, adding range but at +1 level and requiring a normal roll to hit) (6 CP for Advanced Inherent Spell II).

Derek, on May 27, 2012 at 7:49 am said:

TPE questions.

I want to create an extradimentional space that has more than one entrance, all of them on different planes (though planes are something you can walk or fly to in my cosmology). What level bump would you suggest for each additional entrance?

Would casting spacewarp on an existing EDS extend its duration?

What is the level bump for Stable (it is missing)?

Thoth, on May 27, 2012 at 5:56 pm said:

Hm. The first one… Basically what you want is to create a dimensional nexus. While that can’t be used to summon creatures, it can be used to transport massive amounts of goods between dimensions, to stage dimensional invasions, and to substitute for teleportation, planar travel, and many applications of gates.

Worse, if you break that up on a “per entrance” basis, it can potentially be tweaked down to a rather low-level effect. That really won’t do.

To preserve the integrity of the multiverse, I’m going to peg that one at somewhere around +8 (well above the +4 levels for being able to shift your entry point into coexistent planes) – but applying that modifier will provide you with built-in portals to (Casting Attribute Modifier) additional planes.

Casting another Spacewarp of the same type to extend the duration of an existing one works fine; the new duration replaces the old one, much as a second casting of Bears Endurance keeps the effect going without a lapse.

The level bump for Stable was answered up here – https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/atheria-d20/#comment-17433 – but it was indeed left out by mistake. It should be +1 for tolerating small, well-contained, portals (bags of holding and similar) and +2 for larger gates.

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Derek, on May 29, 2012 at 6:52 am said:

Well, the first idea isn’t meant to be a way to transport stuff so much as to protect the owner from planar destruction. Here is a short description of my cosmology: http://www.skirmisher.com/node/629 If a plane was destroyed, all the EDS entrances on that plane would be cut off forever. This allows people to escape somewhere else on the multiversal plane.

And the reason I asked the second question is that I wondered about those who didn’t want to spend the xp to make a permanet space when one that lasts for a decade or better is a bit easier to create. But if the duration ended, everything in the space would be dumped or freed. Allowing a recasting would help the longer lived races.

And now I have another. Can another spellcaster extend the duration of a Spacewarp spell? A caster that didn’t create it in the first place.

And thanks for the answers.

Thoth, on May 30, 2012 at 7:44 pm said:

Ah. Not a gate nexus then, just a highly-specialized modifier – “The portal to this extra-dimensional space automatically relocates to another nearby or coexistent dimension if the dimension it is currently located in ceases to exist”. I’d say +1 level for a basic relocation, +2 levels for a semi-intelligent effect that automatically relocates the entryway to a convenient location in a compatible universe. (Although it might just be easier to stick a Plane Shift scroll to escape with inside).

That sort of thing didn’t make the book since it’s pretty unusual for a basic d20 plane of existence to cease to exist.

As long as a spellcaster is using the same spell and the same options in renewing a spell it doesn’t matter who casts it. The longest remaining duration takes precedence.

And you’re quite welcome to answers; questions often inspire things to write, so I find them quite useful at times…

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Brett, on May 29, 2012 at 9:33 am said:

How exactly would you build a character that was going to be based around the Chameleon in Races of Destiny or for a non IP source this forum build. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100597#
I have a specific curiosity as to how the Jack of All Trades from the forum post would be built. I assume at least one version of Enthusiast will be used but I wanted to see more specifically how someone who is more experienced will do so. My issue in a few weak attempts was that once you have Specialized enthusiast to be a “using Masks” type situation the power curves start to stutter a bit in terms of being a 3:2 ratio rather than just what could normally be built using a set point value -24 CP making it a character that can become any “class” at their level -2 which seems to be about the right power point for the flexibility while keeping the numbers in the same ballpark enough to be reasonably effective.

Thoth, on June 1, 2012 at 5:04 am said:

OK, this is far too long for a comment post, and so became an article over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/the-emperic-masquerader/

That covers the basic “Chameleon” style build. The stuff in the Forum build will have to await the next post.

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Thoth, on June 6, 2012 at 5:40 pm said:

And here we have a look at the stuff from the forum version, as well as a bunch of possibilities for additional masks. https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/the-empiric-masquerader-part-ii-the-online-variant/

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Jasruv, on May 31, 2012 at 6:07 pm said:

I took a look through the link and this is my take on the chamelelon.
This only a rather rough cut.

Masks –

6 cp Ethusiast +double Specialized for effect : only for use with Mask Relics
4 cp to bind with mask relics below

2 cp Create Relic Specialized and corrupted only to turn ethusiast points into a GM approved ‘Mask’ relic
To do the exclusive class abilities Mask Relics

12 cp Immunity to having Mask relics stolen or damaged ( Common, Minor, Great) Reflects the fact that the Mask ‘Relics’ aren’t physical objects.

The following allows for the relatively rapid changing of masks. Possibly of Chaos rather than pos or neg energy
2 cp Channeling 2/day (3/day corrupted to 2/day) Specialized : only to power spell conversion

6 cp — Spell Conversion 1 5th level spell effect ‘Change Mask’ Corrupted (cost)20 min meditation
Limited Wish is 7th level, Change mask is a extremely specialized form of that.

Jack of All Trades is really kinda broken if skills have any importance to a campaign.

One way to do it is
12 cp Immunity to being able to stack the Universal option of the JOAT ability (Com, Maj, Great)
and then spend 6cp for the Universal option of JOAT every other level

The tricky part of it is that you are considered to have ranks rather than a bonus of some sort.

Ability Boon can be built into the Mask Relic or done thru an innate enchantment.

Chamelon Lore: Lore Ability

Mimic: seem like a bunch of 1 level spell effects that can be done thru Innate Enchantment with a needs 5 min rest before uses modifer ( about .7 or so) Turn undead being the exception. I’d either drop it or get a seperate channeling pool to reflect it.

Floating Feat: More Ethusiast, would be affected by the Change Mask channelling effect.

Impersonate: Can done thru Guises, Cloaking, innate enchantment,

Quick Change: 20 mins to 5 mins would still count as corrupted to me

Dual Facade : get enough Relic Ethusiast points to run two masks at once

Dangerous Unpredictability: Add another Spell conversion of change mask and change to the corruption to takes two uses instead of meditation. + 6 cp

Jasruv, on June 17, 2012 at 3:09 pm said:

This is a question about the amplify metamagic theorem.
How much would you charge to increase the scalng of a spell?

For Example: Turning the arcane cantrip Disrupt Undead from a 1d6 flat damage to 1d6/ level?
I’m leaning to +2 levels to scale at 1d6/2level, then +1 to scale at 1d6 per level.

This came up when I wanted to recreate an Illumine Soul character I played a few years back and wanted to recreate the flare ability as an innate enchantment.

Also do you think +1 spell level to raise the damage cap of a spell by five is too little or too much?

Thoth, on June 18, 2012 at 3:19 pm said:

Well, the generic version of Disrupt Undead might be:

Disrupt (Creature Type): L0, Components V and S, Casting Time Standard Action, 1d6 to Limited Target Type, Close Range/Ranged Touch Attack, No Save).

After all, there’s no reason why you can’t come up with Disrupt Lycanthrope or whatever.

Now, Shocking Grasp does 1d6/level at L1 – but has no range and does not have a limited target restriction. That’s +3 levels to make the jump, or +2 if we regard the “limited target” restriction as a wash (Compare Ray of Frost, doing 1d3 instead – a net boost of +1 1/2 points of damage).

Metamagic is generally a little less efficient than designing a new spell, entirely, so +2 to scale at 1d6/2 levels and +3 to 1d6/level is certainly fair enough.

Raising the damage caps will have to wait for a detailed look until I can get home and get the books out – but I suspect that is too much.

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Thoth, on June 19, 2012 at 11:50 am said:

As for the damage caps… classically +20D to the damage cap takes a spell all the way from L1 to L9 in four increments of +5D. Still, some spells – such as Disintegrate and Harm – violate those caps already, and save-or-die effects bypass them.

There are some arguments for discarding damage caps entirely given that the effects of many other spells continue to increase indefinitely – but many of the save-or-die spells have very little effect on a successful save, which is a definite limiting factor. With uncapped direct-damage save-for-half spells there eventually comes a point where – for many, many, creatures – the save is irrelevant, and the spell becomes “Die or Die!” – just as they did in first edition.

(First edition actually handled that very well by making it extremely difficult to actually cast a powerful spell during a fight; ANY interruption or injury ruined a spell, and powerful spells took a long time to cast. Thus, without careful planning and support from the rest of the party, mages often did not get to use major spells and had to content themselves with Magic Missile – but that’s really not relevant here).

Ergo, +1 spell level to remove damage caps entirely – with the provision that a spell so modified has very little effect on a successful save. +1 spell level per +5 dice on the cap to raise the caps while keeping half damage on a save.

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Derek, on June 20, 2012 at 7:53 am said:

Page 156 in TPE has the Create Water template. I find it much more useful than Minor and Major Creation but am wondering what level bumps should there be for solids and gasses? I want to use the template to replace all creation spells except those that make life forms.

Thoth, on July 18, 2012 at 11:36 am said:

Just to let you know, I haven’t forgotten this; I’m just finding it awkward to make it fully compatible with the various “Wall” spells. I may just give up on that though.

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Alzrius, on June 22, 2012 at 3:01 pm said:

I haven’t made a request in a while, so I hope you don’t mind if I pitch one just for fun now.

How in Eclipse would you design a character around the theme of being a “spellcaster saboteur”? What I mean by that is a character with the power to disrupt other characters’ spellcasting. This wouldn’t (necessarily) mean simply disrupting/countering/negating spells as they’re being cast, but rather changing spells as they’re being cast so as to be harmful or otherwise disadvantageous to the spellcaster and his or her allies.

For example, disrupting the range of a fireball so that instead of shooting off several hundred feet to explode in the midst of enemy forces, it goes off at the caster’s feet. Reversing the “polarity” of a healing spell so that it uses negative, rather than positive, energy. Diverting communion-type spells into contacting hostile forces, etc. This character basically turns a spellcaster’s powers against them.

Presumably they’d also have some sort of ability to sabotage magic items and other magical-but-not-spellcasting-per-se abilities.

What would such a character build look like in Eclipse?

Thoth, on June 25, 2012 at 12:45 pm said:

Oh, requests are always fun, even if they take a few days sometimes…

As for this one, that’s going to be both a bit tricky and expensive. The problem is simply that – when an opponent might make your Disintegrate ray fire at your own foot, detonate your own fireball on top of your party, or turn that “cure serious wounds” you’re casting on an unconscious friend into “cause serious wounds” people either soon find a countermeasure or they stop trying to cast spells in combat at all. On the other hand, if your opponents aren’t spellcasters, this ability is going to be entirely useless.

Worse, it’s also one of those “your character does what I want, not what you want” things – and those are never popular.

Still, there are a couple of ways to to do it. The easiest is Inherent Spell and the Dispel (Various) spell template from The Practical Enchanter.

You’d probably want…
*Dispelling Touch (L1, basically as per Dispel Magic but no range)
*Disrupt Item (L2, Close Range, no roll required but only affects a targeted item, otherwise as per Dispel Magic).
*Dispel Magic (L3, Standard Version).
*Disrupt Supernatural (L4, Touch attack that disrupts the targets supernatural abilities for 1d4 rounds and inflicts 1d6 damage per caster level to a maximum of 15d6. A successful will save reduces the disruption to one round and the damage by half)
*Redirect Magic (L5, As per Dispel Magic [counterspell effect only] with the Redirection option, allowing the user to change the target of a spell that he or she would normally successfully counter.
*Warp Magic (L6, As per Dispel Magic except that it causes a spell that would be affected to go drastically wrong, inverting and/or retargeting it. Thus a Fireball could be caused to detonate somewhere where the original caster didn’t want it, extinguish all flames in the target area instead, or get retargeted as a Frostball.
*Greater Disrupt Item (L7, Medium Range, as per Disrupt Item but targets up to one item per level of the caster in range).
*Greater Disrupt Supernatural (L8, up to four targets at medium range, otherwise as per Disrupt Supernatural).
*Greater Warp Magic (L9, as per Warp Magic except that the user may get up to +25 on the roll).

Buy those with some extra uses and it will pretty much cover the “mess with other people’s magic” routine. You might also want some Reflex Action, but that depends on your character build and tactics.

Now, if you just want to reflect people’s magic back at them, the Path of the Dragon and some Reflex Action can be used to absorb and throw back incoming spells.

For a more limited, but cheaper, version, buy the Dispel template as a Domain/Path (If the GM lets you get away with it) and buy Invocation with the Thematic modifier.

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Brett, on June 25, 2012 at 6:29 pm said:

Any chance an index page could be created for all of the level 0 and 1 innate enchantments that get used fairly commonly? Maybe another for all of the ways immunity or privilege have been used?

Thoth, on June 27, 2012 at 12:38 am said:

Maybe one of these days. Unfortunately, at the moment, I’m behind on updating most of the existing indexes. For an immediate guide to innate enchantments the best bet is the Mutants of the Eclipse series; it contains a rather large number of innate enchantments.

It would be easiest to go to the d20 tab and run a quick find on “Mutants”. There’s a fairly long list of types. Immunities is a little harder; I’ll have to think about that.

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Bill, on June 27, 2012 at 6:35 pm said:

Just a few random questions I’ve been wondering about.

Thaumaturgy/Dweomer:

What effect do skill enhancing items have on Thaumaturgy skills? How about spells? Do they all just work normally?

On p101 of Eclipse, it says that metamagic/metapsionic feats don’t work with Thaumaturgy, but several spells in the Practical Enchanter already have metamagic built in and it says that you can design spell formulas with built in metamagic anyway.

Couldn’t someone using Healing Thaumaturgy cast

Bolster Fortitude

Enhance Attribute LV 5
+3 spell levels to extend to 1 day (per the spell).

This 8th lv spell grants a +8 enhancement bonus to the touched creatures constitution for a single day.

Vigor of War

Fast Healing (Cure Light Wounds based)
+8 boundless
+3 targetting
-1 becoming exhausted when cast
-3 practical enchanter price break for more than 7 lvs of metamagic

This 8th level spell can easily turn the tide of a war, granting fast healing 1 to every friendly troop on the battlefield for 2d8+10 rounds (double the healing power of cure light wounds), at the price of exhausting the caster.

Relics:

Can relics be dispelled/disjoined? Do they turn off in Antimagic?

Is it possible to make an Incarnum Wielder that isn’t entirely insanely overpowered? Either I’m doing it wrong, or having access to that many relics with a reasonable int/con makes it really really strong, even without trying to optimize.

Can you take Fast Learner and have a Relic that grants Fast Learner?

Other:

How do you know what Abilities can be taken multiple times?

Some Abilities say they can be taken multiple times, or have special rules when you take them multiple times. I assumed that if it didn’t say it could be taken multiple times, then it could only be taken once. However, I see Enthusiast and Leadership: Emperor’s Star being taken more than once in various how-to articles/character builds on this website.

Finally…

When is Eclipse III coming out? :)

Thoth, on June 29, 2012 at 11:17 pm said:

By default, skill enhancing items and skills do work on Thaumaturgy skills – and yes, that can (like many other things) be abused. Fortunately, no amount of skill bypasses the basic caster level requirements for casting a spell (Page 10, bottom right – casting a spell requires a minimum caster level of [Spell Level x 2] -1).

Personally, I tend to let people go ahead and overcast – with the provision that they cannot fully control spells beyond that limit. That way desperate spellcasters can try things that are normally beyond their abilities – and incautious ones can cause various disasters.

The restriction on Metamagic/Metapsionic feats doesn’t keep characters using Thaumaturgy and Dweomer from building any modifiers they like into their spells; there really isn’t any distinction between a higher-level “fireball” spell that covers a larger area and and adding appropriate metamagic. What it does keep them from doing is using the Glory and Streamline metamagical modifiers – which can offer substantial advantages to more classical spellcasters.

Both of your sample spells are quite possible. Vigor of War could indeed easily turn the tide of a battle – but an unopposed caster with access to eighth level spells can do that in a lot of ways (such as by summoning some teleporting demons to take out the enemy leadership, or a Boundless Magic Missile (much easier with the Glory modifier). Sadly, taking low-level troops to high (or even moderate) level d20 battle is more of an act of sadism than a reasonable strategic choice.

In general, Relics cannot be dispelled or disjoined. Whether or not they “turn off” in antimagic fields depends on the relic; an adrenal pump wouldn’t, a ring of Inherent Enchantments would.

You do have to watch Incarnum builds carefully; relics are very efficient, and characters with lots of them do tend to be very powerful. In making it freeform – instead of limiting characters to a specific list of pre-designed “melds” – it opens the way for a character to swap from being a highly-specialized magical blaster to an atrocity melee build to a super-healer. If you let people create – say – “The War Helm of the Archmagi” (Metamagic/Area (6 CP), eight levels of Streamline, Specialized/only to apply the Boundless modifier (24 CP)), and perhaps another relic that grants them some decent spellcasting, things will get out of control very fast indeed.

Now, if they go ahead and make something that gives them +4 strength instead, that’s a lot more manageable. Overall, you simply have to keep a close eye on the character and enforce page 163 strictly – and if the player wants to know “why you’re keeping a strict eye on them in particular”, simply point out that an immunity to having their relics broken or taken away should be a big enough slice of cheese for any character.

It is possible to have both Fast Learner and a Relic that grants Fast Learner IF the game master is allowing two incidences of Fast Learner when one isn’t a racial characteristic. Basically a relic won’t let you exceed whatever limitations the game master wants to enforce in a game.

As for taking things multiple times… In general, abilities that stack directly are so noted. Most abilities can be taken multiple times in different variants; if you want to have fifteen different Occult Senses, or three different pools of luck that are used for different things, that works just fine. Enthusiast is a bit of an edge case; if you aren’t trying to stack abilities taken with enthusiast points it falls under the “multiple times for different things” category.

As far as stacking other things goes… that falls under the general meta-rule of “Can you talk your GM into letting you do it”. After all, ability variants are explicitly allowed if the GM is willing to put up with them. Emperor’s Star is a bit iffy – but I suspect that you were looking at “Dark Lord Kevin” – a character from a campaign that features starship fleet battles, nuclear hand weapons, and which let him buy Godhood at level three. (I really must get back to those logs, they’re WAY behind). That’s so wide open that very very little isn’t being allowed – and somewhat tougher minions are still no match for a fusion cannon.

Finally… Eclipse III was originally delayed by computer failure – but the major trouble since then is simply that I finally had to shift Distant Horizons Games projects from “work time” to “hobby time” (Sadly, it never did make much of a profit; a lot of people simply found Eclipse rather overwhelming). Thus Eclipse III is now competing for time with actual gaming, support for existing products, and so on – and a book takes up quite a lot of time. A few people have inquired though, and it is a pity to just leave the files to molder, so I’m trying to give it a little time each day.

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- Bill, on July 1, 2012 at 3:47 pm said:
  
  Thanks for replying! Your answers were really helpful in clarifying a few things.
  
  If/when eclipse III comes out, I’ll buy in a hearbeat! So you’ve sold one copy already. :)
- Thoth, on July 3, 2012 at 10:51 am said:
  
  Oh, you’re quite welcome; questions are always interesting – as is seeing what other people do with the system. They often come up with characters that would never have occurred to me.
  
  And Eclipse III will probably turn up eventually. Until then, please do feel free to ask Eclipse questions on the blog here; they often turn into article inspirations!

Alzrius, on July 5, 2012 at 7:27 pm said:

One of my favorite parts of Eclipse and The Practical Enchanter is that they so closely meld the flavor text and the mechanics of the game. This is particularly true for aspects of it that don’t normally receive much explanation for how they work in the game world, such as magic.

Having said that, I know spell levels are a measurement of both the power of a given spell and its complexity. What I’m curious about is where various elements of a spell fall in regards to those two distinctions. Are things like caster level power or complexity? What about save DCs?

For example, suppose that you have an artifact that can cast charm person over a continent-size area at caster level 25, save DC 25. From what I can tell, the ability to cast it over such a large area – being a metamagic function – increases the spell’s complexity more than its power, as the actual spell level hasn’t increased.

Which brings me to where things aren’t so clear. The spell is still a first-level spell, and so can be blocked relatively easily (e.g. a lesser globe of invulnerability, or a lower-level effect attuned specifically to enchantments), which seems to indicate that it has little power. But it’s also extremely hard to dispel (caster level 25) or resist (DC 25), which seems to indicate that it has a lot of power.

How is that apparent contradiction reconciled?

Thoth, on July 8, 2012 at 3:45 pm said:

What’s going on there is that Caster Level really isn’t a part of the spell as such (otherwise it would be built into the spell formula – which would be an interesting variant, but certainly isn’t the d20 default).

Caster level is basically a measurement of Craftsmanship. It’s a measure of how well built the spell is. You have to buy caster levels at six points each instead of skill levels at one point each because it applies to many different types of spells and because using your mind to work with mystical energy is a lot less natural for a corporeal being than using it’s hands is.

As an analogy, an amateur gunsmith may build a gun that fires poorly, often jams, falls apart when dropped, and leaks so much gas while firing that the bullet won’t travel a hundred feet. On the other hand, a master gunsmith using the same materials and design can produce a lighter, far more powerful, reliable, and impact resistant gun that would grace any firearms collection.

Save DC depends a lot on natural talent (Whether or not applied metamagic increases the save DC partially depends on GM taste and partially on when it was applied; if it’s built into the spell formula it definitely applies. If applied afterwards the GM may opt to treat it as an add-on module (no save DC boost) or just go with the resulting spell level. There are reasonable arguments to be made for either.

To continue the physical analogy, we’re talking about a component of how well you use the gun – which has nothing to do with the properties of the gun itself. Making it harder for an opponent to save against a spell because of your high casting attribute is basically analogous to getting bonuses to material attacks for your high strength. That’s why you can apply DC increasing feats to a wide variety of spells.

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alzrius, on July 14, 2012 at 4:15 pm said:

Pacts seem like a lot of fun, but they’re unfortunately restricted to characters that use witchcraft (in that the 6 CP they grant can only be spent on advanced witchcraft abilities).

What would I do if I didn’t want pacts to be restricted to witchcraft, but say wanted them to function towards other forms of magical ability, e.g. mana? Would simply allowing the 6 CP to be spent on something else (either generally, or in particular) be the way to go, or should something more specific be done?

A few additional questions: does a character need to have taken any basic witchcraft at all to make a pact? I can’t see anything specifying that they do, so it seems like a character could make a pact and gain (a single) advanced witchcraft ability without knowing basic witchcraft.

Also, what does it take for a character to be the entity that others make pacts with. The Dark Lord Kevin character seems to, so does it require godfire?

Thoth, on July 16, 2012 at 4:22 am said:

Pacts are fun aren’t they? If you want to allow them for other types of magic, you certainly can; as you say, just allowing the points to be spent elsewhere works just fine.

Of course, if magic is a major investment for a character, and they want pact-style problems, it’s usually more efficient to specialize or corrupt their magic rather than taking pacts. Pacts are only really cost-effective when it comes to giving lower-level characters a boost on a relatively modest point investment – which is where witchcraft is at it’s most effective anyway. A lot of people dabble in witchcraft, but hardly anyone past level five or so relies on it for their primary powers.

Pacts do have a backdoor limitation on them; A Pact gives you access to some Advanced Witchcraft abilities – but you can’t use advanced witchcraft abilities until you have at least 12 CP invested in basic witchcraft (Page 115, top left). Thus, in the base system, you can take Pacts without knowing any witchcraft – but you won’t get anything for them. If you open up Pacts to other magical systems, you’ll probably want to apply a similar minimum.

As for what it takes to be able to make pacts… I fear that’s a firm “it varies”. Kevin, as a deity with his own private afterlife, witchcraft as a domain, vast magical powers, and reality shaping, can power up pretty much any kind of pact. Some pacts don’t need to be with anything specific; things like Taboos, Duties, and Rituals could just be necessary to your power or amplifiers for it – while the “Energy” pacts may simply represent personal limitations or accepting the problems that go with doing things the “easy way”.

We’ve had some characters who took a privilege of “acting as a broker” and simply described themselves as acting as an intermediary with greater powers, others who said they had the ability to trigger some sort of power-granting mental focus in their targets head, and a few who said that they simply taught magical styles, each with it’s own strengths and weaknesses.

Overall, pacts are generally assumed to be available to any Witch who wants them by default – thus being one of the (many) sources they can go to to set them up is just a privilege / you can get some minor favors from the local witches in exchange for ratifying their pacts.
About the only ones that go beyond that are the Arcanum, Spirit, Souls, and Gateway pacts – all of which will require some powerful links if you want to take real advantage of them.

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Brett, on July 16, 2012 at 3:18 pm said:

In Eclipse Witchcraft Advanced, Birth of Flames when it says cast at level 6, does it mean the level of the Astral Construct on the 1-9 spell level scale, or the caster level on the 1-20 scale?

Thoth, on July 17, 2012 at 5:51 pm said:

It’s the level of the astral construct (classically known as a “Tulpa”). Those can be formidable assistants at lower levels and are still pretty useful at mid-level – making Birth of Flames one of the more powerful options in the Witchcraft system.

Of course, the pesky GM may opt to insist on the minimum caster level rule, requiring that the witch reach at least level eleven before taking that ability – or perhaps before being able to fully control it – but other GM’s may not find it necessary.

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Derek, on July 18, 2012 at 8:12 am said:

Could you please create a spell template that allows any spell (or almost any) to be used as a Symbol (2e/3.0 version)?

Thoth, on July 26, 2012 at 12:51 pm said:

Well, a symbol :
*Lasts ten minutes per caster level once activated.
*Affects everyone in line of sight within a 60′ radius.
*May be set up for later triggering. This takes longer, and is expensive, but also adds 4 to the save DC.
*The caster may specify an unlimited list of potential targets who will not be affected.
*If rendered permanent, it may activate many times for about ten minutes each time – refreshing any limitations each time. Still, that’s it’s interaction with the Permanency spell, and really doesn’t enter into calculations about the basic effect.

The trouble with trying to turn that into a spell template is that you don’t actually know what you’ll need to add to a given effect; spell templates only really work when you want to expand on a basic effect.

For example, if you want a Screaming Symbol that does 10d6 sonic damage to everyone affected and gives the alarm you’d probably be starting with a sonic version of your basic Fireball and you’d be adding +3 levels of Area and +3 levels of Sculpting. It will only affect any given target once (at least during any one activation), so giving it a duration will only give it a chance at a few more targets at best. On the other hand, a Symbol of Healing which induced Fast Healing ! would be tremendously improved by being given a ten minute duration. Ergo, Persistent, +3 levels.

We are dropping the Range, but that won’t apply to all spells – so there’s no point in trying to account for it.

Setting it up for later triggering requires a big chunk of the Triggering metamagic – albeit requiring a big boost in the casting time and 5000 GP worth of components. That’s enough to get a basic purchase of +3 levels up to an effective one of +6 or so. Given that this is only going to be for making symbols, I’ll call it a variant rather than also calling for the Compact metamagic. Triggering doesn’t normally last indefinitely, but – at +6 levels or more – it’s not an entirely unreasonable notion.

Ergo, a Symbol Master is going to want to buy the Area, Sculpting, Persistent and Triggering Metamagics, with six instances of Streamline – at a base cost of 60 CP. Of course, all of that is Specialized; it’s only to turn normal spells into Symbols.

Now this is potentially more than a bit abusive, which is why the original 3.0 Symbol spell was only good for a carefully limited range of effects in 3.0 and – in 3.5 – was split up into separate spells and generally had the direct-casting option removed. After all, you can put six Symbols onto a folding fan, render them permanent – and then just flourish the fan at your enemies at the start of each battle. Just remember to fold it up and put it away when you don’t want to use it – and, preferably, construct it out of adamantium and with some protective spells on it.

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alzrius, on July 18, 2012 at 1:36 pm said:

How would you build a “body-snatcher” type of character in Eclipse/The Practical Enchanter?

To be clear, this isn’t meant to be a character with their own body who leaves it temporarily to possess someone else, but rather a character with no physical body of their own, who possesses the bodies of others (perhaps they’re limited when not in a physical form) on a long-term/permanent basis (e.g. until driven out)?

This seems to be particularly complicated, because you essentially need two complete characters (the possessor and possessee) with complete stat blocks, which you then have to merge into a single unified stat block, determining whose statistic overrrides the other’s for each aspect of their stat block. While some aspects of this seem obvious (e.g. keep the body’s physical ability scores and hit points, keep the possessing spirit’s mental ability scores), others are more nebulous (can the possessing spirit use the possessee’s spellcasting abilities? What if the spirit has its own?).

The best solution that I can see is to model this off of the “channeling” variant of summoning (with the option where the summoner gives up control) – in which case the summoned spirit seems to have access to all of the host’s abilities, but uses its ability scores where higher, has access to its own spellcasting and spell-like abilities (but, I think, not the extraordinary or supernatural ones…which seems to eliminate most Eclipse special abilities), and maybe something else (I need to re-read that section).

How would Eclipse handle this kind of body-hijacker?

editorial0, on July 18, 2012 at 6:06 pm said:

This is a complicated question. For starters, it’s not usually possible to have no physical form in d20. The rules always assume that you have some kind of body, and that magic, enchanted weaponry (sometimes specifically attuned to hurt you), psychic powers, and even many more-or-less physical abilities can indeed kill you. It may not be easy, but it can be done.

The simple way is to buy intangibility, as per the racial template ability. You take 0 Strength and for 12 CP, can buy Incorporeal.

If you want to be completely immune to anything remotely physical, you’re looking at buying permanent high-level spell effects. That would be a level 8 or 9 effect, with a duration normally measured in rounds. You’d need a lot of power to make that permanent.

I shall think about what best to use for posession effects, but they aren’t as easy as Channeling. There’s a huge difference between actively inviting something in while using considerable magic to grease the way, and using magic to force your way in. You’d be looking at a lesser effect, or a pretty powerful spell.

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Thoth, on July 24, 2012 at 11:53 am said:

There are a couple of ways to go about this.

The simplest is probably to just use Magic Jar – either with an upgrade to avoid having to use a receptacle or (easiest) an immunity to that requirement – and an immunity to a single aspect of a specific fifth level spell is probably going to be cheap. Similarly, you could extend the spell, renew it regularly, or take an immunity to the normal duration limit. I’d also suggest an immunity to dispelling focused on dispelling only being able to drive you out of a currently possessed body, rather than negating the spell entirely.

Such a character would probably still be vulnerable through either the astral plane (where it would be quite reasonable to presume that any kind of a mind is manifest, on the theory that minds are what the astral plane is made of) or – perhaps – through the ethereal plane like a ghost. Of course, Magic Jar does not grant access to the target bodies full set of abilities. Some special vulnerability – an exorcism ritual performed at our disembodied entities original grave or some such – is probably in order as well.

To possess a creature with full access to it’s abilities wherever they exceed yours, and to be able to project your own magical and psychic abilities through it, you want some version of Dominate (Animal, Person, Monster, etc), some way to extend the duration of that effect (metamagic and perhaps glory, a higher level version, an immunity, or some such), a good chunk of Mindspeech (up through Sense-Sharing), and one of the Telepathic Link variants from The Practical Enchanter (in the Party Magic section). If you’re using a Mindlink already, simply take the Telepathic Bond with spell transmission effect as an Innate Enchantment to keep the costs down.

Once again, your possessing character will probably “really” be an astral entity with no body but it’s naked mind / soul – but dealing with it directly will involve some sort of astral quest, mighty ritual, exploiting some special weakness, or some such.

There are other ways, but they can get a lot more complicated (or call for REALLY high level magic), and depend very heavily on how you want the ability to work.

I wouldn’t really recommend this kind of thing for a player-character – the “I am invulnerable to everything save for this special set of attacks which pretty much kill me automatically” gets dull VERY fast – but it makes for a good puzzle-villain.

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alzrius, on July 26, 2012 at 2:06 pm said:

I may have overlooked this in Eclipse, but when spending power points on Witchcraft abilities, are you subject to the usual rule regarding spending power points? That is, that you can’t spend more than your total (manifester; which presumably is your character level for Witchcraft) level?

In other words, if I wanted to, as a first-level character, spend 3 power on a Witchcraft ability I’m using, is that possible?

Thoth, on July 27, 2012 at 12:25 am said:

Yes it is; Witchcraft abilities really aren’t “psionic powers” as the SRD defines them – and it is designed to let low-level characters have some cool toys too; they just can’t use them all that often.

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alzrius, on July 26, 2012 at 9:46 pm said:

I noticed something recently regarding a lot of the innate enchantments that many of your sample characters use. The gp cost of innate enchantments is built around the creation cost, which is why a minor relic or a dark lord that use shield have it priced as 2,000 gp.

That’s fairly easy to figure out. Using the rules for magic item creation, a “use-activated or continuous” magic item is (spell level x caster level x 2,000 gp). So if you set shield – a first-level spell – at caster level one, then it’s (1 x 1 x 2,000 gp = 2,000 gp). Easy as pie.

However, as Innate Enchantment says that it uses “the standard d20 rules,” it seems to be ignoring the footnote regarding the cost of use-activated or continuous items. According to that footnote (which is number 3 in the “Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values” in the link above), the cost of creation for such items varies according to the spell’s duration. Insofar as shield is concerned, it says “If the duration of the spell is 1 minute/level, multiply the cost by 2,” which – as a spell with a duration of 1 minute/level – should turn the price of an innate enchantment shield to 4,000 gp,

This doesn’t seem to be the case in any example that I’ve seen here, however. Is this something that was overlooked, or is there some sort of mitigating circumstance that I’m not aware of?

Thoth, on July 27, 2012 at 12:22 am said:

That’s an edition wars artifact; that particular modifier appears in the 3.5 SRD, but not in the 3.0 SRD. Since Eclipse is compatible with both, by it’s usual “choose in favor of the character” rule, the characters (like various grandfathered item costs) usually ignore that modifier.

The sample characters are also usually built using The Practical Enchanter (most of the people using Eclipse do seem to use The Practical Enchanter as well) – which also eliminates that modifier (see Constant Devices, page 107).

The 3.5 SRD logic seems to be that short-duration spells are often more powerful for their level than longer-duration ones. On the other hand, “Unlimited Use” is up to once per round anyway (telling us that the power available is the same) – and an item that casts a long-term spell can easily be set up to enhance dozens of people at once – giving a choice between, say, a +4 sword and a +3 sword that also makes every other weapon in the party AND any companions +3. Basic d20 doesn’t really give much consideration to party-affecting magic items – but they do turn up at times in our games, and I know which one I’d go for.

In terms of the setting, why should an item that can cast a given spell once per round anyway care how often it needs to do it? (players metagame enough without having their items doing it…).

As a mechanics headache, what if your item is based on a spell like a Greater Invocation which can produce effects of varying duration?

If we go the other way, and assume that items with longer-term spells in them are cheaper because they have a limitation (x.9 at most since a mere four times per day is only x.8) on how often they can be activated, why isn’t there a limitation on reactivation after the effects of items using long-term spells are dispelled?

Overall, that multiplier just doesn’t seem to work well, whether in terms of the game world, in terms of balance, or in terms of logic. Other people’s mileage may vary of course, but going with the original version has worked well so far.

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- alzrius, on July 27, 2012 at 8:59 am said:
  
  In that case I have to ask (though I suspect I know the answer already) – is it allowable to use the “Personalized” cost modifier (Practical Enchanter, p. 106) when designing innate enchantments to cut down on the price?
  
  Admittedly, the note on that page warns against it, but it talks about items that are personalized in this way; that’s a warning that doesn’t apply to innate enchantments, as they are already personalized (though I suspect that that fact is why that cost modifier can’t realistically be applied to innate enchantments to begin with).
- Thoth, on July 27, 2012 at 6:23 pm said:
  
  As you’ve already deduced, “Personalized” is a limitation because you can’t readily exchange, sell, or loan out the item. Given that you can’t do that with Innate Enchantments anyway, they’re effectively already personalized – and so it’s worth no price break.

alzrius, on July 29, 2012 at 6:48 pm said:

Eclipse tells us on page 12, and again on page 14, that because 3.0 psionics were more specific than 3.5 psionics “the 3.0 [power progression] charts thus offer substantially more powers.” However, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Looking at the progressions in Eclipse, a 3.0 psychic warrior has a very slight advantage over his 3.5 counterpart in terms of power points and the total number of powers known. The comparison between the 3.0 and 3.5 psion is far more stark, however.

Notwithstanding high attributes, a 3.0 psion at 10th level has 43 power points and knows 14 powers. The 3.5 psion, by contrast, has 88 power points and knows 21 powers! This isn’t even taking into account that the 3.5 psion doesn’t have 0-level powers, and by that point will most likely have at least two 5th-level powers (whereas the 3.0 psion will only have a single 5th-level power if he has a high attribute).

Isn’t it the 3.5 charts that offer substantially more powers for psionic progressions?

Thoth, on July 31, 2012 at 12:31 pm said:

There are a couple of factors there:

The Eclipse calculations are based on L20 – simply because we had to standardize somewhere for calculation purposes, and the level where a class was “complete” (and the rules started changing) seemed like a natural choice.

Thus, at level 20, the 3.0 Psion gets 44 powers and 183 Power Points. They don’t get extra powers for having high attributes; they get one extra power of each level automatically.

The 3.5 Psion gets 36 powers and 343 Power Points. Of course, they also have to deal with an increased dependence on augmentable powers, which can burn through those points a great deal faster. A 3.0 Psion using 3.5 powers will soon run out of Power. A 3.5 Psion using 3.0 powers will have to deal with those powers being somewhat more specific, thus decreasing his or her versatility – but will be able to keep going a good deal longer.

Overall, enough of the underlying assumptions about psionic powers changed between 3.0 and 3.5 that – at least in my experience (which I must admit is somewhat limited; magic and the various new systems in Eclipse have proven more popular than psionics in our local games) – it seemed best to keep the two subsystems separate.

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Jasper Merendino, on July 31, 2012 at 9:59 pm said:

Here is something I would LOVE to see translated into Eclipse:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19527714/Inventor_core_class_v_20

(sorry, couldn’t figure out a way to paste it as a link)

Note that I am NOT asking for a level 20 translation of the CLASS; but rather, a translation of the “tech point” system (and maybe the associated construct system). ‘Cause even a few levels of this can add a Lot to a campaign.

editorial0, on August 2, 2012 at 7:17 pm said:

I took a look. To be honest, I would just swap out the tech points for psionic points. We discussed a similar concept during design, but decided it wasn’t worth including: somewhat specialized and not that different from just casting spells, in the end. Additionally, the cost breakdowns for items can, and *should* vary widely from one game to the next, depending on the local physics. As such, the list presented would have to be trimmed and tweaked heavily by every gamemaster – and thast’s something which you coudl spend a good-sized sourcebook on.

It’s not a bad idea, of course. Thats’ basically what The Practical Enhanter is. If not uing Eclipse, then TPC is a good bet – you can use feats which grant enchanting xp and reduce its costs to create a long flow of minor to mid-range magical machinery with the same effects as the technology.

If, on the other hand, you don’t want to treat them as spells, Specialized Action Hero, along with the ability to reclaim points invested in items made (an Immunity), is your best option.

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Thoth, on August 3, 2012 at 2:54 pm said:

As so often happens, this reply turned into a fairly lengthy article – far too long for the comments section – so it’s gone up over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/eclipse-d20-mayhem-and-mad-science/

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Jasper Merendino, on August 2, 2012 at 8:34 pm said:

EXcellent guidance, thank you.

By the way (at the risk of seeming to answer my own question), it also occurred to me that, as durable changes to the world, they might also be modeled with Mystic Artist, as an analogy to sculptures.

Oh, and how would the immunity you mentioned in the last option be costed?

alzrius, on August 5, 2012 at 11:33 am said:

What’s the practical value of having someone’s spirit be present when you want to resurrect them?

To clarify, I’ve read in several entries now that Kevin makes a Spirit pact with most of the people who serve him (e.g. thralls, his consort, etc.) so that their spirit will always return to Kadia, his realm, allowing for them to be readily brought back to life.

My question is, how is the convenience of this reflected in game terms? As written, none of the life-restoring spells require that the spirit itself be present (the presence and condition of the body are much more important), as they reach across the planes to pull it back. Does having the person’s soul be right there make the resurrection easier somehow (e.g. the spell is a lower level or costs less power)? Or is it simply a precaution (e.g. to protect against those who’d bind it to ransom it back, soul-threatening planar hazards, etc.)?

Thoth, on August 5, 2012 at 6:10 pm said:

In general, having the soul handy and willing makes it a lot easier to resurrect people; that’s the principle of the post-death healing spells in The Practical Enchanter. Even in real life you can often get a body going again well after brain death and keep it going for quite a long time. Thus the basic components of level five “Raise Dead” spell are a sequence such as “mend body”, “freshen body”, “oxygenate body”, “provide cellular fuel”, “warm body”, “get body to “just dead” status”, “wipe out excess bacteria”, “restart metabolism”, “restart heart”, “stabilize neurology”, “heal wounds”, “contact spirit”, “brief spirit”, “establish travel link for spirit”, “temporarily anchor spirit”, and “reunite spirit with body” – sixteen specific first-level spells which must be cast in very rapid succession and with precise timing to work.

Thus having the spirit handy lets you use fewer, lower-level, spells – but it’s not enough of an advantage to be worth the trouble except under special circumstances.

Kevin did indeed purchase the soul-protection effect, specializing it for increased effect so that no spell or effect of below level nineteen can interfere with a bonded soul returning to him – or threaten it – but that isn’t really the basic purpose of the bond; he’s using it to bypass a world law.

In the Federation-Apocalypse setting there normally isn’t much of any time spent between incarnations; you die in one dimension, you instantly step into a vacant role in the Manifold – most often one of your own imagining or a place where you often imagined yourself or spent a lot of time immersing yourself in – the worlds of favored games, novels, movies, etc. Thus that particular setting does not normally allow resurrection effects; they’d require that the spell somehow trace down the soul you wanted in a nigh-infinite multiverse, kill its current body (often in a no-magic universe), drag it back, and force it to take up an old role again. Buying “returning” simply means that something is allowing you to keep your memories straight in your new incarnation.

A soul that arrives in an afterlife realm in the Manifold just embodies in a copy of a recent body – and so has an easy time keeping it’s memories sorted out; there’s a “hard copy” on hand in their new brain. Memories are never truly lost permanently – but they can be buried pretty deep on the spiritual side.

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Phantom, on August 7, 2012 at 8:33 am said:

How does flight maneuverability relate to Celerity? When you purchase flight with Celerity + Additional what is the base maneuverability? How would you duplicate feats that improve flight maneuverability, such as Improved Flight?

Thanks

Thoth, on August 7, 2012 at 1:02 pm said:

By default, movement comes with “perfect” maneuverability – comparable to a human walking and running around on a smooth floor. (If you want real perfection, buy some immunities – starting with inertia as far as it relates to movement). If it’s actual physical flight (EG; Corrupted/requires room to spread wings and maneuver) it’s generally “good”. Corruptions and Specializations that directly reduce maneuverability would cover Average, Poor, and Clumsy.

Feats which improve maneuverability would translate (if you wanted to bother translating at all) as buying down the relevant limitation.

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- Phantom, on August 8, 2012 at 4:52 am said:
  
  Thank you.
- Thoth, on August 8, 2012 at 6:39 am said:
  
  You’re quite welcome. Anything else you need to know, just ask.

Brett, on August 10, 2012 at 1:04 pm said:

The witchcraft system seems to have several basic abilities that are built on replicating some L0-L2 effects of a specific flavor and are pretty open ended. Hyloka seem a bit of an exception as it has a pretty line specific item list of things it can do which seem to limit down how flexible it is. Is that the intent as a few of those numerated abilities are quite potent, or would some other things be appropriate and if so could you give any examples?

Thoth, on August 13, 2012 at 10:41 am said:

Hyloka can do quite a few other things; the list simply represents the major applications with game effects – physical attribute manipulation and direct metabolic control. It can also, for example, be used to enhance or virtually eliminate fertility, reduce blood pressure, cure hangovers, help metabolize or resist various drugs or reduce cravings, negate allergic reactions, induce gradual changes in pigmentation, ease sunburns and itching, treat enzyme disorders, aid against cancer or radiation sickness, help ensure a comfortable and healthy old age, induce weight loss or gain, and more.

The trouble here is that – in d20 terms – most of that has no effect. Most of those things are long-term, or too minor to reflect in the game system, or chronic (and thus no fun). In d20 terms… Who cares if your character is less-than-normally-fertile, has high blood pressure, a hangover, is addicted to nicotine, sneezes all the time, itches, will eventually die of a particular natural cause (the game just says that eventually you die of “old age”, not what you specifically die of), and is thirty pounds overweight? Almost all of that falls under “description”.

If you really want to change your skin and hair color for a disguise… There are cantrips and dyes for that that are a lot faster than adjusting your metabolism. In the real world – and in a few hyper-realistic d20 games – Hyloka would be invaluable. In most games… only the most dramatic uses really come up.

And sorry about the delay on this; your question wound up a little far down the list.

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alzrius, on August 24, 2012 at 2:11 pm said:

The Unarmored disadvantage doesn’t speak to what it does when someone with it wears armor; what penalties does the character take while wearing armor? Similarly, does it have any interaction with the purchasing of armor proficiencies?

I ask because I’ve had players dance around around the standard nonproficiency penalties for armor and shields before – since the penalties for nonproficiency are based around an armor’s/shield’s armor check penalty, they just find ways to reduce that penalty to 0, and then can wear the armor with relative impunity (even if the armor bonus itself is low, it can still gain enhancement bonuses, etc.).

Given that the Unarmored disadvantage seems like it should convey something worse than merely not being proficient with armor, what does it do to someone with it who wears armor? Also, does that disadvantage apply to shields?

Thoth, on August 25, 2012 at 4:47 am said:

“Unarmoured” can represent things ranging from a sacred oath to having overly-sensitive skin. It generally doesn’t affect shields.

In terms of game mechanics, disregarding a disadvantage is simple; if a disadvantage isn’t causing problems, than it’s not a disadvantage and is worth no points – which means that it’s being bought off. As listed on page 20 or Eclipse, that costs CP equal to twice the point value of the disadvantage if it’s done without a good in-game explanation, CP equal to it’s value with a good in-game explanation – and nothing at all if the game master feels that it’s warranted by a mighty quest or some such. That generally means that – next time the character gets some character points – they’ll have prespent either 3 or 6 of them. If that’s likely to be awhile, it’s entirely appropriate to take away some abilities right away instead. Maybe that armor chafes your sensitive skin so badly that you take a -1 to hit (Taking 6 CP off your BAB) or a save penalty or some such.

There’s no need to be fussy about it – if a character with the “Recorder” disadvantage misses making notes one session, or someone with Obligations forgets them for a bit, that’s no big problem; it IS only three or four character points there. Still, if they make a habit of it, either assess a penalty, make them spend the points, or trade things out for a disadvantage that they’re willing to play or which does have straight mechanical effects.

Now, at least in my games, the players generally can get away with the no-check-penalty armor and shields. After all, if the armor check penalty is down to zero, that generally means that the stuff is no more troublesome to wear than clothing – and, since clothing doesn’t interfere with much, neither does the armor. After all, as far as I know, there’s nothing that prevents you from having an armor bonus enchanted onto normal clothing – or using something like the Ironcloth Loom talisman.

I hope that helps!

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Brett, on August 25, 2012 at 1:53 am said:

This is about the details of the Occult Talent ability from Eclipse.
Are the spells that go with those slots dedicated or do they work like Cleric casting pulling from the whole list, or some studies version, if they are dedicated as the description suggests what would be an appropriate CP cost to give them some flexibility for selecting or changing those spells? What would a psionic version be like, slots or point based? Are their any obvious expansions for it that have been done, I am familiar with the limitation of requiring it to have props to simulate some gadgets but am curious to know if there are more.

Thoth, on August 25, 2012 at 10:54 pm said:

As will happen, this reply got a little long and then turned into a small article – so it’s up over HERE.

If that doesn’t cover what you wanted, or if you have any other questions, just let me know.

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Brett, on August 27, 2012 at 6:27 pm said:

Another question for an upcoming game, a player wants to use a psionic style caster but wants to use the erudite casting mechanic from Complete Psionic. The general idea is that rather than having an Inherent List they have something that approximates a Studies limitation. Instead of a physical book powers are learned and recorded in their mind paying for it in XP at the usual 5gp:1XP ratio. Once a power is used it is “locked in” until a night’s sleep. The effective limitation is the comparatively smaller # of individual powers that are available at one time.

My thoughts on it were using a Studies limitation, buying an Immunity to spellbook being stolen with a Corruption of spells must be bought using XP rather than GP and cant be loaned out for someone else to use without the character being present. Then another Immunity to Spell Preparation time which would be Specialized with the limitation of spells being locked in until a rest cycle.
The first Immunity seems to be Uncommon (usually spellbooks are well protected and usually an ineffective thing to do in any situation in which the caster is not basically already defenseless due to the ease of things like Void Sheathe) 3CP, Major for Severity for 3 CP, and as a Major resistance for a total of 6 CP which is then Corrupted to 4 CP with the GP:XP change.
The second Immunity seems to be Common or Very Common so 6 or 12 CP, Major for 3CP, and finally Minor or Major resistance so either 2/3rds or normal cost. The total cost then ranges from (6+3)*2/3=6 or 12+3=15 both of which are then Specialized: can only use (CL/2)+1 individual effects in any single ‘day’ which actually seems overly limiting given it is a primary caster progression so the one I would actually implement would be the above for Powers of maximum level and max level -1, meaning that Powers that are two levels behind your EL are freely selectable.

I would however want to see what other approaches seem viable and different points of view are possible.

Jasruv, on August 28, 2012 at 8:08 am said:

An alternate way to do that would be to simply remove the studies limitation entirely for +2 cp and then corrupt the progression to represent needing xp to learn new powers and specialize to represent only being able to use caster level/2 +1 unique powers *per level* per day. For either cost or effect is up to the player and/or GM.

You could use the savings to buy powers known at level up as it would take 6cp to learn the two the ‘studious psion’ should nominally get every level.

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Thoth, on August 28, 2012 at 8:18 pm said:

Well, the Erudite isn’t OGC, so I’m just going to have to build a Studious Psionic instead.

Studious Psionic:
That’s a total of 326 CP – leaving 178 with which to buy more powers. That’s enough for quite a list – or for building some specialty themes and variants.

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Brett, on August 29, 2012 at 1:37 am said:

Could you rephrase the Restriction from above? I don’t follow the intent.

Thoth, on August 29, 2012 at 1:57 am said:

Ah. Too many subclauses. Sorry about that.

There are two basic components to the restriction:

1) The character must research or seek out the disciplines he or she wishes to acquire beyond the ones purchased with points from Fast Learner or gained from the Wilder chart.

2) All the disciplines that the character acquires must be Specialized as follows:

“Each time the character uses a discipline for the first time in a day it fills one of his or her available “discipline slots” from the Wilder chart. Once the character is out of slots he or she is stuck with the powers he or she currently has in them until he or she has time to rest and clear out those disciplines.”

That way the character operates just like the original.

I hope that helps!

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Brett, on August 31, 2012 at 3:10 am said:

A tangential followup, say you have Occult Talent or other spell slot or such mechanic, it is Corrupted for increased effect, how exactly do those increases work in both increasing number and increasing level

Say 3 0th slots and 1 1st slot.
Increased for # of slots by 50% would give a single added 0th slot as the others all round down?
For increasing the level ie like a 2nd level slot becomes a 3rd due to easy math, but how would the rounding work for that 3/1 set of slots?

Thoth, on September 3, 2012 at 9:38 pm said:

The general rule for Eclipse is that – unless otherwise specified – under .5 rounds down, over .5 rounds up, and .5 rounds in whatever way the player wants.

Given that cantrips are usually calculated as being spell level 1/2, increasing them by 50% takes them to level .75 – rounded up to one.

It is a fantasy game; unless someone’s being really abusive somehow it’s usually best to err on the side of the characters being able to do neat things.

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Jasruv, on September 10, 2012 at 10:25 pm said:

I had a question about Talents from Practical Enchanter. Does the Talent system count as Siddihisyoga? Or as innate enchantments?

Also should a disjunction effect work against talents?

Thoth, on September 11, 2012 at 3:10 am said:

Well, Innate Enchantments, Siddhisyoga, and Talents are all pretty closely related; one says “I buy personal enchantments with character points”, the next says {I buy personal enchantments with money”, and the third says “Everyone is getting a version of Siddhisyoga for free since this world doesn’t have traditional d20 magic items!”.

As an example, Sylthis Torr uses Siddhisyoga to build his Talents.

Now, since all of those abilities do work like magical items they are affected by disjunction – but, as living parts of a character, will “heal”, and so are never permanently destroyed.

I hope that helps!

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Jasruv, on September 11, 2012 at 3:58 pm said:

I’m hoping to run a campaign where there is no economy in the background at least to start. (Part of the opening quest lines are going to be about finding the resources to allow a currency economy to exist).

I was going to use the talent system to make up for the complete lack of economic support. The PC’s won’t be getting any currency as treasure so I’m trying to find ways to compensate for that. My original questions were to help me clarify how the talent system interacted with Innate enchantments and Siddi.

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- Thoth, on September 13, 2012 at 11:37 am said:
  
  Ah. Essentially they’re all the same thing, they’re just set up a little differently.
  
  The Talent system was set up for a world where magic items fell into two basic categories – a few small conveniences of lesser magic (Charms and talismans) and amazing artifacts of past ages – and wealth was abstract. Thus the characters could go broke, or find amazing treasures (and spend them ruinously) without it much impacting their power level.
  
  If there’s no currency economy, and things are mostly limited to barter (and thus standard magic items, which call for massive concentrations of resources to make, are likely to be almost nonexistent for much of the campaign), the Talent system should work nicely – although I still advise some caution in using it with Eclipse; combining two “design your own abilities” systems allows for very specialized builds.
  
  Siddhisyoga was is basically a backdoor to Talents for a standard game where money is a major source of personal power; thus it’s set up to keep the user from getting free talents while using his or her share of the treasure to buy even more stuff – or to boost the rest of the party.
  
  Innate Enchantments are another way to go money-independent again – but get expensive in terms of character points very quickly; they’re best for dabblers or for people who want a few fairly specific talents – especially at lower levels, where the money for Siddhisyoga can be scarce.
  
  In play, they’re essentially identical once you have them; if you have an innate use-activated unlimited-use “Mage Armor” effect at caster level one, it doesn’t matter if you bought it with “cirtual gold” from Innate Enchantment, Siddhisyoga, or Talents. You could even combine all three systems to build up your “virtual gold reserve”.
  
  I might or might not allow it; it depends a lot on the world background. (I’d have to be using Talents in the setting just for a start).

alzrius, on September 23, 2012 at 3:10 pm said:

How would you make the magus Pathfinder class using Eclipse?

Presuming I haven’t overlooked anything (which is a distinct possibility), I originally wanted to know how to use Eclipse to grant the ability to unleash a touch-range spell as part of a melee attack. This, however, is one of the magus’s signature abilities, called spellstrike. Given that the magus has a number of other versatile powers, though, I wanted to ask how you’d convert it all over.

Brett, on September 26, 2012 at 10:53 am said:

My question is about the use of the psychic construct from the Mutants of the Eclipse Part VIII – The Exokinetic https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/mutants-of-the-eclipse-part-viii-the-exokinetic/ article, as well as something about the Psychic Constructs in general.

I wanted to know how the Enveloping Special ability worked exactly and when to use the Construct’s or the Exokinetic’s stats. For example say a character has a Str and Dex score of 10 and 14 and the Construct is a L1 version having Str and Dex of 15 (which also begs the question of a Medium sized creature wearing a small construct). Other things that I would like clarified are how saves and AC would function, if disparate movement modes would matter, if the exokinetic got to use the Dark Vision and Low Light Vision of the construct, if Innate Enchantments based off of Personal Only spells would affect the construct, etc.

The last and partially related question goes to the Combat section of the description of Psychic Constructs on p230 of the Practical Enchanter and the Bonded options from Menu A. Bonded lets the caster command the construct as a free action, but in the description under Combat it states that directing the construct is a free action. Is the Bonded ability meant to do things beyond the seemingly tactical intent of the other or is this more of an editing error?

Thoth, on September 26, 2012 at 2:43 pm said:

With Enveloping, the character can use whichever attribute he or she wants to – usually the best. Thus, in your example the character would normally use the constructs 15 Str and Dex until it’s destroyed, dismissed, or the duration runs out. Thus you use the best saves of the combination, the best AC, the user’s or constructs movement modes (whichever is better at the moment), the user or constructs senses (whichever is better), and so on.

Personal-only innate enchantments continue to affect the user and don’t affect the construct; it may be wrapped around the user and will augment him or her – but it is not him or her (and wouldn’t be a valid target for a lot of the usual innate enchantments either.

The question of wearing a smaller construct doesn’t normally come up with the Exokinetic; given the modifiers they’re using to get the Enveloping option before Class-C abilities become available at spell or ability level seven means that the minimum construct size they can normally get is “Medium”. This does beg the question of wearing a smaller construct with a large Exokinetic though, but you really can’t fit inside a construct that’s smaller than you are.

AS for “Bonded”, the important word in that ability is “mentally” – thus allowing the caster to command his or her construct while Silenced, holding their breath underwater, being strangled, or in any other situation where the creator either cannot speak or does not want to. This can be quite useful with long-term or permanent constructs, although it’s usually less important in a short fight.

I hope all that helps!

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- Brett, on January 17, 2013 at 1:01 pm said:
  
  Is there a certain range for that exercise of control with the Bonded ability, like within the range of the spell, or is it more of a one way link to transmit instructions to any remote construct presumably on the same plane?
- Thoth, on January 23, 2013 at 4:31 pm said:
  
  It’s a one-way link; you can send instructions to your construct at any range that the GM is willing to put up with, but the utility is rather sharply limited once you can’t see what the thing is doing any longer. Of course, you could always scry on it (and presumably extend the duration) – in which case you have a convenient and disposable minion, if likely a higher level spell.

Derek, on October 2, 2012 at 1:38 pm said:

I have a question relating to the metamagic section in Eclipse. Does Elemental Manipulation include converting one element (earth, air, fire, water, void, wood, etc.) to another? With it could I create a Stone Bolt (lighting bolt that now does piercing damage), Smog Arrow (acid arrow that now does poison damage) or Salt Ball (fireball that now drains the target of water)?

Or does that fit within another catagory?

Thoth, on October 3, 2012 at 12:45 pm said:

It would indeed cover that – although converting from elemental damage to physical would usually be at least +1 level and converting to exotic effects would be +2 or more if it’s possible at all. There are, after all, plenty of creatures that are highly resistant to fire – but relatively few are anywhere near that resistant to (say) piercing damage.

As for introducing new types of damage – such as “dehydration” – that’s something of a nightmare. You wind up having to rule on creatures biology, and sort out which are resistant, and decide what items help protect from it, and so on. I’d probably rule that “dehydration” is just fire damage (if usually slower). As for “Poison Damage” – well, a directly damaging chemical attack in d20 is called “acid”, regardless of how the chemical actually works.

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- Derek, on October 6, 2012 at 2:51 pm said:
  
  I didn’t mean a new damage type with dehydration, just a way to get around energy resistance. How about the needed level bump to go typeless (it bypasses all energy resistance/immunity)? I would think +5 or even as much as +8.
  
  Poison damage as a type already exists- there are plenty of sourcebooks with their own forms of poison resistance and immunity. I think Bastion did it first with Pale Designs.
  
  And another question, how much of a bump would you give for a Stone Bolt that is not reduced to dust and may even impale targets (to trees, the ground, walls, etc.)? For some reason I am liking the idea more and more.

westb3, on October 8, 2012 at 12:20 pm said:

Do you have the time and inclination to look at specific builds and offer feedback or not so much?

Thoth, on October 8, 2012 at 12:59 pm said:

I can certainly look, although I can’t say how much time I’ll actually be able to give it – although a large fraction of the builds on the site are the result of various requests. However, that does tend to come out of gaming / posting time – so anything I tweak extensively, or makes a really interesting example, may wind up getting some additional tweaking (usually name and background changes and other details) and being posted as another example.

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westb3, on October 11, 2012 at 1:23 am said:

How would you build the thrallherd ability from the PrC of the same name? Specifically the fast recruitment, inherent loyalty and the method of recruitment, ideally as specific costs.

I am imagining it can be built using Leadership with some Immunities, or perhaps another model would be using Lure of Darkness and Web of Shadows ?

Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 7:48 pm said:

Ah, this got answered long ago, but was never linked; here’s the article: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/the-thrallherd-in-eclipse/

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Derek, on October 31, 2012 at 1:27 pm said:

Have you ever thought about rules for researching feats? There are feats that should not be researched, such as background and many racial, but then there are those that should, including metamagic, fighter bonus feats and (for kicks) spelltouched. The first two would go a long way in customizing characters in a regular (ie non Eclipse) game.

Thoth, on November 14, 2012 at 1:20 pm said:

And here we go… Sorry about the delay; things have been rather difficult for the past several weeks.

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Derek, on November 5, 2012 at 2:39 pm said:

One other thing that needs research rules, in my opinion, is weapon and armor qualities. They follow different rules than other magic items. I know there is a series of spells for it in TPE, but do those work in the same way as the qualities in the DMG?

Thoth, on November 15, 2012 at 3:52 pm said:

The individual qualities are identical, but there’s a choice for the game master; either use the generic spell that can provide all kinds of qualities (essentially replicating the current system in which anyone who CAN enchant weapons and armor can give them pretty much any qualities that he or she wants) or use the specific variants – so that only someone with the specific “Make weapon +2 frost Lightning” spell can make such a weapon.

Personally I go with the second option in most games. It’s a lot more interesting and helps make magical weapons something special again. Handily, since the qualities are derived from spells, it also means that new weapon qualities can be researched simply by researching the appropriate spells under the standard rules.

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- Derek, on December 1, 2012 at 3:02 pm said:
  
  Now that I have thought about this, qualities are different from the spells they incorporate. Two different qualities can have the same base spells and yet have different effects. So they should have research rules.
  
  And wouldn’t individual spells for enchantment screw over spontaneous casters?

Jasper Merendino, on November 20, 2012 at 11:17 pm said:

Is there a way within Eclipse to construct the sort of “Retributive Aura” that the Jovoc demon, from 3rd ed., has?
The closest I could think of is to buy Augmented Damage for Presence, but that doesn’t strike me as quite right.

Thoth, on November 21, 2012 at 2:56 am said:

That one’s kind of tricky – mostly because it’s rather badly written. To be generic:

“When creature (X) takes damage, all creatures not of the same general type within thirty feet take equal damage, DC 15 Fort save for half. Regardless of the source of damage, the damage dealt is not subject to negation or reduction because of resistance, immunity, damage reduction, spell resistance, or the like.”

There is no upper limit and no defense – however epic or divine – stops this. For that matter, it contradicts itself; it’s not affected by immunities, despite the fact that it’s description grants a particular group of creatures an immunity.

So shrink down a bunch of these things – say about a thousand – put them in a box, and toss in an area-of-effect damage spell doing (say) 20 points of damage. Everything except their type of creature within thirty feet – monsters, gods, tarrasques, whatever – dies instantly, save or no save.

Can you see putting this ability in the hands of a bunch of player characters?

But yes; you can buy it. Immunity/the distinction between your own hit points and those of other creatures within thirty feet, Corrupted for increased effect (creatures of your own type are immune)/only works for damage infliction, creatures get a DC 15 fortitude save to half that. That’s Very Common, Major, Great (sixty points seems like an appropriate limit) for a base cost of 30 CP. Of course, it’s also a rather grotesque natural law immunity – and subject to the usual caveat for natural law immunities; you should think REALLY carefully before you allow something like this.

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Jasper Merendino, on November 21, 2012 at 3:29 am said:

Thank you.
As for grotesque, yes – but no more so than the PC I will be using the effect to discipline: He is a Channeler (among other things) with Smite and maxed out Intensity. He routinely does over 100 points when he cracks that one out. Kinda makes working up the details for NPCs feel futile. “THis one is the rightful heir to a Dukedom, but he was kidnapped by Gypsies, and raised a brigand. He prefers to start of combat with . . .” SPLAT! “…oh…”

Thoth, on November 29, 2012 at 3:21 pm said:

Oh you’re welcome. Sorry about the delayed reply; I’ve just been swamped for the last few months.

Ah; one of the type who tries to turn it into “who shot first” since that’s the easiest way to “win” (as opposed to actually having fun of course; at least in my games casually blasting all the people who have the information you need tends to lead to total failure…). Sadly, making sure you could build pretty much anything in d20 in Eclipse meant putting in ways to build the stupid stuff too.

Fortunately there are always counters to use.

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Christopher West, on November 22, 2012 at 9:28 pm said:

Hi Thoth – just wanted to make a note that my old blog has moved and I have a new RPG forum up :)

have posted a summary of Eclipse there

cheers

Thoth, on November 29, 2012 at 3:23 pm said:

Thank you for letting me know; I’ll have to check the links and see if they’re still working.

Sorry about the slow replies recently, I’m afraid that I’ve had very little time to keep up with things recently…

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alzrius, on January 7, 2013 at 3:59 pm said:

It’s self-evident by now that I’m a big fan of Eclipse. It gives you (near-)total freedom to design the character you want, both in terms of class and race.

But it doesn’t address the “third pillar” of character design, which relates to character gear.

Now, this is to be somewhat expected. It’s a book about character-design, after all; neither it, nor The Practical Enchanter (which is about spells and magic items) are supposed to necessarily deal with wealth-by-level issues.

Having said that, the issues are still there (and perhaps more prevalent for being the only major “by-level” issues remaining with class and race made into a point-buy system).

To reiterate the problem, the basic d20 System assumes that PCs will have so much gear (mundane and magic items, mostly, along with wealth-on-hand) per level, measured by its total market value. (Irritatingly, NPCs have their own wealth-by-level values, which are more austere, and monsters have their own separate treasure tables.)

Unfortunately, the system works in a way that, if you deviate from these prescribed values too much, the game starts to suffer as you go up in levels – PCs who fall below these values find themselves lacking in the necessary magic items (e.g. the “Big Six“) to increase their statistics to the point where they find themselves fighting monsters of the “appropriate” Challenge Rating with undue difficulty; the reverse is also true, where PCs with too much wealth will purchase better magic items and more easily undo their enemies.

Now, Eclipse does lap on the fringes of this problem. With powers like Innate Enchantment and Siddhisyoga, you can deal with some of the outlying problems of magical gear, such as its loss or destruction – but it doesn’t deal with the underlying problem of the inherent assumption of a certain amount of magical gear being available at each level.

How would you deal with this problem in the context of Eclipse/TPE (assuming that you can at all)? The best I can come up with is to try translating the wealth-by-level charts into a certain amount of “bonus” CP gained at each level in lieu of the gear. This has many problems, however, even beyond trying to figure out what the appropriate CPs would be – such as if a PC receives those bonuses and then finds a way to gain some magic treasures in-game (meaning that at least part of those CPs would need to be revoked…which is a whole ‘nother kind of headache).

One could, I suppose, try and ignore the issue of wealth-by-level altogether, simply handing out rewards and magic items randomly (for, say, random encounters) or as the story dictates (“we finally broke into the Vaults of Dagon!”) and let the chips fall where they may, but that carries the risk of falling back into the “yes, that encounter was CR-appropriate, you all just didn’t have the magic arms and armor necessary to make it a fair fight” problem.

What’s the answer here, if I wanted to be free from the shackles of wealth-by-level in my Eclipse game, without throwing power-levels off?

Thoth, on January 10, 2013 at 1:28 am said:

Well, as usual this got far too long for comments – so it’s up as a new article, over HERE. I hope that will help!

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Jasper Merendino, on January 7, 2013 at 7:44 pm said:

A-MEN, brother!
I, too have felt the profound cognitive dissonance of a(n otherwise excellent) system that allows me to build magic item equivalents into my body, but won’t address buying them with some enhancement of starting wealth.

alzrius, on January 8, 2013 at 9:33 am said:

Well, insofar as having an ability in Eclipse that lets your 1st-level character start out with, say, a horse, a masterwork weapon, and a full suit of plate mail, for instance, I believe I once saw Thoth write that you can use Privilege for that.

It’s the reliance on magic items as necessities for your character (especially at higher levels) that Eclipse doesn’t address.

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- editorial0, on January 8, 2013 at 7:42 pm said:
  
  This deserves a response, because it’s a good question. It’s also one where we agree with you, and if you look closely we built a lot of ways to deal with it. However, I think you are asking for THE ONE TRUE WAY to end the problem, and unfortunately that’s not practical for two reasons.
  
  First, we have a lot of ways to use our systems, but it’s fundamentally a modular and flexible tool. it isn’t a solution, and it still has to function even if plugged wholly or partly in an existing game or setting that may use existing feats, classes, and so forth. That does fundamentally limit how far we can deviant from the expectations of the audience. There are workarounds: you can use wealth level templates, charms & talismans, action points, or even
  
  Second, what’s “appropriate” is going to vary with your game and GM. In our books, we say what you can do: what you *ought* to do is a judgement call and we state that more than once. At no point do we say what foes you should be facing, or what magic items you supposedly need to face them. We’ve had games where virtually every character rocked a minor artifact, and games where nobody broke a +3 bonus on their favored weapon even at high levels. It’s all in what you *want* to do. To be blunt, we don’t care about the challenge ratings and so on, and can’t predict how everyone will play, and don’t care to dictate how they should play.
  
  You see, I once considered doing exactly that. And it didn’t work. It couldn’t, without a complex scalable system that made wealth magically appear in your hands later on. The solution was worse than the problem; Thoth persuaded me to try a flank attack. If we couldn’t correct the problem of wealth, we’d bypass it entirely.
- spellweaver81, on January 8, 2013 at 8:12 pm said:
  
  I guess I will take a crack at this:
  
  The problem is that much of the standard d20 gear/treasure isn’t so much about character design as it is about world design. For instance it assumes that no character ability exists that allows the generation of wealth independent of the level/power curve. This is why so many spells keep getting redesigned/errata’d between editions in D&D. It also assumes the whole mess that is the “Challenge Rating Appropriate Encounter” which has been discussed elsewhere on this site. Both of which make major assumptions about how the campaign world works and how the characters fit into them.
  
  Admittedly, this works rather well when you run a campaign as a series of encounters with minimal background or story to tie them together. Things start to break down once you start trying to build a coherent campaign world where things make sense. Why gold is used as a form of currency in campaigns where dragons, orcs, and wandering spheres of annihilation drop pounds of the stuff begins to make people question the logic of the setting (although I do like the idea that gold is really dragon manure). Who has access to what types of equipment, who can make it, and how much of it is available say a great deal about the setting and it’s flavor.
  
  For instance: in the Shandar Campaign that was used to play test a number of Eclipse features magical items of significant power were common. Monsters of horrific power were also very common. A ECL 16 character in that campaign managed to solo an Iron Colossus in a single round (much to Thoth’s annoyance). That was also the campaign where the party at low levels (I think average ECL was level 7) stumbled upon a city of undead commanded by a draco-lich and after much planning, preparations, and numerous fatalities over the course of months game time managed to kill the draco-lich and reclaim the city from the undead. That campaign suffered a number of character fatalities too because a number of players kept assuming that the enemies they encountered were always going to be “level appropriate”. We quickly learned to abuse our abilities whenever possible, scout ahead, horde every scrap of power we could find, and most importantly have an escape route set up ahead of time in case things went south.
  
  Our campaigns tend to assume that the world exists regardless of what level the characters are. If you go into the mountains where dragons are known to reside, then expect to encounter dragons that may well squash you flat if you aren’t powerful enough. Likewise, any npcs coming after the party are assumed to have done their homework on the party’s abilities and equipment and will have a plan of attack they believe will maximize the chance of success. It is up to the characters to figure out which encounters they are prepared for, which ones they should flee, and which ones they might be able to overcome given time and additional resources.
  
  So my advice:
  
  Decide how much equipment you wish to be generally available in your campaign and then consider how this affects your world. How much equipment is the King’s guard likely to have? What about the court wizard? The retired adventurer now working as a bartender? It doesn’t have to be detailed write-ups and could just be a few notes on saves, attack bonus, damage, and hp with a few odd abilities for flavor. If the party steamrollers the palace guard only to get pasted by the court wizard because they failed to deduce he had an iron golem in his lab then they either need to surrender/bargain, escape, or come up with something really clever fast. In time the players will learn to ask questions, think about the motives and abilities of your npcs, and spend time considering how to use the tools you’ve given them to minimize potential threats and defeat truly challenging encounters.
  
  Now: fudging hit points on the fly or adding elements to the encounter in response to the fight can help matters where you badly over/underestimated the party’s abilities and don’t want to have a party wipe or let your villain get annihilated just yet. If the characters manage to subdue the court wizard and gain control of his iron golem, then congratulations are in order. If the wizards escapes via teleport because they were busily trying to destroy the golem then they know to anticipate this in the future and to look for teleport counters for the next time around. if the golem instead chases them off then the party knows that they now have to consider how to deal with it if they try again.
  
  If done right, the players will pay more attention to your setting and descriptions (The court wizard specializes in constructs and animation to aid the kingdom), learn to ask questions when they see potential issues (What sort of materials does the wizard tend to buy?), and plan for contingencies (That sounds an awful lot like the list of parts for an iron golem, maybe we should rethink storming the place….). Close calls, desperate retreats, and the satisfaction of defeating an opponent well beyond their own power via cleverness use of an ability will make more memorable tales than simple encounters designed to consume 25% of the party’s resources with minimal planning or preparation.
  
  Just my two cents anyway….

Brett, on January 17, 2013 at 12:57 pm said:

How would you build the thrallherd ability from the PrC of the same name? Specifically the fast recruitment, inherent loyalty and the method of recruitment, ideally as specific costs.

I am imagining it can be built using Leadership with some Immunities, or perhaps another model would be using Lure of Darkness and Web of Shadows ?

Thoth, on January 18, 2013 at 10:20 pm said:

And this – once again – got a little long for comments, so it’s become an article over HERE: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/the-thrallherd-in-eclipse/

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editorial0, on January 17, 2013 at 9:07 pm said:

Looking at the Thrallherd class located at http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/thrallherd.htm, we can analyze the differences between the Thrallherd bonus and the Leadership feat, located at http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership .

And, well, there aren’t many.

OK, ok. There are three differences. The Thrallherd gets to count the Prestige class level twice and eventually gets an additional Companion – which Eclipse allows anyway; just shift some follower levels around. Throw in an extra 6 CP for Born Leader, assuming you use the “normal” Leadership feat as a variant. Maybe throw in another 6 CP for Emperor’s Star.

The “replaced daily” bit… honestly, that’s just silly. Where do they come from? You could get an Immunity to cover it, but I don’t recommend it, as it’s incredibly annoying to other players and seemingly designed to be as obnoxious as possible. The Eclipse Leadership version works differently because it’s designed to be less “troop of useless grunts” and more “flexible coterie of skilled sidekicks”. It’s less trouble for the GM, more useful to the player, and less likely to steal the focus from players who don’t choose to take the feat. It also works differently unless you fiddle with it, but meh, a small price to pay for a better experience.

alzrius, on February 21, 2013 at 3:47 pm said:

Presuming that I’m not misremembering something from Eclipse, or an article on here, what options are there to make Eclipse-based characters that can engage in cooperative spellcasting?

To be clear, what I mean by “cooperative spellcasting” is the idea of individual spellcasters combining their power for greater results; the old “alone we’re strong, together we’re stronger” idea.

I’m not too sure what can be done to create this. Blessing seems to be the closest direct equivalent, but it’s limited in giving someone weaker than up (up to) the difference in power between you. Between that and aid another actions for skill-based spellcasting, that seems to be it.

alzrius, on February 21, 2013 at 3:48 pm said:

Blah, should be “someone weaker than you.”

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- editorial0, on February 21, 2013 at 9:22 pm said:
  
  WordPress ate my first post.
  
  Short version: Corrupt and Specialize a magical system you want to use. It’s not recommended to actually have group abilities because d20 doesn’t really work well with them. It sounds great until William can’t make the game and suddenly the group magic doesn’t work right. The ritual system also does the job, but it’s detailed more in the Practical Enchanter.
  
  Hence having one character use Corrupt and Specialization metamagic feats or something. Requiring skilled assistants (which other PC’s can provide), special ritual materials, or special circumstances drops the cost down to a pretty minimal investment.
  
  Now, if you really want to do group magic, then you need everyone to buy some Blessing and a specific bonus to hand out to another character, such as Glory, metamagic, some generic spell levels or mana, etc. The group can then throw it on anyone. But it all has to be agreed-upon ahead of time and as mentioned, missing players can really mess you up.
  
  While I wouldn’t exacly reccomend it, you *could* have a “virtual character”. The players could invest points in a pool and buy abilities solely for this virtul character, which can then be used for the group.
Thoth, on March 12, 2013 at 1:19 am said:

Ah well, we now have two articles in response here… Editorial-0’s HERE, and mine over HERE.

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Derek, on February 24, 2013 at 2:55 pm said:

So when might we see TPE II, Eclipse III or something else new on DH’s OBS page? You guys are some of the best game authors, d20 or otherwise, and I want to buy more from you.

Brett, on March 6, 2013 at 11:39 am said:

Or on that note have you considered having a kickstarter for either or both projects, I would imagine I am not alone in wanting to contribute to both of those.

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- Thoth, on March 11, 2013 at 1:58 am said:
  
  I’d rather like to – but honestly, both Eclipse and The Practical Enchanter seem to be too complex to really enjoy widespread popularity – and Distant Horizons Games has never really made money. I’d rather not put something out there as an offer that I might not be able to afford to finish.
  
  I suppose I really ought to look into Kickstarter or something like it though; it would be nice to be able to get some more books out. There’s certainly enough notes accumulating in the “when I have time” files to provide material for some.

alzrius, on March 4, 2013 at 4:10 pm said:

One thing I wanted to double-check on: Eclipse is fairly clear that, when taking a given magic progression, the spell list can be tailored (e.g. buying levels of wizard progression does not automatically mean that your spell list is the standard sorcerer/wizard spell list). Likewise, it’s understood that the more expensive the form of magic progression, the more broad the spell list should be (comparative to the “standard” spell lists).

Given that, and that Thoth seems to have disavowed the “very limited spell list” magic progression modifier, should that particular modifier be overlooked/ignored/considered to be “errata’d out”?

Likewise, does Eclipse presume that magic progression uses the standard ability score for judging things like spell DC’s, bonus spells, what your maximum spell level that you can cast is, etc.? For example, if you take levels of the wizard magic progression, does it automatically “key” to your Intelligence, forcing you to buy Finesse if you want to set it to Wisdom? Or is it set to whatever ability score (presumably mental, since nobody seems to want to put forward an idea of “physical spellcasting”) you want, determined when you first buy it?

editorial0, on March 9, 2013 at 7:52 pm said:

“Given that, and that Thoth seems to have disavowed the “very limited spell list” magic progression modifier, should that particular modifier be overlooked/ignored/considered to be “errata’d out”?”

Feel free if you choose! I believe our philosophy was thatif me made a mistake, we’d just have to live with it. We generally dislike using erratas to go back in time and fix our mistake, because they’re incredibly messy and it’s grossly unfair to expect our customers to download some bonus .pdf to fix our stupidity.

“Likewise, does Eclipse presume that magic progression uses the standard ability score for judging things like spell DC’s, bonus spells, what your maximum spell level that you can cast is, etc.?”

It runs off whatever your GM decides it does. While it’s fully accepted that you’ll almost certainly put your highest attribute roll as your spellcasting attribute, you don’t get to arbitrarily shuffle it around because you want better WIll sales, more skill points, really good Charisma checks and so forth. You use whatever everybody else in your world uses, so if Clerical magic is run from Wisdom for everybody – then you’d better like the Wisdom attribute even if *you* want to have a high Intelligence instead.

You can even split it up if you want to match the Favored Soul or whatnot – in the end, this is just a variation done for the sake of the campaign world.

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Thoth, on March 11, 2013 at 4:48 am said:

Oh, I haven’t disavowed the Very Limited Spell List modifier – I think I’ve seen it used in at least two builds since Eclipse came out – it’s just that compared to Corruption and Specialization it’s a very minor and specialized tool that isn’t usually worth bothering with. I probably SHOULD have left it out just to simplify things, but it’s like “toughness”; leaving it in doesn’t really hurt anything and it’s very occasionally useful.

Magic Progressions do not need to use the “standard” ability scores; but going to a “physical” score is usually going to cause the game master to start asking questions about just what this magic progression represents.

I, personally, usually take going with a physical attribute as drastically limiting the kind of “spells” you get. For example, a strength-based caster using the Wizard progression got “spells” (“Ki Powers”) related to personal physical enhancement, martial arts, and mighty blows – and that was pretty much it. That was useful – especially when he picked up Innate Magic later on and started converting spell slots into permanent boosts – but the limited uses at lower levels made the build rather weak compared to more conventional ones until later on. It worked, but the player eventually decided to make his magically-boosted fighters in other ways; the wizard progression was just too expensive for what he was getting out of it until rather late in the game.

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Brett, on March 6, 2013 at 11:34 am said:

A few questions this go around.

From Eclipse 2 the Channeling:Shadow Casting ability, what would having that as a spell be? I would assume it would be some spell of a sequence but having the XP scale to the shadow clone might be enough to not warrant the spell itself increasing in level as a higher level shadow clone was desired.

What exactly does “demon sorcery” from https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/atheria-d20/shadow-of-dark-wings/ Adept description entail, I assume it is from Legends of High Fantasy but it is not fleshed out there either from what I can tell and I can’t seem to locate the Magical Arts Of Cemar book?

In the 2nd Path book the various pacts are outlines (warlock, forest, greater). Could you give some examples of the patrons, their CR or LA realtive to the powes they can bestow as well as what detriments these pacts have on their own power? A player is wanting to have a more personal interaction with them rather than a remote one that has a few quests and desires sent to them (when the PC needs to fill up on their reserves), likewise said player is something like the CompArcane Warlock and is planning on eventually being a patron at higher levels.

Does the Globe of Invulnurability spell line, if taken as Globe spell of level “X” negates spells of level “X-1”, basically mean that they are a massive weak point in any Innate Enchantment build because it would be so ‘easy’ to take Globe of Invulnurability for X=2 for example to negate completely any spell effects of L0 or L1 in a 10′ around the character?

editorial0, on March 9, 2013 at 7:45 pm said:

On Shadow of Dark Wings:

Demon Sorcery was a knowledge skill for Shadow of Dark WIngs, covering all the various black magic used by evil beings of that dimension. It wasn’t an actual magical ability of the character – although SoDW’s thaumaturgical powers weren’t far off.

On Globe of Invulnerability:
I suppose you *could* provided you were willing to pay the cost of doing so, forfeit a great deal of healing and protection magic from allies, and your party members are willing to tolerate it. It’s as likely to screw you up as much as help you, however, even at low levels.

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- westb3, on March 10, 2013 at 11:34 am said:
  
  On the Globe part, couldn’t you have it down, people use abilities on you, then you turn the Globe effect back in? The spell itself only works on incoming effects and it would seem to me that using the magic item rules the effect can be turned off/on as a standard action.
- Thoth, on March 11, 2013 at 1:15 am said:
  
  Yes indeed. Buying that ability would be pretty horrendously expensive, but it will indeed protect the user against most innate-enchantment effects pretty readily. I think there might even be an example of that sort of build in the Mutants of the Eclipse series.
- editorial0, on March 10, 2013 at 10:30 pm said:
  
  No, the Globe cannot be turned off. The downside of having an always-on Enchantment is that it’s, well, always-on. You can’t actually cast it as a spell – so it can’t be turned off, used on others, and so forth. You could use Dispelling abilities on yourself to suppress it, however.
- Thoth, on March 11, 2013 at 1:10 am said:
  
  Well, that’s why the personal-only modifier on so many items; items without it can cast their spells on others; that’s how a lot of the group items operate.
  
  Someplace around here was a description of a magical sword that DID have unlimited use of it’s not-at-all-personal enhancement spell – and thus instead of buying a +4 sword, the warrior could buy one that effectively made every weapon in the party +3. A definite steal for most parties to invest in!
- westb3, on March 10, 2013 at 10:53 pm said:
  
  That would seem to not agree with the description of the Ice Atherian Birthright in which the Enlarge effect is noted as being (Personal Only, cannot be deactivated, 1000 GP). It also seemed to me that the Innate Enchantment ability in general followed the rules for Magic Items which do include the provision of being able to be turned off. Is it not being able to be turned off just a property of it being a “use activated” rather than “command word” formula, in which case could an extended globe that is turned on every other round still work?
- Thoth, on March 11, 2013 at 1:05 am said:
  
  Well, it all depends on how you buy the Innate Enchantment – but use-activated can indeed normally be turned off. I suspect that Editorial-0 may just be thinking of Champions “Always On” powers there; he has been making Champions characters more recently than Eclipse characters I think.
- editorial0, on March 13, 2013 at 9:20 pm said:
  
  My mistake: I see what you were getting at: Yes, you can drop that specific modifier and go around casting the spell at will. But as Thoth says, that’s much more expensive and you may have to “waste” turns activating your effects.
Thoth, on March 11, 2013 at 4:36 am said:

Well, the minions created by the Channeling/Shadow Casting ability aren’t really very powerful – but the ability to pretty much permanently possess a young prince, or lords youngest child to spy for you, or some such is often well worth the 100 XP. Sure, it’s not a combat tactic, but it’s a very powerful manipulative technique. Given that, I’d peg it at about level six for a base, or possibly even higher.

Demon Sorcery was noted in the Darkweird character creation page; it’s simply one of the settings ritual magic skills. The general assumption was that characters had to start with ritual magic, and only after they’d learned to tap into and channel magic that way could they learn actual spellcasting – and their ritual skill (whichever one they picked) capped their caster level.

Now I can think of some more interesting uses for a “Demon Sorcery” skill, and I may write some of them up – but that was all it was in the setting.

For the Pacts in Paths of Power II…

The Warlock Pact – at least in most of our games – was generally presumed to be with minor elemental spirits as a collective; any minor fire spirit that happened to be available wherever you were would honor favors owed to any other minor fire spirit because having mortals doing minor fire spirits favors was advantagous for all fire spirits. They might have some sort of collective awareness, hang magical tokens on the Warlock’s aura, or “keep score” in some other way – but they all knew.

If you want to use individual patrons for Warlocks, you want something (or a group of somethings) powerful enough to invent and throw around third level elemental spells on a moments notice, and to channel them across the planes to their followers. That’s pretty powerful, if a lot less than godlike. You’ll want unlimited access to at least a fifth or sixth level spell effect for that – and so you’re looking at colossal elementals, great lords among the elemental creatures (Salamanders Efreeti Djinn, etc), and so on. A group of such creatures (including one for each element) could probably support a small order of mortal agents (perhaps Charisma +2 per entity) without too much drain and distraction. Each similar group of followers beyond that would be draining – perhaps imposing one negative level, although this would never result in level loss. Still lesser beings – perhaps an individual Efreeti with a few levels – might be able to support up to (Cha Mod) warlocks without serious problems, and would suffer negative levels for each additional (Cha Mod) warlocks they opted to support.

Forest Pacts can be with a collective of lesser spirits again – but they’re just as likely to be with truly mighty individual entities, such as “Isenkien, the Great Spirit of the Northern Plains”. Such entities need near-limitless use of magic at level six or seven to support a reasonable number of pacters without draining themselves, although somewhat lesser beings could support a few – both probably using the numbers given above. You’re probably looking at demigodlings here.

Greater Pacts are basically direct bargains with minor gods – serving their purposes as direct agents in exchange for power. Again, it’s easier to support Clerics, who don’t require much individual attention or immediate support – so the numbers are about the same.

A high-level character who wants to act as a magical patron has several ways to go about it; they could buy Mystic Link (and appropriate upgrades) and funnel their powers through their pacters, they could take Leadership (and some upgrades again) and bestow a package of boosts on their followers, they can take Dominion (and bestow another package of boosts), they could use one of the higer-order Blessing effects, take a privilege of being able to act as a Witchcraft patron, or take many other approaches. There are a couple of examples up on the site of characters with powers along the same lines as the various Pacts; the cost is generally reasonable enough that you could squeeze most of into one of those power-bestowal systems. In this case, the cost to the character mostly comes in as “I’ve spent these character points on supporting minions, rather than on personal power”.

Finally, Globes Of Invulnerability (and similar effects) are indeed massive weak points in Innate Enchantment builds – although they will generally only protect the user against incoming effects, not negate personal enhancements and such and there are always ways around it. Pretty much everything can be countered with the right ability…

I’m not entirely sure where the “x-1” comes from; the 4’th level version protects against levels 1-3, the sixth level version only protects against levels 1-4 – and the eighth level version against levels 1-5. The general rule seems to be “1.5x the level it protects against”. Given that, you might allow a level three version to protect against level 1-2 spells (perhaps a “least globe of invulnerability” – but it’s entirely reasonable to rule that there’s a minimum spell level for this sort of thing, which might well be the basic standard version, at level four.

In any case, sorry about the delay on this (a ruptured appendix put me off writing for several weeks and I’m trying to catch up) and I hope that helps!

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alzrius, on March 13, 2013 at 2:07 pm said:

I’m running into some areas where I’m having trouble adjudicating the “caster level” for various effects in Eclipse.

Do innate enchantments always use the caster level specified in the innate enchantment pricing schema (e.g. caster level x spell level x set cost for frequency of use), overlooking things such as character level, Hit Dice, and other purchased caster levels (e.g. for magic progressions)?

I ask because in the Melkor-Morgoth article, one of his purchased innate enchantments is warding rune, which grants a save bonus that scales with caster level (albeit with a low cap). Since all of his innate enchantments are priced as being at caster level 1, however, it seems like he’ll never use that scaling (at least without sinking a lot more CP into innate enchantment to increase the caster level, as that would bump up the total GP cost). In that case, why not just use the 0-level spell vigor, which provides a +1 bonus to saves (which seems like all Melkor-Morgoth will get anyway)?

To put it another way, my current Eclipse character also has warding rune as part of his innate enchantments, purchased using caster level 1. However, he has six caster levels (specialized to be specific to the clerical magic progression), is level seven total, and had nine Hit Dice (the last two are from an innate enchantment immortal vigor). Which one of those does he use to calculate his warding rune bonus?

As a tangent to that, does having an innate enchantment of immortal vigor (and similar extra Hit Dice, be they from spells or something else) count as Hit Dice for effects related to your total Hit Dice?

The same question goes for spell effects generated from conversion (of channeled energy): what determines the user’s “caster level”?

alzrius, on March 13, 2013 at 2:53 pm said:

Whoops, where I said vigor above, I meant resistance.

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Thoth, on March 13, 2013 at 7:14 pm said:

Innate Enchantments use the caster level as set by the enchantment rules – unless someone buys a way to boost it. There are a couple of ways to do that, including some boosting spells, but the most common way is to buy Empowerment. Just as with Siddhisyoga (which is just another way to buy Innate Enchantments of course), you’ll need to either settle for a theme or uses-per-day – but it will help keep low-end innate enchantments worthwhile for longer.

The various forms of inherent magic – Channeling/Conversion, Path of the Dragon, Inherent Spell, Occult Talent, etc – like most “monstrous” abilities – go by hit die (and will get bumped up if you buy extra hit dice).

Immortal Vigor has been a topic of discussion, but ultimately bumping up all the things dependent on hit dice seems a bit much to ask of a a rather simple spell; unless some game master is feeling REALLY generous about it, all those hit-die dependent items only work on the hit dice you’ve gotten for levels or have actually bought. Still, there are a few sample characters around who have purchased extra d4 hit dice strictly for that reason.

I hope that helps!

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alzrius, on March 19, 2013 at 2:45 pm said:

You’ve written a number of articles on Middle Earth/The Lord of the Rings. We’ve had an article examining the likely levels of the Fellowship in general, as well as Gandalf and the Balrog in particular (along with not one but two spirited defenses of those stats), as well as Federation Apocalypse-style “identities” for both Sauron and Melkor-Morgoth. You’ve looked at the charms and talismans and the silmarils, but the most famous items of Tolkien’s world have never been “statted up” here. So then…

Based on what we know of them, what would the One Ring, the Lesser Rings, and the Mirror of Galadriel look like using the Eclipse rules?

editorial0, on March 19, 2013 at 4:53 pm said:

Hoo boy, that’s a question-and-a-half.

For starters, Let me start by asking if you want only its displayed effects, or the implied power and what is explained via Tolkein’s letters and in the Silmarillion? The former is really easy; the latter may require a bit more work.

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- alzrius, on March 20, 2013 at 7:40 am said:
  
  Presumably the latter, since the former seems like a fairly standard ring of invisibility with a few changes (e.g. no aging, but a terrible twisting curse). Maybe compare and contrast both “versions” of the ring?
Thoth, on March 22, 2013 at 7:36 pm said:

And that was WAY too long for comments, but you will find your answer on the other end of this little link… https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/eclipse-d20-and-tolkiens-rings-of-power/

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Brett, on March 21, 2013 at 9:51 am said:

Related to the use of the “Legends of High Fantasy” Weave Spells (like found on the Orin Markala Rune Weaver Package.
My question is if a character wanted to take one of the Weave Spells like Orin does but is using a normal progression rather than a customized Path of the Dragon one, how would the Weave Spell be priced? It would be more than a single spell, but would it qualify as one of the meta-spells discussed on p30 of Eclipse1 as the ability Domain/Path, or would these be a bit broad for that, would the actual subspells instead be the metaspell and a group of those would be required to get the full Weave Spell, (sorta like the optional rule for the Advanced Witchcraft fields of study).
Example would be buying Black Will as via the Path ability from Eclipse, or would the subspell such as Break Will or Corruption be more appropriate.
I realize this is subject to a high degree of interpretation and likely could go either way, but I would want to hear which you would personally favor, or if you would do something different such as letting a character buy the full Weave Spell but only get effects of L0-L3, then buy it again for L4-L6 & L7-L9.

Thoth, on March 26, 2013 at 12:17 am said:

That really is a bit tricky. After all, the Sorcerer Spellweaves were meant to give a low-level Sorcerer, who might only know three or four of them, enough options to keep him or her interesting throughout quite a few sessions of play – while a powerful sorcerer might fully master a field and dabble in one or two more… In Eclipse, I’d probably build them as Thaumaturgy fields; that system matches the original intent rather nicely.

The original pricing structure set the cost of a new Spellweave as one point off the relevant attribute modifier – which didn’t even make it cheaper to buy your attribute back up. That’s equivalent to 24 CP per Spellweave, or the price of four Metaspells.

That’s actually about right as far as an Eclipse cost goes; each spellweave has eight subspells, each somewhat more narrowly defined than a typical metaspell. Ergo, as metaspells, 6 CP for your choice of two subspells.

Orin, of course, is a hyper-efficient atrocity of power for his level – but will have some serious problems expanding on that power later on since he can’t gain access to high-level spells all that easily.

I hope that helps!

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- westb3, on March 26, 2013 at 2:09 am said:
  
  What would your thoughts be on Fast Learner, Specialized and Corrupted for increased effect, leaning 1 metaspell each level. Specialization in “metaspells only”, Corrupted “may only buy metaspells past level 1 via this ability, at level 1 a character may pay for three other subspells max”? My thought would be that it limits the overly broad utility of buying several of them earlier on without completely limiting them out.
  
  Although in the course of writing that I realize that is basically just establishing a “HD+3” cap on the number of these metaspells that one can know anyway, does that seem like an appropriate mechanic to scale to that common limit?
- Thoth, on March 27, 2013 at 2:43 pm said:
  
  Well, that would be providing 3 CP per level, and getting you one of the spellweave subspells per level – which would work nicely and offers a reasonable amount of flexibility without getting absurd. I’d recommend pairing it with a spell progression – perhaps Sorcerer – Specialized so as to not get any base spells and perhaps limit the number of Spellweaves you can draw subspells from. That way you get an effective, and reasonably flexible, limited-field (and highly-individualized) caster at a reasonable enough character point cost to allow for another subspeciality.

westb3, on March 27, 2013 at 4:58 pm said:

In Eclipse, when the Advanced Witchcraft ability of Ashen Rebirth mentions being “intangible” is that the same thing as being incorporeal? What would an Immunity to the upkeep cost per minute be?

What would be a way to reduce the power cost of witchcraft things, such as by lowering the costs by 1 for all abilities to a minimum of 0 Power? I assume there is both a case of making an altered version of Rite of Chi work, as well as an Immunity based approach. I would like your take on how to just make it a flat reduction in cost, and how it could maybe be limited such as by only working for 1 power per minute, kinda like how you already have that feature inherent in the Kinetic Master ability.

Thoth, on April 4, 2013 at 3:13 pm said:

Well, the most reliable (and dramatic and overkill) method so far is to take Witchcraft as a Divine Domain and translate the “-1 spell level” for “effects in the domain” into a price break on using them.

Triggering would work on a lot of abilities, given that Witchcraft powers are all implicitly rather low level.

An Immunity would fall under natural law immunities – and I wouldn’t recommend allowing it without some restrictions. Most Witchcraft powers are already pretty cheap. On the other hand, an immunity attached to a particular personal power that only extends the time before you have to pay the maintenance is pretty reasonable.

And for Intangible and Incorporeal… Originally there was going to be some minor differences, but we never got around to defining it – it really wasn’t worth the bother – so Intangible is just an alternate word for Incorporeal. We really should have changed it back in editing, but it obviously got missed.

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alzrius, on March 31, 2013 at 12:46 pm said:

This is in regards to the Kickstarter idea for Eclipse III mentioned above.

I think that such an idea might work, if you market it correctly. Given that Pathfinder is the big thing right now (according to the latest ICv2 report, it’s still the #1 seller), and that Eclipse is “forward-compatible” with it, such a book might work if you promoted it as the “Pathfinder guide” to Eclipse.

What would that look like? Well, basically it’d be Eclipse II all over again, but this time leading off with all of the Pathfinder conversions you’ve done so far – the article for basics and races, the various class articles, and maybe a few new articles detailing the remaining classes, how archetypes can be listed as themed sets of specific abilities, etc. Throw in a few specific pointers (e.g. a +6 CP bonus every odd level, rather than every third, for feats; an extra +6 CP for new characters to represent “starting traits,” etc.), and you’d have a lot of Pathfinder-compatible content.

Of course, that’s not enough for an entire book (and you should, of course, make it clear that this isn’t totally meant to be Eclipse-Pathfinder), but then you state how so much more can be done with Eclipse, and that this is another big book of examples…well, if it works like I hope, then you’d be able to generate a lot of interest.

The point is, if you play towards what’s popular right now, you might be able to use that to get a lot of new eyes turned towards Eclipse. Wouldn’t that be great?

alzrius, on March 31, 2013 at 2:55 pm said:

On that note, I just finally got around to writing a review of Eclipse over on RPGNow, and cross-posting it on the Paizo forums. I really think it’s a crime that virtually no one knows about the book, so I’m hoping that this will help generate some interest.

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- Thoth, on April 4, 2013 at 2:50 pm said:
  
  And thank you there – although there’s are a couple of differences in the paid version; it includes Eclipse II and the Web Expansion (unless somethings gone wrong with the file… I had best check on that and the blurb).
  
  Oh, was “Given that this book is essentially the same as every other character book ever released” really what you wanted there? I suspect that it may not read quite as intended.
- alzrius, on April 4, 2013 at 7:05 pm said:
  
  D’oh…this is what happens when reviews don’t have editors.
Thoth, on April 4, 2013 at 3:00 pm said:

Sadly, I’m a great deal better at writing rules than at marketing (which is why Distant Horizons Games is basically a hobby, rather than a money-maker). Still, perhaps I should just take some vacation time and see about pulling Eclipse III together. The time is accumulating, I can’t think of much else I really want to do with it, and it would be fun to get on with the project.

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- editorial0, on April 5, 2013 at 3:22 pm said:
  
  Well, I’ve got a bit of time myself. Mostly, work has been murder this last eyar, bsaically gatekeeping any time for almost anything else. Sometimes down to runing well short of sleeping and eatng time. That should be changing, though, so when I get a chance I’m going to be finishing Young Wizards.

alzrius, on April 3, 2013 at 6:41 pm said:

Just to be clear, the channeling rules (that is, the variant summoning rules on pages 104-105 of The Practical Enchanter) don’t apply to spells with the calling descriptor (rather than the summoning descriptor) such as gate, right?

Thoth, on April 4, 2013 at 1:26 pm said:

Well, I suppose someone could try it… given that a Called creature comes with a real physical body in most cases it would be kind of messy (and almost certainly fatal) but I suppose you could try to get the creature to emerge in your stomach or some other empty spot – perhaps an alveoli? Still, even if it COULD emerge there – perhaps by exploding the summoner – the results are unlikely to be good.

Still, we did have the chaotic squirrel who teleported inside the empty skull of the Dracolich, planted a magically-rapid growing tree, and proceeded to water it with his Decanter of Endless Holy Water…

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alzrius, on April 6, 2013 at 9:16 pm said:

A while ago, you compared Eclipse and the Hero System. It was quite interesting, and it got me thinking:

How would you compare and contrast Eclipse with the other d20 point-buy systems out there?

To my knowledge, there are only three, including Eclipse (though the other two have some versions of them).

The first was Big Eyes Small Mouth d20. It was initially released for 3.0 (which is what the preceding link is to), with a 3.5 update released shortly thereafter (which was itself first released with an updated cover claiming to be “Revised,” but still had the original contents inside; a subsequent printing, with “3.5 Compatible” in the lower-right corner to denote the difference, if I recall correctly, fixed the error…or was it the other way around?).

The second was Buy the Numbers, which was for 3.5 specifically, allowing you to spend experience points directly to purchase various abilities. (A d20 Modern supplement to this, called Point Buy Numbers, was released by Better Mousetrap Games before being pulled from online distribution for unknown reasons.) This was later revised by Dreamscarred Press in the form of Complete Control, which added listings for much of DSP’s psionic content, and also said that it “fixed the math” that Buy the Numbers had used (though I was never quite sure how it actually did that). Complete Control was later (as a result of my urging the author) rounded out with two ancillary supplements: Complete Races (which featured a point-buy system for racial abilities very similar to the one Paizo would use in their Advanced Race Guide) and Complete Gear, which gave characters “influence points” as they gained levels, which they could “attune” to nonmagical items – on a 1:1 basis with the price of magic items – to make their items function as per magic gear…and you could reallocate these influence points over time (sort of like Eclipse’s innate enchantment bought with points from enthusiast)…of course the book necessarily dealt with how this affected standard magic items and existing wealth-by-level guidelines.

Given all of that, how do you think these works compare to Eclipse? In what ways are they better or worse? What does Eclipse do that neither of these does (or simply do less artfully), and vice versa?

In short, how does Eclipse stack up to the other books that aim to fill the “d20 point buy” niche?

Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 8:28 pm said:

Well, these were done long ago, but never got crosslinked here. Ergo

Complete Control versus Eclipse

Eclipse and the Anime SRD

Eclipse and Complete Gear

Eclipse and Complete Races

For a very quick summary… Unfortunately, all of them have fairly major problems.

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westb3, on April 10, 2013 at 12:11 am said:

A player for an Eclipse game wanted to have a shapeshifter character, but wanted to go about doing so in an unlimited manner rather than the per day mechanic of Shapeshift. They wanted to build a version that was based off of Path of the Dragon instead. The initial draft was the following

Shaping
Specialized (increased effect):Only for personal effects that can be described as “shapeshifting” most often based around a subset of the Transmutation school based effects, but may include such an effect as could be described as such, for example a version of “Mage Armor” that represents a touch physical carapace and looses the Force descriptor, still counting as a type ‘Armor’ bonus for play balance.
Corrupted (increased effect): These shapeshifting effects are limited by the user’s overall health and general well being which is modeled based on their wealth level. Only a certain number of effects are available at any one time which correlate with what Charms and Talismans the character at that wealth level could use, the character may change ConMod slots per an hour, may “lock” slots to speed up how fast the remaining slots can be changed, each slot so locked reduces the time required by 1 step [talismans count as 2 steps] hour, ten minutes, minute, full round, standard, move, swift, immediate, free (max Con Mod per turn) . Specific effects must be learned and practiced which takes time and could involved finding a model to imprint from, some extended training time, or incur costs with getting a set of components to enable the transformation. Effects are based off of spell equivalents, currently the user has up to 7 1st level effects, with up to 3 weak 2nd level effects.

Thoughts for this type of a control system and framework? The player may use the Mana:Spell Enhancement options to increase their level, or have some actual Charms and Talismans that temporarily allow higher level effects. The entire thing could also be expanded on with more Path of the Dragon abilities as well of course. Likewise is the initial specialization and the framework in the corruption enough to make this usable for other types of effects, such as a a limited Illusionist etc?

Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 8:30 pm said:

And after being forgotten for a bit, here we are: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/eclipse-talismanic-mystics/

This one probably could have been crammed into Comments, but it was just long enough to put up.

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Derek, on April 11, 2013 at 1:36 pm said:

Just want to note that Shane’s review is also here : http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15838.phtml

And there is a thread in their forum now.

Complete Control versus Eclipse | Emergence Campaign Weblog, on April 11, 2013 at 7:11 pm said:

[…] found a copy of “Complete Control” to base the comparison on, it’s part one of an answer for Alzrius, who wanted to know how it – as another classless d20 system – compared to Eclipse […]

Bruce Gray, on April 27, 2013 at 8:51 pm said:

Hi! So far, I love your system and think you might be a undiscovered genius… :-)

As soon as finacially possible, I shall be starting to buy the Hardcovers from Lulu.

But, what I’d really like to see, especially since you already did a version of a MMORPG charaxcter, is a workup of a couple of the characters from the now-deceased Warcraft and World of Warcraft RPG’s from Sword and Sorcery. I play “WoW” online as well as reading the several books for the Warcraft RPG’s and think that this might be a way to entice MMORPGers to a RPG session.

Bruce

Thoth, on April 28, 2013 at 9:34 pm said:

Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

And I take it you mean building equivalents to some of the more exotic classes? I’ll rummage that out and see if any of them look interesting in general, but are there any specific ones that you’re interested in?

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Bruce Gray, on April 29, 2013 at 5:26 am said:

Hi! Thanks for responding! Personally, I’d like to see at least one good monster type, one good alliance type, and one good horde type. Ideas include:

High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind
(Alliance Beastmaster and her Tiger-type mount)

Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider
(Monster leader)

Warchief Thrall
(Horde Leader)

and just about any Tauren, but especially a Tauren Shaman.

I’ve got =lots= of Warcraft/WoW RPG stuff here if you need more info.

Bruce

Thoth, on April 30, 2013 at 11:52 am said:

Oh you’re quite welcome.

As for character builds… Well I can show you how to build various powers and I can total up their costs – but what actual powers are they and how do they function in the setting? Are you looking at the computer-game version for a description or at how they’ve already been translated into a RPG? I don’t happen to play WOW, and a quick google search shows that there seem to be multiple versions of at least the first couple of characters there – with descriptions that are heavy on backstory and notably light on what they can actually do.

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Bruce Gray, on May 1, 2013 at 8:45 am said:

Re: Warcraft/World of Warcraft Characters

A little more about High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind…

I’d classify her as Royalty or Nobility and a Mounted Warrior, but she also has Beastmaster qualities, Knight qualities (think horseback mounted warriors), and Huntress qualities (she is =quite= capable with her bow…). This chart might be a bit mixed up, but I think I got everything…

The game given qualties in her case are:

Tyande Whisperwind – High Priestess of Elune

7th level Healer, 10th level Priest, 7th level Huntress.

Female Night Elf (Medium)

CR: 25.

HD: 17 d8 + 7 d10 + 120.

Current HP: 235.

INT +6.

SPD: 30.

Current AC: 34.

Touch 16, Flat-footed 33, Base Attack: +15

Epic Attack: +2, Grapple: +22, Ranged Attack: +29.
(1d8 + 10 / x3 plus 1d6 fire, Bow of Elune)

Full Attack: +29 / +24 / +19 ranged (Bow of Elune).

SA: Divine Urge, spells, turn undead (11 X Day).

SQ: Superior Low-Light Vision, aura, Divine Defense, Healing Touch, Mounted Command, Mountrd Expertise, Protection Domain, Spontaneous Casting (“cure” spells only), Woodland Ride, All Night Elf traits.

ALIGN: LN

Affialiation: Alliance.

Saves: Fort +28, Ref +21, Will +32.

STR: 20
DEX: 23
CON: 21
INT: 20
WIS: 35
CHA: 26

Base Speed Unmounted: 30.

1 extra feat at 1st level.

4 extra skill points at 1st level, and 1 extra skill point at each level thereafter.

+2 racial bonus pn saves versus Fear.

+2 racial bonuses on: Diplomacy, Gather Info, and Knoweldge (Nobility and Royalty).

+1 racial bonus on attack rolls vs Orcs.

Languages: Any unrestricted.
(Common, Darnassian, Thalassian, Taur-ahe.)

Favored Class: Any.

Hit Dice: d10.

Affiliation: Any.

BAB: +5.

Feats: Mounted Combat, Brew Potion, Combat Casting, Craft Wonderous Item, Expert Riding, Far Shot, Improved Mounted Combat, Lightning Reflexes, Martial Weapon Profiiciency (Composite Longbow), Mounted Archery, Mounted Combat, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Track, Weapon Focus (Composite Longbow).

Skills: Bluff: +13, Climb: +9, Concentration: +16, Diplomacy: +17, Gather Info: +15, Handle Animal: +18, Heal: +17, Intimidate: +10, Jump: +9, Knoweldge (Arcana): +15, Knowledge (Military Tactics): +10, Knowledge (Nature): +9, Knowledge (Religion): +15, Listen: +17, Ride: +22, Sense Motive: +17, Spellcraft: +18, Spot: +17, Survival: +18, Swim: +10.

Skill Points per Level: 2 plus INT modifier.

Spells: As a 17th level Healer.

Spells Prepared: too many to list… ;- 0

Weapons and Armor: All Simple and Martial weapons, Armor Proficiency (All), and Shields.

Special Mount: Huge Nightsaber Panther w/+2 HD (d8), +4 Armor Adj, +1 STR, INT 6 or better, Extra Trick.

Brett, on May 1, 2013 at 1:13 pm said:

WOW the blinding nature of that Chuck Norris writeup* is impressive. Pretty sure you will need to revise ALL the CRs of them down to the 1-9 range.

*It seems to suffer horribly from the really bad logic of “if mook bad guys are hardcore enough to frighten peasants and be a big deal, then these heroes that don’t care about the mooks must be REALLY high level, thus like CR 15+”
Meanwhile they overlook just exactly what a CR 15+ creature can do, like all of the Marvelverse only has a few of them, likewise a CR 25 would be like, Galactus maybe, a version of the Hulk with Strength that was infinite, with Banner’s top 10 smartest people ever intellect and the net assets and holdings of all historical Wayne and Stark business ventures and ultratech combined ?

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- spellweaver81, on May 1, 2013 at 7:26 pm said:
  
  If you think that’s bad, then be glad no one has done a stat writeup of Med’an from Warcraft. His character background reads like a “How to make your character a Mary Sue and universally reviled”. Blizzard makes fun games, but they do not do nearly so well with making sane and reasonable characters or settings as evidenced by Dragonball… I mean Diablo III.
  
  On that note though I would have to agree, Tyrande would in my mind be a variant ranger of probably level 8. Otherwise questions about why Ashenvale forest is still in dispute start getting weird…..

Bruce Gray, on May 3, 2013 at 4:43 am said:

Remember, these stats are for Tyrande at almost the height of her abilities. Shortly after the battle against the Lich King, she will be taken up by Elune and made into Elune’s handmaiden That’s a funny way of saying that she will shortly become a demi-god. What I want them for anyway is to demonstrate to WoW computer game users that we can create their character without much fuss and then play WoW the RPG. I gave a couple examples of WoW’s really high level folks to see what happens. I’ll be doing Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider right after this, then one Horde Big Bad & Ugly, then maybe I’ll post my own character.

Thoth, on May 3, 2013 at 10:51 pm said:

Well, I can’t convert other peoples product identity there – but I can certainly make characters who are inspired by them… Ergo, here are the Primal Elves and Ptaysanwee, their Guardian

Ptaysanwee, of course, is a fully equipped epic character, and is – in some ways – substantially more powerful; a lot of new material’s come out since 2004…

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Bruce Gray, on May 3, 2013 at 5:27 am said:

A little more about Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider:

Once again, this might not be in any order, any mistakes made are mine.

Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider:
15th level Wizard / 14th level Fighter

Blood Mage / Lord of the Blood Elves

Medium Humanoid / High Elf

Hit Dice:15 d4 + 14 d10 + 182

Current Hit Points: 318

Initiative: +12

Speed: 30

Armor Class: 41
(includes +8 DEX, +5 natural, +15 armor, +5 deflection)
Touch: 23, Flat-footed: 33,

Base Attack: +15

Grapple: +25

Attack: Flamestrike +36 melee (1 d10 + 20/15-20//x2 and 1d6 fire)
or spell +30 melee touch, or spell +28 ranged touch

Full Attack: Flamestrike +36/+31/+26 melee
(1 d10 +20/15 – 20/x@ and 1d6 fire)
Space/Reach: 5/5

Special Attacks: Spells

Special Qualities: Low-light Vision, all High Elf traits

Saves: Fort: +25, Ref +25, Will +26

Abilities:

STR 30 DEX 27 CON 24 INT 34 WIS 24 CHA 23

Skills: Climb +24, Concentrate +27, Craft (Alchemy) +30, Diplomacy +11, Gather Info +11, Hide +26, Intimidate +20, Jump +24, Knowledge (Arcana) +32, Knowledge (History) +22, Knowledge (Nature) +17, Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) +22, Knowledge (Religion) +17, Knowledge (The Planes) +23, Listen +23, Move Silent +26, Ride +22, Search +12, Sense Motive +12, Spellcraft +32. Spot +23, Swim +24.

Feats: Alertness, Blind-Fight, Cleave, Combat Casting, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Exotic Weapons Proficiency (Bastard Sword), Expertise, Improved Critical (Bastard Sword), Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Leadership, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Power Attack, Quick Draw. Scribe Scroll, Silent Spell, Spring Attack, Still Spell, Weapon Focus (Bastard Sword), Weapon Specialization (Bastard Sword)

Environment: Any land or underground

Organization: Unique

Challenge Rating: 31

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Kael is another example of a character that’s darn near the point where he will be elevated to Godhood.

I’ll look around and see if I gave a really good (or really bad if you prefer) example of a Horde character. I’ll have to look a bit more for my old Tauren Shaman that was aligned to the alliance.

Bruce Gray, on May 3, 2013 at 10:49 am said:

Last high-level character before the big bad guy:

Warchief Thrall

5th level Fighter / 3rd level Healer / 10th level Blademaster / 10th level Shaman

Male Orc – CR: 28
Medium Humanoid (Orc)

HD: 15 d10 + 13 d8 + 224

Current HP: 365

Initiative: +11, Speed: 30

Current AC: 34
Touch: 17
Flat-footed: 32
Base Attack: +18
Epic Attack: +4
Grapple: +31
Attack: +37
Melee: (2 d8 + 25/19 – 20/x3 plus 1 d6 lightning, “Doomhammer”)

SA +1 vs Humans, Battle Rage, Critical Strike, Maximum Damage, Spells, Supreme Cleave, Whirlwind.

SQ: Low-light Vision, Command, Healing Touch, Improved Mirror Image, Improved Strike Like the Wind, Spontaneous Casting (“cure” spells only), Weather Sense +10

Align: Chaotic Neutral

Saves: Fort: +33, Ref: +22, Will: +24

Abilities: STR: 29, DEX: 24, CON: 27, INT: 21, WIS: 22, CHA 31

Languages: Common, Orcish

Skills: Balance +3, Bluff +15, Climb +10, Concentration: +18, Diplomacy +19, Escape Artist +3, Handle Animal +15 (+2 more for Wolves), Hide +3, Intimidate +19, Jump +10, Knowledge (Military Tactics) +6, Knowledge (Nature) +7, Move Silent +3, Perform (Melee Swordsmanship) +15, Ride +9, Sense Motive +11, Spellcraft +15, Survival +11 (w/Weather Sense +26), Swim +7.

Feats: Brew Potion, Cleave, Combat Expertise, Diehard, Dodge, Endurance, Great Cleave, Improved Critical (Warhammer), Improved Initiative, Mobility, Power Attack, Spring Attack, Weapon Focus (Warhammer), Weapon Specialization (Warhammer), Whirlwind Attack

Spells: as a 13th level Healer w/access to both Healing and Shaman spells.

I’m not even gonna try to list his typical spells prepared, nor will I attempt to list the items in his possession.

Next is the bad guy they are all trying to beat, then hopefully my Tauren Shaman.

Bruce

Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 8:40 pm said:

Another thing I forgot to crosslink… here is a character generally inspired by this one: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/king-dorsian-ecl-30-warrior-mage/

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Bruce Gray, on May 4, 2013 at 5:07 am said:

Neat!

I already checked out the Primal Elves and Ptaysanwee, and downloaded their stats to see if they work. I’ll be around here for =quite= a while…

Bruce

Bruce Gray, on May 5, 2013 at 6:07 am said:

BTW, I still want to do a bit of the rest of World of Warcraft, so here’s the main bad guy from a couple of campaigns ago:

The Lich King

Lord of the Undead Scourge

Medium Undead (Independent)

HD: 42 d12
Current HP: 504

Initiative: +13

Speed: 60

AC: 49
(+9 DEX, +9 natural, +13 armor, +8 deflection)
Touch: 27, Flat-footed: 40

Base Attack:/Grapple: +15/+24

Attack: “Frostmourne” +41 melee (1 d10 +21/17 – 20 and wounding)
or Spell +35 melee touch,
or +33 ranged touch

Full attack: “Frostmourne” +41/+41/+36/+31 melee (1 d10 + 21/17 – 20 and wounding) or spell +35 melee touch, or +33 ranged touch

Space/Reach: 5/5

Special Attacks: Elemental Mastery, Undead Mastery, Rebuke Living, Harm touch, Aura of Despair, Mind Blast, Frightful Presence (DC 37), Spell-like Abilities, Spells

Special Qualities: Darkvision 120 ft, +1 attack vs Humans, Spontaneous Casting (Inflict Wounds spells only), Evil touch, Immune to Cold, Immune to Fire, Immune to Transmutation, Resistance to Acid 20, Resistance to Electricity 20, DR 15 / Bludgeoning, Fast Healing 5, Animate Minions, Detect Undead, Detect Outsiders, Spell Resistance 32, Telepathy 100 ft, Undead Traits.

Saves: Fort: +38, Ref: +40, Will +50

Abilities: STR: 32, DEX: 28, CON: –, INT: 30, WIS: 32, CHA: 27

Skills: Climb +19, Concentration +29, Craft (Alchemy) +37, Diplomacy +22, Heal +15, Hide +13, Intimidate +18, Jump +10, Knowledge (Arcana) +22, Knowledge (History) +20, Knowledge (Military Tactics) +20, Knowledge (The Planes) +25, Knowledge (Religion) +27, Knowledge (Undead) +30, Listen +17, Move Silent +13, Ride +29, Search +14, Sense Motive +15, Spellcraft +48, Spot +17, Survival +11, Swim +17

Feats: Bash, Battle Cry, Brew Potion, Combat Casting, Craft Magic Arms & Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Devoted Leadership, Dodge, Exotic Weapons Proficiency (Bastard Sword), Improved Initiative, Leadership, Lightning Reflexes, Maximize Spell, Mounted Combat, Power Attack, Quick Spell, Scribe Scroll, Silent Spell, Spell Focus (Necromancy), Spell Penetration, Still Spell, Trample, Weapon Focus (Bastard Sword, Battleaxe, Warhammer) , Weapon Specialization (Warhammer).

Environment: Any land or underground,

Organization: Unique

CR: 50

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

This is the stats for the Lich King at the beginning of the attack on his fortress by the end of “Wrath of the Lich King”. Just think a minute… there’s even nastier things in “Cataclysm” to fight at the end. I don’t have any idea who the big bad guy(s) are at the end of “Mists of Pandaria”… I’m only a 70th level Hunter (Ranger) with Beastmaster traits.

Hope to find my own character soon…

Bruce

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- Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 8:51 pm said:
  
  Well… I never did get back to this one – but that was partially because there isn’t really much to work with here. Presumably this would be a level 42 mage-type, with a few boosts for combat purposes. The trouble is that a 42’nd level spellcaster… has no business fiddling around with a melee weapon or with individually-targeted touch attacks. A 42’nd level spellcaster is likely to be fully capable of automatically vanishing into another dimension when attacked while simultaneously summoning an army of demons to occupy his would-be attackers – and striking back by hitting entire enemy countries with selective attacks on everyone within them, and otherwise turning the world upside down.

Bruce Gray, on May 20, 2013 at 5:32 pm said:

Hi!

Just a short note to let you know the hardback copy of Eclipse Compiled arrived today, I’ll try to get more next month. Meanwhile, based on the size of this monster, I’ve got a lot of reading to do… :-)

Bruce

Thoth, on May 27, 2013 at 6:44 pm said:

Sorry, things got a bit behind here due to life… I do hope you find it interesting and worthwhile!

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Derek, on May 22, 2013 at 2:06 pm said:

Have another request. Could you please release a version of Eclipse for monster design? I would think it would be similar to Eclipse II, just with critters instead of races and relics.

Thoth, on May 27, 2013 at 7:02 pm said:

And still playing catch-up… For designing monsters from scratch or a guide to how to add special abilities to an existing monster? I usually take the second route, since most of the point of staying back-compatible was being able to use the ever-increasing supply of existing material – but creating a few creatures from scratch is straightforward enough.

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- Derek, on May 29, 2013 at 3:03 pm said:
  
  Both preferably. A monster design book that looks at creation and modification that is more than simple suggestions and templates is something, as far as I know, that doesn’t exist. There is XRP’s Beast Builder but that got stuck in real world ecology and never really brought out the fantastic in fantasy creature design.
  
  And with both, show when it is a good time to break the rules to make the creature a better experience for the players and GM. Way too many get hamstrung by trying to get their critters to fit the rules perfectly.
- Thoth, on June 4, 2013 at 8:01 pm said:
  
  Well, first up then a few articles on some of Atherian Animals – ordinary creatures with Eclipse power-packages applied – and I’ll see what comes to mind after that.

Brett, on May 26, 2013 at 5:34 am said:

This is purely a balance question about a mechanic I found in the Green Ronin book World Shapers – Encyclopaedia Psionica. Specifically I wanted your take on the Embody Construct line of powers. To condense it, the construct has the following advantages: has an Int score equal to your Int mod, can understand complex instructions if withing range of the link, will use its understanding of your goals and its own intelligence to act within its means, is in a two way link to a range of 1 mile in which it will describe situations in at most 3 word sentences, and has an indefinite duration. In exchange it must be cast at X+1 level, and must be paid for out of personal reserves. The points used for manifesting it are “locked” into the construct and can’t be refreshed until the construct is destroyed or dismissed.

In essence, you cast the spell at +1 level, get an upgraded Intelligence, Link, and limited sentience for an indefinite duration by dedicating the points used to the construct for as long as you wish.

What are your thoughts on the balance “as is” and how would you translate that into your Psychic Construct spell in Practical Enchanter?

Thoth, on May 27, 2013 at 7:58 pm said:

Well that’s straightforward enough. Astral Constructs are nowhere near as useful as Summoned Monsters, since not only can Summoned Monsters can have all kinds of magical powers but various books have added many more creatures to the summonable lists. Ergo, the Practical Enchanter dumped the innate x/magic damage reduction that SRD astral constructs got in favor of giving them a good many more menu-based options. You can still buy them the damage reduction of course, but you don’t have to – and you will still have extra abilities left over even if you do. For example, a sixth level SRD astral construct gets one class-b ability, although it’s creator may trade that in for two class-a’s. A Practical Enchanter sixth level construct loses the DR 10/magic, but gets three class-a and three class-b abilities – and the creator can trade in two of the class-a’s or a class-b to get DR 10/magic if he or she happens to want it.

Embody Thought, Enflesh Thought, Ennoble Thought, and Incarnate Thought are L3/5/7/9 and create astral constructs of levels 2/4/6/8 which – as you note gain Intelligence equal to the users (Int Mod) and remains in telepathic contact at a range of up to one mile. They can be kept around as long as you like, but the points spent creating them cannot be recovered while you do so.

Well, astral constructs of levels 2/4/6/8 normally get a single class a/b/b/c choice. Practical Enchanter constructs of levels 2/4/6/8 get 2a/3a & 1b/3a & 3b/3a, 3b, & 2c choices. Spending one class-a choice on “Semi-sentient” covers the intelligence and also provides skills. That just leaves the link – which is not even as useful as the L1 Mindlink discipline – and the duration.

The duration is a problem though; the Class-b “Enduring” option lets you spend some XP to make a construct truly permanent-until-destroyed. The “Summon Construct” spell offers an “imaginary friend” option wherein the creator gives up the spell slot permanently and the construct becomes truly permanent, reforming if destroyed as long as it’s creator survives.

The “Indefinite with committed power” option is harder though; that’s basically the same as extending the usual duration from “one round per level” to “one day” since most characters don’t get back much power during the day anyway and could just re-invoke the power when they get up in the morning. That’s normally about +4 levels on the spell – expensive. I’d say that that particular option is badly balanced; letting even a high-level psion decide that “It will cost most of today’s personal power, but I think I’ll send out 20 level eight astral constructs to work my will today” is problematic – especially with the extra powers they can be given in The Practical Enchanter.

You can do it in Eclipse of course; just take the Persistent metamagic and enough levels of Streamline (for astral constructs only) to bring the cost down to +1 level – but at least that will cost you some points you could have used to get other abilities.

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- Brett, on May 27, 2013 at 8:23 pm said:
  
  What if it had an addendum like the Tulpa spell in Paths of Power 2 that limited to Attribute Mod maximum number of hanging constructs at one time?
  
  Also, on the Imaginary Friend option, is that dedicated slot one that must be from a standard spellcasting progression, or would slots such as Occult Talent or Inherent Spell be appropriate as well? Or the slot created by Specialist or Invocation?
- Thoth, on May 29, 2013 at 1:52 am said:
  
  I fear that Create Tulpa isn’t the best of comparisons since it has an XP cost. That’s really the problem; this series of powers gives you about +4 levels of effect for +1 effect level – and it seems like the extra power really ought to come from somewhere. That could be character points invested in Metapsionics and Streamline, or XP, or a permanent spell slot, or somewhere else though.
  
  Occult Talent would work, although your “friends” would be pretty weak. (And trying to Specialize or Corrupt it when you were planning to permanently allot it is going to be difficult to justify). Inherent Spell is already limited to a particular effect, so it wouldn’t be appropriate; you’re not giving up any flexibility. Specialist would work as long as the theme was appropriate. Invocation is a good option though; it will let you upgrade your imaginary friend as your own power increases.
- Brett, on May 29, 2013 at 12:22 pm said:
  
  Minor question about Create Tulpa, it seems to follow Spell Level = Construct Level. For a different level of the Spell would you change the XP cost, or stick to 1,000XP for the ability in all cases?
- Thoth, on June 4, 2013 at 7:45 pm said:
  
  I’d change the XP cost. Otherwise there’d certainly be no point to constructing weaker ones. There are some fun spells on those lists though.

Brett, on May 29, 2013 at 2:24 pm said:

Apologies, I have gotten a few oddball questions that have accumulated that I have been meaning to ask, they are very disparate so just as you can get to them, none are urgent in any sense or for an upcoming game or anything.

1. I would just be curious to know what Occult Skills you have used in games. I recall Shadow Walk and Dreambinding but not any others offhand.

2. How would you go about making an Innate Enchantment effect that you could set to a different spell each day? Something in the flavor of preparing the effect like a spellcaster would prepare spells. I know offhand this could be modeled by using the Enthusiast/Create Relic/Immunity to XP and having Relics stolen or damaged route, but I was more wanting to know if you had something that did not use anything outside of the Innate Enchantment ability, or something else. For example, something like “Anyspell” from the Spell Compendium is sorta what I had in mind.

3. One character is trying to model something from a book series as a Specialization and Corruption for Witchcraft. The first is that the character has some broad issues with Alchemical Silver, if someone is wearing it they get save bonuses or resistances, if they are bound with a band of it it depletes their innate power reserves, prevents them from accumulating power, bars them from using witchcraft (such as from an external power source, and gives them some allergy type issues with it that would be very unpleasant but not damaging and cause concentration issues ~DC=(15+effect level). (it is also assumed that this type of weakness is common knowledge and while the alchemical silver is still somewhat expensive it is not something that well prepared individuals or gorups would not be able to afford). They were hoping that was enough to count as being both the Specialization and Corruption, if only enough for one, the other idea to keep the flavor is to allow Channeling to be used to counter, disrupt and dispell Witchcraft abilities, though following the normal actions rules for those uses and again it being a known weakness. What are your thought as far as those ideas? Part of the goal is to make the magic users vulnerable to the same “disarming” effects that would be problems for a warrior who has been captured and disarmed.

4. I also have a link here to a collection of Charms and Talismans that have been proposed and written up by a few players and myself, I would appreciate any critique you had for them. https://www.dropbox.com/s/savbusoj5fxzsir/Charms%20and%20Talismans.doc

5. I also wanted to ask about a previous question that might have gotten overlooked, it is here https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/atheria-d20/#comment-28000 To elaborate a bit more, the player is going to have lots of minions that have a similar version of Shaping that is meant to give them some niche abilities, such as Shapeshifter, Magic School Specialist, Gadeteer, basically any relatively limited thematic nutshell concept.

6. For the Spirit Summons metaspell located here https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/the-necromantic-spells-of-farvaras/ could you elaborate a bit more on the capabilities on the Guardian Lesser and General Spirits?

Thoth, on June 4, 2013 at 8:09 pm said:

I fear that this one is going to take a little while – so it’s a good thing that you’re not in a rush! For some quick notes on the answers…
#1 I’ll try to make a list.
#2 “Anyspell” with some limitations will do it nicely, either as Innate Enchantment or Inherent Spell. I think I had a package for an Archivest-sort that used Inherent Spell around here somewhere.
#3 Such a vulnerability sounds reasonable enough; if it IS well-known, it brings in a whole raft of issues.
#4 This may involve posting them for an individual look at each; will that work for you?
#5 And here I thought I’d answered that. Probably something that got interrupted in the middle; I shall rummage it out again.
#6 Ah, updating stuff from first edition! I’ll have to think about how to properly represent them.

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- westb3, on June 4, 2013 at 10:21 pm said:
  
  #4 Sure, I expect many of them have play balance issues that are off, or are just reskinned versions of the C&T that you have made, they have thus far just been processed as far as “cool idea, let me describe it mechanically a bit” when it seemed at least plausible such could be done with a L0-L2 spell effect but would come out a bit more flavorful than just being a use activated item or other ‘normal’ item. So sure, I would love to see you rip them up. Some of them were also used during a project I had to right up C&T that would ‘explain’ why the campaign world works the way it did. The bonsai glove was meant to explain how elves hat anyone chopping trees for stuff, and yet live in elaborate wood palaces and use wood items that would seem to have required a normal lumbering use.
Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 9:03 pm said:

And to crosslink the answers…

For Occult Skills we have:

Skills of the Eclipse – Legendarium, Gadgetry, and Glowstone Alchemy

Skills of the Eclipse III – Faith, Gathering, and Accounting

Skills of the Eclipse II – Dwarven Rune Mastery, Subsumption, and Identities.

Skills of the Eclipse IV – Foresight, Governance, Command, Ninjaneering, Dream-Binding, and Secrets

For the Charms and Talismans we have:

Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans

A Spirit Wandering: Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans II

Generational Blessings – Do-it-yourself Charms and Talismans III

Creations of Shadow – Do-it-yourself Charms and Talismans IV

Relics and Rituals – do-it-yourself Charms and Talismans V

Dark Offerings – Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans VI

Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans VII – Speaking of Witch

Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans VIII – The Forces From Beyond

For the shapeshifting question we have…

Eclipse – Talismanic Mystics

And finally, for the Spirit Summons metaspell we have:

Eclipse and Spirits

Eclipse and Spirits II – Spirit Summons

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alzrius, on May 31, 2013 at 1:57 pm said:

A quick question on two channeling abilities. If I had Empower (from the Glorious Touch path) and Circle of Power (from the Boundless Realms path), how would they interact?

In other words, suppose I had a +5 Charisma modifier, and I used Circle of Power in conjunction with Empower…would I grant a total of 5 “plusses” that could be distributed in various arrangements to various weapons/armor/items in the area? Or would it grant a +5 bonus to every such item within the area?

I’m presuming it’s the former, but I wanted to double-check.

Thoth, on June 4, 2013 at 8:17 pm said:

By default you’d give each item of a particular type – say “swords” – in the area the same bonus. That’s quite potent, although it does have the bothersome aspect of helping out your opponents too unless you’re very careful about setting it up. On the other hand, doing it the first way is simply Specialized for Increased Effect: you have to break up the bonuses between items, but have full control over which items are affected and how.

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Bruce Gray, on June 3, 2013 at 8:44 am said:

Hi again! First, I’d like to thank you for making the hardcover versions of Eclipse available at all! I’m still not done digesting all of it, but I do have a question — Where are the attributes? Do we just roll them like usual or is there a point-buy system I’m missing? BTW, I just ordered Paths of Power Complete – I’ll let you know when it arrives!

Bruce

Thoth, on June 4, 2013 at 8:20 pm said:

Oh you’re quite welcome.

Sadly, Eclipse doesn’t cover generating attributes since it was originally published under the d20 license – which specifically forbade covering that topic. Ergo you just use your favorite system.

And I hope you enjoy Paths of Power Complete; it does have some rather strange spells in it here and there.

Reply
- Bruce Gray, on June 14, 2013 at 10:19 am said:
  
  “Here and there” eh? I’m going to find this quite useful once I begin my new campaign – it actually arrived yesterday 6/13/13 but things being what they were for me yesterday, I didn’t get to do much with it…

alzrius, on June 15, 2013 at 11:09 am said:

To what degree does adding the dismissible aspect to a spell’s duration increase its spell level (if any)?

Would, for example, a nullfield spell, if a dismissible variant was researched, still be level four?

alzrius, on July 6, 2014 at 7:18 pm said:

As a follow-up to this, how much would it reduce a (non-instantaneous) spell’s level if you changed it’s duration to “concentration” (presumably with some sort of limit on how long it could be concentrated on)?

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Bill, on June 20, 2013 at 7:32 pm said:

Hey I have a few Eclipse questions…

1. How does purchasing inherent spells work? I read the rules in Eclipse, but when I look for examples it is confusing…
The Mastercrafter can use a lv 6 spell with Inherent Spell; is that because you are cheesing the double effect to double the maximum lv from 3 to 6? Can you specialize and corrupt a spell for triple effect and cast a 9th lv spell for 6cp?

Abooksigun seems to have a lot of Inherent Spells that don’t seem to follow the rules in Eclipse.

I thought lv 1 to 3 spells cost 6cp for Inh Spell, Inh Spell (grade 1) would allow lv 4 spells and cost 6cp more (12 total), Inh Spell (grade 2) would allow lv 5 spells and cost 6cp more (18 total), Inh spell (grade 3) would allow lv 6 spells and cost 6cp more (24 total). At least that is how it reads to me in the book.

2. How does the Witchcraft Power Possession in the path of spirits work? Assuming it is fully upgraded, Is it just a DC 13+cha will save or die with unlimited duration? If the witch ejects the old soul, what happens to his/her abandoned body? What if someone attacks it? What if the witch in the new body dies? Are any of the versions dispelible or reversible?

3. Wasn’t there once a hero lab plug in for Eclipse? I searched the site but can’t seem to find it anymore.

4. What’s the best way to make a Pathfinder Summoner using Eclipse?

Thanks!

alzrius, on June 21, 2013 at 6:04 pm said:

I hope you don’t mind, Bill, if I take a stab at some of these.

You’re right in the guess about how the Mastercrafter is able to use a level six inherent spell by using specialization for double effect for 6 CP (though it has a corresponding drawback). You could (presuming that your GM allows it) use specialization and corruption on Inherent Spell to get a level nine spell for 6 CP, but there’s going to be quite a set of drawbacks on it, since you’ve corrupted and specialized it.

Abooksigun’s inherent spells are correctly priced. He’s taken Inherent Spell (6 CP) for one level three spell, and then added +2 bonus uses for +3 CP (see page 22; this is not using the Multiple Inherent Spell modifier). He’s then taken three instances of the Advanced Inherent Spell modifier, each of which adds another inherent spell of one level above the previous one (so then, a level four, five, and six spell), each with the same +2 bonus uses. So 9 CP for each.

I think you have the right of it where Possession is concerned. Bear in mind that you’ll need to buy at least 12 CP of basic witchcraft first, then 6 CP to buy Possession, 6 CP to eliminate maintenance costs, and 6 CP to permnanetly take another person’s body (though pacts can help there).

Presumably, taking someone else’s body permanently will sever your tie with your old body enough that someone attacking it won’t harm you, but dying in the new body will make you die for real (barring some power like Dreamfaring to keep your spirit around after death). I’m guessing it’s GM fiat on most of this, though, including if these can be dispelled.

I think that Eclipse is available for PCGen, but I’ve never heard of a Hero Lab version.

As for a Pathfinder summoner using Eclipse…I think I’ll leave that one to Thoth!

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- Bill, on June 21, 2013 at 8:21 pm said:
  
  Thanks for the answers alzrius.
  
  Wow, I’ve been using Inherent Spell all wrong. Actually I just haven’t been using it at all because I had it priced all wrong.
  
  Follow up question: If Jhonny, God of Burning has Transcendence from the Path of the Pharoh, and decides he wants to have Meteor Swarm as an Inherent Spell how much would it cost?
  
  Inherent Spell (6cp) + Grades 1 through 3 (6 cp each; 18 total); + Grades 4 and 5 (12cp each, 24 total) all of which I can see as being Specialized: as prerequisites only (6+18+24= 48; half cost 24 points) + Grade 6 (18cp) for a ninth lv Inherent Spell which would be 24+18 = 42cp. Is that right?
  
  If he wanted a second 9th level spell, what would it cost him? 18cp?
  
  You are right, it was PcGen. I remembered it incorrectly.
- alzrius, on June 22, 2013 at 1:19 pm said:
  
  Strictly speaking, Jhonny having Transcendence wouldn’t affect the price of Inherent Spell at all. Transcendence simply allows you to ignore prerequisites based on character level or ability scores; CP costs are unchanged.
  
  Having said that, your math in regards to the cost of buying a single 9th-level spell seems correct to me. The one thing that I’d consider changing is that you might want to consider those prerequisites as being specialized and corrupted, reducing their cost down to 16 CP rather than 24 (you’re paying a lot of CPs that get you nothing besides meeting a prerequisite, after all), meaning that with the +18 CP cost for a grade six upgrade, it’s be a final cost of 34, rather than 42 CP.
  
  That’s not a hard-and-fast answer, however. Whether that degree of reduction is just specialized or is specialized and corrupted is up to you and your GM.
  
  That said, notice the last bullet point under the Inherent Spell description. Since upgrades don’t carry over, he’d likely have to pay the entire above cost again for a second 9th-level spell.
- Thoth, on July 11, 2013 at 7:05 pm said:
  
  And here’s a link I forgot to put up – a more elaborate (and once again too long for comments) discussion of Witchcraft’s Possession ability and how it can be used: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/possessing-the-eclipse/
- Thoth, on July 29, 2013 at 6:50 pm said:
  
  And here’s a link I forgot to put up to the article on Inherent Spells: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/inherent-spells-spell-conversion-and-the-pointlessly-awesome/
  
  I’d forgotten about the summoner, I’ll see if I can’t get that up.
- Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 9:06 pm said:
  
  Oh yes, here’s where the Summoner wound up: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/eclipse-the-summoner-and-the-chimeric-master/
Thoth, on June 23, 2013 at 6:59 pm said:

Dear me, I’m busy for a bit (well, OK – a couple of weeks, and my thanks to Alzrius for filling in so well) and look what happens. As so often happens, the answers here have become rather long for comments – so I’ll be backfilling a bit with them to try to catch up on those missed days. You’ll find the first part over HERE.

Reply
- Bill, on June 23, 2013 at 9:29 pm said:
  
  Thanks Thoth! That post was very helpful.
  
  For some reason I thought Inherent Spells cost much more. Now i might make a character that actually uses a few!
- Thoth, on July 11, 2013 at 7:14 pm said:
  
  I’m glad it helped – and they are pretty handy for a character who wants a limited range of magical abilities – there’s a setup using them for the Arcane Archer somewhere in the comments on this page – but if you want a LOT of powers you’re generally better off with a spell progression.

Bill, on June 21, 2013 at 11:20 pm said:

I also have some questions about the Witchcraft Advanced Power: The Inner Fire.

If a character takes it at level 4 with a wis of 20 can he cast 2 level 1 spells and 1 lv 2 spell or does he get 2/1/1/1/1?

If the character makes it to lv 20 and has a wis of 30 does the amount of spells he can cast/has access to change or is it stuck at whatever level he took it at?

If the same lv 20 character takes the Inner Fire his CL is 10 and he can safely cast lv 5 spells. Does he get access to higher level spells as well? If so, and he decides to cast a 9th level spell and makes his will save, what CL is the spell cast at? 10th (his current CL), 17th (min lv for casting 9th lv spells), 20th (his character lv)?

Can the character take The Inner Fire more than once for the same attribute? I know I saw one of the sample characters here take it 3x but they had different govering attributes for each list (int/wis/cha). Found it! Torak Rosul

alzrius, on June 22, 2013 at 5:49 pm said:

This is my understanding, so take it with a grain of salt.

Inner Fire activates all of a character’s bonus spell slots for the selected ability score. So your level four character with a Wisdom of 20 would have 2/1/1/1/1 spell slots activated. Of course, he would have a caster level of 2, and only be able to safely use the first-level spell slots; anything else would require a Will save to avoid losing control.

I’d definitely say that as your character levels up, and gains a higher attribute, Inner Fire should modify his slots and caster level accordingly.

So at 20th level, and with a 30 Wisdom, the character will have 3/3/2/2/2/2/1/1/1 slots available, with six “spells known” for each spell level. His caster level will be 10, and he’ll be able to cast up to fifth-level spells safely, with the higher ones requiring a save. All of the spells he casts will be at caster level 10, so it’s best to have him use higher-level spells with effects that aren’t level-dependent.

I’d say that you can’t take Inner Fire multiple times for the same attribute (though it’s ultimately a GM call), but taking it multiple times for a different attribute each time should be alright, as per the character you linked to.

Reply
- Bill, on June 22, 2013 at 5:54 pm said:
  
  Thanks alzrius!
  
  I agree with everything you wrote, but it was hard to understand when I read the ability.
- Thoth, on July 11, 2013 at 7:01 pm said:
  
  And at last I am getting caught up on questions… Alzrius is quite right, but there’s now a longer and more elaborate discussion of the matter right over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/eclipse-the-questionable-inner-fire/

Bruce Gray, on June 26, 2013 at 2:12 pm said:

Hi!

Just a quick note to let you know that Practical Enchanter arrived today – and I though that Paths of Power had enough mage abilities…. :-)

Bruce

editorial0, on June 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm said:

Indeed, the number of delicious magical toys you can make is impressive. This is also the book that Thoth did the most work on (relatively) between us, and it shows in the depth of detail. Just remember one simple rule with the book however – the more you specialize or tweak your toy, the more you can expect to have others do the same. This is one book where players can absolutely set the tone of the game, but also where they should also consider the consequences.

Not that it’s always a bad thing, either. It’s pretty funny to watch the party mage create his super-cheap Ring of Flying only to break every bone in his left arm and hand the first time he uses it. Or to see the look on the players’ faces when they realize that all their enemies are using the same hyper-specializations in magic items they themselves prefer, so that the party ends up getting little benefit from the loot. Or watch that cleric clad himself in golem armor only to give it bad commands.

Even apart from the sillier aspects, it’s a lot of fun to make that perfect weapon, and the optional wealth templates completely turn gameplay around in favor of the epic heroism and away from the loot-treadmill.

So do enjoy, and I sincerely hope that the numerous terrible jokes leaven the mix. What can I say? The numbers and tables get a little dull after a while, so we used very good art and very bad jokes.

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- Bruce Gray, on June 26, 2013 at 10:50 pm said:
  
  This is the first where I remember seeing “Grod” and it really reminded me of my old “White Box/Little Brown Books” sessions. I still remember the looks on the player’s faces when they discovered that =everyone= (all NPC’s) was a werewolf and not just the one they were after….. :-)
- Thoth, on July 11, 2013 at 7:46 pm said:
  
  And catching up again… I’m glad you found Grod amusing (if you don’t, don’t let him know; he takes it personally). Sadly, the EVIL WIZARD more-or-less “wins” in the end.
  
  Turning the players expectations inside-out is always fun though!

alzrius, on July 11, 2013 at 2:54 pm said:

I only recently discovered the Tier System for classes in D&D 3.5, by one of the guys over at Brilliant Gameologists, and was wondering what you thought of it.

Looking it over (the second post seems to be the most insightful), this is basically a system for ranking classes based on two factors: 1) How many relevant options they can exercise in *any* given situation (or perhaps it’s better to say “in *every* possible situation”), and 2) how powerful those options are. As you probably guessed, full-progression spellcasters that don’t have a limit to how many spells they can know top the list.

I have to admit, I find this to be a very insightful breakdown of the various classes, particularly in terms of its analysis regarding what these differing tiers mean in the context of practical game-play (particularly what the GM can expect, and should prepare for, if the players use differing-tier classes in his campaign).

Thoth, on July 29, 2013 at 3:43 pm said:

And now that I’ve had a little time… Your reply once again got far too long for comments, so it’s become an article over here:

Reply

Bill, on July 11, 2013 at 9:31 pm said:

Thanks for answering my questions Thoth! I’ve been paying attention and the articles have been useful in clarifying things for me.

Thoth, on July 28, 2013 at 5:52 pm said:

Oh, you’re quite welcome. Every once in awhile life keeps me too busy to respond for awhile, but I do try to catch up eventually – just like this response is doing…

Reply

Bruce Gray, on July 17, 2013 at 8:28 am said:

Just a note to let you know that “Legends of High Fantasy” is now in my collection – and -not- gathering dust. I will try to sort out this book and fully read it before reviewing it.

Bruce

Thoth, on July 28, 2013 at 5:48 pm said:

Sorry about the answer-delay here: Real Life caught up with me and dragged me away… I do hope you found some useful things in it!

Reply
- Bruce Gray, on August 13, 2013 at 9:15 am said:
  
  Plenty of useful things in all your material – including my minty fresh copy of Baba Yaga. I =think= this means I own =all= Paul’s books…

Bruce Gray, on August 14, 2013 at 2:35 pm said:

Hey all…..

How about a write up of Baba Yaga herself and her hut? Would make an interesting addition to the Baba Yaga book…

Bruce

Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 9:09 pm said:

Well, Baba Yaga was the traditional name of a sleeping mage-lord in the original playtest campaigns – although they never did manage to get close enough to awaken her.

I suppose the Hut would basically be written up as a heavily armored vehicle, and could be a folktale memory of something that had belonged to her…

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Derek, on August 17, 2013 at 2:50 pm said:

I have an idea for an article- ritual research rules. When someone with the ritual skill from Legends or Eclipse want to design their own ritual, how should they go about it?

Derek, on August 27, 2013 at 2:45 pm said:

Using the Eclipse system of 10th and higher level spells, where would you peg a Creation spell that allows the caster to make a small town or something equally impressive, yet has a duration other than instantaneous or permanent and the caster can dispel parts without dispelling the whole.

editorial0, on September 12, 2013 at 8:09 pm said:

Let me ask for some clarification here, and I apologize for the delay in response. When you say a “Small Town”, are we talking about landscaping and structures, or are we talking about adding people? That’s the big issue in deciding it, although I’ll see if I can’t work up a suite of spells for varying effects.

Reply
- Derek, on September 15, 2013 at 6:19 am said:
  
  I was thinking just the infrastructure. I am not sure if Creation type spells should be able to make creatures, but if you have ideas, please share them.
- Thoth, on September 26, 2013 at 2:12 am said:
  
  I shall try to get it written up; I’ve just been too busy to do much more than try to get every-other-day articles up for the last few months.
Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 9:10 pm said:

And here is the belated link to the article; https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/eclipse-a-city-on-a-hill/

Reply

westb3, on September 7, 2013 at 5:56 pm said:

I have a question about the #s used in the Campaign Resources part of Practical Enchanter. While the conclusion I entirely agree with on a broad level “stuff is around to a degree that genuine novel ideas would be somewhat rare” the specifics for your # of wizards and Adepts elude me.
Hamlets have a -2 community modifier, Wizards are 1d4, Adepts are 1d6. So unless I am missing something Wizards have a 50/50 chance of not being present, if they are you either have a single 1st level, or a 2nd level with two 1st level, based on rolls of 1 & 2 just being below 0, 3 being a single 1st, 4 being a 2nd which then generates two 1st.

Were they more common in your world, thus using a larger d#, or am I missing something with the community modifier?

I follow how you could have a Adept that is

Thoth, on September 14, 2013 at 12:12 am said:

And this got far too long for the comments, and so it’s it’s own article over HERE.

Reply
- Brett, on September 14, 2013 at 11:45 am said:
  
  Thanks for ending my confusion. I would be curious, what type of distribution of classes and levels do you tend to use in your settings? I would imagine that his HIGHLY came/setting specific but wanted to know if you had any broad trends or generators, etc.
  
  Also, I wanted to check, I asked a couple followup questions on a couple of the pages for the Charm and Talisman review (thank you so much for doing that, it was it was really good to get such good feedback on them). I also wanted to check if you were done with that series or if you were just on a temp break or got bored of it, there should be a few more Talismans and I want to be sure the link was reflecting that for you just in case there was an issue with the link not directing to the most current version.
- Thoth, on September 26, 2013 at 2:59 am said:
  
  Well, you’re welcome on the confusion part anyway!
  
  As for classes and levels… Well, most of my settings are classless of course. I do tend to assume that 99% or more of the NPC’s are more-or-less noncombatants and aren’t taking the kinds of risks that would gain them a lot of experience points – and so are of rather low level (and need adventurer-types to help out with major emergencies). Thus most youngsters are level zero, and most adults are level one or two. They’re usually reasonably competent in their specialties, as the Sacerdos Pastor Package or – for a recent example – the Cartographer of Dreams shows – but in Eclipse you don’t need to be high level to be a good noncombatant specialist.
  
  There are a scattering of mid-level types – that tough veteran guard-captain may well be level four – in every major location, but they’re uncommon. Genuinely high level characters tend to be very rare indeed; they simply have too much power for most settings to hold together if they’re at all common.
  
  In high-magic worlds quite a lot of people will use a little magic – Rune Magic, or Witchcraft, or one of the other low-cost, immediate-reward, and (sadly) low-potential fields, often along with Charms and Talismans – in their daily lives and tasks. In very high magic settings, such as the Twilight Isles, you may find that absolutely everyone uses magic simply because they’re born with it.
  
  As for the Talismans series… it just got put on the back burner because 1) I hadn’t quite decided wat alternatives to offer on a few, 2) the answers to the questions on the first few were getting long, and 3) they weren’t urgent – and so the “we need characters for these games!” requests got in ahead of them. I will be getting back to the last few.
- Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 9:14 pm said:
  
  And here are the links for the complete Charms and Talismans series:
  
  Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans
  
  A Spirit Wandering: Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans II
  
  Generational Blessings – Do-it-yourself Charms and Talismans III
  
  Creations of Shadow – Do-it-yourself Charms and Talismans IV
  
  Relics and Rituals – do-it-yourself Charms and Talismans V
  
  Dark Offerings – Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans VI
  
  Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans VII – Speaking of Witch
  
  Do-It-Yourself Charms and Talismans VIII – The Forces From Beyond

Derek, on October 8, 2013 at 12:08 pm said:

All the examples of relics in Eclipse and Eclipse II are objects. Could there not be relics that are creatures or locations?

Thoth, on October 21, 2013 at 2:11 am said:

Yes – but it isn’t easy. Unless you’re very careful, investing your character points in another living creature will turn it into a Companion, while carelessly investing points in an area will turn it into a Sanctum. Most intentional relic-makers tend to shy away from using targets that can die or which can’t be carried around. Sure, that lets you apply limitations – “wanders off at times” or “Immobile” – but it isn’t usually worth it.

Otherwise a living or immobile relic works exactly like an inanimate one.

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alzrius, on November 6, 2013 at 3:17 pm said:

A minor question here (which I don’t think has been asked elsewhere so far): Page 11 of Eclipse notes that if you add an extra limitation onto a magic level progression, it reduces the price by 1 for every 6 (or fraction thereof) CP listed for a single level of magic progression on the chart on that page.

However, the figures on that chart include the +3 CP cost of a single caster level, specialized to that progression.

My question is, is that additional cost of a caster level meant to be factored into how much of a discount an extra limitation grants you? That matters for things like the wizard or druid progressions, where removing the caster level cost changes the reduction granted by taking an extra limitation.

Thoth, on November 6, 2013 at 8:09 pm said:

Yes it is. Basically taking a progression includes a number of small perks (attribute-based bonus spells and so on) that make them somewhat more efficient than simply using generic spell levels and caster levels to build a freeform progression – in the long run.

In practice, an awful lot of low-level characters go for systems with more immediate payoffs, but that’s their choice to make.

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alzrius, on November 9, 2013 at 6:18 pm said:

Just to be clear regarding something: where Siddhisyoga says that you sacrifice treasure to gain mystical abilities with a total “price” equal to one-half the sacrificed treasure…the use of “price” here is meant to indicate the cost to create the magic item, not the market price to purchase it (just like Innate Enchantment), right?

In other words, if I want to use Siddhisyoga to gain power equivalent to a belt of physical perfection +6, then I’d need to sacrifice 144,000 GP to meet the item’s creation cost of 77,000 GP, rather than 288,000 GP to meet the item’s market price of 144,000 GP, yes?

alzrius, on November 9, 2013 at 7:51 pm said:

…and in other news, I fail at math, and apparently so does someone at Paizo, since despite what’s listed in the above link, 72,000, not 77,000, is half of 144,000.

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- Thoth, on November 16, 2013 at 1:50 pm said:
  
  And it would be an awkward typo too, given that “2” and “7” are well-separated on most keyboards. Ah well, this will happen.
Thoth, on November 16, 2013 at 1:48 pm said:

And here I am, playing catch-up again…

Siddhisyoga uses the items purchase price – thus the “total price” – for it’s calculations, making it rather expensive to buy big-ticket items. After all, it’s allowing you to ignore item slots (normally a price doubler), renders you immune to having your items damaged or taken away, lets you design your own stuff freely (thus “any desired enchantment”), and lets you ignore all the normal item-creation requirements.

Even without buying any upgrades, a character with Siddhisyoga might thus expend 3000 GP to acquire the healing power of two Belts of Healing and 24,000 GP to gain the functions of a Belt of Battle to complement the one that he or she usually wears. A magician might spend 4200 GP buying three Amber Amulets of Vermin (Huge Monstrous Scorpion) and 4600 on an Amulet of Tears and continue to wear his Scarab of Invulnerability.

Thus the Vedic Master build is sacrificing 12,000 GP worth of treasure per year to buy 6000 GP worth of powers bought at the base purchase price.

Sylthis Torr is getting away with more; he has Siddhisyoga, Specialized for Double Effect/The user cannot use normal magic items (6 CP) – which basically takes him down to paying the normal cost for items and is the Eclipse route to using the Talent rules from The Practical Enchanter (or “vow of poverty” builds). If he takes Efficient or Fey later on, he will be able to buy even better magics with his money.

Anatolia is doing much the same thing, but is also corrupting what she can buy to bring down the cost of her ability by a couple of points.

And I hope that helps!

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alzrius, on November 26, 2013 at 11:09 am said:

You’ve converted a number of Pathfinder classes to Eclipse, but I wanted to ask how you’d convert over Paizo’s latest big power-up for PCs: Mythic Adventures.

I tried taking a stab at this myself, but I suspect that this is a bit more than I can chew, at least until I’m able to get further experience with using Eclipse. I did get some basics down, however.

The Designing Encounters section mentions (under the “Adjusting CR and Level” sub-header) that a character with 20 class levels and 10 mythic tiers (the maximum number allowable) is essentially a 25th-level character.

From that, I figured that a mythic character has a +5 ECL template, and so has a total of 191 CP to build it with. Throw in a mythic flaw (as a disadvantage that’s part of the template) and that rises to a total of 194 CP.

The base mythic abilities are easy enough to make…for the most part. Most of the mythic abilities revolve around spending a use of “mythic power” for various effects, the most basic of which is to improve die rolls; that sounds like Action Hero, with other abilities specialized to require an action point. There’s also a lot of Improved Self-Development (+10 total!).

The mythic feats granted by the template were a little more difficult to convert, simply because 1) there are so many of them, and 2) I wasn’t sure about building just those feats in Eclipse without also including the “normal” feat abilities, since they build on those.

Mythic Paths was where things went off the rail for me. Mostly because there were so many abilities across six different paths, and because having each path have twelve (!) different path abilities – in addition to the base mythic abilities – really pushed the cost. (I eventually figured the entire template was specialized, since gaining all of these requires satisfying a grand total of 29 mythic trials…not to mention how the template is gained in the first place).

Mythic spells and magic items aren’t part of the character, and so don’t need to be dealt with…I think. I’m slightly uncertain because some still require an expenditure of “mythic power” – presumably that’s no different than an expensive material component.

Finally, since these are meant to be broken up into ten “tiers,” I wasn’t sure how to do that, short of breaking up the entire template into ten packages of 19- or 20-CP bundles to dole out over time.

Presuming that’s not too tall of a request…how would you make “Mythic Eclipse”?

Thoth, on December 2, 2013 at 7:13 pm said:

Well, this one is going to take multiple articles I think – but here’s the first one, and the simplest approach: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/eclipse-and-mythic-ascension-part-i/

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alzrius, on November 27, 2013 at 1:00 pm said:

A shorter question this time:

Paizo recently released the public playtest for their Advanced Class Guide. One of the classes in the book – the arcanist – has a method of spellcasting that blends the spontaneous spellcasting of a sorcerer with the prepared casting of a wizard.

More specifically, the arcanist has a number of spells per day and spells known, as per a sorcerer. The difference is that they have a spellbook, and each day they use it to choose what their “spells known” will be, preparing them out of their spellbook like a wizard.

While the developers are still making changes to these classes, they’ve said that the arcanist’s spellcasting method will remain the same. This leads me to ask, how would you model this method of spellcasting in Eclipse? Not using the Studies limitation for a magic progression means that you are a preparatory spellcaster who uses your entire spell list (a la the cleric or druid), whereas using the Studies limitation means that you’re either a preparatory caster who needs to find and record spells before you can prepare them (as per the wizard) or are a spontaneous spellcaster with a small – and unchangeable (mostly, maybe swapping out a spell known every level or two) – list of spells known. There doesn’t seem to be an option for a “hybridized” method of spellcasting like what the arcanist has.

Thoth, on December 5, 2013 at 8:50 pm said:

And the answer to this – once again – got too long for comments, so it’s up over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/arcanist-casting-in-eclipse/ – with a way to derive it from the base progressions and a way to build it from the basics.

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Derek, on December 26, 2013 at 2:39 pm said:

Could I please have an answer to the questions I made in August? Especially the spell.

Thoth, on December 29, 2013 at 8:30 pm said:

Ah, something I’d forgotten all about it seems. I’ll take a look back and see what I’ve got; I seem to recall having a few notes from about then.

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Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 9:18 pm said:

And done; the links are back with the original questions.

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westb3, on March 23, 2014 at 10:19 am said:

Hello, quite the laundry list of questions this time from me, I do want to express just how much better Eclipse and your other works have been for my gaming group, they really are the best system I have used.

I also wanted to ask about a previous question that might have gotten overlooked, it is here https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/atheria-d20/#comment-28000 To elaborate a bit more, the player is going to have lots of minions that have a similar version of Shaping that is meant to give them some niche abilities, such as Shapeshifter, Magic School Specialist, Gadeteer, basically any relatively limited thematic nutshell concept.

I really like the Light of Illumian spell from the Trickster Magi list, do you have any other similar spells that you have already made? I have an example below and would appreciate your thoughts on it’s balance.

An example of one I have been playing around with, though it is a Psionic Power
Old Mind Trick
Telepathy
Standard Action
10 Min/ ML
Gives access to several Cantrip/Talent level telepathic powers,(several of which use the Cantrips articles you have posted here) such as.

Empathy: Allows the user to read and send emotions in a sixty-degree cone up to thirty feet long for ten minutes. While this allows the user to readily sense the general tone of the emotions of those in the area, and to effectively communicate his or her own emotions, it does not force the receiver to share them; you can tell if those in the affected area are frightened, let them know that you’re frightened, or suggest that they should be frightened – but you can’t actually force them to be frightened.

Influence: Allows the user to telepathically suggest a “feeling”, simple thought, or slight sensation. It can be used to make someone feel a bit thirsty, itchy, apprehensive, safe, trusting, or nervous. Such subtle suggestions can affect any one being within thirty feet and allows no active resistance roll – but also have very limited effects. The target may act on such “feelings”, but is usually only slightly (+/-1 on relevant rolls, if any) influenced. Using this cantrip to “plant” a thought makes said idea occur to the target “in passing”, differing from a verbal suggestion only in that the target won’t be aware of outside interference

Sending: Sends a brief (one or two sentence) telepathic message to any one being within sixty feet. This does require a line of sight.
Hypnotism a L0 version which only effects 1d4 HD of targets [this can always be taken as 2HD of targets and 5 rounds of effect if the caster so desires]

Receptivity Allows any targets who wish to in 60′ to broadcast their thoughts to you, though this does not allow you to read any thoughts they do not wish to broadcast, this combined with Sending allows you both to simply see each other and communicate clearly and directly without language barriers or chance for misscommunication, misunderstanding and with it being impossible to be overheard, at least on a mundane level, though it would be fairly easy for another spell, power or other effect to eavesdrop.

Sensitive: Gives a vague, generalized, ability to perceive magical and psychic forces, auras, entities, and residues. This sensitivity may be, and often is, voluntarily negated earlier than the full duration, as it leaves the user uncomfortably “open”. A variant form gives far more definite results, often extending to brief visions, hearing phrases, and reading psychic impressions, but lasts for only one round, requires a full round action to use and percieve and “scans” only a 5′ radius of its casting point. As a note the first option here will “hear” the “sound” transmitted by the Message spell, Sending & Receptivity Power and other similar effects, though it can’t understand them. The second option will be able to understand those means of communication as long as the caster of this spell is in a 5′ range of the most direct path between the people communicating.

For the Spirit Summons metaspell located here https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/the-necromantic-spells-of-farvaras/ could you elaborate a bit more on the capabilities on the Guardian Lesser and General Spirits? Given the Eclipse and Spirits post you had recently I imagine they just might be General Spirits with the Guardian ones more or less being Corrupted “has friendly personal agenda, might send you on quests or favors, may have some control over you based on previous history” etc.

Eclipse 2, Shadow Elves, House Brecanasti, you mention improvements to the Unseen Servant ability such as giving them a portion of the user’s skills and sometimes a limited ability to attack. I assume the first is the Unseen Supervisor from Practical Enchantment, can you explain and post the mechanics and other spells for the ways to upgrade the Servant to have offensive abilities or any other improvements you have thought up for it?

From Paths 2, you have the spell Necromantic Melding. I wanted to ask how your opinion on the below spell based off of it.

Shadowy Imprint
Enchantment
Level 6
Components V,S,M (contact with target creature), XP 100, Special
Casting Time 1 Standard Action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature Touched
Duration: Instantaneous & Special
Save: Will Neg or Willing
SR: No
Shadow Imprint allows the caster to get an imprint of the target creature, storing many of their personal memories as well as their 1st level features in any classes the target has and up to Int Mod + 6 Skill Points and their physical form. This gives the caster only the features of the class and the listed skill points, not HP, BAB, or Saves. This virtual class features and skill points do not stack with any other features the caster already has, nor does it qualify for any abilities other than what this spell grants. The caster may physically transform into target as a standard action and my use the granted class abilities and skills in any form.
This spell does have some special requirements as noted in components, keeping this spell active requires not refreshing this spell slot and must be case from the caster’s personal reseves not a spell storing device, it also requires the investiture of 3 points of Mana (as from Eclipse p36). These points are not expended but are devoted to keeping the Shadowy Imprint active, using or otherwise draining these 3 points of Mana will cause the Shadowy Imprint to end.

Thoth, on March 28, 2014 at 7:26 pm said:

Now to hit things in order…

#1) I’m glad that the books are working well for you; it’s always nice to hear that they’re still relevant!

#2) Oops! Another thing that got forgotten. I shall put something up on the topic.

#3) Manifestation of Ilium can be easily used as a template for similar spells – just trade out the illusion effects for (say) force-constructs or whatever it is you have in mind. Sadly, while small, clever, illusions can be useful at any level, a lot of other fields will lose much of their utility at higher levels. Still, if you can produce (say) basic elemental effects, snuffing a torch, igniting some oil, blowing up a quick cloud of dust to interfere with vision, or (to get creative) freezing or holding the liquid in a glass so you can turn it upside down to “demonstrate that you drank it” without actually doing so could be handy in the right situation. To really make that sort of thing worthwhile – since each casting only produces only one specific effect – you’ll want unlimited use. Otherwise (sadly enough) in many games you might as well get a few more Magic Missiles.
The spell itself is really simply a version of Greater Invocation (from The Practical Enchanter), and spells in that category are covered in more detail there.

#4) The Old Mind Trick offers access to a handful of low-grade telepathic powers rather than simply producing a single effect – thus offering a great deal of flexibility. I’d probably peg it as a level two power if there’s a cost on using each of the abilities it grants access to, and probably at level three without such a cost. After all, the “many uses” aspect is quite important to a psychic character with a limited list of known abilities.

#5) The Spirit article was indeed a part of the answer to the question about the Spirit Summoning metaspell. Most of the spirits mentioned use the same basic template (although they sometimes have more witchcraft). The full answer on this one is (once again) far too long for comments though, so it has become another article. https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/eclipse-and-spirits-ii-spirit-summons/

#6) The Unseen Servant enhancements will also be a little long for comments, so it will have to become another article.

#7) It’s worth noting that Paths of Power I and II were written for a more-or-less conventional game, with more or less conventional classes. In Eclipse it’s a bit hard to sort out what’s a “class feature” and what isn’t – so it might be best phrased as “you get to use either your own abilities in an area OR your target’s first level abilities in that area, whichever is better”. That way there’s no need to try and sort out what’s a “feature of the class” (which is hard to define in Eclipse) or to exclude HP, BAB, and Saves. If you have – somehow, at level 12 – a poorer BAB, or fortitude save, than your target had at level one, you get to use their score. Other than that, you certainly have enough limitations on it to bring it down to level six from level seven and it should work just fine.

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- westb3, on March 28, 2014 at 7:41 pm said:
  
  I should have clarified, the Old Mind Trick only gives one of those effects per manifestation, not at will use of any of them during the duration. The duration and other effects were meant to be universal limits for the effects possible, some would use that full duration like Empathy or Sensitive, some are Instantaneous effects like Sending of Influence.
  
  That is how I meant for it to be read, like the way I take the Manifestations of Ilium spell to work. I suppose I am asking if the theme of “projective or receptive telepathy” is narrow enough in focus to qualify for the Invocation being +1 level from the effects it can provide?
- Thoth, on March 28, 2014 at 11:56 pm said:
  
  I’d say so. It’s certainly as narrow as “basic illusions” is.
- Thoth, on March 29, 2014 at 9:22 pm said:
  
  Also, here’s the link to the article on the Shapeshifting notion: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/eclipse-talismanic-mystics/

Michael Fuller, on March 25, 2014 at 5:36 am said:

Hello,

I noticed that you have done the Level-by-Level Base Class Breakdowns for fantasy classes. I’m wondering if you’ve done the same for some of the d20 modern/future classes?

Thanks.

alzrius, on March 25, 2014 at 12:48 pm said:

Michael, I hope you don’t mind my chiming in here: the d20 Modern base classes are given breakdowns within the pages of Eclipse itself, which you can download for free over here.

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- Thoth, on March 26, 2014 at 2:52 am said:
  
  I believe he means the totals for each individual level, instead of just the level ten summary.
  
  And after days wading though the links for the index post doing a few class breakdowns should be quite relaxing…
- Michael Fuller, on March 26, 2014 at 12:56 pm said:
  
  I did see the total after I posted. But Thoth is correct. I was wondering about the individual levels. Thanks!
- Thoth, on March 28, 2014 at 7:28 pm said:
  
  And here we go for the first bit: the base classes. https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/20558/

Derek, on March 27, 2014 at 6:21 am said:

Have you ever considered rules for tinkering with magic items? They are technology of a sort and yet tinkering does not appear anywhere in the core rules of any edition I have read. Upgrading, yes, but minor improvements and changes, no.

Thoth, on April 1, 2014 at 12:56 pm said:

Once again, the answer has gotten too long for comments, so it’s up over here; https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/precepts-of-the-eclipse-tinkering-with-magic-items/

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verequus, on March 30, 2014 at 10:49 am said:

I’m playing a rogue/sorcerer going the arcane trickster rogue in pathfinder. I’ve agreed with the GM to keep his rogue abilities hidden. Which is problematic if I use only the pathfinder stuff as sooner or later people will start wondering why I am lacking in magical abilities. So I’ve been thinking how to get more oomph into the build.

My character is level 3, so to see what I have to work with, I created a naive rogue 3/sorcerer 3 build. This showed that there isn’t much overlap between both classes, so I can’t add much stuff to a full sorcerer. Even if I sacrifice BAB and saves in the beginning to buy abilities which save me CPs in the long run (like the suggestions you pointed out in the sorcerer eclipse build). I’ve been thinking of splitting up slots and caster level to free up some points, but I’ve been wondering if I’m too conservative. Do you have some suggestions regarding a rogue who can fool others (including players) into being nothing more as a run-of-the-mill sorcerer?

Thoth, on April 1, 2014 at 12:53 pm said:

Well, that’s easy enough; there’s a possible build up now over HERE.

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alzrius, on March 30, 2014 at 8:31 pm said:

A number of spells in Eclipse (and Paths of Power, and Practical Enchanter, etc.) rely on mystic link effects, whether links sustained purely by a spell, or by utilizing a link between the target and something with its own link to them (e.g. a piece of their body, a blood relative, their (true) name, etc.).

What sort of spell would be able to defend against these sorts of links? Presumably it wouldn’t be that difficult to set up some sort of temporary shielding between the caster and some kind of outside link…but a permanent severance between the target and something intrinsically linked to them seems like it’d be more difficult (severing the link between the target and a lock of their hair is one thing, but between them and their kin, or even their name, is something else altogether).

Since the 10th-level spell Cleanse the Soul seems like the ultimate version of such a severance, is it safe to presume that all such magic in this regard would be sub-epic level?

Thoth, on April 2, 2014 at 12:54 am said:

I think that this one will definitely go on the article list – but in short, most link-breaking spells are indeed of considerably lower level. Breaking the link with a possession is generally easy. Breaking a Spell-Link is basically just Dispelling it. Breaking the links with relatives isn’t too hard – but tends to have emotional and social side effects (a spell that breaks the link while avoiding those is a LOT harder). Breaking the link with your name… depending on how strong Nymic Magic is in the setting that could be a pretty complete transformation. Breaking links with your body parts is easy, doing so selectively while holding on to your link with your body is somewhat harder.

In some cases “avoiding side effects” might push a spell above tenth level, but it’s rare. Cleanse the Soul, of course, does not care about side effects; you’re supposed to be dropping all those links anyway because you’re dead already and need to move on.

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- alzrius, on April 27, 2015 at 12:11 pm said:
  
  Forgive me if this seems nagging, but I’d like to “bump” this particular topic.
- alzrius, on March 16, 2016 at 5:33 pm said:
  
  Is this one still on the article list? I’d love to see it expounded upon further.
- Thoth, on March 17, 2016 at 1:19 am said:
  
  Yes it is. It’s just been a question of time crunch and disorganization versus whatever’s actually in play and whatever inspiration strikes. I shall try to move it up though.
- alzrius, on April 8, 2019 at 2:38 pm said:
  
  Hopefully this article is still in development; the topic remains one that I’d like to see fleshed out.
- Thoth, on April 13, 2019 at 10:14 pm said:
  
  It had gotten rather held up because I wasn’t entirely happy with it – it’s such a broad topic that it wound up lacking focus – but here we are! Part I and Part II. Hopefully those will prove useful!

alzrius, on April 29, 2014 at 10:41 am said:

A little over a year ago I asked my fellow (and much more popular) reviewer Endzeitgeist to review Eclipse. Earlier today, he posted his take on the book. You can find it at his website over here.

Jasper, on May 17, 2014 at 2:06 am said:

I have used Eclipse in a campaign I was running, and had considerable success with creation of various ‘martial’-type characters, some of them quite original. But I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that whenever I try to figure out how to use Eclipse to create a spellcaster (or at least, one that differs from a “vanilla” emplate in any signficant way), I find my eyes just sort of glaze over, and I can’t figure out how to go about it. SO I figure it’s about time to swallow my pride, and ask for help.
1) First I already own Eclipse 1 & 2 (in hard copy, no less!). What is the logical ‘next’ book to buy to learn about magical builds?
2) If I wanted to make a character who had normal MU spells, but could only cast them by time consuming ritual, would that be bought as a limitation on caster level? Or some other mechanism I am missing? For example, think of a character who can carefully inscribe a symbol on a door that will eventually unlock it, or slowly cast various divinations.

Thoth, on May 18, 2014 at 11:24 am said:

1) Is awkward; while The Practical Enchanter can be useful in creating any magic-using character it’s not specifically designed for use with Eclipse; it’s simply an organized list of effects and templates for using them and a variety of practical considerations. Similarly, Paths of Power contains a lot of interesting effects, but it was designed more for use in a “normal” game.

Sadly, sales were never anywhere near high enough to turn Distant Horizons Games into more than a hobby, so Eclipse III is only being worked on when I happen to have some spare time for it; there’s no immediate help there. It’s likely that the best option at the moment is simply to ask questions here; there are a fair number of articles up on making mages already – and if there isn’t one for what you want, new topics are always welcome.

2) The easiest way to build a ritualist caster is to simply take magic levels (say, “Wizard”, normally 14 CP per magic level) and restrict them:

-if the characters rituals simply take up a good deal of time, his or her spellcasting is Corrupted – reducing the cost to 9 points per magic level.

-if the characters rituals take up a lot of time AND call for lots of equipment and exotic components, his or her casting levels are Specialized – reducing the cost to 7 points per magic level.

-if the character needs a massive occult library, a laboratory or massive trunks full of occult components, lots of time, and a few aides to work magic… then his or her magic levels are both Specialized AND Corrupted, reducing their cost to 5 points per magic level. Such a character’s magic won’t be a lot of use on an adventure, but it’s pretty cheap.

Any of those options will free up a fair chunk of points to buy other abilities with, allowing a character who’s limited to ritual to be more effective in other ways.

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- Jasper, on May 18, 2014 at 1:54 pm said:
  
  Thank you, that’s what I needed.

Brett, on May 19, 2014 at 3:38 pm said:

Something I have been curious about, how would you represent Smartclothes in a normal d20 quasi medieval setting? I know most of it could be built as a set of Innate Enchantments, but I would be curious to see you do a more involved version, likewise how things like a computer, HUD or Sensory & Communication systems would work.

spellweaver81, on May 20, 2014 at 11:06 pm said:

Off hand, I’d be tempted to try and build such a thing as a rather elaborate follower/familiar/companion character that takes the form of a spirit bonded to one of your possessions or even possessing yourself. Said character can then be built buying a whole bunch of the relevant abilities and skills as innate parts of being a spirit. That would also probably be in better keeping with the generic quasi-medieval setting than a magical computer too.

Hmm, now I have the image of a mage running around with a small horde of minor spirits. Each providing some unique skill or ability or possibly be sent off to carry messages and such. Possibly with the disadvantage that no one else can see or hear these spirits except the character for the amusing one sided arguments others will see.

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Thoth, on May 22, 2014 at 2:00 am said:

I’ll give it some thought – but it’s definitely awkward, simply because futurism and being near-universal are pretty big themes with Smartclothes, as is the existence of a network to connect to. Still, there are a few ways in which it might work.

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Thoth, on May 27, 2014 at 1:00 am said:

And here we go: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/eclipse-arcane-smartclothes/

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Jasper, on May 19, 2014 at 10:51 pm said:

Another magic question:
Is there a way in the system to design a character abiltiy to craft a narrow class of basic magic items (e.g., +1 swords), without otherwise having spell-casting abilities? I am thinking of legendary smiths (in several ancient cultures) were considered able to make magical weapons, without being able to through fireballs, etc.

spellweaver81, on May 20, 2014 at 10:49 pm said:

There’s usually a couple ways to do this. First option is to take a limited immunity to the need to be able to cast spells to create some types of enchantments. Depending on the game master this could be a major or minor immunity although I’d likely say it was a minor one. A second option would be to buy a small spell progression chart limited to only provide for the prerequisites of forging magical items. I would argue that’s specialized and corrupted and you could probably make do with the paladin/ranger progression for most enchantment effects.

I’m sure Thoth could provide additional ideas as well.

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spellweaver81, on May 20, 2014 at 11:08 pm said:

Another option might be to consider the Dwarven Rune Mastery skill discussed here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/skills-of-the-eclipse-ii-dwarven-rune-mastery-subsumption-and-identities/

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- Jasper, on May 20, 2014 at 11:27 pm said:
  
  Thanks for that – I had missed the “Skill-3 = lvl” mechansim the first time through, and it has merit.
Thoth, on May 22, 2014 at 1:36 am said:

Well there’s a major distinction there. A d20 spellcaster can turn out a +1 sword in two days, quite reliably, and it will be pretty much identical to every other +1 sword.

Legendary smiths tend to have spent years learning their craft, to forge their blades with exotic metals and components, to perform odd rituals over them, to engrave them with symbols and images, to give them names, to make each one unique, and to take rather a long time to make them. They even often use special tools and techniques, temper them in blood from exotic magical creatures, seek priestly blessings, and go on quests to get the things empowered. They don’t, however, spend experience points doing it. If anything, they tend to gain experience making items.

In Eclipse terms, what they’re using isn’t any form of “Create Item”. It’s either Create Artifact or Create Relic – probably Specialized and Corrupted in a very limited field since, at their base, either of those abilities can be used to create any artifact or any relic. You can get that for a mere 2 CP,

Player characters tend to go for less-versatile, and more expensive (at least in terms of experience points) Create Item abilities simply because they don’t want to spend months making a single item, even if it will be a unique Artifact wonder rather than another standard +1 Holy Demon Bane Sword. Similarly, they don’t go in for Create Relic very often since they don’t want to give up any of their character points. Player characters… tend to be in a rush.

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Jasper, on May 20, 2014 at 7:48 pm said:

Aaand another question: Does Eclipse have a mechanism to model the “Equipment points” from Spycraft? I would assume it would be some permutation of “Equippage”, but I’m not sure how to proceed from there.

spellweaver81, on May 20, 2014 at 11:14 pm said:

Not that I’m very familiar with Spycraft, but from what I’ve read online thus far I’d say the Gadgetry skill discussed here might be a reasonable fit: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/skills-of-the-eclipse-legendarium-gadgetry-and-glowstone-alchemy/

Otherwise I’d say the Equippage ability group you mentioned might be your best bet.

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Jasper, on May 20, 2014 at 11:37 pm said:

I guess I didn’t express myself well, let me try again: I was hoping for a note on scaling – how many Spycraft Gadget pts. you get/ Eclipse expenditure.

Thoth, on May 22, 2014 at 1:20 am said:

Well, as so often happens the answer got far too lengthy for a comment – but here it is:

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Jasper, on May 25, 2014 at 8:37 pm said:

I have recently acquired “The Practical Enchanter”, and WOW, What a resource!! I could go on and on.
And, upon finding the entries in page 118 therein, I Finally more fully understand your response re my attempt to translate that 4e (hiss!) Monk power: Thre “+1” and “-1” spell levels you mentioned were part of no structure I had seen before, (though they Did look a little liek the ones in “Heroes of High Fantasy: Elves”). But now I know.
There are some residual questions. In the case of that translation. , you mentioned that adding a first level spell to a 2nd level spell made it into a third level spell. In otehgr cases, what is the formula for that? Is is straight simple addition (It is in “Heroes of High Favor”)? In the Metamagic section of Eclipse, there is a different formula.

By the way, in case you care, This is how I ended up translating that Power:
Presence for a Push Aura: As you suggested. 2 CP
Immunity from AoO from Movement: As you suggested. 2 CP
Since the Attack component always hits, and does more if they fail, save, I figured it Has to be bought as magic. so I used Inherent Spell all the way. it’s really a physical maneuver, so it pretty much as to be “Internal”, I found a spell, “Spontaneous Immolation”, from Pathfinder, that does about the right amout of (fixed) damage, halved on a save, and leaves a lingering effect on a fail that can be shaken off as soon as the victim makes another save. That spell is Lvl 2, Medium Range, and only efffects one target. Changing that to a No range, 3 targets is pretty much a wash. On the other hand, that spell might be a bit over powered for Lvl 2, And I wanted to nudge the damage average up a bit, so call it lvl 3. 12 CP
But by the (perfectly sensible) guideline for Using an Inherent Spell, I can’t use it until 5th lvl. And I wanted to use it by lvl 3, so need to add Journeyman Master. “For Spellcasting” is one of the base options. Making it specific to the single spell is, well, Specialized, and since it doesn’t effect the damage or Range of that effect (fixed damage & no range) that’s probably worth a Corrupted as well, since the Bonus only helps the character for 2 levels. 4 CP
Then I throw in Reflex Training, to allow an extra Move action, either immediately before or after the package. I figure only allowing a Move Action is a Corruption. 4 CP
Summing up, 2+2+ 12 + 4 +4 = 24 pts. Pretty pricey . . but it Is supposed to be an “Ultimate Technique, and can potentially badly disrupt a defensive line, so I’m good with that.

Thoth, on June 29, 2014 at 3:15 am said:

Sorry about the delay – but I now have time to get back to the blog again. I’m glad you’re finding The Practical Enchanter useful there!

As far as the formula goes… The general rule is simply +1 spell level to add a secondary effect of at least one level lower than the basic effect to a spell – a better deal than Metamagic because it’s built into the spell formula rather than being added on. Thus, for example, if you have Mind Fog (L5) and want to add Solid Fog (L4) to it, the resulting spell will be level six – but will need to be designed from scratch as a new spell. Similarly, Baleful Polymorph might be coupled with Bestow Curse to add insult to injury.

And it’s always interesting to see how other people build things; they often take approaches that I would never have thought of; thanks for putting it in!

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alzrius, on June 22, 2014 at 4:26 pm said:

I don’t think this has been asked before, so here goes:

One of the class archetypes for a Pathfinder summoner is a synthesist (bottom of the page). This is a summoner whose eidolon isn’t summoned as a separate entity, but rather as armor around the summoner.

I’m trying to make something similar using The Practical Enchanter, and I’m running into some issues. The note regarding things like psychic armor on page 13 says to use the channeling variant of summoning on page 104. I figured the notes on channeling should be applied to the summoning rules for the summon construct spell on page 85, and that’d be the end of it.

Unfortunately, I’m running into some problems. The basic issue is that channeling puts a (fundamentally non-physical) spirit into your physical body. By contrast, wrapping a psychic construct around yourself does have a physical presence, so the notes on channeling seem like an imperfect fit.

In game terms, the notes on channeling say that you can use all of a channeled spirit’s extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, one-half their hit points, and any attribute modifiers higher than your own. That’s insufficient for channeling, say, a sixth-level psychic construct as astral armor around yourself (using the table on page 230).

By the above guidelines, you wouldn’t gain the psychic construct’s natural armor bonus, arguably the most important part of summoning it as armor around yourself in the first place. You wouldn’t take up an increased area, though you’d presumably still have that large creature around you. You could still move as nimbly as you normally could, despite having to lug the psychic creature around, but you wouldn’t have its speed score or natural weapon damage, etc.

Am I approaching this from the wrong angle, with trying to channel a psychic construct? Wanting to summon an astral entity so that it physically wraps around yourself seems to straddle the line between normal summoning and channeling…how would I go about doing this using The Practical Enchanter?

Thoth, on June 28, 2014 at 9:11 pm said:

Well, now that I can work on the blog here again…

I suspect that the simplest approach is to give your constructs the “Enveloping” modifier (from the Class-C construct ability menu, page 232 lower first column) as a bonus. You could easily add that to all your conjurations with the Amplify magic and Streamline. The Imaginary Friend version will work nicely for the purpose once that modifier is applied.

Now, if you wanted to do this as a primary power set without other spellcasting… You could do that with Specialized and Corrupted Caster Levels, a few generic spell levels (at least a couple through Enthusiast to allow you to withdraw then and rebuild your imaginary friend), and enthusiast (for the relevant spell formula), and thus set yourself up with construct armor that you could rebuild each level, Alternatively, you could use Inherent Spell, or Rune Magic, or any of several other approaches.

If you need to add more or stronger powers to the construct to match the Eidolon, a bit more Amplify and Streamline should do it – and it’s hard to limit it much more than to a single effect.

Brett’s version also works perfectly well, and I’m glad he filled in a bit while I was busy!

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- alzrius, on June 29, 2014 at 4:01 pm said:
  
  I managed to miss the enveloping power completely, since I was looking at low- and mid-level constructs, which are limited to menus “A” and “B,” whereas enveloping is a menu “C” ability. D’oh!
  
  I’m slightly confused about using Amplify metamagic to apply higher-level construct abilities at lower levels, since the theorem seems to just add Empowered and Maximized, though I suppose a creative reading would presume that those will unlock higher-level abilities earlier. A lack of imagination on my part, there.

Brett, on June 22, 2014 at 4:48 pm said:

If I might offer a way to acomplish your goal. It does require the Summoner to be a caster, but that follows anyway. The important bits for my build are the following.
The Mutant ExoKinetic
The Construct rules from TPE specifically the Imaginary Friend rule.
Lastly the Invocation ability from Eclipse.

To start with Invocation is
“Invocation
(6 CP). Invocation grants one bonus spell slot usable for any spell or power you can cast up to your current spell level limit in a particular progression. This goes up with the character, so it never becomes obsolete.”

The Imaginary Friend is
“permanently investing a spell slot to create an “imaginary friend.” Imaginary friends regain 1 HP per hour; if “killed” they take 1d6 hours to manifest again (with 1d6 HP) ”

The Exo Kinetic
“Summon Construct (from The Practical Enchanter), with a slight modification; the special abilities of the construct are normally fixed (-1 level), and it can ONLY be worn, not sent out on it’s own (-1 Level), but it automatically gains the Bonded, Fast Healing, and Enveloping Properties (+1 Level)”

So the Summoner takes the Invocation as a dedicated slot. That then is turned into an Imaginary Friend. At that point we get a construct of level X, which is equal to whatever the caster’s max spell level is.
The Friend is build at Max Spell Level=x, the construct is then X+1 as the ExoKinetic framework reduces it by 1 level.

So you get to pick the abilities as you level up. This could be changed of course if you wanted to take Invocation with Enthusiast to rebuild the construct, or change the ExoKinetic framework to not be fixed (+1 level) and instead let it be rebuilt, though this does mean at L1 you have a Small Construct that you might want to take some Streamline to reduce the spell level so that it can get up to Level 2.

Thoth, on June 28, 2014 at 9:13 pm said:

And that will work nicely. Thank you for filling in while I was busy!

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alzrius, on June 29, 2014 at 4:02 pm said:

I completely forgot about the Exokinetic mutant template, which essentially does exactly what I was looking for. After that, as you noted, the rest is fairly simple to put together. Thanks!

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- Brett, on June 29, 2014 at 4:46 pm said:
  
  Also, if you wanted to do so a further option would be to NOT follow the template as close, getting rid of the -1 Level for “Can’t go out on its own” and at that point you get a construct that can either be armor as the synthesist uses, or you can just use it like a normal construct.

Alzrius, on June 26, 2014 at 7:46 am said:

Sean K Reynolds has a new immortal rant up! I’d love to see you guys to the Siskel-and-Ebert thing again with this one.

Thoth, on June 28, 2014 at 11:32 pm said:

Well… I shall consider it – although honestly, at a quick look… I think he’s complaining that some people want 1) “Ex” abilities to conform to the laws of physics (they don’t), 2) think that “nonmagical” characters should not have “Su” abilties (an attitude that I’ve pretty much never encountered), and thus 3) perpetuate the “nonmagical characters should not have neat tricks” school of thought. Now, there may be some support on internet bulletin boards for those positions – but internet bulletin boards rarely reflect anything except the most extremely polarized positions held by those few people who think that an issue is important. The vast majority of people… hold less extreme positions and/or do not care, and thus do not post on any given topic. I’ll reread it when I’ve got a bit more time and consider it though!

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Alzrius, on June 26, 2014 at 3:30 pm said:

A straightforward reading of Action Hero/Crafting says that it saves you the time and XP of actually crafting things, but not the GP cost. That’s not an oversight, right? A character with that ability is still expected to pay the necessary monetary costs for what they craft with that ability?

Thoth, on June 28, 2014 at 11:54 pm said:

Yes they are. There are ways to get around that of course – specialized for increased effect and such – but at the base you do have to pay the mundane costs of your goodies.

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westb3, on August 8, 2014 at 5:40 pm said:

I was reading in the archives and was curious about another much older article series, the Feat Full of Tricks one. I am curious to know how you would do ones for other classes such as the Rogue, Monk, Bard, Psion, Wilder, Artificer and Summoner? I can see some ways to get the Monk and Psion to work using combinations of the already extant ones, but I would be curious to see what you would do for them, if they would even translate.

On the Artificer specifically I was wanting to ask your thoughts on two of the “spells” they get, the Spell Storing Item and Personal Weapon/Armor Augmentation as Innate Enchantments

. The first gives them a temporary wand at the cost of some small amount of XP, the latter lets them choose a combination of weapon/armor properties. The first I would just be curious if you would let it be set up as an Innate Enchantment at #uses/Day or if it even fits given that the way it works. I expect the other two are probably more of an option but they are notably more flexible than their counterparts in the Practical Enchanter which specify the properties as the spell itself rather than at casting.

Phfantom, on September 9, 2014 at 3:54 pm said:

Any comments on D&D 5E?

Thoth, on September 22, 2014 at 12:07 pm said:

I haven’t personally looked at it much past the initial playtests, there were just too many things in it at the time which had game mechanical effects but nothing on how they actually worked in the setting – and I, being a simulationist interested in world-building, need to know that. That may well have changed by now of course, but I’ve been very busy for some time now – which is also why this answer is late. Alzrius, over at http://alzrius.wordpress.com/ has been building some fifth edition characters with Eclipse, and so far it looks fairly straightforward. At least so far, you seem to be able to play a fifth edition style game mostly by simply limiting how large a set of bonuses someone can buy.

The Races: http://alzrius.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/eclipse-and-dd-fifth-edition-races/

The Warrior: http://alzrius.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/eclipse-and-dd-fifth-edition-the-fighter/
The Cleric: http://alzrius.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/eclipse-and-dd-fifth-edition-the-cleric/
The Rogue: http://alzrius.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/eclipse-and-dd-fifth-edition-the-rogue/
The Wizard: http://alzrius.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/eclipse-and-dd-fifth-edition-the-wizard/

I may get to it myself after they finalize things – but at this point all of our current games are working just fine, and show no signs of closing down anytime soon. Even if they did… I’ve already got quite a few good game systems that have never been played to hit first.

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TommyNihil, on September 22, 2014 at 2:56 pm said:

So I’ve been re-reading my copies of Paths of Power and something’s bothering me, specifically the human racial magical path. It mostly seems concerned with blowing shit up. Don’t get me wrong, a healthy love of explosions is an essential part of humanity. However, in DnD at least, humanities main schtick is their adaptability. With that in mind, wouldn’t it make more sense to either A) Put together a list of spells that emphasize adaptability or B) Let humans simply elect one path to get for free in lieu of having a racial magical path to represent that humans specific tradition/culture/personal inclination?

Thoth, on October 7, 2014 at 2:21 am said:

And I’m sorry this took so long to get to – but the answer, as so often happens, got too long for the comments section, and has become a small article over HERE.

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alzrius, on October 27, 2014 at 8:35 am said:

So I’ve been watching several anime lately (e.g. Noragami, Soul Eater, etc.) that have characters that change their shape between human forms and physical objects (e.g. a person who turns into a sword, or two sisters who turn into pistols, etc.). In the latter form, they retain their intelligence, ability to communicate (either verbally or telepathically), and often have some degree of limited autonomy (e.g. a sword that doesn’t want to be wielded can have a dulled cutting edge) – in essence, they change from people to being sentient magic items.

Given that the Shapeshift power in Eclipse doesn’t seem to allow for a construct mode, how would you have Eclipse model this power?

spellweaver81, on November 6, 2014 at 7:18 pm said:

Hmm, not sure how I would approach this one. Off the top of my head I would be looking at a variation of the Iron Body spell that mimics a specific magic item and then building a power that mimics said spell as an innate spell-like ability or something. So probably in the neighborhood of a level 8 spell converted to a spell-like ability and a higher level spell if you wish to be able to switch what type of magic item you wish to change yourself into. That gets rather expensive fast, but on the other hand, being able to transform into most any sentient magic item you can think of on demand is pretty much asking for a high cost.

Thoth may have other ideas though.

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- alzrius, on November 7, 2014 at 10:39 am said:
  
  Thanks for the reply. I was thinking it might be some sort of Immunity (to not being able to Shapeshift into a construct, specialized for the form of sentient magic items only) in conjunction with the Shapeshift power, myself. Given that this form wouldn’t allow for things like independent movement, I’d imagine that if it was written as a spell, it’d have a lower level than iron body; that said, I could be wrong there.
  
  It’s worth noting that the specifics of this ability are all over the place in these series. In Noragami, for example, the people with this ability can’t control it on their own; their shapeshifting is done via the commands of the god they work for. In Soul Eater, by contrast, these characters control their own shapeshifting, and can partially shift, rather than all-or-nothing.
  
  Changing into multiple types of weapons is highly unusual, but not unknown – there’s one character in Soul Eater who has several weapon forms, for example.
- alzrius, on November 7, 2014 at 10:42 am said:
  
  Hm, I should have said “can choose to partially shift, in addition to all-or-nothing transformations.”
- spellweaver81, on November 8, 2014 at 8:52 pm said:
  
  Hmm, I agree the Level 8 spell could be up for debate for the reasons you describe. I simply eye-balled the most similar spell I knew off the top of my head and figured that exchanging the magic immunity and mobility for the wide variety of useful enchantments and the ability for others to use them as a roughly even trade-off.
  
  On the other hand, Shapechange is a Level 9 spell and allows one to transform into any creature of any type, which I would assume would allow constructs. So for a variant that allows only constructs would probably cost a Level 8 spell (maybe 7), and a variant that allows only one specific form would likely be Level 6.
  
  I must also admit I’ve not watched any of the anime referenced and so went with Bleach since the effect described sounds somewhat similar to what the zanpaktu supposedly do.
  
  TommyNihil’s proposal down below is also worth looking at too.
Phfantom, on November 7, 2014 at 2:07 am said:

If your race is type Construct then the shapeshift power allows construct shapes.

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- alzrius, on November 7, 2014 at 10:32 am said:
  
  That’s true, but the implication in these series (when it’s not stated outright) is that these are people who have the power to transform into weapons, rather than being artificial constructs in their own right.
TommyNihil, on November 7, 2014 at 12:58 pm said:

I think is one of those occasions were you have to look past the special effects of what’s happening and try to stat the mechanics.

When you transform into a weapon, two things happen:
1) You are substantively removed from the scene, unable to take independent action; and,
2) Someone else gets a power-up.

1 is easily accomplished via a variation of the 2nd lvl spell Rope Trick that affects only one person and has a viewing portal based around the weapon (See part 2), instead of a fixed point. Take that as an innate spell and add daily uses as needed.

2 can get more complicated. There’s already an ability that lets power up others: Blessing. Blessing lets you share abilities with someone else when your abilities exceed theres. Sadly, that means you have to either buy double the ability you wish to give others, as they can only get half the amount, or specialized the ability for double effect / only to give to others with blessing. As the whole point of this is that the weapons can’t wield themselves, option two makes more sense. Specialize blessing by “/ only works while character is in extradimensional space” and you’ve got the basic framework.

After that it’s easy. To give them a weapon, buy “Spirit Weapon, Specialized for double / only works with blessing.” Levels of imbuement specialized similarly to make the weapon more powerful. Innate Spells to represent special attacks, etc.

Throw in a mystic link if you want to be able to talk to the wielder as a weapon.

The problem with this is it’s rather boring for the character/weapon. They don’t actually get to do much beyond activate their ability and then bugger of to their sealed subdimension while the wielder does all the work. I’d suggest a player who wants to wield a sentient artifact/friend invest in companion. You can even swing it at first level by 1) taking Template for +6 points (if your DM likes you) or 2) using Transference to give him the necessary CP.

As a +2 template, this build would look something like:

Living Weapon (+2 Template, 62 points).
Transformation (Innate Spell, Rope trick variant, +2 bonus used, 9 CP; Blessing, Specialized for half cost / only works while Rope Trick Variant is activated, 3 CP; Total 12 CP): Character can “transform” into a weapon 4 times a day. Each transformation lasts an hour at first level.

Weapon Form (Psychic Weapon, Specialized for double effect / only works with blessing, 6-9 CP)

Mental Link (Mystic Link w/ communication, Specialized for half cost / only works while “Transformed”, 3 CP)

Miscellaneous Powers (38-41 CP of various powers the characters artifact form grants the wielder, all specialized for double / only works with blessing.)

Does that make sense?

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- spellweaver81, on November 8, 2014 at 8:36 pm said:
  
  Not a bad approach. I just got hung up on the idea of the character becoming a construct and so the Iron Body spell was the first thing to come to mind as a baseline. Your way is probably the way I’d go, although I agree with you that the whole concept sounds like it could get boring fast.
- alzrius, on November 9, 2014 at 5:38 pm said:
  
  On the issue of taking living weapons as companions, I agree that such a character works better as an NPC companion of a PC (or another NPC) than as a PC themselves. The living weapons (“regalia”) in Noragami are quite clearly companions – both because their abilities are explicitly gained from the god each one serves, but also because they have very little control over their powers; they change into weapons and back as their god wills it, and can’t do so on their own.
  
  That said, the above isn’t always true. The living weapons in Soul Eater, by contrast, can not only change back and forth as they wish, but can fight on their own by using partial transformations. Indeed, there are several characters who are living weapons that use partial transformations to fight without wielders.
  
  That said, TommyNihil, I’m quite impressed with the solution you’ve come up with! That’s most likely the way to go; kudos to you on coming up with such an adroit build!

verequus, on February 1, 2015 at 10:12 am said:

I’ve been doing an attempt to translate a new magic system (“Spheres of Power”) resp. the provided classes using it. Unfortunately, I’ve ended up with a build that eats 800 CP instead of the 500 you can assign. So I’m wondering where I went wrong, which is difficult as I do not have personal experience with this class. Maybe someone here can have a look at it? My notes are at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BXq7sCGLb03p-iwDxm9Tgd7ri4HbOEC6m7ZjRktOtu8/edit?usp=sharing and has the links one needs, including a way to get the preview assuming you aren’t inclined to buy the whole PDF.

spellweaver81, on February 1, 2015 at 12:49 pm said:

I shall try to have a look although I won’t promise any sort of a timeframe. Unfortunately, life has been rather insistent lately and I know Thoth is even more busy than I am these days. But I shall see what I can come up with.

verequus, on February 1, 2015 at 2:58 pm said:

Thanks! :)

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TommyNihil, on February 1, 2015 at 5:02 pm said:

Just a few things off the top of my head:
1) I may be wrong, but I’m pretty that anything immune to critical hits is also immune to sneak attacks. That saves you a couple of points. It might be a moot point though, if you take Timeless Body w/ the Transcendence ability (9 CP total) that’ll give you 10/magic. It also changes your type. In this instance, I’d argue that “elemental” is appropriate, which nets you Immunity to Critical Hits and Flanking. Of course, it also gives you darkvision and an immunity to needing to eat, breathe or sleep, so that’s a thing. Still, it’d save you 51 CP.
2) Fast Learner is your friend. I’d take it specialized in HD or Saves for double effect. That saves you another 34 CP if you take it at 1st.
3) Look into taking Restrictions and Duties. That could get you an additional 60 CP, and it’s made to explain the varying power levels between classes, iirc.
4) This is a little hinky, but you might want to look into the warding Rune hack from the Old School Setting on this sight. Warding Rune gives you +1 + lvl/3 (Max +4), to saves. That Innate enchantment 3 CP (only the one ability) + 8 CP to Naturalize it (as in the low level template, a suite of immunities to the enchantment being dispelled, costing xp or not stacking with outside sources, essentially turning it into a Special Abiliy, Specialized for reduced cost/ Only works for Warding Rune, 4 CP). That’ll save you 29 CP (36 CP – 7 CP)

So that’s 174 CP, though some of it’s a little dubious mechanically, and some of it depends upon getting some restrictions (maybe against using other types of magic?) or duties.

On another point: Skills. I’m assuming that the class you’re modeling gets 4 SP per level. I’m not sure taking Adept adequately models that. Adept only allows you to take four skills at half cost; it doesn’t double the number of skill points you get. There’s a feat from practical enchanter that gives you +1 SP per level. Take that twice and you’re good. Of course, it uses up an 6 CP but eh.

I haven’t looked at the preview yet. May have some more things to say after that.

TommyNihil, on February 1, 2015 at 5:37 pm said:

On the Warding Rune hack to save points on saves, you could also stack resistance (+2 competence bonus to all saves) with warding rune (+1 + lvl/3 on all saves, max +4) for a total of +6 at level 9. This would increase the cost of Innate Enchantment by +1 CP and the cost to Naturalize by +4 CP for a total of 12 CP, but it would also mean you only have to buy +6 for all saves, halving the cost and saving you 42 cP (54 – 12).

Of course, I’m assuming that Warding Rune is based on your actual level, not your caster level, and I’m basing that on the Old School Renaissance rules, so I could be wrong.

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- verequus, on February 4, 2015 at 7:10 pm said:
  
  Sorry for the delay, I didn’t quite found the time before to look at your suggestions when I had the books available.
  
  1) Timeless Body: A great hack to get what I want. :)
  
  2) Fast Learner: Actually I remembered that Thoth recommended Finesse, Improved (12 points) to use a different stat for the HP bonus instead. In this case we go with Charisma, the casting stat. This saves 80-12=68 CP. As Constitution is less relevant, this should provide in the higher levels mostly a parity with a core class character. Maybe we do somehow save 40 CP more than strictly necessary. Then we can raise the HD to 6 again, which puts this build ahead. Still, Fast Learner is worthwhile but I choose saves then. ;)
  
  3) Restrictions and duties would make the build deviate too far from the original, but I might come back here later.
  
  4) Warding Rune: I’m not sure yet if I should add it or not. Using character level and not caster level is something I’d assume is a given, considering the Fighter class takes is and Old School surely had no multiclassing yet. Still, even without this I’m down to 580 – 649 CP, depending on the chosen options, saving 150 CP so far.
  
  Regarding Adept and Skills: Yes, the class has 4 SP per level. I found the use of Adept for this strange as well but I went with Thoth’s use of it at the Pathfinder Alchemist translation. And do I understand this correctly that you propose in addition to Adept to get this Skill Points Feat twice to pay for skills in the Adept package?

alzrius, on February 15, 2015 at 4:20 pm said:

A quick question this time: are witchcraft powers (that target others) subject to spell resistance? Thinking it over, there seem to be arguments for and against having that apply. (If they are, then presumably they use a character’s total level for caster level checks.)

Thoth, on February 18, 2015 at 2:19 am said:

They’re basically psychic abilities, so they’re normally subject to power resistance. Of course, if you’re using magic-psionic transparency rules, either power or spell resistance will do. Of course, if the power doesn’t target you directly – say you’re creating chains around something – that kind of resistance will not apply.

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alzrius, on February 18, 2015 at 9:39 pm said:

I think I found a point that needs some errata applied. On page 190 of Eclipse, it lists the feat conversion for Endurance as:

Immunity (Environmental Hazards, Common/Minor Effect/Major resistance 4 CP).

However, an immunity that’s common/minor/major would be 6 CP; it would be 4 CP if it was common/minor/minor. The question, then, is which is correct – the listing for the amount of resistance, or the total CP cost?

alzrius, on February 19, 2015 at 10:33 am said:

As a follow-up to this, the conversion listings for Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration on pages 190-191 seem slightly off too.

Spell Penetration is listed as Immunity (Spell Resistance, specialized half-effect, Common/Major Effect/Trivial Resistance, 3 CP). Likewise, Greater Spell Penetration is listed as Immunity (Spell Resistance, Common/Major Effect/Trivial Resistance, 6 CP).

Normally a common/major/trivial effect would cost 3 CP and grant a +2 bonus, so the listing for specialization with regards to the converted Spell Penetration seems unnecessary; it’s already a 3 CP effect that grants a +2 bonus to overcome SR.

Likewise, simply upgrading to common/major/minor would increase this bonus to +4 for a total cost of 6 CP, rather than what’s listed (removing the specialization on a trivial effect).

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alzrius, on March 20, 2015 at 1:48 pm said:

I’m having a little bit of trouble with the Power Words ability in Eclipse (p.39).

Specifically, I can’t seem to figure out what the in-game characterization of this ability is. The greatest strength of Eclipse is that you can corrupt or specialize an ability so that, if you want to “reskin” it, the mechanics can be made to match the altered flavor text – but most abilities still have (or at least suggest) some sort of flavor text for the basic, unaltered ability; I’m having a hard time figuring out what is for Power Words.

Or, to put is another way, what are are Power Words, from an in-character standpoint? The character is containing a small reservoir of spells, separate from whatever other spellcasting abilities they have, in…what, exactly?

Thoth, on March 25, 2015 at 1:04 pm said:

Well, mechanically it’s basically the ability to store some magical or psychic energy caught at what would normally be mere instants short of the moment of release – somewhat further along than even a “prepared” spell normally is. Thus the very limited capacity; such an approach seemed likely to be even less stable than prepared spells are.

Given that the d20 presumes that psychic and magical energies are shaped by the mind, the default assumption is that “power words” store such energies in high-end mental constructs – strong enough to handle bottling up a good deal of energy in a highly unstable configuration. Given that high-end mental constructs (or “thought-forms”) are only one step short of becoming astral constructs in their own right it seemed reasonable enough to let them develop that way.

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alzrius, on March 25, 2015 at 1:19 pm said:

Thanks for the clarification! As a follow-up, I wanted to double-check that the spells you prepare with Power Words are in addition to your full complement of spells from some other source, rather than being an upgrade to existing spells.

That is, if I can prepare 10 levels’ worth of spells as Power Words, and so are able to be cast as a move action, that’s 10 levels of additional spells I can prepare that way, rather than simply being able to cast 10 levels of my existing spell slots as move actions, right?

westb3, on March 25, 2015 at 3:00 pm said:

That would be correct, there is no specific requirement or progression of abilities with “Power Word” so a character who is not otherwise a caster could use this but would need a different source for their abilities.

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Derek, on July 5, 2015 at 1:18 pm said:

So, might you release a 5e version of Paths of Power or Distinctions & Demerits? As much as I would love to see versions of TPE and Eclipse, I don’t see how you could do it within 5e’s frame work.

Thoth, on July 26, 2015 at 2:30 pm said:

Well, actually Alzrius already broke down the basic fifth edition races and classes in Eclipse: you basically only need a few lines on purchase limitations and – since the number of saves doubled – applying Resist bonuses to two saves instead of one.

Eclipse and D&D Fifth Edition – Races

Eclipse and D&D Fifth Edition – The Wizard

Eclipse and D&D Fifth Edition – The Rogue

Eclipse and D&D Fifth Edition – The Cleric

Eclipse and D&D Fifth Edition – The Fighter

Any kind of fifth edition stuff would have to await their licensing policy – although both Paths of Power and Distinctions and Demerits should be largely usable already,

Really though… I’ve been through the basic fifth edition stuff – and while it provided what you need to run combat, there was nothing whatsoever on how the abilities actually worked or interacted or might be researched or modified. There was nothing about how characters impacted the setting, or might change it, or why adventures would be full of “balanced encounters” instead of dealing with a world, It was full of exception based design and disassociated mechanics, rather than the coherently designed general rules that would allow a game master to fill in those things.

From my point of view combat mechanics are one of the least important things in a game – and so there was basically nothing of interest in either book. Even the few pages worth of Forgotten Realms information in the back basically just repeated stuff that had already been published in much greater detail.

I already own dozens of games which cover combat more than adequately. If a system doesn’t do something new and better, why should I spend money and time on it instead of just using one I already own?

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- Derek, on July 27, 2015 at 8:23 am said:
  
  Where you see disassociated mechanics, I see wiggle room and places to expand. If I want to be straightjacketed, then I would got with 4th edition.
  
  And I am not asking you yo buy 5e, I am asking you to write for it. There are already several 3rd party books released with Necromancer’s two large hard covers on spells and creatures being the best known (AFAIK). Right now Eclipse and TPE are very useful for Pathfinder, but if that falters and fades, you need to write something if you want Distant Horizons to continue.

Derek, on July 26, 2015 at 9:04 am said:

Why did a post from the 9th of July appear yesterday or today (the 26th)?

alzrius, on July 26, 2015 at 9:48 am said:

I believe Thoth is back-dating the posts, for some reason.

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Thoth, on July 26, 2015 at 11:40 am said:

A personal reminder really; I’m trying to get back to posting regularly, and it says “you still need to catch up!”.

There really isn’t any schedule of course, but it works to some extent.

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TommyNihil, on July 29, 2015 at 9:14 pm said:

Under the description for Theurgy (the Magical System), it says that Theurgic spell always take at least a full round action. The spells are based on skills, the verb noun combos the system depends on. Would applying the skill focus/speed special ability to these skills reduce the time needed to cast to a standard action? I supposed you’d need to have it on both the noun and verb skills for 8 CP each, so you’d realistically only apply it to your most used combat theurgy skills.

The other ideas for making Theurgy quicker involve specialized power words, or metamagic to reduce it via the “easy” theorem. I doubt the latter would work, due to the “always” language in the system description, but the former method seems pretty solid.

Thoth, on July 30, 2015 at 3:09 am said:

Skill Focus/Speed would work fine, and Power Words would work just fine since the release time for spell storing isn’t influenced by how long it took to store a spell to begin with.

I’d agree that the Metamagic approach probably wouldn’t work (barring a lenient GM of course); it’s just not what it’s designed for. Still, it’s not like abilities don’t get used in weird ways at times to suit particular builds.

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TommyNihil, on September 1, 2015 at 6:11 pm said:

I might have asked this before, but do Magic Levels taken as part of a racial template (or any other template, really) count against the LVL+3 limit on Magic Levels? Could, for example, a human take 1 level of wilder as his bonus feat, and then have four others at first level (distributed over levels 0 and 1 to get past the “only two per level” rule) for a total of five at first?

Can you specialize magic levels for double effect to get past the LVL+3 Limit?

Just working on a build involving specialized Wilder levels (only used to fuel random powers bought as spell paths/metaspells).

Thoth, on September 2, 2015 at 12:28 am said:

Things in templates do not count against the usual (Level + 3) limit – as is most commonly seen in racial skill bonuses. You’d need a lenient GM to get away with the racial bonus feat approach though, since those are different for everyone it’s “you have a racial ability that lets you take an extra feat” – which really doesn’t make the feat you take a racial ability. Given that leniency, however, that approach would work just fine.

You can indeed specialize magic levels to get past the (Level + 3) limit – an approach often taken by extreme specialists and used to build characters such as the Ur-Priest. Your game master may have doubts about letting you do it, just as many have doubts about the Ur-Priest though. (And there’s no point if the GM will have a hard time handling it).

That sounds like an interesting build though; spell paths / metaspells are usually a lot more interesting and character-defining than the usual grab-a-few-that-look-good appreach to spell selection.

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- TommyNihil, on September 15, 2015 at 3:11 pm said:
  
  The build I was thinking of was for a superhero who had a large pool of random powers and could only use a few at once. If you’re interested, the basic break down of his powers was this:
  
  It would be based on the Wilder magic level progression (which I love and use for most of my spell-casting builds) with the Limitations Spontaneous and Restricted: Choke Point (the caster can only have 2 greater and 1 lesser, or 1 greater and 3 lesser powers in play at any point. Dismissing a power ends any active effects), bring it to 6 XP per level, specialized for double effect/only to fuel randomly bought metaspells and paths.
  
  As for the powers themselves, I split them into greater and lesser powers. Greater powers are more flexible represented by metaspells (corrupted for reduced cost/bought randomly). Lesser powers are less flexible, but more numerous, represented by spell paths (no corruption here, the unifying theme for the spell path is “Randomly generated superpowers.”) I wanted a 1/3 ratio of greater to lesser spells, so I took the cost of three corrupted metaspells (12 XP) and 1 spell path (6 XP), added it together (18 XP) and divided by three (6 XP) to get my new Power Pool ability, which supplies one greater power and three lesser powers per level.
  
  *Shrugs* The actual character has a few tweaks that may or may not be legal (I doubt a GM would allow me to unspecialize the Human Fast Learner Racial ability and then respecialized and corrupt it for triple effect to buy Power Pool Levels, for example) but I like it. The build can hang proudly with the Justice League or the Avengers at around level 6 or 7 (until their spell levels run out), which is pretty good for a DND character.
- Thoth, on September 20, 2015 at 12:29 pm said:
  
  Well, that does sound nicely appropriate for a superhero. I’m not quite sure on what you’re doing with the Metaspells and Paths – getting only a part of the abilities per level perhaps? – but I think that’s just due to brevity.
- TommyNihil, on September 20, 2015 at 3:41 pm said:
  
  The metaspells and paths are kinda questionable. With the metaspells, I’m corrupting them for 2/3 cost because they’re essentially blind buys. So, each metaspell costs 4 points. The paths, however, don’t get a similiar corruption because paths already require a common theme, which in this case is “Random Superpowers.” Metaspells represent greater powers, which tend to be more flexible and scalable. Paths represent a plethora of lesser powers, which can be powerful but are less flexible or are flexible but innefficient due to having a fixed cost. I wanted a ratio of 1 greater power to 3 lesser powers, which means buying three metaspells for every path. Instead of doing that, I added together the costs of three corrupted metaspells (12 XP) and 1 path (6 XP) which comes to 18 XP and divided by three to make a new ability called “Power Pool” which costs 6 XP per level to buy and gives 1 random Greater Power (a metaspell) and 3 random Lesser Power (1/3 of a Path).
  
  So, yeah, questionable rules wise. I think the thing I like the least is corrupting the metaspells for being randomly generated as it doesn’t actually decrease their power or anything, it just makes it so that you can’t decide what power you get.
  
  Eh. Thoughts?
- Thoth, on September 22, 2015 at 2:49 am said:
  
  Ah, I think I see what you mean; you’re buying 1/3’rd of a Path (2 CP) and one corrupted Metaspell (4 CP) with each purchase of “Power Pool”, in both cases using “random selection” – as a Corruption with the Metaspells and as a linking “theme” with the Paths.
  
  You’re quite correct – random acquisition doesn’t limit the power of any Metaspell that you happen to get – but (Rather like the “Granted” magic level limitation on Page 15 of Eclipse) it’s fairly likely that you’ll wind up with a few metaspells which you’ll find quite useless and others that are dubious – which does seem worth a price break. It is a bit of a rules hack, but it’s not like I don’t do that sort of thing fairly often.
  
  The real question is whether or not you’ll have fun with it and whether or not your game master can handle it. If both answers are “Yes”, then it should work just fine.

alzrius, on October 1, 2015 at 5:26 pm said:

In the entry for Immunity in Eclipse (p. 34), the fourth bullet point notes that, instead of resistances, Immunity can add typeless bonuses instead. It then lists the bonus for each degree of resistance…but Great-level Immunity and Epic-Level Immunity are not given! Instead, it skips over them, going straight from Major to Legendary.

Surely this requires some errata (though it’s not in the book’s web expansion).

Thoth, on October 6, 2015 at 12:54 pm said:

This is partially an artifact of the writing process and partially intentional. The original ten pages of point-buy notes that got expanded into Eclipse only covered four levels of Immunity – Trivial, Minor, Major, and Legendary, matched to the usual available levels of Energy Resistance. Immunity got drastically expanded – but things that granted typeless bonuses (and thus possibly unlimited stacking) seemed potentially troublesome enough to keep the old restrictions. Ergo, I left the effective cap at +8.

That is pretty arbitrary, and it probably wouldn’t hurt anything to simply read “and so on” in place of “and Legendary +8” (the difference is only another +4) – but it hasn’t come up enough in questions or feedback to provide much prospective on changing it.

A similar note on reduced effects for Immunity to Attribute Damage is around somewhere, but has basically never come up; people wanting potection from attribute damage usually go for Grant of Aid, Martial Arts, or Mana – all of which may be limited use, but are far more versatile.

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editorial0, on October 5, 2015 at 5:41 pm said:

There was a reason for it, if I recall correctly. Specifically, we wanted to avoid odd-value bonuses for that specific ability and the Great & Epic bonuses would have been +5 and +7.

alzrius, on October 5, 2015 at 6:38 pm said:

But why cap them at +8 to begin with? Why not just keep scaling it up by +2 (e.g. trivial is +2, minor is +4, major is +6, great is +8, epic is +10, and legendary is +12)?

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Derek, on October 26, 2015 at 6:49 am said:

Are the rituals Legends of High Fantasy static or can they be modified on the fly? Are each of them learned or researched individually or can someone with the skill develop all of them easily? If the former, what do you suggest for research rules?

Thoth, on October 28, 2015 at 12:42 am said:

Rituals are generally freeform; a few minutes for the player, a few hours to a few days in total for the ritualist – a lot of which time can usually be covered during the “hunting for ingredients” phase. That’s mostly because of the general rule that research isn’t very exciting, but the search for the Cauldron of the Sun is likely to interest the entire party.

The trick with Legends of High Fantasy rituals is that the GM is in charge of the components. If you feel that “an hour spent designing the runic circle for the ritual” is an important component of the ritual, then the ritualist will have to spend that time each the rite is enacted. Other rituals (for example, several of those HERE) must be memorized to work – limiting them to those who want to drop a few skill points on rituals. Major rituals are often well worth memorizing to get a bonus on the check, but it’s always the components which are the key restraining factor.

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- Derek, on October 30, 2015 at 11:57 am said:
  
  Okay. Both the post you linked to and the one it linked to are helpful.
  
  Thanks.
- Thoth, on October 31, 2015 at 7:51 pm said:
  
  You’re quite welcome. I’m glad it helped.

Chrisianak, on February 23, 2016 at 4:14 pm said:

I have a few questions regarding ensoulment and sentient items/constructs. I ask because the spell says it puts a spirit in the item and “binds it to his or her will,” but at the same time, the spirit ranks correspond to ego scores.

First, does the caster get to decide the general personality and purpose of the item?

Second, does a construct become independent when made sentient, or does the creator continue to control it?

Third and related, what about items? If the creator or owner doesn’t control them, wouldn’t Heartstones and wards become completely uncontrollable once they start to get to rank 7+ with egos 21+?

Fourth, Can a character create and bond to multiple heartstones? Can they bond to each other? Fantasy borg anyone?

Thoth, on February 26, 2016 at 10:56 pm said:

The caster does indeed get to decide the general personality, alignment, and purposes of the spirit – partially by choosing an appropriate spirit and partially because he or she is more or less setting up it’s “brain”.

Constructs do become independent on creation, but most creators will opt to make “cooperate with your creator” one of their purposes (this can get weird if the creator winds up reincarnating and the item somehow recognizes them again).

Heartstones and Wards are generally effectively uncontrolled after their creator departs – but fortunately neither of them are subject to the built-in instincts that normal life forms are. They are concerned with the purposes they’ve been given and with whatever (likely semi-incomprehensible) personal urges they develop, but they won’t be seeking dominance, showing fight-or-flight behavior, or anything similar.

Yes, a character can bond to multiple Heartstones. It will require a separate Feat (or upgrade to Mystic Link in Eclipse) for each one. They could, in theory, bond to each other – but given that they’re generally immobile devices rather than active adventurers, and rarely have any unspent feats to use, tends to keep that purely theoretical.

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- Brett, on February 28, 2016 at 4:04 pm said:
  
  Sort of related, you mention in Practical Enchanter that more minor constructs like homunculi are probably the result of a dedicated “Animate Homunculus” spell, could you detail that?
- Thoth, on March 1, 2016 at 3:14 am said:
  
  I may have to rummage around a bit for that, but I shall see if I can find it.

chrisianak, on February 28, 2016 at 1:17 am said:

Thank you for the reply. In case you can’t tell, I love this spell. The possibilities are fuel for the imagination. The construct and spacewarp spell lines are my favorites.

So what I got from that is that the caster basically gets to describe what the personality, desires and goals of the construct will be. Maybe not making them slavishly loyal, but if well treated and their purpose not betrayed they will stay loyal? Likewise a hearthstone will follow the rules they are given by their creator?

On a somewhat related note if you don’t mind the further questions, does the caster need to supply a spirit or can an appropriate one be drawn by the spell? Could the caster supply a specific spirit if desired (say a beloved animal companion or friend who had died)? Could an ensouled spirit have ability scores above that of the original spirit? Could the rank of a spirit be improved later?

Thoth, on March 1, 2016 at 2:12 am said:

That’s pretty much it; the creator is building the personality just as much as he or she is building the item. Now that personality may develop over time, especially if it’s being mistreated somehow or circumstances change drastically – but like any other item with a purpose, it will normally try to fulfill it.

The spell normally draws in an appropriate spirit – but there’s no reason why the caster couldn’t choose to use a handy one or look for a specific spirit. That could complicate matters though; there are always plenty of spirits available in the multiverse, but a particular spirit might or might not be available (or suitable) – whether it’s already incarnate in another form, simply does not want to come (a spirit can always refuse to be called back to the material planes, just as you can’t force a Resurrection), or is somehow blocked or entrapped.

A spirit can be given ability scores above those of the original creature. You can upgrade mental attributes with spells like Awaken, or magical items, or experience, and downgrade them with curses, drains, and brain damage – ergo ability scores are more or less built into the “hardware” the spirit is working through, not into the spirit itself.

In general, a spirit’s rank can be improved later under the usual rules for upgrading items. Individual game masters may opt to disallow that of course, given that the rules for upgrading items are short and vague and – as written – allow you to upgrade a Wand of Fireballs into a +1 Shock Wizard Bane Longsword quite cheaply.

And you’re quite welcome to the replies!

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- Chrisianak, on March 1, 2016 at 9:26 am said:
  
  Thank you. That seems well thought out, I like it.

Brett, on February 28, 2016 at 4:05 pm said:

Had a few questions, the first is about Action Hero in slow advancement / non linear game. So in a slow advancement or non linear game where Action Points per Level might become a rather bottlenecked resource what type of modification would you suggest, some in game number of sessions to replenish, or regaining a point every “in game” month or an XP to Action Point conversion, possibly with Harvest of Artifice to give it an in game clock? The assumption I am working on is that while Action Points are meant to be used very sparingly in games where your characters might not level like normal, like something sort of like a modified E6 setting they would be overly limited.

The other question is about witchcraft / the lunar birthright. So first one which I expect is fairly simple, for the advanced witchcraft of “Flesh Like Mist” would you advise letting other upgrades from the “Shapeshifting” ability be purchased, maybe limited to only being shapeshifting the witch rather than things like the “Creatures of Blood” and similar?

Other thing is the Lunar Birthright Mana:3d6 Power & Unskilled Magic, the verbiage in Unskilled Magic seems to describe using points of Mana, but it seems they don’t have Mana and instead have Power? Is the idea they actually spend Power on the usual 4Power=1Mana rule for the Natural Magic option or how exactly does that work?

Thoth, on March 1, 2016 at 4:51 am said:

Getting extra action points for Action Hero can be a little tricky in a slow-advancement game – but there are a few basic ways to get around that:

1) Take a variant form. That’s explicitly allowed on page two of Eclipse – and there’s no reason why “gaining levels” has to be the trigger for gaining Action Points. Completing a major chunk of an adventure (usually 3-5 sessions or so) works just as well for a slow advancement game. It could also be at each seasonal festival to your god, or whenever you pull off a major heist, or some other in-game trigger; you just don’t want it too often. This isn’t a primary option because you have to be pretty cautious with it when it comes to Crafting, Invention, and Influence – but those are rarely major foci in a low-level game anyway.

2) Specialize or Corrupt it for Increased Effect / the user also gains an Action Point whenever he or she pulls off some especially dramatic, heroic, or otherwise remarkable feat. In a mystery-based campaign, perhaps it could be whenever the character uncovers a major clue or figures something important out.

3) Take an Immunity to the difference between Action Points and Karma. This shouldn’t be too expensive (Uncommon, Minor, Great, 6 CP), gives you a way to gain Action Points through major deeds, and gives you another option for spending them. Personally, I think this is one of the better options.

4) Buy Action Hero again – or Specialize or Corrupt it for Increased Effect – just to multiply the number of action points you get per level.

5) Get into the cheese. Buy Bonus Uses (number of times you get more action points per level), or Mana with Reality Editing (either as a substitute for Action Hero or a way to get more Action Points), or an Immunity to having the first action point you spend in a day count against your total (presumably Specialized to NOT be usable with Crafting, Invention, and Influence), or use Triggering, or Hysteria. Those aren’t my preferred methods, but if you can persuade your game master to let you get away with one or more of them, why not?

When it comes to “Flesh Like Mist”, presuming that the game master is allowing the shapeshifting upgrades anyway, there’s little real difference between buying advanced shapeshifting as upgrades to “Flesh Like Mist” and simply buying advanced shapeshifting and making it cost some power to use – so why not?

The Lunar Birthright “Unskilled Magic” option is really “Unskilled Psionics” – not that there’s actually much of a difference except in themes. It does indeed go by the 4 Power = 1 Mana rule.

I hope that helps – and if you have any more questions, do ask!

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Chrisianak, on March 2, 2016 at 5:31 pm said:

Hmm, have been looking at Ritual magic. If I am reading it correctly, the suggested DC of 10+2x(level of character needed to perform effect normally) works out to a suggested DC of 9+2xSL to reproduce the effects of spells. Would this work of level 10+ spells? Say a ritual of DC 51 to create a demiplane as the 21st level spell? A defined ritual with 7 components would give +8 to +40 on the roll. A character focusing on spellcraft, with the aid of a group of adventures to assist with components could do that fairly easily. How would you recommend dealing with the side effects (such as what they are and how to manage them)?

On a related note, with Applied Spellcraft from the Practical enchanter, would combining a DC 55 runic formula + DC 30 amplification +4 into a DC 60 allow a caster to use a 6th lvl spell slot to cast a 10th level spell determined by the formula? RAW that would seem to be legal, as well as using magic to boost spellcraft to assist in said check.

These are some monstrously powerful options, but they seem to allow for many of the high magic effects in some stories where the caster doesn’t seem to be able to throw around high level spells alone.

Chrisianak, on March 2, 2016 at 5:37 pm said:

Thinking more on this, it would seem likely that there would be a lot of powerful entities who would watch for rituals that would affect them and their interests and get various countermeasures prepared.

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- Thoth, on March 16, 2016 at 3:12 am said:
  
  And as so often happens, this got a little long… so the article-reply can be found on the other end of this little link: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/eclipse-rituals-and-the-practical-enchanter-runic-inscriptions/

westb3, on March 11, 2016 at 12:38 am said:

So something I have always done in games where I was DMing was to houserule that sights like Dark Vision, Psicrystal Sighted, Sentient Magic Items, all work like regular sight, they have a first range in which for most practical thought they need no light source. They then have another from the first range to 2x range that is “concealment” just like bright vs shadowy illumination works for normal and low light vision.

I am curious as to your thoughts on that houserule and on how you handle the oddity of a type of “vision” having a set range where it suddenly stops being able to see anything, but an inch closer can see normally.

I would also be curious how you interpret the Sighted ability of psicrystals in general, given they seem to be a bit confusing at least to my read (a sense of hearing with a static range for one?).

Thoth, on March 13, 2016 at 1:17 am said:

And this got rather long for comments, so once again the answer can be found over HERE:

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westb3, on March 25, 2016 at 11:33 am said:

Something I asked about awhile back that seems to have been unanswered,

On the Artificer I was wanting to ask your thoughts on two of the “spells” they get, the Spell Storing Item and Personal Weapon/Armor Augmentation as Innate Enchantments. The first gives them a temporary wand at the cost of some small amount of XP, the latter lets them choose a combination of weapon/armor properties. The first I would just be curious if you would let it be set up as an Innate Enchantment at #uses/Day or if it even fits given that the way it works. I expect the other two are probably more of an option but they are notably more flexible than their counterparts in the Practical Enchanter which specify the properties as the spell itself rather than at casting.

There was also this one
Eclipse 2, Shadow Elves, House Brecanasti, you mention improvements to the Unseen Servant ability such as giving them a portion of the user’s skills and sometimes a limited ability to attack. I assume the first is the Unseen Supervisor from Practical Enchantment, can you explain and post the mechanics and other spells for the ways to upgrade the Servant to have offensive abilities or any other improvements you have thought up for it?

Then a couple spells to wrap things up:

I think TPE mentioned Animate Homunculus, do you have a writeup for it?

For Bloodbinding from Paths2 what would the level be if the spell were Willing Only, or if it was Willing and just the 2 way telepathic link ?

So the SRD has Animate Dead and Create Undead, TPE has Vital Infusion, could you make a version for Psionics to make Astral Construct type creatures.

Thoth, on April 4, 2016 at 4:56 am said:

Well, this one has gotten started… Once I’m done with it (there are a bunch of things to finish unfortunately) I’ll try to remember to put up some links here.

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alzrius, on March 29, 2016 at 11:00 am said:

Out of curiosity, can a metamagic theorem with the Glory modifier be used in conjunction with a magic item? Could, for example, someone with Amplify and Glory use them when activating a wand of fireballs, or is metamagic strictly limited to the spells you cast and not from items? If not, how would you use metamagic with a magic item, other than building it into the item during creation (or upgrading it later)?

Thoth, on April 4, 2016 at 4:41 am said:

As usual, there are ways…

An “Add Metamagic” spell from The Practical Enchanter will work.
Using Blessing to bestow the effects of your metamagical power on the item in question will work.
The basic version of Empowerment won’t work, but if you increase its effect for the purpose of applying your metamagic to the item you’re powering there’s no reason why it shouldn’t.

There are doubtless other ways, but those are the three that come to mind immediately.

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- alzrius, on April 4, 2016 at 7:52 am said:
  
  Okay, I just wanted to be clear that simply having the ability to spontaneously use metamagic wasn’t enough in-and-of itself to apply it to a magic item (though it’s also helpful to know that having Empowerment, at least normally, isn’t enough either). Thanks!
- Thoth, on April 4, 2016 at 11:47 am said:
  
  Pretty much the usual for Eclipse really; “Not by default, but you can buy it”. You’re quite welcome though!

alzrius, on May 13, 2016 at 10:01 am said:

So I was looking back over the channeling variant on summoning creatures (The Practical Enchanter, pg. 104-105), and I had a question: channeling grants you the creature’s ability score modifiers if they’re higher than your own, one-half the creature’s hit points, and access to its extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities. But if the creature can actually cast spells, do you gain that ability as well?

For example, if someone channels a trumpet archon via the Pathfinder version of summon monster IX, would they be able to use the archon’s prepared clerical spells? If so, would you use its caster level unless you had more caster levels in the clerical progression? (There’s no need to ask about key ability modifier, since channeling grants that anyway.)

Thoth, on May 14, 2016 at 8:31 pm said:

Ah, an easy one! Yes, you would be able to use it’s prepared spells, using it’s caster level or your own (presuming a matching type of magic or unrestricted caster levels), whichever is better.

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alzrius, on May 22, 2016 at 2:32 pm said:

One of the main themes of The Practical Enchanter is that a lot of high-level spells – particularly those that have multiple effects – are essentially sets of lower-level spells that have bundled into a single casting, and that these multiple functions can be “unpacked” into their component spells, which then can be independently tweaked. This typically takes the form of spell templates or multiple spells that follow a particular theme.

Given that, how would you do this for the transformation spell? While several of its functions are fairly obvious (e.g. adding a +4 enhancement bonus to each physical ability score), others are less so (e.g. making your BAB equal your character level, which is going to vary wildly in terms of strength depending on your character build), particularly in terms of its attendant drawback (e.g. losing your ability to cast spells, or use spell completion or spell trigger magic items).

Thoth, on May 23, 2016 at 2:26 am said:

That one is a bit messy isn’t it? Of course it is a legacy spell from first edition.

The +4 attribute boosters are only level two as a base, as is Barkskin – which would provide a +4 at the minimum caster level for Transformation – but the usual spells have ten times the duration of these. Still, it’s all tied together, so I’ll leave them at level two.

A +5 Competence Bonus to a particular save would normally be a level four Sidestep Spell Template effect – but reducing the duration by a factor of 100 is much bigger than a mere factor of ten – so I will be generous and give it a slight discount, taking it down one level to Level three.

Next we have Proficiency with all Simple and Martial Weapons. That’s the Surprising Mastery Spell Template granting Two Related Complex Physical Feats for one round per level. That’s Level Three. (In theory we could squeeze in proficiency with shields as well, but that really isn’t all that important).

So a L5 spell (equivalent to four L3 spells or 2 L3 spells and 4 L2 spells) can handle the three Attribute Boosters, Barkskin, +5 to Fortitude Saves, and the Weapons Proficiencies.

That leaves us with a L5 spell to provide a boost of up to +10 to BAB. That’s a bit tricky; the (Weapon) Mastery spell template seems most appropriate, since it will increase ieterative attacks – but it would call for a very high level spell to get +10 (or more for some multiclass builds).

Still… “You lose your spellcasting ability, including your ability to use spell trigger or spell completion magic items, just as if the spells were no longer on your class list.” is a pretty stiff penalty for anyone who can cast spells of level six or higher. I don’t usually apply the notions of Specialization and Corruption directly to spells, and there’s no reason to do so with the lower level components, but it has happened – and in this case we have a Corruption too; “The user’s total BAB may not exceed the caster’s level”.

So… Fifth level would normally give us +4, tripling that would give us +12 – which should be enough to cover the necessary bonus through level twenty, which is the usual cutoff.

So vastly increasing your basic skill in combat calls for focusing on combat to the exclusion of magic use. That’s actually pretty reasonable.

Which neatly gives us the Transformation spell – as built up out of existing smaller components – at level six.

I do like to see things coming out right, don’t you?

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- alzrius, on May 25, 2016 at 10:17 am said:
  
  I do indeed, though I have to admit I wouldn’t have thought of specializing and corrupting the spell itself!

alzrius, on June 5, 2016 at 1:19 pm said:

So your recent series on sentient magic items has inspired me to ask the following question: can you think of any instance where it would be worthwhile – that is, beyond for reasons of “coolness” – to have a weapon that had been enchanted two have two different intelligences?

Mechanically, it seems allowable, as making an item intelligent seems to merely be a matter of GP (and XP, in 3.x) costs. However, I can’t see much of a point in doing so (or even where it would be intuitive…other than enchanting each end of a double weapon). After all, both intelligences would have the same “body,” so I doubt that they could take more actions per round than a weapon with a single intelligence could. Likewise, it’s pretty useless in terms of justifying adding more powers, since you could do that anyway without adding a second intelligence.

Is there any way that a multi-intelligent item functions as more than just a vanity project?

Thoth, on June 12, 2016 at 12:37 pm said:

Well… You could claim that they could more easily “aid another” on some skill checks or that an item that argues with itself would be funny. If you were making a mainframe and had a bunch of sapient programs in it they could share the internet connection and any boosts that the system provided. I suppose that you could claim that having a single item to protect is easier than having several (even if it makes it a bigger target)…

I fear that you’ve got me there. All the cases I can think of are pretty far out on the fringe.

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Eric Livingston, on June 17, 2016 at 8:34 pm said:

This is a great system, and I just bought up some of the Shareware titles like Paths II – looking forward to exploring them!

I’d LOVE to see a ‘starter’ version of Eclipse, or “Light” version in the same vein as many other RPGs have, such as GURPS Lite, etc.

I think having standard “packages” one can purchase to quickly get going is a great idea, and perhaps slimming down some of the rules to get to a lean “starting” set would be very handy, especially if compatible with the full system.

Really, it’s the only thing that’s daunting about the whole thing – how much you have to ingest/deal with to get started, especially with spell casting, etc.

Hope to see some more Eclipse in the future, with some simple or “standard” options!

P.S. – Of course, I’ve seen the links above that point to the 3.5 classes converted for level 1-20, and that’s exactly the idea. What I’m angling for is a nice PDF that pulls all that together and perhaps strips down some of the options and complexity to form a nice “Light” starter PDF of perhaps 20 pages or so that can get people moving quickly, in a “one stop shop” format.

Thoth, on June 27, 2016 at 1:30 am said:

My apologies for the delay, I fear I kept getting diverted from writing responses…

First up, I’m glad you like Eclipse!

There are some files about for a “light” version with a cut-down version of some of the “how to build it” articles. I shall take a look and see how much time it would take to finish up.

There are quite a few standard packages in Eclipse II though – including the level-by-level breakdowns of the standard classes and quite a selection of first-level builds, archetypes, and variations. That’s not quite the same thing, but it might be helpful at the moment.

A collection of packages might be pretty straightforward though; I could pull quite a selection out of the sample characters and races and fill any blatant gaps. It would have a bunch of very specialized items on it though.

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alzrius, on November 4, 2016 at 7:12 pm said:

A few questions regarding psychic constructs (The Practical Enchanter, pg. 230-232).

First, should the Mindful ability (Menu C) should also grant feats the same way that Sentient (does)? Also, if using Eclipse would that translate to using 6 CP “packages,” so long as they’re ones that the creator has?

Second, the Enveloping ability (Menu C), says that the wearer can use the construct’s hp and abilities, which seems to imply that the caster doesn’t get to use the construct’s natural armor bonus to AC or natural weapon damage, etc. Is that right?

Finally, to what degree can a psychic construct take actions if you utilize Semisentient/Sentient/Mindful while also using Enveloping? That is, the construct is being worn, but is also able to think and take independent actions. Can it only take physical actions if you take none, and vice versa? Or can it not do anything at all? What about actions such as making use of things like Spell Storing?

alzrius, on November 4, 2016 at 7:15 pm said:

An additional question that I forgot in the previous post:

The psychic constructs table tops out at 9th-level, but it’s not that hard to push spells above that, particularly if using Eclipse. What are some guidelines for what epic-level constructs would be like? Would there be “Menu D” or even “Menu E” abilities?

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- Thoth, on November 5, 2016 at 10:27 pm said:
  
  Sadly, Mindful only grants skills, not feats.
  
  If using Eclipse, the “Feats” granted by the Sentient option does translate to 6-point packages from among the creator’s abilities.
  
  The “Abilities” in “Enveloping” include all the constructs functions, rather like wearing golem armor. Basically, you’re wearing it and controlling it – rather like you were possessing it.
  
  If a construct is Mindful and Enveloping it gets it’s own actions. If the wearer is acting physically, the construct can only act mentally (for example, releasing a stored spell). If the user acts mentally, the construct can act either physically or mentally – although some physical actions might disrupt the user’s mental actions if they involve too much movement, strange positions, or something similar.
  
  Epic Level Constructs generally do not gain access to more advanced abilities; they’re simply built using the Amplify Metamagic to increase various factors, such as the number of menu choices they get. As usual, such options will stack.

alzrius, on November 6, 2016 at 5:10 pm said:

How do you square the prohibition (in The Practical Enchanter) on insight bonuses being permanent with the dusty rose prism ioun stone? As a continuous-use magic item (and a slotless one at that) that grants a +1 insight bonus to AC, and which costs only 5,000 gp to purchase (and half that to make), it seems like you could make that permanent quite easily via Siddhisyoga, or even Innate Enchantment.

Thoth, on November 8, 2016 at 2:27 am said:

The trouble with Insight Bonuses – and the reason for the various restrictions on them in The Practical Enchanter – is simply that the SRD spells that provide them (most notably True Strike and Moment of Prescience) provide very large bonuses indeed. Items using those spells are also reasonably priced. For example, there are the Gloves of the Master Strategist from Ghostwalk – True Strike 1/Day and also work as a pair of Gloves of Storing for 3600 GP.

Given that The Practical Enchanter is devoted to letting people create their own enchantments some limiting factor had to be inserted to avoid the massive-bonuses-whenever-you-please problem – and most of the existing items were “only a few times a day”. Ergo, I threw in a limitation on how often you could use Insight Bonuses.

That left the Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone as a unique case. Still, it was hardly the only legacy item that didn’t really fit the current system. Of course, later books and now the Magic Item Compendium have introduced several other items (such as the Ring of Mystic Defiance, Githborn Talisman, or Crystal Mask of Insight, Discernment, or Mindarmor) that offer continuous insight bonuses – some of them, like the +10 bonus from the Crystal Mask of Discernment, quite high.

To cover the current crop of items I’d have to add a note that “recent magical developments have revealed a way to obtain insight bonuses without risking the dangerous side effects of precognitive spells. Devices that allow you to gather information about an opponents patterns, or his or her emotional state, or otherwise obtain special insights may also provide Insight bonuses – but such devices provide much more narrowly specified bonuses than precognitive items do. Such items may be priced similarly to items that provide similar specific bonuses by other methods”.

And then just price Insight bonuses derived from this new category as if they were Enhancement bonuses or some such.

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alzrius, on December 10, 2016 at 2:32 pm said:

I have a question about The Umbral Form.

Using that power turns you into a shadow, the undead creature, for one hour. It’s self-evident that while you’re in such a form, you’ll have the standard undead vulnerabilities and immunities (e.g. poison, mind-affecting effects, being vulnerable to positive energy effects, etc.).

But what if you’re suffering from an effect that an undead creature would be immune to, and then use The Umbral Form? If someone were poisoned, for example, with a poison that lasted six rounds, and turned into The Umbral Form for an hour after the first round had passed, would they still be subject to five more rounds of the poison after they changed back? Or would it have been “used up” by that point, its potency wasted since the character was undead during that time?

Thoth, on January 11, 2017 at 7:15 am said:

As a rule, since you’re transforming your body, the duration is on hold – rather like a “Delay Poison” effect.

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alzrius, on December 21, 2016 at 12:34 pm said:

This seems like an obvious question, but I wanted to ask it anyway; to what extent do Eclipse powers and abilities (and other modifiers) that are dependent on “level” count ECL?

If I the recall mainstream d20 rules correctly, ECL is counted only in terms of how much XP you need to gain to advance to the next level (and, I think, for your expected wealth by level?) and nothing else.

In Eclipse, by contrast, does ECL count for other things that are level-dependent? Do you use your ECL when counting the total levels (actually ECLs, ironically enough) of followers you get from Leadership? Or for how often the bonus from duties applies? Or for calculating the limits of the adventurer’s template?

Thoth, on January 11, 2017 at 7:20 am said:

The only real distinction in Eclipse is that “Template Levels” trade in their base hit die and base skill points for +8 Character Points. By default, most powers – inherent spell, channeling, and so on – that function according to your “level” go by the number of hit dice you’ve purchased. As always, however, the game master may choose to make an exception – or a character could just pay back the 8 CP to convert a Template Level into a normal one.

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westb3, on February 3, 2017 at 9:58 am said:

Have you considered setting up a patreon account? I and I assume others are always super eager to view more posts and I know monetization of the site probably has some degree of impact in terms of how much time you can dedicate for it.

Thoth, on February 6, 2017 at 12:28 pm said:

I suppose I could look into it. I’m not too sure what I could put up in the way of exclusive content or rewards though.

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alzrius, on February 3, 2017 at 11:30 am said:

I’ve noticed that both Eclipse and The Practical Enchanter are largely silent on the issue of creating epic magic items. This is slightly ambiguous, since there are some areas where the books diverge from the standard rules, and so I’m not sure to what extent (if any) they’d do so there.

For instance, Eclipse has Create Item for traditional magic item creation, but there is no epic version of those feats (e.g. no Eclipse version of Craft Epic Wondrous Item), which technically means that such things couldn’t be made? Or would the basic version be sufficient? Likewise, The Practical Enchanter doesn’t list any x10 multiplier to the cost of epic magic items in its item creation tables (or any altered XP costs for epic items, for that matter).

Given that most of the subtler changes are still called out (e.g. making Heighten Spell innate, or having the magic item tables not use those footnotes in 3.5 that changed a magic item’s cost based on the spell’s duration), should those epic alterations for making magic items be left in, or discarded?

Thoth, on February 18, 2017 at 3:11 am said:

As so often happens, the answer to this got a bit long for the comments, so it can be found over HERE.

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alzrius, on February 23, 2017 at 4:24 pm said:

Looking over your (excellent) series of articles about how d20 magic would shape the nature and growth of cities, I’m moved to ask: what would “wizard schools” look like if you applied the same logic to such a concept?

I ask because the idea of magic colleges is a popular one, ranging from the Scholomance to Hogwarts (to, as we saw in the recent write-up for Trixie, Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns), and yet d20 doesn’t really seem to support the concept, or at least not incentivize it; the only downside or difficulty to being a spellcaster is the advanced “starting age” tables for spellcasters, and the idea that a wizard’s starting spellbook must have been paid for by someone else. Other than that, anyone with the requisite mental ability score of 10+ (to cast cantrips) has no problems learning magic just as easily on their own as they do in a scholastic setting. Especially if you’re using Eclipse.

To what extent do magical colleges make sense in a d20 setting?

Thoth, on February 25, 2017 at 5:24 pm said:

Hm… Probably worth an article, since “adventuring schools” do have to be shoehorned into d20. After all, the notion that “adventuring” is THE best way to gain levels, and that almost everything you get comes from levels, is ingrained in the system. Still, there are some possibilities. I’ll link the article back here when it’s done.

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Thoth, on March 8, 2017 at 12:44 pm said:

And now the articles are posted; Part I on the development of the idea, Part II on making it work in d20.

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alzrius, on April 27, 2017 at 8:36 am said:

I have a question with regards to channeling, specifically about Intensity.

On page 66, Eclipse lists that you can purchase bonuses for Intensity. My question is if these bonuses modify “base Intensity” (which is equal to your Hit Dice), or if they modify the check made on the Channeling Intensity Checks table? The latter option means that you’re buying an easier time affecting creatures of your level (or your level +1), whereas the former means that you can affect creatures that are potentially much stronger than yourself. Which is correct?

Thoth, on April 29, 2017 at 12:51 pm said:

They modify the base intensity That’s back-compatibility again; several classes got channeling but at reduced intensities – which I built in as the base level for channeling – and the Cleric bought a bonus to bring it up to the original level. Thus the drop from +2 per step for the first two intensity increases (bringing up the cost of basic clerical channeling by +6 CP) to +1 per 3 CP – allowing for the “+2” bonuses that had been available from various feats and other sources.

There are later modifiers to increase Intensity even further because in baseline d20 Channeling rapidly became quite useless except in special cases – as a power source for divine feats, for optimized “turning” builds, and in unusual cases. That was simply because the hit dice for undead creatures often went up much faster than their challenge rating – so a CR 7 Cloud Giant Skeleton with 17 hit dice was far beyond most clerics ability to affect. Given that the towering horror being held back by a far-smaller clerics faith was a fairly iconic image, I put in some tweaks to make it possible again.

Or you could just go for damage, which pretty much always worked. It’s less interesting though.

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alzrius, on June 7, 2017 at 2:55 pm said:

As a general rule, are you able to rest and regain mana/power/spells when in a form that requires you to spend mana/power/spells to maintain?

For example, if you have enough power to maintain The Umbral Form for eight hours straight, can you rest (undead can’t sleep, but since there are spellcasting undead they clearly undertake some degree of analogous downtime) and regain power so that you can continue to remain in The Umbral Form, possibly indefinitely?

Thoth, on June 18, 2017 at 10:22 am said:

Anything that requires that you regularly take action – including spending mana, power, or spells to maintain something – will prevent you from resting. Of course, you could take Deep Sleep (Specialized, only to ignore the minor interruptions of maintaining effects, 3 CP) to get around that.

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alzrius, on October 28, 2017 at 11:40 am said:

One thing I’ve noticed in most d20 games is that banishing – as in, sending a creature from another plane of existence back to its realm of origin (or at least, removing it from the plane it’s currently on) – has no ability to enforce the banishment after the initial act of removal.

Spells like dismissal or banishment will send a creature back to its home plane, but most such creatures that warrant that level of magic being thrown at them have the ability to plane shift and greater teleport, meaning that if they want to come back, it will take them 2 rounds to do so (one to plane shift back, with the 5d100 off-target roll, and then one to greater teleport back to the exact place they were before).

Given that there’s no standard metric (other than local world laws) that formalizes the whole “demons and devils cannot enter the mortal world unless called by local residents,” this really seems to leave banishment options without any teeth. Even most exorcism options (which are a variation, to my mind, of banishment) simply expel the possessing spirit; they don’t stop it from simply trying again (e.g. a ghost can just use malevolence again). Since summoned creatures go back to their realm of origin anyway when “slain,” and called outsiders apparently die permanently when slain regardless of where they are when killed, it seems like it’s always going to be a better idea to just go ahead and kill extraplanar enemies, unless they’re summoned (not called) creatures of extraordinary power and are there for a long duration (such as a Pathfinder summoner’s eidolon).

To bring this to a question: how would you fix this? Adjust local world laws to change how extraplanar creatures can get to a particular world? Or come up with better banishing spells and effects? Or something else entirely?

Thoth, on October 29, 2017 at 8:20 pm said:

And as so often happens, the response got kind of long again – so it can be found as a post over HERE.

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alzrius, on November 13, 2017 at 1:27 am said:

When using the enveloping ability with a psychic construct, to what degree do you get to take advantage of the construct’s type-based traits? I ask because some of them seem intuitive for the person inside the construct to be able to use, whereas others don’t, but there can be arguments made either way.

For example, since you’re using the construct’s hit points and natural armor (and size) bonuses, it seems to follow that you’re going to be protected against things like poison or a stone to flesh spell. After all, the construct is immune to those things, and it’s preventing them from reaching you. Or is the construct treated as being armor, in that some effects can go “through” it to get you (e.g. the same way wearing full plate mail doesn’t stop you from being “touched” by a stone to flesh spell)?

On the other hand, it seems less plausible that you wouldn’t be affected by a scintillating pattern spell, since you can see the spell effect to be affected by it, even though it’s a mind-affecting effect. Or, alternatively, is the magic unable to “reach” you because you’re completely enveloped in the construct?

Thoth, on November 15, 2017 at 4:58 am said:

By default, if the “enveloping” construct is smaller than the “wearer”, treat it as armor that grants various abilities. If it’s larger you’re essentially piloting a golem vehicle, and – while most effects won’t have Line Of Effect, neither will you. You’re also limited to the constructs senses and such. If it’s the same size, you can pick either.

For a more complicated answer… you are designing your own constructs. Ergo, if you want to leave some possibilities open – such as using your own senses as well, or having line of sight for spellcasting – it’s up to you. You’re just equally vulnerable to anything you leave open. By default, until the construct is destroyed, “wearing” a construct will protect you against

Poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromancy effects.

Critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain.

Effects (including Massive Damage) that require fortitude saves that do not affect objects.

Anything targeting a sense that the construct does not have will have no effect. Anything targeting a sense that the constructs do have would affect the user normally.

Presuming that Constructs are normally immune to “mind-affecting” effects due to not having minds rather than due to some inherent shielding effect, any mind-affecting ability that you’re actually exposed to will usually affect you normally.

And I’ll have to look at this again tomorrow; I’m falling asleep right now. Still, I hope that that helps!

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Jirachi, on January 29, 2018 at 2:30 pm said:

Could you please create a dweomer class? I am having trouble figuring out just what a dweomer based character would look like, and what the point expenditure would look like.
Also, on the subject of dweomer, I am unsure of how Lerandor’s rule is intended to interact with a system that allows you to a) with sufficient skill, cast free level 1 spells, and b) not have to invent, memorize etc. new spells, as long as they are within the level effect. How would you adjudicate this?

Thoth, on January 30, 2018 at 11:18 pm said:

Well, if you want something more specific that would be easy enough – but I’d need a bit more detail. Until then, there are some examples on the site, although some of them are a bit hard to find.

For the basics, there are a couple of level one builds – the Dweomer Specialist and the Starfire Adept.

For higher level characters there’s Amber, a sixth level dweomer user, and Karthos, an eighth level expert. The Star Wars d20 classes also use Dweomer for force skills, but are condensed enough not to provide many details. Here we have a very troublesome experiment in Familiars using Thaumaturgy.

For some general articles, there’s some general background, one on what some of the skills are good for, there’s Amnesia Magic, Machine Mastery and Chaos Magic.

There’s a fairly long discussion of practical applications of Lerandor’s Rule under the Runesmith build and and the answer to some questions about it.

And I hope that helps! If you still have something more specific in mind, do let me know.

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- Jirachi, on January 31, 2018 at 2:30 pm said:
  
  Mostly I was trying to create just play around with ‘what would a high level dweomer based primary caster look like’ and I blanked. I was able to maybe get something somewhat workable by multiplying what the Karthos build had but…
  I generally understand how the system is supposed to work, but what a ‘dweomer wizard’ looks like is something that I don’t really know. I feel that I could probably design a specific character, but would likely require frustrating
  fiddling with no real ‘baseline’ for how much mana to buy etc.
  Could a dweomer based caster do something similar to what the runesmith does with making lerandor rule spells just based off a single skill (since the descriptions for making a fireball with lerandor’s rule seem to indicate that there are a number of essentially metamagic adding effect) and what skill a dweomer user would use for that (spellcraft, the relevant dweomer skill?)?
  Also, the whole ‘the further away from the skills concept, the higher level it is’ seems to ask for a soft mechanic.

Jirachi, on January 31, 2018 at 6:06 pm said:

Just to summarize, if you want to be specific, I want to know what a level 20ish dweomer character who invests about as much in dweomer as a wizard does in there spell progression should have.

TommyNihil, on January 31, 2018 at 10:21 pm said:

My two coppers:

Dweomer masters primarily require three things to work their magic: skill points to buff up their dweomer skills, a caster level and the power/spell levels necessary to power it.

Skill points are easy. Buy two helpings of adept at first level for the dweomer skills (or one helping if you’re just focusing on one) and it only costs 4 SP per level to keep them current.

Buying caster levels and Mana for power/spell levels can get expensive real quick. My preferred option for powering damn near anything is to buy Wilder Magic Levels. In this case, the levels are Specialized for Double Effect (Does not provide any abilities, can only be used to provide energy and caster levels for dweomer magic)/Power Points provided are doubled and half are converted directly into spell levels. You’ll be a little magic starved at early levels, but what caster isn’t? And at mid or high levels you’ll be able to throw around plenty of magic.

That’s around 10 CP per level after the first (or 8 CP if you’re only focusing on 4 skills). Wizards spend around 16 CP per level on their magic (24 CP Wizard magic levels + 2 CP spells). So you have the about 6 CP per level to play with to enhance your skills. What to buy?

Skill boosters are a solid choice, letting you get off higher-level spells more reliably and for less cost. Augmented bonus is your best bet (and should probably be standard for any dweomer master) along with Jack of All Trades and its upgrade for a +2 to all dweomer skills. Between Skill Focus and Skill Emphasis, you can get a +9 to any one skill fairly easily. Skill Focus deserves specials mention as the Speed Option would allow you to cast all spells as a move equivalent action. Berserker shouldn’t be overlooked, especially in combination with luck. For a paltry 18(ish) CP you could be throwing around 9th and 10th level spells at first level.

Luck to take twenty on your Dweomer rolls would be valuable for when you’re a a low-level mage who really, really needs to pull a high-level effect out of your ass, but it reduces in value somewhat as your character grow more powerful. Taking it specialized/Only to force other characters to reroll saves against your dweomer abilities is valuable at any level if the DM allows it.

Hysteria deserves special mention, if only for the possibility of doubling the effect of any of your dweomer workings with affecting the actual skill DC. Taking it as +6 to save DCs for Dweomer Spells is sure to ruin people’s days as well.

I believe I read somewhere about using immunity to get rid of the penalties for being bound and gagged, but I never worked out the exact costs.

My build? If I were doing a pure dweomer master and not trying to “multiclass” it, I’d buy augmented bonus, jack of all trades 2x (possibly corrupted if the DM would let me get away with it to only apply to dweomer skills) and as many Wilder levels as I could before I hit the lvl+3 cap. Then I’d focus on one “bread and butter” skill that offered decent attack and defense and upgrade that with as many skill boosters as I could, moving on to the next when I hit the limit.

Don’t really have the time for a level-by-level breakdown. Hope this helps.

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Thoth, on February 3, 2018 at 2:11 am said:

And this answer got a bit long for comments, so now it’s an article over HERE.

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Eclipse d20 – Dweomer, Thaumaturgy, and Wizardry | Emergence Campaign Weblog, on February 3, 2018 at 2:10 am said:

[…] comes of working with a Mana pool. Of course, once you go that far… you might as well go with TommyNihil’s suggestion and use the Wilder progression to power things – although the actual savings aren’t that […]

Jirachi, on February 7, 2018 at 12:56 pm said:

Are you allowed to use temporary skill enhancement magic to make creating dweomer effects easier, and if so, how would you adjudicate?

spellweaver81, on February 7, 2018 at 1:11 pm said:

Usually yes, but I typically limit it so that you can’t use a dweomer for enhancing skills to enhance the skill you use for casting the dweomer itself as that results in a positive feedback loophole.

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Thoth, on February 10, 2018 at 10:26 pm said:

yes – if, and only if, your game master chooses to allow them. Since Thaumaturgy and Dweomer (unlike, say, Rune Magic and Witchcraft) are full-scale magic systems suited to dedicated characters, their major direct limitation is simply the casting level restriction. they’re set up to support a wide range of power levels, all dependent on how high a magic level the game master wants to have in his or her game. If he or she wants to go all-out, then yes! If he or she wants some restraints, treating it like magic used to boost Rune Magic skills – or going with Spellweaver81’s suggestion – is more appropriate. If he or she wants more serious limitations… they may well be disallowing Augmented Bonus and various other permanent enhancements as well as the temporary ones.

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alzrius, on February 8, 2018 at 4:36 pm said:

The Practical Enchanter allows for magic items to be built using subdividable charges, but how would you do this (if indeed it can be done) for magical abilities in Eclipse?

For example, a person casting a 3rd-level spell with Theurgy would need to spend 2 points of mana, since 1 point of mana is worth two spell levels. But this essentially wastes that last spell level. Similarly, an individual who makes less than 20 pounds of material with the Nightforge ability (Witchcraft) is wasting power. Could something like a Major Privilege allow for subdividable charges for these? Or would an Immunity be more appropriate? If so, what degree?

Presumably this would also work for powers where the “split” would be whole numbers (e.g. spending 1 power with The Umbral Form to use it for up to 20 minutes, rather than 3 power for up to one hour).

Thoth, on February 10, 2018 at 10:48 pm said:

There are several different ways:

Using Metamagic, making the effect you’re producing Obliging (probably the +1 level version) and/or Persistent will do it. It may or may not be worth it and would probably end after twenty-four hours.

Corrupting the ability for Increased Effect (allows fractional costs / usage) would work.

You could use the Path of the Dragon (the ability to absorb and re-invoke spells) or any similar ability to just store effects that you aren’t currently using, although that’s a bit of a workaround.

An immunity to having to use all of the duration or effect of an ability at once would probably be expensive, but would allow all sorts of shenanigans. Of course, a properly worded set of restrictions (no more than twenty-four hours, only abilities you are personally employing, etc) to Specialize and/or Corrupt it could make the price fairly reasonable.

Or – if you’re using something like Innate Enchantment – just use sub-dividable charges as written.

There are probably a few more ways, but that’s all that comes to mind immediately. I hope that helps!

And I hope that helps!

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Jirachi, on March 17, 2018 at 2:29 pm said:

The Rules for creating superheroes leave me a little ofput about how to create some archetypes.
How would you create a version of batman that could have his level of success in his superhero career while remaining on concept?
How would you create someone like Iron man, who uses modular powers (something I got the impression was more difficult and silly on unlimited usage abilities)?
I am also curious as to what those example characters sheets would look like.

TommyNihil, on March 24, 2018 at 11:41 am said:

Batman is pretty simple, really. He’s basically a rogue/monk combo with a few bells and whistles. Include some skill monkey features (2x purchases of adept, Jack of All Trades + Universal, Adding Int Bonus to Dexterity based skills, etc.). The Occult Skill Foresight seems tailor made for bats and should be a must have. Add some Luck with bonus uses to simulate his uber competence (and freakish luck, really). His gadgets are more difficult, but you could probably get away with some form of Equipage w/ Purchasing and Returns to simulate his bottomless pool of batarangs and smoke bombs.

Ironman is more difficult, given the power and modularity of his armor. I think I’d go with something like this:

Armored Hero I (Enthusiast, Double; Specialized and Corrupted for increased effect – Only for investing points in Relics and doing requires a workshop, with the resulting relics being limited based on how high tech the workshop is: 6 CP/lvl): Hero can devote up to six CPs per level of Armored Hero into relics to create his power armor. Doing so requires time, resources and a sufficiently advanced laboratory. Armor can be modified or repaired; however, doing so requires three days.

Scientific Wonders (Create Relic, Corrupted for increased effect requires a sufficiently advanced laboratory to make relics: 6 CP): Character create Relics, investing 1 CP for 9 CP worth of relics created.

That leaves you with 54 CP in Relics per level of armored hero. Rather than making the armor one big Relic, I’d carve it up into subsystems like the Arc Reactor (A bunch of mana + Rite of Chi with the Spell Enhancement feature), Weapon systems (Inherent spell set to run of mana w/ some specialized metamagic to add some boom), the Shell (Damage resistance, some defensive innate enchantments to boost strength and defence).

You get the idea. Granted there are a couple of sketchy parts to the build. I’m not sure, for example, that you can use Enthusiast in combination with Create Relic, and corrupting Create Relic to boost the amount you’d get per CP seems kinda cheap.

Still, that’s a good start to Iron Man. Beyond that, high intelligence and charisma, some knowledge and craft skills, favors to represent being the CEO of a major corporation and then maybe Occult Ritual re-skinned as mad science and keyed to a knowledge skill.

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- Thoth, on March 31, 2018 at 12:54 am said:
  
  And thank you for helping out there! I tend to take a lot longer!
Thoth, on March 25, 2018 at 3:28 am said:

Well, the answer for this – as so often happens – got far too long for comments, or even for a single article – so it’s starts HERE.

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Thoth, on March 31, 2018 at 12:49 am said:

And the second part – Iron Man – is over HERE.

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alzrius, on March 21, 2018 at 2:47 pm said:

A question that just occurred to me: Power Words allows you to store (Con score/3) spell levels’ worth of magic. However, can magical effects have spontaneous metamagic (i.e. via Glory) applied to them at the actual time of storage? If so, presumably they wouldn’t add their metamagic modifier to the level of the spell (hence why their spontaneous). Or can spontaneous metamagic only be added when the spell effect is actually cast.

I suppose the same could be asked for using Glory in conjunction with scribing a scroll or any other form of spell storage. If allowable (that is, if you can add the metamagic without having it count as part of the total spell level), it seems like a good way to bank free metamagic outside of Glory’s daily restrictions.

Thoth, on April 9, 2018 at 9:18 pm said:

As a general rule, spontaneous metamagic stuffs more power into a spell while it’s being cast – so if you then store it, you still have to deal with the extra power somehow. (Streamline, of course, says that you’re either so good at an effect that you make hyper-efficient spells that don’t need the extra power to have improved effects or are tapping into some impersonal power source that boosts your magic all the time). Now I suppose you could make a spell storing effect that wasn’t subject to that limitation, but it would probably be Specialized for Increased Effect.

Or you could just buy an immunity or some such. I don’t see it working “naturally”, but there are always ways to make things work the way you want.

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The Iron Men of the Eclipse | Emergence Campaign Weblog, on March 31, 2018 at 12:46 am said:

[…] (adept and fast learner will help), hit dice, privileges, favors, and connections, and – as TommyNihil suggested – the “Mad Science” version of Occult […]

alzrius, on April 8, 2018 at 10:31 am said:

The Stunt and Epic Stunts abilities (under the Skill Focus ability, Eclipse p. 44), are incredibly versatile in nature, but have almost no examples listed. As such, I’d like to make a request: combing through the standard 3.5 skill list, could you give us two or three examples of skill stunts – and, say, one epic stunt – for each skill, with a brief description and the DC listed? I think that would be great for generating ideas!

Thoth, on April 9, 2018 at 9:20 pm said:

Well, I don’t see why not… I shall see what I can come up with. It may take a lot of editing to avoid a random jumble though.

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alzrius, on April 11, 2018 at 3:05 pm said:

The Practical Enchanter’s notes on inherent bonuses (p. 30), explicitly notes that inherent bonuses have two types of limits to them: the number of times that a beneficiary can have one of their qualities improved, and the degree of each improvement. That is, you can only gain a +6 inherent bonus to a skill, and on no more than six skills; you can only gain one feat (i.e. 6 CP) at a time, and only for three feats; you can only gain a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score at a time, to a maximum of +5 (per ability score), etc.

My question is, to what extent can either of these limits be surpasses with sufficiently high-level magic? If you use Glory to dump a large degree of Amplification metamagic on a wish spell, could you gain a fourth “inherent bonus” feat? Or, alternatively, could you gain a “feat” worth 9 CP? Could you gain more than a +6 inherent bonus to a skill, and/or gain a bonus to a seventh skill, etc?

Or are those hard limits that can’t be surpassed (at least not without some incredible form of Immunity from Eclipse)?

spellweaver81, on April 12, 2018 at 1:18 am said:

My answer would be to not allow it and say that is a hard limit within the setting. Otherwise you end up with a potential positive feedback loop (i.e. I can make myself smarter and then use that boost to intelligence to boost myself even further and then repeat until your intelligence score is measured by number of digits).these are usually a good indication that something is broken.

If you want to surpass these hard limits then you’re going to have to actively change your species or template to something with higher attributes or innate feats specifically to your liking. At which point you’re probably going to have to spend character points to support the new template you just acquired for yourself. The need to spend character points on futher boosts then provides a nice constraint on character power scaling going out of control.

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Thoth, on April 12, 2018 at 2:13 am said:

Those aren’t QUITE hard limits, but they’re very close. You can use (lots of) Godfire to achieve a +6 Inherent Bonus to your attributes and you can use it to gain a further 24 CP worth of abilities in total – which would let you surpass any any one of the usual limits by quite a bit or several of them by a little. Of course… that’s Godfire. “the greatest and most
versatile power source in the universe”.

So that’s about it. Gods can slightly surpass those limits, but no lesser effect is going to do so.

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Jirachi, on May 11, 2018 at 8:31 pm said:

Apologies if you have answered this already, but I noticed a discrepancy (or at least confusing thing) in The practical Enchanter.
I’ll explain this with an example:
You want to be able to augment a group of skills for a few minutes, and have a ninth level spell slot that you prepared to do it.
Option number one is buying the ‘group’ option for competence bonus, netting you a +25 bonus to a single skill in a thematically linked group for the duration.
Alternatively, you could use a spell created through lerandor’s rule. A quick look through the table says that you can get a +25 bonus for a single skill for a level five spell. That means that with a ninth level spell slot, you can cast 16 such spells, enhancing more areas than the group does, and enhancing all of them.
I am not sure if this is simply to model that the competence bonus spell is unoptimized, and exception to Lerandor’s Rule or what.
Please clarify.

Thoth, on May 13, 2018 at 1:24 am said:

Oh, I have no objections to answering questions… It often takes a little while though. With respect to this question…

There are a couple of things going on there.

First up, it is important to note that Lerandor’s Rule is from the in-character commentary; it’s not a game rule as such. I do tend to treat it as a good rule-of-thumb – but in actual practice, things are rarely as easy as Lerandor’s nice, clean, theoretical rule implies. Secondarily, trying to make a spell that essentially breaks itself down into a large number of smaller spells needs to account for the knowledge and effects needed to break itself down in the first place – essentially creating a process using a part of your ninth level spells power and complexity that breaks down the rest of it into the lower-level spells you want.

Thus the Noble Savage effect (under The Big Man) uses a ninth level spell effect to generate seven fourth level spell effects – not the thirty two such effects that a simple inversion of Lerandor’s rule would give.

Similarly, the various Epic Spell Conversions often add +1 spell level to a base effect to add a secondary spell effect several levels lower than the base effect.

That’s why the Runesmith Build (and further Explanations) is fairly limited in what it can use Lerandor’s rule to accomplish.

For a practical example from play, one Healer/Spiritualist with plenty of freeform first level spells wanted to raise the dead. He knew that the effect produced by each spell had to be stable enough so that he could build on it with the next spell, had to be within the limits of a first level effect, had to be performed in order, and had to fit in within the limits of his abilities.

He spent quite some time coming up with a sequence that would work –

His sequence was basically “re-assemble body, preserve body, repair body, restore blood, freshen body (getting to very freshly dead with several repetitions), clear lungs, remove bacteria, oxygenate, feed (adding cellular nutrients), transfuse life force, remove preservation, start heart, restart respiration, contact spirit, let spirit speak through body, enhance body-spirit link (repeated several times), ease spirit travel, and anchor spirit”.

In terms of Lerandor’s Rule that wasn’t optimum. It took him some eighteen spells and twenty-four castings instead of sixteen despite his having put a lot of work into coming up with his sequence – and building up your effects is doing it the easy way, since the player/caster puts in that work rather than expecting the spell to do it.

(There’s a longer discussion of building up effects under Master of the Sabbat).

Most players don’t want to bother.

As for the other thing? That’s simply that most of the time those spells are going into items with “unlimited use” (most characters who are actually casting high level spells want them to do more impressive things than to boost skills). So “Any” or “Group” skill booster spells effectively add to every skill they cover. (A lot of game masters let them do that even without unlimited use. That’s not the way I wrote it, but there’s nothing wrong with doing it that way either. It’s their game).

So overall… a ninth level spell that breaks itself down into fifth level spells can reasonably produce three or four fifth level effects – which may be a smaller number than a well-chosen skill group, but which adds to all of those skills at once. Overall, I’d say that the two spells are roughly equivalent in utility.

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Jirachi, on May 15, 2018 at 5:32 pm said:

Thanks for the answer!
Also, I left a few questions in specialized threads that I probably should have put here, so I’ll rewrite them here.
How would you use skill magic with the other exotic skill mechanisms (Occult skills, martial arts, Skill-based magic systems)?
How broad would an ‘immunity to normal limits of the skill’ be with if you use ‘common’ or ‘very common’?

Jirachi, on May 15, 2018 at 6:40 pm said:

Note that you mentioned that you could do so in eclipse and skills, but also wrote ‘just imagine’. How would it be different from say the occult tricks in martial arts?
If I made a book of nine swords character, what would you have the relevant martial skill stunts be able to do, and how would they compare to maneuvers?

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- Jirachi, on May 16, 2018 at 7:13 am said:
  
  Nevermind about the specialty threads comment.
  Can you use pulse of the dragon to generate a stream of mana instead of spell levels?
- Thoth, on May 24, 2018 at 9:58 pm said:
  
  If there is ambient mana to collect in the setting, and if the game master agrees that that is an appropriate enhanced effect for Specializing and/or Corrupting the ability, then yes.
  
  That said, given that Mana can be used to power or boost pretty much everything, this is somewhat more effective than buying “Immunity to Usage Limits on my abilities” – or just upgrading straight to “superhero”. I think that it would be pretty hard to convince me to go along with that one, so I hope that any game master who lets someone do that has considered it VERY carefully first.
- Thoth, on May 24, 2018 at 10:11 pm said:
  
  Mechanically, the Occult Techniques in the martial arts don’t require a roll and can use those “phantom constitution points” instead of mana – but there really isn’t a very large difference. Stunts generally require a roll and are limited by the nature of the skill in question (The Adamant Smashing Fist style is unlikely to be much good at controlling the weather even with a stunt), but they are open-ended – and are therefore primarily limited by what you can talk the game master into allowing.
  
  It’s much more important to come up with a strong concept first; otherwise all you can say about open-ended systems is that “there are a potentially infinite number of options”.
Thoth, on May 24, 2018 at 10:13 pm said:

Some examples for the exotic skills are in the pipeline, so they will be turning up eventually. And just offhand… “Common” would usually cover three to five skills, depending on how closely linked they were. “Very Common” would cover a dozen or so, or a particular category, such as “martial art skills”.

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Jirachi, on May 21, 2018 at 10:26 am said:

Apologies for the question bombardment, but are there any notable limitations with using lerandor’s rule to create cheap magic items?

Thoth, on May 24, 2018 at 9:49 pm said:

There are a number of problems there, even disregarding the “it’s an in-setting observation not a mechanic” bit. The one that comes to mind first is activation options. Lets say you want to make a Broom Of Flying. For this purpose you have researched a series of first level spells that can be cast in sequence to let you fly. Perhaps Lighten Self, Float On Air (makes light items or creatures float in the air), Zephyr Drift (makes a floating item drift around slowly), Speed Drift (probably twice), and Bootlegger Reverse (lets you turn quickly). Lets say that each lasts for one minute. Wanting to fly, you start casting – or using an item to cast them. Since they build on each other, and so need to be in sequence, a simple continuous effect will not do.

So your 12,000 GP Broom Of Flying is indeed cheaper than 17,000 GP – but it will take six standard actions to get it started, you’ll only be able to Fly for four rounds, and then you will fall out of the air because the first spell in the sequence has cut out. You won’t even have the time to complete the sequence again before you fall.

Offhand, the limitations seem to be more bother than it’s worth most of the time – but I could easily be missing something. What did you have in mind?

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- krackothunder, on July 31, 2018 at 7:40 am said:
  
  I have an idea for something similar.
  The idea was that a town worshiping Father Dagon would use a Magic Item in conjunction with Power Amplification to be able to achieve together and overtime what they can’t do alone in the here and now. They set up two Power Amplification Circles (one boosting a specific Greater Invocation and one boosting a Spell Group) and had the Magic Item in question be said Greater Invocation (with Metamagic Modifiers of elaborate Component (-2), specific place (-1) and of course the circle (-4) making it a total -7 reduction) allowing a Very Broad Range of effects (basically every possible nature magic). The Greater Invocation would only produce Permanent Cantrips (normally level 17, reduced by the second circle (-4), elaborate component (-2), specific place (-1), 10x casting time (-1) and the reduction for having lots of built-in metamagic (-3) for a total reduction of -11 and a final level of 6), rendering the final Greater Invocation (Dagon’s Blessings) a level 2 spell (6 Base + 3 for Very Broad Theme – 3 for Metamagic -4 for Power Amplification Circle = 6+3-4-3 = 2).
  Now that would mean it’d take days working in shifts to make sure anything gets done and requiring possibly months of continuous activation, but technically they could do everything nature magic would allow for if they were just competent, patient and smart enough to figure out how to craft those high-level spells from lower-level ones.
  Now my question is: As ridiculous as the setup is (probably requiring a lot of people to basically just kill themselves irreversibly while casting to get it going in the first place), is it technically possible to stack it up like this?
- Thoth, on August 2, 2018 at 3:17 am said:
  
  And as so often happens, the reply got too long for a comment and it’s over HERE. I hope I got what you wanted to know right; I had to rephrase a bit for clarity.

Jirachi, on May 27, 2018 at 2:15 pm said:

For something like a magical business that would otherwise use a longer casting time limitation to cheapen it.
A few more questions: With the unlimited usage item skill enhancement comparison, wouldn’t it always be better to just use a greater invocation effect?
How do I prevent my illusionist character from being defeated by simple measures like detect magic, spellcraft checks, true sight spells etc.? It seems too be all too easy to detect that sort of thing.

Thoth, on June 4, 2018 at 3:12 am said:

Ah. There are probably a few corner cases, but I don’t think that the math is very favorable in general: when it comes to (Spell Level x Caster Level) part of things reducing the spell level by one and the casting level by two at the cost of requiring a second, and perhaps a third or fourth, enchantment is rarely that big an improvement – and magical businesses usually want to keep the caster level high to avoid Dispelling.

Now if you come up with a sequence that avoids an expensive material component – say you’re making an altar that raises the dead using a bunch of little spells – it might work. Again, that’s kind of specialized. You could probably do it even more efficiently with a Greater Invocation and a directing intelligence that breaks down the desired result into small steps and produces them. That could be used to do a LOT of things rather cheaply, but the directing intelligence would need a rather high Spellcraft skill to make a lot of difficult rolls – and could probably be expected to mess things up reasonably often.

For skill enhancement, it’s generally better to use a greater invocation – unless you don’t happen to know one and would have to research or find it, or want a very large bonus to a specific skill, or something like that.

True Sight is a pretty specific illusion-counter, but fortunately it’s fairly high level and hence rare. To get around it, you’ll probably want to use Shadow Magic, so your creations are partially real anyway.

Detect Magic generally doesn’t sort out types of magic without an upgrade; conjured monsters, charmed or otherwise bound monsters, and illusions will all show up as “magical”.

Still, when it comes to Spellcraft and/or Detect Magic, the Eldritch ability or Mystic Artist / The Art of the Occult should help out there. You might be able to do something with a cleverly phrased Immunity as well, but that’s tricky and tends to annoy the game master.

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alzrius, on November 21, 2018 at 11:03 pm said:

It took longer than I’d intended, but I’ve written my own take on the issue of beefing up illusionist characters. You can find it over here. I hope you find it useful!

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- Thoth, on November 25, 2018 at 12:44 am said:
  
  And that’s a very nice package there – sufficiently so that it reminded me of the first edition illusionist and inspired me to write up how to build one over HERE.

Jirachi, on June 3, 2018 at 5:29 pm said:

More questions!
1) How would you recommend creating a series of world laws that enforce symbolism, foreshadowing and similar things?
2) How can you build a character who gets powers from a set of variable limitations? (the idea is that they could choose to have say, the restrictions of a vampire, and gain vampiric powers, and then switch to the mystic limitations of a different creature)

TommyNihil, on June 3, 2018 at 10:42 pm said:

1) Dunno, really. Sounds like something the GM would just have to keep in mind?
2) I’d use witchcraft. Take Witchcraft I and II at spec and corrupted/only as a prerequisite. That gets you to Ridden by the Loa, which lets you give yourself a temporary template, up to +4 ECL if I recall correctly, which should cover most monster races, especially if it’s specialized/corrupted form the disadvantages of that race. If you’re GM allows it, you can make a number of templates and switch between them. Finally, buy immunity to the power point cost of using Ridden by the Loa (or just buy a supply of powerpoints, but the immunity is cheaper). Should cost around 6 CP, bring the package to a total of 28 CP, if you bought all 3 levels of Ridden so you can retain full control.

Hope that helps.

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Thoth, on June 4, 2018 at 12:34 pm said:

Well, world rules that enforce symbolism and foreshadowing are going to be too complicated for a comment, so that goes onto the “articles” list.

As for “powers from limitations”… that’s a bit awkward simply because a lot of creatures really don’t have much of any that would mean anything. Vampires (being traditional) do – but what about Liches? Becoming vulnerable to being Turned and Holy Water might count – but normal creatures can be turned with the right choices of options and taking a little damage from holy water in exchange for “immunity to cold, electricity, polymorph (though they can use polymorph effects on themselves), and mind-affecting attacks” (even leaving out the other bonuses) sounds like an overly good deal to me. With a werewolf… “my damage reduction doesn’t work versus silver!” isn’t really a limitation; it’s just an imperfect power. Taking triple damage from silver would be a limitation, but they don’t. Similarly, social, alignment, and behavioral limitations don’t really mean anything when you can just drop the package.

Ergo, what you want is the ability to take on a limited selection of “monster” power packages, some of which will be specialized and corrupted to represent greater limitations providing greater powers and some of them straightforward. Thus the powers of a Deathly Winter Spirit (held off by simple spells, double damage from fire, subject to turning and holy water, cannot enter holy areas, powerless in sunlight, driven to perform evil deeds and freeze captives solid, etc, etc) are greater than those of a Great Ape – but the Great Ape Powers really have no downside (ask Tarzan).

Overall, this could be done with Shapechange, you could use Channeling spells (from the Practical Enchanter), you could simply use a few levels worth of the Bokor package (using “Monster Essences” instead of “Mysteries”), or you could use something like the Emperic Masquerader.

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Thoth, on June 12, 2018 at 12:39 pm said:

And here – with Part I and Part II are some world laws to give your games more literary style!

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alzrius, on July 2, 2018 at 3:59 pm said:

Are there any ways to engage in long-range detection, communication, information-gathering in Fantasy d20, ideally on a (semi-)perpetual basis without having to layer on heaping helpings of metamagic? I ask because the tactical nature of most d20 magic means that you’re typically limited to, at most, a few hundred feet for the (typically short-term) duration of the spell(s) in question.

The result is that any sort of magical “alert” system is either limited to small-scale things like alarm spells, or being able to throw around epic-level effects in order to cover a kingdom. There’s no other way to, for example, instantly be aware when demons intrude upon the realm, or when an army marches across the border, or when a town is razed to the ground. Meanwhile, d20 Future allows for starship sensors to work at “battlefield range” (which for starships is something like 500 ft. per square, which is easily a few miles at the very least) for the equivalent of a few hundred gp. The best Fantasy d20 can seem to do is an item that perpetually casts animal messenger.

Notwithstanding taking Dominion, what’s a good answer for something like this?

Thoth, on July 5, 2018 at 9:51 pm said:

And the answer to this one turned into a full-scale article over HERE – and thanks for the suggestion; I was feeling a little stalled on some of the other article series.

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alzrius, on July 3, 2018 at 7:23 pm said:

In the event that you’re playing a character who is able to be the recipient of witchcraft pacts (that is, you’re the individual with whom the witch is making these deals, e.g. Dark Lord Kevin), then do you gain any powers or abilities – that can be delineated in game mechanics – from a witch making the Arcanum pact with you?

Thoth, on July 18, 2018 at 1:54 am said:

Sorry, I almost missed this one… there are two major ways. At the basic level the link is there, but it’s terribly inefficient: you have pacts with a hundred or so witches? you can drain them, but you’ll only get to use a tiny fraction of what they give up even if they’re fairly close. If they’re off across dimensions, you won’t get much. The simplest way to represent this is to say that – since you’re granting pacts – you now have Duties to your cult, and invest the resulting points in some heavily limited emergency-only power boosts that you draw on your followers to power.

The second way requires being an actual god and a fairly heavy investment on your point – enough to let making pacts with you provide a mystic link to you and the ability to send you power over it. That offers potentially nigh-limitless power, but it all too likely to be game-wrecking unless it’s virtually never used.

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Jirachi, on July 6, 2018 at 7:40 pm said:

I am curious how you might create subtler stealth / warding effects.
For example, what would a spell look like that made people around you find you unimportant or beneath consideration or whoever they expect to see most? Or warding a building so that only people who don’t wish the residents harm can find it?

Thoth, on July 10, 2018 at 10:15 pm said:

And this – naturally enough – got to be way too long for a comment, so now it’s an article over HERE.

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westb3, on July 13, 2018 at 2:27 pm said:

Could you expand on the Ceremonial Magic you linked in the Anomaly article

Continuum II Ceremonial Magic

I have tried to read the Continuum II articles that are here, but I feel I am missing the primary sourcebook and have not been able to find one that seems to match ?

Thoth, on July 16, 2018 at 1:42 pm said:

Well, that’s easy enough, at least in general principle… it’s rather too long for a comment though, so it’s over HERE.

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- brett west, on July 24, 2018 at 5:53 am said:
  
  Could we see some of those handwritten things online in some fashion eventually?
- Thoth, on July 28, 2018 at 7:08 pm said:
  
  That will take longer, but there’s no reason why not. All the notes and things are still stuffed into a filing cabinet. It’s just that converting them to something postable is a time sink.

alzrius, on September 2, 2018 at 3:06 pm said:

Can a single item have multiple charms and/or talismans built into it, the way magic items can be made to have multiple abilities? That is, could I create a charm that combined the effects of serpentine rope with endless rope, the same way I could for, say, making my boots of elvenkind also work as per boots of levitation? For what matter, what about combining the effects of charms/talismans with actual magic items?

On a related question, do charms or talismans take up body slots?

Thoth, on September 3, 2018 at 3:15 am said:

Charms and Talismans do not take up body slots, since they are really only foci for the user’s innate power. Similarly, nothing really prevents you from sticking two or more of them together (just as you could duct-tape three wands together if you wished). So there’s no reason you cannot have a Rune Weapon (perhaps a sword) with a Spirit Pearl for a pommel and a Blazetongue stone set in the base of the blade – but it will still count as three Talismans.

If you really want more, it’s simplest to either use the Empowerment spell – perhaps in a Ring of Empowerment. Lesser (sustains up to three Charms, 800 GP), Standard (sustains up to five Charms, 1800 GP), or Greater (incorporates Lesser Restoration and sustains up to seven Charms and three Talismans, 3000 GP). Regardless of the type of ring, they show Minor Transmutation powers, it takes 2d4 hours to change out a Charm or Talisman, and they only show caster level one. It just doesn’t take a lot of power for this.

When it comes to adding Charm and Talisman functions to conventional items, it’s a setting detail, but most “true” magic items are fairly efficient about channeling available magic into their primary functions – so it’s hard to divert some of that magic to get them to function as a Charm or Talisman as well. It’s not impossible though. Adding the equivalent of a Charm or Talisman function mzy be allowed as a Flourish (The Practical Enchanter, Page 107). You can also use Craft (Precepts) to add such functions or – if you’re using the “specialized shaping” ability to provide the power – you can just write it to provide those of your magic items that you choose to focus on with minor extra powers instead of empowering independent Charms and Talismans.

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alzrius, on October 25, 2018 at 3:21 pm said:

In your opinion, does elfshot (the witchcraft power) have the strength to curse someone so that they can be affected by abilities keyed to a creature type not their own? That is, could you use the power to curse, say, a dragon so that it’d be vulnerable to a bane weapon that was keyed against magical beasts? (Though I suppose that leaves it open if they could then be the recipient of beneficial effects that are keyed to a particular creature type, which makes this iffy as a “curse” per se.)

Thoth, on October 26, 2018 at 11:05 pm said:

It would probably call for a version that was Specialized (and possibly Corrupted) for Increased Effect (only to make creatures so vulnerable). That effect is relatively subtle, but potentially fairly high powered – after all, cursing a major monster to be vulnerable to Charm Person, Hold Person, and similar spells could be pretty effective. It being a curse would probably automatically limit it to troublesome effects though.

It would certainly make an interesting Greater Curse though. Go ahead, make that elder Lich vulnerable to emotional appeals and such!

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alzrius, on October 31, 2018 at 11:54 am said:

Does the channeling ability Circle of Power (part of The Boundless Realms path) apply to effects created via Conversion (i.e. using channeling to create a spell effect)? Circle of Power says that it affects “single-target Channeling effects,” but I’m not certain if single-target spells utilized by Conversion count as channeling effects or not (since that would preclude them from being counted as spells and subject to things like counterspelling, I would think). It seems like it would be notably powerful to utilize a converted heal or raise dead spell in this manner.

Thoth, on November 3, 2018 at 7:57 pm said:

Only if the player talks really fast… In reality, we allowed it for a couple of the playtest characters; thus Matthew did indeed have Circle of Power applied to Heal and a Revival spell (although only usable before brain death). In his case, an incredibly powerful option was kept under control by setting-required secrecy, by world laws stating that using too much holy (or unholy) power allowed opposing forces to intervene, and by the general lack of negative-energy powered “undead” – so using those powers almost inevitably aided the opposition just as much as it did the player characters. On the other hand, applying True Strike to a swarm of Archers proved quite problematic.

After early playtesting we generally required the user to upgrade to a Mass version of the desired spell instead of using Circle Of Power. It was generally quite doable, but it cost more CP, making the option considerably more balanced.

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Jirachi, on November 2, 2018 at 10:26 pm said:

I notice that you don’t have a ton of examples of the dweomer system, and no examples of a partial caster using a skilled based one.
What might say, a version of a paladin or bard using the dweomer system look like?

Thoth, on November 3, 2018 at 8:13 pm said:

It may take a little while to get to that – work has been calling for massive amounts of overtime recently – but hopefully that will be over with very shortly. It is straightforward enough though!

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Thoth, on November 20, 2018 at 11:07 pm said:

And here you go – a couple of ways to build it and a selection of possible themes.

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Jirachi, on November 26, 2018 at 10:00 pm said:

There is also a bit of a lack of builds for Hexcraft, and it does seem like you could totally use it as a base system for spellcasting. (The ‘Class build’ style stuff I find especially helpful)
I’m writing a fanfic that use some concepts from eclipse to provide additional setting flavour, and I’m not sure how to translate the ‘per session’ limitations into something I can use. The chapters are ~1000 words, often cover small bits, so there is not any super obvious things I can use as reference.
Any thoughts?

Thoth, on December 5, 2018 at 11:29 pm said:

And this got a bit long for comments again, so it’s now over HERE.

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Jirachi, on December 8, 2018 at 7:08 pm said:

Quick question: What spell level look like to say, enhance the area of a channeling attempt?

Thoth, on December 8, 2018 at 11:27 pm said:

Well, The Practical Enchanter has a few of those effects under “Sacred and Profane Bonuses” (Lens of Ra / Lens of Apep and (more relevantly) Sunfury / Eclipse) – but they rely on simply modifying the use of channeling attempts. If you’re using Circle Of Power, then anything which boosts Charisma will help expend the area. The basic 60′ radius (or cone) of most effects is a bit arbitrary of course, although The Reaching Hand from Tides Of Light And Darkness does double it. It doesn’t increase the number of targets though.

First up we have increasing the range of targeted effects.

Warp Strike. Conjuration (Teleportation), Ass 2, Sor/Wiz 2, probably various other classes 2, Components V, S, Range Touch, Target Touched Creature (may be self), Duration one minute or until discharged, whichever is shorter, Saving Throw none, Spell Resistance Yes (harmless). When this spell is cast on a creature it may discharge it to cause the origin of an attack, power, spell, or other ability it uses to be at any location within long range thanks to a momentary portal. Line of effect is not required, but if the destination point is occupied by a solid object the spell fails.

This will let you backstab someone from long range, dump dust of sneezing and choking on someone from across a battlefield, throw a fireball around a corner, and various other tricks.

Item: Warp Guantlets. Command-Word Activated Warp Strike 3/Day at caster level three. 6500 GP.

Secondarily we have increasing the radius over which a multiple-target effect can be distributed. This will call for the Surprising Mastery spell template from the Practical Enchanter; One-round per level base (for a combat related feat), the equivalent of The Reaching Hand (a complex mental feat), so L2 for +30 feet, L3 for +60 feet, L4 for +120 feet, and L5 for +240 feet – which is probably the practical limit. This won’t, however, increase the area affected; it simply allows the targets of individually targeted effects to be further away.

Increasing the actual area is equivalent to the Add Metamagic series of spells (also from The Practical Enchanter). Figuring that most direct channeling effects equate to effects of level six or less, the formula is (Number of levels of the Area Metamagical Theorem to be applied) + 2 (surcharge for affecting target spells of up to level 6) +1 (Surcharge for interfacing with something that isn’t strictly a spell). Ergo +50% is L4, Double is L6, Boundless is L11, Regional is L15, and Grandiose is L23. If you want to be really sure, and affect channeling effects that equate to spells of up to level nine, add another level. Otherwise the Add Metamagic spell template behaves quite normally.

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Jirachi, on December 10, 2018 at 5:05 pm said:

Do you have any advice for creating Hexcrafter decks from scratch? How does the broadness of say, a hexcrafting card called ‘pschokinesis’, a rune magic skill called psychokinesis, and the telekinetic dweomer skill?

alzrius, on December 14, 2018 at 12:58 am said:

A rather specific question this time around: I’ve noticed that Self-Development has no provision for increasing an ability score below 3. Ergo, it cannot be used to raise the Intelligence of a creature with an Int of 1 or 2.

Presuming that I have such a creature (without it being a familiar), and have a way to grant it additional CPs (e.g. I’ve taken Leadership with Beast-Lord and Emperor’s Star), what ability could I spend those CPs on to permanently raise their Intelligence?

(Obviously, the best bet would just be to find the proper awaken spell to have someone cast on the creature(s) in question, but I wanted to restrict this to CP-purchasable abilities.)

Jirachi, on December 14, 2018 at 12:13 pm said:

I mean, My best guess would be to still use normal awaken. Just give them innate spell variant of awaken, probably limited to casting it on themselves and a requirement for foci or something like that, which should lower it to level 3. That just costs 6 cp, so you can do that through a single purchase. Does that work for you?

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- Jirachi, on December 14, 2018 at 1:13 pm said:
  
  A similar alternative gives them an inherent spell based on the summoning template in the practical enchanter. Let’s say that they channel a generic elf. That’s CR 1/2, so level 1 + 1 for channeling -1 for only one option. You can then make it last 24 hours, adding 4 levels to get it to 5. Add in personalized and an extra casting time and you can get it cast once a day for 6 cp. (Don’t forget to corrupt it / does not actually invovlve any physical changes, and thusly does not grant physical special abilities), and you can throw in something else for 2 cp.
- Thoth, on December 15, 2018 at 8:26 pm said:
  
  Well, this one turned out to be exceptionally quick and easy, so there’s a reasonably detailed answer over HERE.

Jirachi, on December 19, 2018 at 6:37 pm said:

a ‘how to build in eclipse’ questions.
How do you build a character who has a permanent law of reality attached to them (afflictions from Nobilis, in case you recognize it). Basically, they are things varying from ‘I am always on time’, ‘I stay abreast of technological developments’, or ‘I love [a specific person]’, that are immutable facts about you that can only be overridden by major workings of gods. But they also have the potential disadvantage of being permanent facets to your character that you can’t violate (except through intense personality change, or contradictions).
A question for rules:
What would a dweomer skill specialized for increased effect diversity look like?

Thoth, on December 28, 2018 at 2:25 pm said:

Well, the main “how to build this” part got too long for comments again, so it can be found over HERE.

A Dweomer skill specialized for increased diversity would either look like two Dweomer skills put together or would just steal a few bits from several others. Either way, it would have about twice the breadth of a normal Dweomer skill – which is probably pretty much what you expected.

In any case, hopefully the Nobilis article will be more inspiring!

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Jirachi, on December 25, 2018 at 4:05 pm said:

Also, did you ever do a ‘what to expect’ for the planned eclipse 3?

Thoth, on December 28, 2018 at 4:44 am said:

Eclipse III was going to focus on game mastering with Eclipse – world building and world laws, how to adjust the rules to reflect the setting you wanted, creating new magic systems, and so on. Unfortunately, Distant Horizons Games never really made enough money to justify cutting back on work hours to write more books and I no longer have an editor handy – so Eclipse III is likely going to stay on the back burner for now. It’s too bad, but I really can’t afford to focus on putting the book together now, even if I just stuck to organizing material from the blog for most of it.

Maybe someday.

I’m sorry if that’s disappointing (I must admit that it disappoints me too) – but money and time constraints are hard to get around.

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Jirachi, on December 25, 2018 at 11:33 pm said:

Would it make sense for there to be a profession skill for the application of your dweomer skills? Cause often in order to be effective, a dweomerist has to have a fairly through knowledge of what exactly can be done with there fields which doesn’t always make sense to just represent as being normal knowledgeable about it.

Thoth, on December 28, 2018 at 4:39 am said:

Well, I can think of three levels that could operate on.

The Dweomer skills themselves normally include some basic understanding of what they affect and how they operate. On that level, a professional skill would be kind of redundant, for much the same reason that you don’t need a “Knowledge: things that can be made out of wood” skill to help you come up with ways to use your Craft (Woodworking) skill.

On the next level up, you could reasonably buy such a skill to get some help from the game master on how to use your skills to accomplish a particular task. The trouble with this is that it presumes that the game master knows enough about physics, engineering, and the game mechanics to supply that help on demand – and a lot of game masters are not going to be up to that. A skill that might well be basically “Baffle and Frustrate The Game Master” is not likely to be the best choice.

On the third level, you could try to use such a skill to apply the “Expertise” modifier to reduce the effect level / casting difficulty of pretty much all your spells. That’s a bit of a stretch; even in specific Dweomer fields I’m not sure that a single professional skill will easily cover both Electrokinesis and Reconstruction, or Vibration and Stasis Fields. On the other hand, such a skill is unlikely to be good for much of anything else – so it could reasonably be counted as Specialized, or even Specialized and Corrupted.

Ergo (Still looking at Psychokinesis), Knowledge/Molecular Energetics might cover Pyrotics, Stasis Fields, and Vibration, whereas Knowledge / Subatomic Physics might well cover Electrokinesis, Nucleokinesis, and Pyrotics. (I can’t think of what a skill to cover Capacitance and Telekinesis might be right at the moment, but it doesn’t really matter).

If your game master will put up with it it would probably be well worth taking such a skill applying to your favorite Dweomer Skills. even a one-level reduction in difficulty would provide a nicely dramatic specialty for your character.

And I hope that helps!

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- Jirachi, on January 3, 2019 at 1:35 pm said:
  
  I mean, I get that more specialized skills can be more useful in there specialist (using corruption and specialization or the usefulness tier thing you had), but it would be a broad skill for many a thing. I mean, how is there a skill that covers all magical lore?
  I mean, there doesn’t need to be a singularity of purpose. I’m not sure if say ‘profession: Sailor’ or ‘police officer’ is really any more broad then ‘profession: psychokinet’.
  I mean, especially if you are specializing it for increased broadness or something. You kind of seem to be overly much thinking in knowledge skills not professions.
- Jirachi, on January 3, 2019 at 1:56 pm said:
  
  Also, I’m surprised you didn’t include rough DCs for making stuff easier using expertise. I mean, I understand that it’s free form, but you didn’t even include adjectives to give a sense.
  I mean, is it just a mechinical implementation of ‘if the character knows very specifically what they want to do, they can use a substantially lower level effect’?
- Thoth, on January 6, 2019 at 1:32 am said:
  
  In general yes – but the broader the skill, the less detail it normally covers.
  
  I stuck with Knowledge skills because the idea was to have a fairly detailed knowledge of how to do whatever-it-was that you wanted to do – thus a good knowledge of Architecture would make it easier to manipulate stone (or what-have-you) to make bridges, castles, walls, and wells, but it wouldn’t be much use in refining ores, creating realistic art, trapping energy in stone, or for all the other stuff an “Earthmaster” might do.
  
  Thus “Craft/Architect” covers actual building, arranging a worksite, keeping the tools in good shape, keeping the lintels level, drawing up the plans, doing some basic surveying, and so on.
  
  It’s not quite the same (or as useful in as many spells) as Knowledge/Architecture and Engineering since it’s much more hands-on, but they’re both useful. The Knowledge skill will tell you quite a lot more about floodplains, the costs of exotic structures, the history of similar designs, and how to put in secret passages and defenses.
  
  Profession/Architect is useful too, but it leans more towards knowing how to manage an office and hire subordinates, negotiating with customers, making money, and advertising tham actual building or even designing buildings. It probably won’t help much with Spellcasting – and I’d expect Profession / Kineticist to cover a lot of saleable uses for various abilities, but not much in the way of theory.
  
  Secondarily, there are no DC’s since you aren’t making a skill check – and having a +4 in a skill is roughly equivalent to having a four-year college degree in it. If a character has a skill at all, he or she is generally quite expert. The reduction is for knowing how to do something efficiently – and that’s always going to be up to the game master. Thus someone with a through understanding of electrical systems can probably use Electrokinesis to shut down an electrical robot with relative ease. It will help less with generating power, and probably not at all with Arcwelding, since you don’t need details and fine control for that – just raw power.
  
  Thus if you know the easiest way to do something, and that information applies… you can use a lot less bracing and material to make a sturdy bridge. You won’t have useless material that adds to the weight but isn’t transmitting stress, or a heavier arch than is really needed, and so on – so you move less material and need less magical reinforcement. The problem is, that can’t have a formulaic implementation because it depends on that “will this be helpful in this situation?” judgement.
  
  Or at least that’s what I was thinking when I wrote it. Of course, it’s your setting – and it’s not like I’m infallible. However it works best for your game is the right way to do it!
  
  And I hope that helps!

Jirachi, on December 30, 2018 at 5:22 pm said:

Hon, the question I care most about is probably the one about a ‘class’ for skill limit breakers.

Thoth, on January 2, 2019 at 10:54 pm said:

Still in the que, although I must admit to a tendency to jump to whatever topic I suddenly feel inspired about today. I shall try to move that one up though.

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Jirachi, on January 5, 2019 at 12:50 pm said:

What would a spell to give say, a dweomerist more spells a day look like? Channeling Uses? Hexcraft Card Slots?

Thoth, on January 6, 2019 at 12:29 am said:

For a Dweomerist it’s much easier to presume the Unity feat, so that they can just use a bonus spell slot of the appropriate level. To get those you’ll want a minor variant on the Lucubration Spell Template from The Practical Enchanter or a Runestone Of Power.

For another possible spell, use the Surprising Mastery Spell Template from The Practical Enchanter to bestow a couple of Complex Mental Feats (Rite of Chi and Bonus Uses) and simply use Rite of Chi to refresh your reserves a bit over the next few minutes. That would only be level four, and is likely rather unbalanced, so a fairly strict usage limitation is probably in order. Personally, I’d say that using the same spell again to provide the same feats provides the same set of bonus uses – so it would take progressively higher level spells to provide more and more bonus uses.

Of course, that’s a formula spell, and it would probably be much simpler to just buy Rite of Chi and Bonus Uses directly.

For Channeling Uses you’d want a spell that provided Bonus Uses for Channeling – but that’s pretty much exactly the same as the spell above save for which Feats are being provided and I’d apply the same limitation.

Extra Hexcraft Card Draws are pretty much equivalent to a Feat Each, but the +2 level modifier for “Allows Selection From A Large Group” applies (even if it is random) – and they might well count as “Very Complex Mental Feats” requiring permission from the game master. Presuming that’s given… the base would be level six for one extra card, level seven for two, and level eight for four – but upping the duration to one hour per level would be a good idea, for a final level of 7 for one card, eight for two, and nine for four. Similarly, it would probably only work once per day on any given hexcrafter.

So we could make a Hexcrafters Ring/Guantlet/Whatever as a Command Word item: +1 Card/Day (32,750 GP), +2 Cards/Day (43,200 GP), and +4 Cards/Day (55,000 GP). Well worth it for a dedicated high-level Hexcrafter, although the game master might adjust the prices on the usual basis of “utility”.

For an emergency one-use item, it would be 3500 GP (draw one card), 4800 GP (draw two cards), and 6120 GP (draw four cards). That could be really handy in a pinch.

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- Jirachi, on January 6, 2019 at 11:22 am said:
  
  I mean, that makes sense, but I’m a bit confused how you would adjudicate ‘double there spell casting capability’ limitation for unlimited usage of lubrication, especially since the only way I can think of would give the same result no matter the spell level.
- Thoth, on January 8, 2019 at 2:36 am said:
  
  Ah, for that you must either approxinvoke a true dark art – double-entry bookkeeping. Lets say that a caster has 40 spell levels and has an Unlimited Lucubration gadget that can restore spells of up to level two.
  
  That gadget could, in theory, restore 40 spell levels per day. So you need two columns – currently available spell levels and restoreable spell levels.
  
  Cast two first level spells. Available Spell Levels drops to 38.
  Lucubration restores them.Available Spell Levels go up to 40, Restorable Spell Levels drops to 38.
  Cast fourth level spell. Available Spell Levels drop to 36. Restorable Spell Levels drop to 34, since the power used for a fourth-level spell cannot be restored.
  Cast a Third and a Second level spell. Available Spell Levels drop to 31
  Lucubration restores the second level spell but can do nothing about the third level one. Available Spell Levels rise to 33, Restorable Spell Levels drop to 29.
  
  And so on. It’s a bit of a bother, but – considering the raw power an unlimited Lucubration effect makes available – having to keep track of two totals is well worth it.
  
  And I hope that helps!

Jirachi, on January 9, 2019 at 4:49 pm said:

What would happen if you had say, the level 1 version without the ‘only specific level’ limitation?

Thoth, on January 12, 2019 at 10:03 pm said:

Well, presuming that you mean one that functions like Rite of Chi and can be used repeatedly to “recharge” a higher level spell slot, then you basically have a “must have” Innate Enchantment for any prepared spell caster; for a mere 2-3 CP they could essentially double up their magic by using each spell slot twice.

Given that spell casters tend to be powerful enough already, I’d think twice about allowing that even if someone wants to take a powerful enough natural law immunity to make it work.

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Jirachi, on January 13, 2019 at 2:53 pm said:

Can you buy several ranks of specialty in a skill? (The text seems to imply that you can only buy it once, but I’m less than sure).

Thoth, on January 14, 2019 at 3:56 am said:

If you’re referring to +3 Skill Specialties, Yes – but they’d need to be in different aspects of the base skill. Thus you could get a specialty in Survival (Building Shelters) and in Survival (Tracking), but only one specialty can be applied to any particular action.

Now if you’re referring to Specialized Skills… you could, for example, have Survival 6, +3 ranks in Survival Specialized in Tracking for double effect (+6) and a Skill Specialty in Tracking, for a total of +15 to Track.

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alzrius, on January 14, 2019 at 11:05 pm said:

How would you use Eclipse to model the Redirect Spell greater exploit that the arcanist class grants (to characters who take it)? My guess would be that it (and arcanist exploits in general) would be a function of using Mana for Reality Editing, similar to the revised list of ninja abilities that you recently presented, but I’m curious if you’d recreate that power another way.

Jirachi, on January 15, 2019 at 7:34 pm said:

That specific one would be amplify metamagic with streamline (Specialized for double effect / only for adding the ‘redirection’ effect to dispelling) and that ‘s like 9 CP, and just prepare normal dispelling stuff.
A quick look says that a lot of them makes sense as being built as feats (there’s a metamagic feat one, two spell resistance feats that map perfectly to Eclipse).

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- Jirachi, on January 15, 2019 at 7:37 pm said:
  
  If you want, I’d be happy to do one-to-one conversions of the arcanist Exploits, but it seems a bit superflous.
- Thoth, on January 16, 2019 at 2:35 am said:
  
  Oddly enough, the trouble is more in reducing things. Jirachi’s metamagical suggestion would work, as would Mana and Reality Editing (which is the easiest go-to for all those Pathfinder classes with small pools of special “points” and a bunch of abilities derived from them). My first thought would be the Countermagic ability (6 CP) – but while that would require taking the Spiral Dance modifier (+12 CP), it can be used to take over someone else’s spell entirely. Limiting it to a single round, and “spells that can be directed or changed once they have been cast, such as flaming sphere or spiritual weapon” would definitely call for Specializing and Corrupting it.

Jirachi, on January 15, 2019 at 8:40 pm said:

Is it problematic to allow something like Double Enthusiast x3 (specialized for half cost, only for item creation feats) (9 CP) as an alternative to buying a ton of item creation feats?

Thoth, on January 16, 2019 at 2:28 am said:

Not at all, since there are several ways to do it even in baseline d20 (The Warlock, Chameleon, and Binder are the first that come to mind). In Eclipse… Double Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / only for magical abilities, only for item creation feats (6 CP), Warlocks buy Equipage (6 CP) with Purchasing (6 CP), both Specialized (User must spend the time, XP, and cash as appropriate to create the item in question and must be otherwise qualified to create it save for not knowing the appropriate spells, half cost) = 6 CP. Verdigrised Forge uses a combination (listed under “Genesis Forge”) to gradually create all kinds of items (12 CP, but can provide some free stuff), you can use Enthusiast and a specialized version of Create Relic (6 CP again), and Bokor can just channel the right Mystery. Being a Bokor is moderately expensive, but useful in all kinds of ways.

There are lots of ways to break d20, but “I have a some extra gear” doesn’t usually do it.

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Jirachi, on January 17, 2019 at 9:05 pm said:

I didn’t realize before I ran the numbers how difficult it is to match even relatively low level research specialists. This is from a rough approximation, assuming a level 5 character with modest investment in wizardry abilities. With ‘taking 20’
9 SP in spellcraft (no cost in CP)
Action Hero / Invention and Crafting (12 CP)
Double Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / only for magical abilities, only for item creation feats (6 CP)
Assistant (6 CP)
Immunity to Spell Researching expenses (Common/Minor/Major) (6 CP) (This should cover the basic cost of spell research, and makes the rest more affordable).
Skill Focus (Spellcraft) Specialized for double effect / only for spell research (6 CP) (+ 6 bonus)
Skill Emphasis (3 CP) Specialized for double effect / only for spell research (3 CP) (+ 4 bonus)
Speed (6 CP)
Total:
Spellcraft: 9 (SP) + 3 (Int) = + 12
Spellcraft (with spell research modifiers): 9 (SP) + 3 (Int) + 6 (Skill Focus) + 4 (Skill Emphasis) = + 22
Spellcraft (with spell research modifiers and extended work): 9 (SP) + 3 (Int) + 6 (Skill Focus) + 4 (Skill Emphasis) + 2 (magician’s chest) + 4 (trunk full of books) + 4 (help of another level 4+ spellcaster) = + 32 (+ 37 if taking normal amount of time)
since the level for ‘exceptional overflow success’ is 15 above the DC, and the DC’s are (10 + spell level), if they all ‘take ten’ and don’t take advantage of the speed to add on an extra + 5, they’d still be able to get optimized spell formulas for effects of up to level 7.
Is this about right?

Thoth, on January 19, 2019 at 4:19 pm said:

That is indeed about right. It is pretty hard for a character with a wide range of abilities to match a serious specialist isn’t it? And with research… relatively normal people have done plenty of that, so it doesn’t require a terribly high level either.

On a minor note, I think you mean 8 SP in Spellcraft and 1 SP in a +3 Spell Research Specialty – but that just makes to grand total a couple of points higher.

Now, working on spell formula that you can’t actually cast may stick you with the “working from pure theory” modifier – but that will let you skip the normal monetary costs entirely, which is a considerable compensation (and replacing the Immunity with Luck will reduce the effective penalty to only -10).

A dedicated researcher, or item crafter, or some such makes an EXCELLENT employee.

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- Jirachi, on January 19, 2019 at 6:03 pm said:
  
  Ah. The ‘working from pure theory’ could probably be circumvented by say, using mana with the spell enhancement option specialized for the purpose (possibly for increased effect, though that’s kind of cheesy).
  If someone takes the immunity to the normal limits ability on spellcraft, would that let them research ‘impossible spells’, and if so, how would that work?
- Thoth, on January 20, 2019 at 2:28 pm said:
  
  Mana would work just fine. You just need to be able to actually test what you’re designing.
  
  Immunity to Normal Limits on Spellcraft… well, “research impossible spells” is certainly a possible stunts, it won’t let you cast a spell that is actually impossible. It would let you research spells for other types of casters or ask the game master to help you write up a spell that comes as close as possible to doing whatever-it-is that you want. Just like Godfire, if the game master says that time travel is impossible, you won’t be able to research a spell that makes it possible – but you might be able to research a shadow magic divination / conjuration effect that creates a nearly-real pocket-realm copy of a chunk of the past that you can observe or interact with.

alzrius, on January 19, 2019 at 11:27 pm said:

Is it possible to create more than one ward major in the same place? That sounds an awful lot like trying to enchant a magic item multiple times over with the same ability (e.g. trying to make a weapon flaming four or five times), but I’m not sure that analogy works; wouldn’t wards with different powers be more like adding flaming and frost instead? Having multiple “genius loci”-type spirits inhabiting a place sounds unusual from a thematic standpoint as well.

Thoth, on January 20, 2019 at 2:29 pm said:

Like a lot of things, you can do it – but some ways are not a very good idea.

You can simply stack two wards on top of each other – but this is essentially shoving two spirits into the same body; either one will be suppressed (and almost certainly ejected, effectively destroying the losing Ward and probably damaging or “cursing” the winner) or they will find their thoughts and powers overlapping – leading to confusion, madness, and wild magical effects.

While having two or more insane Wards fighting each other over a location might make for an interesting place to have an adventure, few Enchanters will want to spend so much time and energy just to create a disaster area.

You could make two or more Wards alternate – adding limitations such as “only active during the day” and “only active during the night” – but while that would maintain their sanities, it would reduce the cost of each Ward by considerably less than 50%. Still, it might be useful on occasion; a set of wards that provided – say – food and skill boosts during the day and healing effects at night – could be fairly handy.

It would probably be easier and more effective to just make a single, more powerful, Ward.

You could also make a Ward with sub-intelligences. This is a minor variant on “The Great Binding” Awesome Power. Instead of entrapping up to (Charisma) lesser entities, a Ward with this power could have up to (Cha Mod) sub-wards – smaller, non-overlapping, areas with their own semi-independent lesser wards. of rank (1d4+1) – within itself.

This way the Epic Ward Major 10 that protects the Vale Of Chyrassis might provide the Citadel Tower within the complex with it’s own Ward-5 (Minor Powers: Grants the Legionnaire Feat, Warcraft, Enduring, and Bounty. Major Power: Fire Of The Horde). Similarly, The Great Temple, the Black Crypts, and several other areas within the Vale will have their own lesser wards.

And I hope that helps!

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- alzrius, on January 20, 2019 at 2:48 pm said:
  
  Thanks, that does help. Though as a point of clarification, I wanted to ask: for the “sub-intelligences” option, when you say that the lesser wards are “non-overlapping,” presumably that’s only with respect to other lesser wards and not with their parent ward? In other words, to use your example, would someone in the Citadel Tower gain the effects of both the Ward-5 and its parent Ward-10, or just the Ward-5?
- Thoth, on January 21, 2019 at 2:41 am said:
  
  Yes (that’s what I meant by “within itself”). The sub-wards would all be within the area covered by the primary ward, but the sub-wards themselves cannot overlap. So the effects of the primary ward would cover everyone within it and – if they happened to be within the area of effect of a sub-ward – they would be affected by it as well.
  
  Come to think of it, that might work well for all those giant dungeons where there are several overall strange effects and specific areas have their own special rules in addition to that.

Jirachi, on January 20, 2019 at 5:06 pm said:

I’m confused why you say that it would take an extra ability to research spells for a different type of caster. Wouldn’t that just require you take the ‘working from pure theory’ modifier?
I understand that there’s a bit of a difference between ‘regular impossible’ and “game master doesn’t want it in there campaign impossible’. In some games, there are some in the first that aren’t in the second, and I guess spellcraft stunts would make that possible.
And ‘ask the gamemaster to help you come up with an effect as close as possible to what you want’ just sounds like flavour description for just normally having a really high bonus (considering help with spell creation is proportional to skill level).

Thoth, on January 21, 2019 at 4:01 am said:

Well, there are several kinds of impossible spells you could produce:

Impossible for you: For example, a user of standard clerical-style magic trying to design effects for a Dweomer-user. Since that calls on a skill that the clerical type almost certainly does not possess, he or she would normally be unable to do that.

Impossible in your part of the multiverse. For example, if the local gods derive their powers from binding themselves to the mysterious forces of the cosmic tides, attempting to design a spell that will turn you into a god by binding you to the blast-wave of a supernova will not work; the local version of godhood does not work that way. You might get some very neat abilities out of the deal, but this spell will not work as intended and cannot work as intended. You’d have to discard the “supernova” part in favor of the “Cosmic Tides”. For a real-world variant there are plenty of hypothetical FTL drive systems out there that would work just fine if only the universe worked quite differently from the way that it does. Even if you design and build them perfectly they will not work unless you somehow get to a section of the multiverse that operates under the rules they assume. You could design such a spell formula, but – unless the game master is silly enough to let you buy immunity to the limitations of magic – it won’t actually work when you cast it. (This is the primary case of “Impossible” spells that I was referring to. After all, even with a very high skill, the game master is not obligated to follow up on “time travel is impossible, no matter how we word the spell or what level we make it it will not work” with “but what did you actually want to time travel to do? We might be able to figure out another way to get that information/bring back your unressurreactable daughter/whatever.

Practically Impossible. For example, spells that involve concepts that your mind cannot handle or which break reality in ways that your existence cannot handle in their design (and likely execution). An appropriate immunity might let you design such spells, but surviving actually using them might be much more expensive – and I wouldn’t recommend showing them to any apprentice that you liked.

Logically impossible. For example, a spell that causes parallel lines to meet in euclidean geometry. The problem being that – if parallel lines meet – you have one of the many non-euclidean geometries, not euclidean geometry. In d20… lets say you want to design a harmful spell that is completely harmless. There’s no immunity that will let you design a spell that works this way because it fails to make sense.

Game Master Refusal Impossible. This is the category responsible for campaign-specific lists of “banned spells” and such. It’s what happens when a game master particularly dislikes a particular effect, or thinks something spoils the game, or some such, and really doesn’t have a well-developed in-game reason to disallow it. Ergo, it’s banned by game master fiat. While game masters can sometimes be persuaded to change their minds on such things, trying to get around them with or clever wording, sneaking something in, sheer pigheaded insistence om getting your own way, spell research, or trying to get them to approve a relevant natural-law immunity, is never a good idea. At best it sucks a lot of the fun out of a game. At worst, it ends it. Violating the implied social conventions of gaming generally isn’t worth it. For more on that… there’s the “Underlying The Rules” series of articles from a whle back.

I suspect that you may be referring to things that are called “Impossible!” simply because no one knows how to do them yet, rather than for any underlying reason. Thus, for example, until some early mage developed a “Spark” or “Jolt” cantrip everyone knew that Lightning was the province of the sky gods, and beyond mortal control! In this case…the “popular wisdom” is simply wrong and you can go right ahead and develop such spells with or without any special boost.

And there’s always the possibility that I’m not getting what you mean by “regular impossible”. I’m certainly not infallible, it’s just that these are the first types of “Impossible” that came to mind.

Does that help any?

Reply
- Jirachi, on January 21, 2019 at 10:25 am said:
  
  I got the impression that all spells are researched via spellcraft, and that the only problem with researching a spell that you can’t cast is that you can’t test it.
  That’s roughly the types of ‘impossible’ but I didn’t think to include ‘non-sensical’ as part of that (i.e. That’s not how Godhood works, that’s not how euclidean geometry works).
  What could you accomplish in spell research with a relevant ‘immunity to the normal limitations of’ that you couldn’t otherwise?
  Additional minor questions include any ideas you have for ‘counts as pluses’ weapon powers, why you said in the flavour text of dweomer that ‘modern magic’ is inflexible and easily counterspelled or blocked by various counter magics without a mechanical difference, and whether there is a particular reason why you didn’t include a variant of magician for powering thaumaturgy and Theurgy.
- Thoth, on January 21, 2019 at 11:23 pm said:
  
  While informal usage, and the ever-increasing number of variant d20 magic systems, often use the term “spells” informally, d20 is, in fact, quite careful to define spells as a specific form of formulaic magic – which is why Warlocks use Invocations, Binders use Vestiges to produce Supernatural Effects, Incarnum uses Melds, Truenamers use Utterances (using Truenaming), Psionics uses Powers (and have the Psicraft skill), Shadow Magic uses Mysteries (which sometimes work as spells and sometimes don’t), and so on. Where such systems interact with Spellcraft at all, there tend to be special rules.
  
  That’s because Spellcraft is literally Craft (Spells). It can be used to create spell formula, evaluate their effects, identify them as they’re being used, and so on – just as Craft (Wood) can be used to design and make wooden items, to identify what another woodworker is doing, to evaluate wooden objects and guess at their purposes, and so on.
  
  Spellcraft tends to be stretched a bit (if often with a penalty or at very high DC’s) simply because game writers are a bit reluctant to tell players with old characters that “you can’t deal with the stuff in this new supplement because it requires a skill that didn’t exist back when you made your character”. That has happened to other skills too, which is why (for example), “disable device” got stretched to cover business sabotage when Pathfinder’s Downtime System was written.
  
  Thus “Spellcraft” covers Alchemical Items because Craft (Alchemy) has “being a spellcaster” as a prerequisite – even if other magical disciplines are commonly substituted.
  
  Other writers, somewhat more sensibly, dumped such things into Knowledge (Arcana).
  
  So yes, all spell formulas are researched with Spellcraft – but there are plenty of magical systems that don’t use spell formulas.
  
  Thus the Weird Science variant on Ritual Magic (a note on the Ritual Magic page) uses engineering skills instead of Spellcraft and has no spell formula – so Spellcraft is useless when dealing with Weird Science. It’s useless when dealing with the Legends Of High Fantasy ritual system too, since that system uses it’s own skill and has nothing to do with Spellcraft. Spellcraft is of no use with Melds, or Vestiges, or Invocations, or pretty much anything but spells.
  
  So Spellcraft won’t normally let you design a spell formula for a Theurgist because there’s no such thing; Theurgists don’t need or use spell formula. You can use Spellcraft to make some general predictions about a Theurgists abilities based on what can and can’t be done with spell formula (assuming that the setting is one in which all types of magic share the same limitations) and try to guess at what they’re up to – but even if you recognize that a Theurgist is performing a spell that creates and controls fire, exactly what they’re going to be using that control to do is up in the air. In this case the “impossible” modifier would be applying Spellcraft to an area where it normally does not work – researching whether something can be done with a system of magic that does not use formal spells and which functions differently from systems that use formal spell formula.
  
  “Immunity to the normal limits of a skill” normally acts to expand the ways in which a skill can be used – allowing it to apply to additional situations or to produce results that are normally beyond the limits of mere realistic skill. But, by default, Spellcraft is capable of designing all possible spell formula (even if the necessary check total is unreasonably high) – just as “Craft/Carpentry” is capable of creating all possible objects made from pieces of shaped and joined wood.
  
  When a function is already unlimited, the only thing that taking an “Immunity to Normal Limits” gets you is a way to bypass your personal limits. If assembling a particular bit of carpentry normally calls for working in six dimensions, a properly phrased immunity would let you build it even if you can’t work in six dimensions. If an exotic spell formula requires the use of concepts that will melt your brain to work, a properly phrased immunity will let you design that spell formula without melting your brain.
  
  If you want to design genuinely “Impossible Spells”… well, designing things that won’t work doesn’t actually call any special abilities – or for much of any skill at all. Plenty of amateurs have designed perpetual motion machines that don’t work, just as plenty of people with no medical skills have come up with cancer cures that don’t work. I have a copy of the Star Trek Technical Manual, with the blueprints for the Enterprise. They don’t work either.
  
  Thus the breaking down of “categories of impossibility” and which of them it’s possible to get around and which it isn’t.
  
  For the minor questions…
  
  I’ve never spent much time on coming up with additional “counts as plusses” weapon powers. There are a few scattered around on particular characters – but for the most part I’ve found the existing list sufficient.
  
  Eclipse doesn’t really have flavor text. By default, “Modern Magic” is the stuff found in the SRD – a specific list of formulaic spells. It is (pretty much by definition) quite inflexible compared to the various freeform systems and is easily counterspelled and blocked because the basic “Counterspell” rules are that you must ready an action to counterspell a specific target, successfully identify the spell being cast, and cast the identical spell to counter it.
  
  The limited number of spell formula means that a would-be counterspeller is much more likely to have an identical spell ready. It’s not at all uncommon for a random Bard and a Wizard to both have Glitterdust available because it’s a very good spell and the lists are limited.
  
  A formulaic spellcaster generally can’t counterspell a freeform caster unless that freeform caster is deliberately duplicating a spell. Freeform casters often cannot counterspell each other either; a Banecasting Thaumaturgist using the skills Weave Of Terror and Maladictions will not be able to counterspell a Weathershaping Thaumaturgist (and vice versa). He may not even be able to counterspell another Banecasting Thaumaturgist if that other caster has focused on different skills.
  
  Note that using “Dispel Magic” (requiring a roll-off) is not a Counterspell (which always works) except against another Dispel Magic spell. You’re just using a readied action to attempt to dispel the spell that your opponent is casting.
  
  Thus counterspelling “Modern Magic” is much easier.
  
  AS for blocking… lets consider the biggest general magical block in the system; an antimagic sphere. A formulaic mage may be completely helpless against such a sphere.
  
  A freeform caster might, for example, just scoop up a lot of rocks, move them over the antimagic sphere, and let go. That would be a less efficient damage dealer than – say – conjuring up a bolt of flame, but it will go right though the antimagic sphere. Freeform casters are harder to block because they can usually find a way around any specific defense.
  
  Thaumaturgy, Dweomer, and Theurgy don’t have a variant of the Magician ability (giving them bonus spellcasting for having a high casting attribute) because they don’t have a casting attribute to begin with. You may also note that – while Dweomer and Thaumaturgy add the user’s (Con Mod) to the save DC – Theurgy saves are simply (10 + Effect Level) – making the most flexible style of magic in the book the easiest to resist.

Jirachi, on January 23, 2019 at 10:55 am said:

Would it makes sense for a variant of the magician ability be purchasable if they use augmented bonus to add an attribute?

Thoth, on January 24, 2019 at 3:33 am said:

I’d be rather skeptical, since that is just augmenting a bonus, not really providing a basic attribute for the system in the first place – and that’s one of the defining differences between the systems.

Reply

Jirachi, on January 28, 2019 at 8:36 pm said:

On ‘things you noted in the book but haven’t done here’ (that I would like to see) include creating example spell lists for flexible casters, an example of for what customizing powers for a flexible caster (yes, it’s kind of just ‘could you do an example character for a flexible caster (maybe a warping adept?)).
Can you use the invention rules for ability paths/spell lists, and create new, widespread new casting progressions from theory?
Does the ‘artificer’ ability of the item creation let you purchase it several times to get a reduction on both costs?

Thoth, on January 29, 2019 at 2:55 pm said:

Well…

1) Shall get added to the project pile. It shouldn’t be too long; that one is fairly simple.

2) Yes – and there are more detailed rules for it (and a lot more Paths/Domains) in Paths Of Power – but unless your new creation is incredibly useful or you advertise it, it may take it quite a while to become widespread.

3) Yes – at least if your game master is willing to put up with it. Of course, given that such a character can easily become rich without ever going adventuring, they might not be much fun to play.

Reply
- Jirachi, on January 30, 2019 at 11:34 am said:
  
  it’s hard to come up with a character concept that can’t get rich without adventuring. For example, even with just level skill points in the craft skill can live an ‘excellent living for there level’. You could probably do a similar thing by just hiring yourself out on low risk jobs with a couple of escape options,, or if they are a caster selling there ability to cast spells.
- Thoth, on February 2, 2019 at 5:22 am said:
  
  The d20 economic rules are a mess aren’t they? Thus there is no real provision for player-characters selling spells. After all, they need to find customers who need spells and who don’t already have a reliable source – so what they’re actually doing is usually just making an Unskilled “Profession / Spellseller” check. Hyperfocused Craft skills – the old “Underwater Basket Weaving” routine – technically do work, but most game masters will start asking “who is buying this stuff?” fairly quickly. Similarly, a combat-focused type may not find a particularly remunerative market for his or her skills outside of adventuring. Bodyguarding and enforcement does pay fairly well for a “normal” job, but few get rich at it – and it amounts to making a “profession” skill check again.
  
  Magic Items though… since the more potent ones are usually made to order, finding customers is not a problem, the rules give us a specified sale value, and – since magic items are a direct source of power rather than a luxury good – you aren’t going to lack for customers. Making items on the cheap is a very direct route to wealth; it’s easier than most of the others and – as a bonus – increases your personal power as well.
  
  Although it might also draw a lot of “offers you can’t refuse”, since governments and tyrants alike will want such a source of power under their thumbs.
- Jirachi, on February 2, 2019 at 7:32 pm said:
  
  I mean, I imagine that most warrior types will at least one skill at (level + 3 + attribute), which is probably quite valuable. And Eclipse makes it fairly easy for anyone to pick up minor spellcasting abilities which they could sell.
  I could easily picture a ‘standard’ D&D setting having a services that you could pay a modest cost to connect you to a buyer. Having ‘magical service middle managers’ means that they don’t have to have that skill at a particularly high rank.
  Honestly, I’d expect many adventurers to have unlimited use magical items that they could sell the services of, be a teacher of whatever it is they do easily enough, and living a comfortable life of off any number of things.
  The ‘offer you can’t refuse’ risk exists, but is still a significant problem if they end up adventuring. It could happen sometimes, but high level characters are often free spirited and don’t take kindly to that sort of thing. It’d probably be a waste of resources to make the attempt.
- Thoth, on February 13, 2019 at 5:05 am said:
  
  Oh, I’d just expect general demographics to get in the way. After all, adventurers are rare – so anyone who regularly needs such things is going to have more reliable sources on tap.
  
  Fortunately, the high-level types tend to get around the “offer you can’t refuse” problems by just taking over the land for themselves.
WorlBuildr, on January 29, 2019 at 6:37 pm said:

Seconded.

If only because it would pretty much reQuire the assembly of a ranked spell effects list, of the sort presented in “Heroes of High Favor: Elves” (and otherwise lackluster supplement).

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alzrius, on January 28, 2019 at 9:02 pm said:

I’ve noticed that, where a group of spells that are scale-able are concerned (i.e. meta-spells, the spell templates from The Practical Enchanter, etc.), using Amplification metamagic seems to offer proverbial bang for your buck than stronger spells of an equivalent level.

For example, a 10th-level spellcaster using cure light wounds will restore 1d8+5 hit points, averaging 9. Using three spell levels’ worth of Amplification metamagic – making it a 4th level effect in total – will maximize that, bringing it to 13 hit points. By contrast, that same caster using cure critical wounds (which is also a 4th-level spell), would cure 4d8+10 hit points, for an average of 28. Even if we subtract the additional hit points granted due to caster level, the former example offers a maximized d8 for four spell levels’ worth of power, whereas the latter offers an averaged 4d8, which is much more of an effect for the same degree of power.

Notwithstanding issues of back-compatibility, what’s the explanation for this, from a simulationist standpoint?

Jirachi, on January 29, 2019 at 10:58 am said:

I think the in game explanation is probably something like hidden complexity (like targeting effects, making the energy have better compatibility with those healed)… added into the spell formula that isn’t added in when simply just shoving more magic in.
Also, this effect seems to not persist super reliably at higher levels. For example, if you assume that we are all using formula spells, you could have a maximized cure moderate wounds spell, that heals 26 damage (maximized 2d8 + 10), which is close enough for me to say that both are about equally valuable, both at the same spell level. You can get 3d8 + 15 (av. 27) using augment, so it seems like it might just be a level 1 spell thing, or a minor detail of some spells.

Reply
- Thoth, on January 29, 2019 at 2:50 pm said:
  
  For Alzrius…
  
  Well, when it comes to being a simulationist, the easiest thing to do is to look at a more familiar engineering analogy.
  
  Lets say that you want a racecar. Now you can take an old station wagon, and bolt on a turbocharger, add a roll cage, put on new tires, put in a short throw shifter, put in a nitrous oxide injector, and so on – or you could get a car designed for racing.
  
  There aren’t many souped-up station wagons being used in professional racing. Evidently the bolt-on-parts approach is ultimately less effective than getting something designed for what you wanted to do in the first place.
  
  And thus it is with metamagic, which is why The Practical Enchanter gives a “credit” for metamagic-equivalents that are built into the spell formula.
  
  Of course, a careful selection of bolt-on parts to customize something for a specific task can be extremely effective. While “Amplify” is a poor choice for healing spells, since their limits tend to be based more on Complexity than Power you could use other metamagics. For example…
  
  You’d be much better off applying those +3 spell levels to get a Burst effect (after all, “ray” spells are generally just touch spells with range), healing 1d8+5 to everyone within thirty feet. That could be a great deal of healing indeed.
  
  Alternatively, you could apply “Multiple”. The “Combine” option produces a slight improvement on Cure Serious Wounds, the Spamming/Recast option takes four rounds but is a slight improvement over Cure Critical Wounds, and the Chain option becomes very powerful at high levels – averaging 151.5 points of healing at caster level twenty.
  
  Going further afield… you could use Elemental Manipulation (to allow it to remove various conditions), or Lacing (Bypass) to heal normally unhealable wounds – but those don’t scale as directly and are extremely special purpose.
  
  For Jirachi…
  
  You’re quite right when it comes to healing complexity. It’s also notable that a LOT of the first level spells are a little wonky in terms of their effectiveness. That’s basically a gameability issue: a low-level caster only gets a few first level spells. Ergo, they need to be worthwhile – while a higher level character with a lot of spells will get to use them more often, and so they have to be less effective in terms of defeating level-appropriate foes. Thus lower-level spells get various caps while higher-level spells become less effective in comparison.
  
  I can think of several ways to explain that effect, but they’re all just glossing over “we need this to make the game work”.
  
  And I hope that helps!

alzrius, on February 4, 2019 at 8:33 pm said:

A question that’s long overdue: what exactly is the “ruscumag” that’s part of your blog’s URL?

Jirachi, on February 5, 2019 at 5:59 pm said:

I like rebuilding the powers of the Paladin, since there casting isn’t exactly the strongest or the most useful, or particularly difficult to replace.
I’m curious if it would be feasible to build many of the powers of the paladin as Channeling. I’m fairly sure that I could build it at level 20 easily, but less sure about being able to make it affordable as it goes, along with casting level problems might make it problematic.
(Also, Paladin / Ranger spellcasting could possibly be built possibly better by buying the Inner Fire, some pacts and some mana, while possibly getting access to a better spell list and higher level spells)

Thoth, on February 13, 2019 at 5:02 am said:

You certainly could – but I’m not sure whether or not it would be more efficient to use Channeling. I shall have to think about that for a bit.

And The Inner Fire would work – but it would require some higher minimum levels.

Reply
- Jirachi, on February 14, 2019 at 6:58 pm said:
  
  tldr, it would be more efficient (at least as ‘I’m a high level character who wants to do a paladin dip’ kind of way.
  Channeling, with 1 + 3 * Cha mod uses a day, with + 2 base intensity (21 CP)
  Spell conversion (up to level 6) (corrupted / generates effect at a half caster level) (9 CP) (Invocation of paladin spellcasting, effects of up to level 4)
  (30 CP)
  (Section for mimicking other paladin powers)
  Additional channeling spells (3 CP) (Day long armor of light (base level 3, + 4 levels of persistent – 1 for more than three levels of metamagic = level 6), Day long Good Hope (base level 3, + 4 level of persistent – 1 for more than three levels of metamagic = level 6), Week long Detect Evil (Base level 1, + 6 levels of persistent, – 2 for five or more levels of metamagic), Disease immunity…)
  Immunity to dispelling (Specialized for reduced cost / only for channeling effects, only for ‘personal enhancement’ spells) (Uncommon/Major/Epic) (12 CP)
  For another 3 CP, you can 4 more spells, which might either be specific to your character or ‘ask your DM’ spells. Personally, I think you could reasonably include immunity to disease, knock off healing touch, Invocation of Healing (Any of the spells on the ‘improved healing touch’ list) and similarly useful powers.
  If we want a little bit of cheese and to extract even more value out of this, here’s a bit of cheese for that.
  1d6 (4) mana (specialized for reduced cost / only to use spell enhancement to allow long term boosting spells) (3 CP)
  Rite of Chi (only to refill the pool above) (3 CP)
  With that, you can buy a number of other paladin abilities. Holy Mount (Very Complex mental feat (base level 4) + 4 (persistent) – 1 (three or more levels of metamagic) = 7, Healing Touch (Level seven, same calculation) or whatever.
  Total Costs: 30 CP (base package) + 15 (personal enhancement package) + 9 (Cheesy enhancement package) = 54
  So, cheaper than the normal paladin abilities.
  Yes, this would probably be super akward to backwards extrapolate to level 4. I gave paladin spellcasting at two levels for the invocation effect becuase I didn’t want to be choosing something pretty much strictly inferior to cleric casting, it’s a fairly limited spell list, and because this takes away a good amount of abilities specialized to only work when in service to good. The build could reasonably just use cleric casting, and live with the three level decrease by lerandor’s rule and the increased diversity of spells, but I think this better preserves ‘being a paladin’.
  As for doing it as you level up, I don’t really have a better answer that ‘Have your paladin retrain, unlearning the cheap tricks for more efficient, general competence’, waiting to buy the invocation and having a handful of level appropriate spells, ask your GM about getting a package deal to help with the frontloading and maybe even underbuying your primary combat talents and enhancing them with the boosting magic that you have now gained access to.
  Unless you do something with it (or say that you are going to do something with it), I’ll create a few ‘snapshot’ levels for demonstration purposes over the long weekend, or maybe even a level by level.
- Jirachi, on February 14, 2019 at 7:06 pm said:
  
  ‘EDIT’: The corruption for the spell conversion should be rephrased or eliminated, considering it makes the invocation uncontrollable. The limitation should probably be something like ‘cast spells with an effect caster level 3/4 of your level, with a maximum of level 11’ or not exist at all for a cost of an extra 4. (Also, the corrupted cost should be 8, not 9)
- Thoth, on February 16, 2019 at 12:41 am said:
  
  Well, I will admit that that’s a problem with designing any character at medium-or-higher levels – rather like some of the standard d20 “Optimized Builds” that were pretty much useless until fairly high level when whatever trick or combo they were built around finally kicked in. Fortunately “how did they manage to GET to this point?” rarely came up with someone was starting a game at tenth level or some such.
  
  I think that stretches the Channeling Conversion a bit – unless, of course, you’re just channeling power from a god, which is fairly reasonable for this build.
  
  Just for fun… you could always go with Major Privilege / Granted Powers (From the Personality Traits in Eclipse, page 154) and find a way to bump them up a bit (perhaps a small immunity to boost the effective scores) – thus raking in a considerable character point profit. Go ahead, take a “Paladin Dip” by simply showing yourself to be a true and noble champion of righteousness.
  
  Now I feel an urge to use that in a sample character.
- Jirachi, on February 16, 2019 at 12:00 pm said:
  
  I don’t really think that it’s much of a stretch. I mean, pretty much everything a paladin does is either a positive energy effect (buffing or healing), or is just a order effect, but they don’t have very many and adding them seems unproblematic, and could go missing without really being signifigantly less effective.
  But yeah, channeling the gods in this sense seems limited enough to not be “I’m buying cheaper cleric casting in disguise.”
  Theoretically speaking, there would be channeling paths for energy sources other than just positive and negative energy, right?
  The channeling effect actually makes a nice package deal for basic paladin casting that can be upgrade easily and doesn’t have some of the problems that paladins normally have.
  1 + Cha mod Channeling uses (6 CP) (may or may not be specialized in spell conversion)
  Level 3 spell conversion (6 CP) (Invocation of the Holy Knight / any paladin spell of up to level 1)
  It has the nice bonus that it can be upgraded easily, just buy more channeling uses and upgrade the invocation to effects of up to level 3/4 for 3/6 CP, though obviously caster levels become an issue if you want to buy this at the traditional low levels.
  if you want to mimic the traditional paladin progression, then just spend 3 CP on a specialized caster level for this, and then you’ve spent (including the package) 15 CP instead of 14 (2 specialized caster levels (6), 1 level of paladin casting (2), and assuming 1 + Cha mod uses without the specialization (6)). That’s literally a rounding error (It really is so nice when point buy works properly).
  Admittedly, this version of the paladin will be able to turn undead a bit less, but they can spontaneously cast any paladin spell of up to level 1, don’t have to prepare spells, and can cast more spells a day. That’s a tradeoff I’m more than happy to make.
  The package just makes it trivial to afford and isn’t strictly necessary to build a paladin from low levels. Adding in the virtues thing could mean that you have even more solid paladin casting!
- Thoth, on February 18, 2019 at 2:19 am said:
  
  Well, there are indeed some discussions on channeling other energy sources. Thera included a lot of alternative channeling types and there’s a more through discussion of what is, and what is not, an appropriate effect for Conversion over HERE. That one also notes some additional alternative power sources that you might use.
- Jirachi, on February 16, 2019 at 2:21 pm said:
  
  Edited and compiled a few options into rough article, with mentions of customization opportunities. The Inner fire option turned out to be really cheap and a bit cheesy.
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oo2rWeXA5Xyq__oOVCYO6bTdKob_OILqFm5L5oKmBTY/edit?usp=sharing
  The caster level problem is less of one than I had thought, all things considered.
- Thoth, on February 18, 2019 at 2:04 am said:
  
  And I’ve tried sticking a few notes in. I hope that they help!
- Thoth, on February 18, 2019 at 2:18 am said:
  
  And here is the second bit – more power packages for lower level characters.
- Jirachi, on February 18, 2019 at 12:26 pm said:
  
  Made most assorted revisions, added comments and additional notes where I didn’t change things. Included assorted quotes and such for justification. Included additional inherent spell method. Thank you again for the revisions!
- Noah Luxton Justin, on February 23, 2019 at 2:30 pm said:
  
  (Please look again, since I think I dealt with your concerns). If nothing else, adding the inherent spell approach is new. And can you buy augmented bonus for bonus spells / power, and if so, how does it work?
- Thoth, on March 12, 2019 at 3:47 am said:
  
  And here we go! Part I and Part II.

Jirachi, on February 5, 2019 at 6:32 pm said:

A few questions about Hexcrafting: How do Hexcrafting NPCs work in your games? How does Hexcrafting work if built in as an integral part of the setting? Would using Hexcrafting in a flashback or similar count against th e number of uses in a session?
(Actually, now that I think about it, Hexcrafting is quite well suited as a background racial element for limited instinctive thematic casting. Buying a card slot and Hysteria for caster level is fairly inexpensive (12-16 CP, depending on broadness rulings) and allows occasional thematic casting without requiring the skill of using dweomer and being substantially broader).

Jirachi, on February 5, 2019 at 7:02 pm said:

(and it gives a natural way for people to be naturally stronger and able to pull off impressive feats in desperation, if they have a casting stat of 18+, they can spend 3 cards to get an effect of up to level 6).

Reply
- Thoth, on February 13, 2019 at 4:59 am said:
  
  Well, this is going to have to be multistep – but the first required bit (some power packages for lower level characters) is now up.

alzrius, on February 12, 2019 at 4:28 pm said:

I was flipping through my copy of Paths of Power II, and glancing through the “Other Products” section at the back, I notice that Distant Horizons Games apparently wrote a book called “Prestige Class Collection One.” It’s not available on your page on DriveThruRPG anymore, so I’m a little curious; what happened to it?

Thoth, on February 13, 2019 at 3:04 am said:

Hm… I don’t recall taking it down, so it may have just gone missing in a server transfer or something – but I have to admit that that one was pretty minor; Patrick thought that we should have a prestige class collection since pretty much everyone did. So a short collection of them got written up that basically explored some oddities that weren’t in d20 at the time. I doubt that I’ll ever bother resurrecting it; quite a lot of the stuff was either folded into Eclipse or – like using alchemical components to boost spellcasting or a build-your-own-spells-out-of-individual-magical-words system – has long since gotten much more extensive treatments elsewhere. Not surprising given that it has been fifteen years or so on that one.

It wasn’t popular anyway; focusing on sets of unique abilities wasn’t what most of the people looking at prestige classes wanted; they wanted to upgrade their characters existing abilities instead.

Reply

alzrius, on February 13, 2019 at 10:59 am said:

Looking at the rules for Companion bonuses (Eclipse, p. 189), I’m given to wonder if there are other sorts of companion bonds that could be formed rather than familiars/psi-crystals, mystical mounts, or animal companions. If so, presumably those would have different benefits (and penalties, if the bond were broken such as by the companion being killed) than those listed for each of those different types of companions, before taking any purchases of upgraded Companion abilities into account.

What other sorts of bonds could there be, and what abilities would they have?

Thoth, on February 16, 2019 at 12:45 am said:

Well, I shall think about it, since not too much is coming to mind at the moment. Item Familiars and Bonded Items really don’t work all that well (they do better as Relics) and there aren’t really all that many other types of creatures to bond with. There may be something though.

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Thoth, on February 24, 2019 at 2:19 pm said:

And here we go – how to bond with a wide assortment of things. I hope that helps!

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alzrius, on February 16, 2019 at 9:00 pm said:

The chart for size modifiers on page 62 of Eclipse has some notes regarding the Dexterity adjustment for Gargantuan- and Colossal-sized creatures. Namely, that while they call for a respective -8 and -16 adjustment to a creature’s Dexterity scores, creatures should treat this as Dex -4 for purposes of initiative and AC purposes, according to the footnotes. Those same footnotes indicate that “Skill checks and fine manipulation are subject to these massive penalties.”

While I’m not entirely certain what sort of checks constitute “fine manipulation,” I’m curious if it would include Reflex saves and ranged attack rolls. In other words, do those two values use the full, heavier penalties to Dexterity, or do they use the smaller -4 adjustment?

Thoth, on February 16, 2019 at 11:50 pm said:

It’s quite literal. Fine manipulation = manipulating small (“Fine” or smaller) objects. Thus Gargantuan and Colossal creatures are extremely bad at normal-scale needlepoint and lockpicking, picking aphids off of roses, threading normal-sized needles, tying knots in string, signing their names in books, trying to draw miniaturized magical circles, cracking nuts without pulverizing them, bandaging the wings of injured songbirds, reassembling the shards of a broken statue, handling potion vials, and so on. I suppose you could make it a sliding scale for manipulating progressively larger items until you get to the point where they aren’t suffering a penalty – but I doubt that that is worth the space.

And no, it doesn’t extend to ranged attacks and reflex saves. After all, a gargantuan creature may be less agile, but it can dodge much further with a single step. It’s pretty arbitrary I suppose, but if it works for dragons it’s good enough for everyone else.

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alzrius, on March 10, 2019 at 12:41 am said:

How would you build a sha’ir (from the Al-Qadim setting) with the Eclipse rules? The class had a 3rd Edition conversion (in Dragon magazine, reprinted in the Dragon Compendium), but that version made some small-but-significant changes to how the class functioned.

alzrius, on March 16, 2019 at 3:44 pm said:

How exactly does the fastness of the heart spell (Eclipse, p. 125) protect against non-magical attempts to make someone reveal information that they don’t want to reveal? That the spell simply defeats magical attempts to make them talk, even indirectly, is fairly obvious, but what does it do about threats, blackmail, or torture? A weighted consideration of “it’s better for me to tell them what they want to know than to remain in excruciating agony/have my embarrassing secrets revealed” doesn’t seem like something that a spell could protect against.

Thoth, on March 17, 2019 at 9:15 pm said:

As a tenth level spell it has a variety of options open, but the simplest option is to simply make that information inaccessible under duress of any form. Thus someone affected by Fastness Of The Heart might come up with a plausible explanation to give a torturer, and likely believe it (people do tend to rationalize irrational decisions and unsupported beliefs even when not under the effects of a tenth level spell) – but it would simply be an answer of convenience, not really any better than any other guess.

Alternatively, I suppose, you could treat it like a Malediction (Doom Category), so that attempts to get the information are opposed by limitless freeform fifth level spells; that could make for quite an interesting problem as the person with the information you’re desperately trying to get keeps being teleported away, your pursuit is blocked by Walls Of Force, and – at the most extreme – the spell kills the victim and disposes of the body. You’d have to be pretty silly to cast something like that though. The ramifications of that kind of open-ended Doom are totally unpredictable but are unlikely to be good.

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chrisianak, on March 23, 2019 at 10:16 pm said:

Question.
How would you go about building a Hearthstone for a group not composed of casters? Would bonding with it still be a 6cp feat? What about the hearthstone itself? Seems like something that would be beneficial for all kinds of groups, not just those who practice spell storing. The basic hearthstone in the practical enchanter seems to be a sentient item with a 48,000gp Extraordinary power that enhances spell storing abilities of it’s linked members.

Thoth, on March 24, 2019 at 6:13 am said:

It would still be a 6 CP feat, since that’s the cost of setting up the bond, regardless of the exact functions of the Heartstone.

If you don’t want the “scroll rack” functions, then you simply use a different base item – at the simplest, you can simply substitute a feat-granting effect of the same cost – perhaps bestowing a complex mental feat with no prerequisite, or a Very Complex Physical Feat, a pair of complex physical feats, or even any one simple or complex physical feat from a group of feats – giving those who join up a choice of what they get. Otherwise, they don’t have to make much use of the spell storing function; several of the minor examples listed don’t.

And I hope that helps!

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- chrisianak, on March 24, 2019 at 12:17 pm said:
  
  Hadn’t thought of that, simply give different feats. That way the hearthstone has a similar base build. Thanks.
  
  They are just too good an idea for any kind of organization to pass up. Relatively secure communication and information infrastructure, an impartial rules enforcer, group benefits, etc. City guard, crafts-guild, bardic college (scrolls might be useful here), spy organization, messengers, etc.

chrisianak, on March 24, 2019 at 12:24 pm said:

How would you build a magic book that can be used to read any information stored in a linked library? I got the idea from an episode of Angel where the titular character is looking up legal references from the library of the inter-planar evil triad of Wolf, Ram, and Hart (in the main plane of the show, they are the law firm Wolfram and Hart).
How would that change if the book could also access magical writings like scrolls and spellbooks?

Thoth, on March 29, 2019 at 2:43 am said:

And the answer to that turned into an article, which can be found over HERE.

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alzrius, on April 14, 2019 at 9:35 pm said:

A minor question that I don’t think has come up before (probably due to it being obvious, but I wanted to ask it anyway): if using the Eclipse rules for Channeling (rather than standard clerical turning) and you have 5 or more ranks in the 3.5 Knowledge (religion) skill, then the +2 synergy bonus should be applied to the Channeling Intensity check roll, right?

Thoth, on April 15, 2019 at 6:28 pm said:

Yes.

Which, I think, gives you the record for the shortest answer ever on this blog!

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alzrius, on April 17, 2019 at 1:30 pm said:

I’ve recently encountered some media that have put forward an interesting idea with regards to undead beings. Specifically, the idea that it’s possible for there to be undead creatures that were never alive to begin with, essentially beginning their existence – whether summoned magically or created “naturally” – in an undead state.

While none of those media get particularly deep into the mechanics of how exactly that’s possible, the idea doesn’t seem so implausible that it cannot be countenanced. That is, if new beings can come into being while alive, why not do so at the opposite end of the metaphysical spectrum? That, or they could be animated by spirits associated with death, necromancy, etc. Coming up with an explanation that sounds plausible, at least on its face, isn’t too hard.

My question is, what mechanical alterations (to the existing rules regarding undeath) would that idea have if implemented under the d20 game rules? At the very least, it seems like spells associated with creating/summoning such undead wouldn’t necessarily have the [Evil] descriptor.

spellweaver81, on April 19, 2019 at 10:25 pm said:

Personally, the issue I see is that most undead seem to act as either constructs like skeletons and liches that just happen to use living remains as the raw materials or are some sort of a contagious plague like vampires or zombies. As such they all seem to be defined with regards to a former “living” state. Thus I find it hard to visualize some method of generating undead corpses without some source of corpses to begin with that required it being alive at some point. Which isn’t to say you couldn’t animated a mass of calcium and synthetic protein into a zombie, but I don’t think that is the idea you were going with.

Instead, I would look at the idea of negative energy lifeforms as a mirror to positive energy lifeforms. A lot of material seems to assume that all living things have some sort of link to the Positive Energy Plane that provides the animating/organizing force independent of the creature’s metabolism. While never entirely clear, the positive energy a creature can pull through into the material plane is limited and that is what is the bottleneck for things like healing, lifespan, and growth. To further boost those in response to disease, injury, or aging, external sources are required in the form of medicinal herbs, healing spells, and lifeforce infusions.

With that said, I would argue that lifeforms that use a link to the Negative Energy Plane as an energy sink would be possible. Instead of pulling energy in to heal injuries, it could instead sacrifice mass-energy to the sink to generate power for healing instead.

While in many ways indistinguishable from normal life forms, this could have a number of interesting side effects: poor (or even addictive) response to normal healing, a tendency to lose mass over time, a body temperature a little below ambient, healing ability being proportional to mass (i.e. being fatter), slower growth rates, much higher need to eat/drink to maintain mass and health, higher tolerance to heat, and lower tolerance to cold.

Thus I can imagine life forms running around the material plane vacuuming up loose bits of mass-energy to consume, growth, and multiply across the landscape. Attempts by these creatures to eat normal life forms or vice versa could go poorly as the resulting (brief) collision between positive and negative energy taps lead to explosive results. Which could then lead to entire areas being dominated by one form of life or the other depending on which gained a hold first. Perhaps this could be the mechanism behind those absurdly vibrant underground ecologies and why people aren’t roasted alive due to the geothermal heat.

This could then lead to all sorts of fun little issues like you can’t eat the local flora/fauna without some significant preparation work, extremely potent medicines made from plants of the other type that are a pain to gather, and really nasty monsters that start off huge and can continue fighting for long periods of time simply by sacrificing mass for regeneration until it is too small and then flees whereupon it may return larger than ever when you least suspect it.

Not that this is a set of mechanical alterations like you asked, but perhaps this is food for thought to help brainstorm some more ideas, adventures, and horrifying experiments.

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alzrius, on May 19, 2019 at 5:48 pm said:

I just realized that the “Variations on Dispel” section in The Practical Enchanter (pg. 95-96) has no modification to emulate the effects of mage’s disjunction. Is this intentional? It seems like that spell’s effects should be included as part of what dispelling can potentially do.

Thoth, on May 21, 2019 at 11:34 pm said:

It is intentional; I tend to view Dispel (and “Anti-Magic”) effects as being inherently temporary disruptions – blocking or disrupting the flow of magical energies without impacting their underlying sources. Thus temporary structures (effects with a duration) can be disrupted, stored structures (potions and such) can be similarly effectively destroyed by Dispel effects, and they can be blocked out of manifesting (although their duration continues to run) by anti-magic, but neither effect will destroy the physically-embedded structures and links which are used to create permanent items.

Of course, that’s just me; if you feel otherwise, nothing at all prevents you from adding such a modifier.

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jirachi386, on May 26, 2019 at 9:19 pm said:

Do you have any reccomendations for how to making some powers harder to get in universe without making them restricted from being played at all?
The only thing I can think of you using for that is ‘game master’s permission only’, but I’m unsure that that fits what I’m looking for well.

Thoth, on May 27, 2019 at 10:12 pm said:

That kind of thing usually goes on the settings character design sheet – and there are a number of reasonably common options.

1) Make them more expensive. Just as the Manifold setting allows some powers to be purchased at reduced cost, some settings may either increase the costs of particular powers or require a prerequisite ability – Immunity to some blocking influence or some such – which must be purchased before a character can buy into a particular ability sequence. “That’s more expensive because it’s harder in this universe!” is a perfectly valid approach.

2) Add required limitations. If, say, Arcane Magic does not work when the sun is above the horizon (for then the eyes of the gods are upon the world and none may twist what they intended it to be without their approval) – then all arcanists have to Corrupt their powers to be “not usable during the day”. They may or may not get a price break for that depending on whether the world law is “characters must take this corruption on arcane powers” (Price break applies, but the limitation applies even in other worlds) or it’s “arcane magic does not work during the day” – which gives no price break because you could go somewhere else without that restriction. On Darkweird, various uses of Mana were restricted to specific realms of existence. On the other hand, “Spirit Weapons were only capable of emulating muscle-powered weapons, but were available for half price. Characters who had great, big, magically-conspicuous, flashy spirit weapons got an extra die of damage – putting them on about the same level as those using (free) modern weapons.”

3) Some power sets may be incompatible. Perhaps you can have Shapeshifting OR the Path Of The Dragon, but not both. IN the Darkweird setting some powers were only open to specific races. On Atheria, some powers were only available through particular bloodlines, and having such a bloodline sometimes made you a target. This basically said “you can only have so many problematic abilities!” (Similarly, you could only have one Birthright, which depended on where you’d been born).

4) Some power sets may require special permission. That usually means either that there are special limitations that the player should know about before trying to use them or that you can only acquire them in specific ways. Thus, on Atheria, only The Powers Of Darkness granted Equipage or certain other abilities. Those powers weren’t necessarily EVIL – but they insisted on being PAID for the use of their powers. If only the mystic monks of Lengdo teach the discipline you want – then a character who wants that ability will just have to go to Lengdo and persuade them to teach him or her.

So basically… some abilities may cost more, suffer from limitations, be incompatible, require special circumstances or training to acquire, or require various commitments simply because that’s the way the setting is.

You’ll always want to tell people about that before they start building characters though.

And I hope that helps!

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- jirachi386, on June 6, 2019 at 8:18 pm said:
  
  Apologies about the miscommunication. I’m curious if you have any specific ideas for say, what the cost increases/multipliers should be for certain levels of rarity or similar such things.
  Is there a penalty to reinvent techniques normally only acquirable via special teaching? When would you permit a character to have original research in there field as part of character creation?
- Thoth, on June 10, 2019 at 4:02 am said:
  
  Oh, it’s not a worry. Miscommunication is surprisingly easy.
  
  And there are a couple of different mechanisms available.
  
  If the setting makes a general ability particularly easy or difficult, I usually go with:
  
  1) So easy it’s pretty much automatic. Whatever-it-is is bestowed to everyone at no cost.
  2) Really easy: Half cost.
  3) Baseline difficulty: Normal cost.
  4) Unusually Difficult. Double cost, thanks to both the extra trouble and a shortage of teachers.
  5) Impossibly Difficult. Not available.
  
  If something requires access to some special resource, or overcoming some special difficulty to make it work, then you’re usually looking at Occult Skill, Privilege / Access to said special resource, or purchasing some method of overcoming that difficulty – most often an Immunity (priced according to how severe the limitation is).
  
  If there’s a lack of information on something – rarity – then you have a job for Action Hero / Invention. This is the basic mechanism for introducing new research into a campaign.
  1) The technique is utterly unheard of! – Between 0 and the base cost of the innovation has been paid. You’ll have to start from scratch since this development is still in the concept stage.
  2) Only one man has ever mastered this technique! – Between 1x and 2x the base cost of the innovation has been paid. There are rumors of the technique, but little more. It’s not enough to work with, since no one else will know exactly what is being developed. You’d still be starting from scratch.
  3) Only a few devoted students of the inventor can use the technique! – Between 2x and 3x the base cost of the innovation has been paid. The creator can teach the technique, and students of his can use it, but no one else can teach it. Others can invest Action Points in it to develop the technique though.
  4) It belongs to a secret order! – Between 3x and 4x the base cost of the innovation has been paid. Various orders and groups may teach the secret technique.
  5) It belongs to specialists! – Between 34 and 5x the base cost of the innovation has been paid. There may be some special requirements, but anyone who fulfills those criteria can use it.
  6) Anyone can do it! – 5x or more of the base price of the innovation has been paid. Anyone who fulfills the techniques basic prerequisites can learn it.
  
  Is that more what you were looking for?

alzrius, on June 5, 2019 at 10:11 pm said:

What would be the mechanical representation of taking the Energy Infusion ability (Eclipse, p. 61) where the “energy” in question was maledictions look like? I’m honestly not completely sure what that would represent from an in-character standpoint (other than seeming like a cool idea), but insofar as mechanics go, all I can think of is that it would turn penalties from curses like bestow curse into bonuses (though I’m not sure what type). But for more creative curses that don’t have flat penalties, I’m less certain. For that matter, while the opposite energy would probably be “blessings,” that’s also hard to find a mechanical representation for. The bless spell just grants a morale bonus, after all.

jirachi386, on June 6, 2019 at 8:50 pm said:

That probably doesn’t make sense. The malediction spell template seems to basically create an intention and outsource the actual magic to a bunch of malicious spirits of spite and revenge, and then they work there magic based on that, so there is no ‘energy type’ involved.
The closest one could get is something like Major Privilege / Spirits of Vengance favour you, giving you the favour of curses. Curses are blunted or even possibly redirected when wielded against you, due to your status amongst them.
Alternatively, you could just be talking about the ‘unholy’ bonus type, which is countered one to one by sacred bonuses.

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Thoth, on June 10, 2019 at 3:22 am said:

And the answer once again got a bit long for comments, so it’s over HERE.

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jirachi386, on June 24, 2019 at 1:50 pm said:

I’m curious how you’d go about running an exalted game in Eclipse. I imagine there’d be an ‘exalt package deal’, some odd world laws and building most things stunts and reality editing but it seems to be far enough away from standard d20 and superhero stuff to be confusing.

jirachi386, on June 30, 2019 at 9:40 pm said:

Which if any of the ‘warping’ skills listed in eclipse covers summon monster style effects?

Thoth, on July 1, 2019 at 3:51 am said:

You could pull something through with Dimensional Warping, or out of the past or future with Temporal Warping, but neither offers a method of control or a good targeting method. The closest thing to Summon Monster might be under Telepathy – Creating a Construct and linking it to something that can channel power into it offers a wide range of options, even if they will often involve striking a bargain first. Pulling a pattern from another dimension, creating a body for it, and placing it under your control is a fairly complicated spell after all. and it’s not easy to build that up from more basic components.

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- jirachi386, on July 1, 2019 at 5:48 pm said:
  
  Eh, maybe? There’s probably a number of creatures that could be pretty accurately targeted via warp detection, and a reasonably plausible mechanism for summoning is ‘letting your powers manifest into this world via my planar link’, though that obviously doesn’t give much more control beyond the ability to banish them. I’d guess you might be able to let friendly spirits manifest, or do normal spirit contracting, but traditional ‘summon monster, no questions asked’ is probably impossible without adding something else (or doing something crazy like rewriting their timeline with time manipulation).
  Of course, the easiest way would be to add a skill that summons things normally, though I’m not sure it’d fit in the field very well.
- Thoth, on July 2, 2019 at 11:24 pm said:
  
  Such a skill probably wouldn’t fit into Warping Dweomer well since Dweomer focuses on groups of similar functions – and, as you note, “control a creature” really doesn’t fit in. Of course, such a skill would fit into many fields of Thaumaturgy just fine, since Thaumaturgy focuses on thematic relationships.
  
  And I hope that helps!

jirachi386, on July 1, 2019 at 7:48 pm said:

A few questions about the mystic artist ability:
1) Do you have a price system in mind for buying mystic art? I can’t say I have a very good intuitive grasp on how valuable they are and they seem like they ought to be common enough to have a price.
2) I’m a bit confused by how the ‘Composition’ effect is supposed to work, and what lets you use it, beyond the commiting of a skill point or two. Read straight, it seems to let a first level character cast a half powered version of Disintegrate via commiting to memory a path of dissonance effect, which seems wrong.
3) Can you use the ‘worldgate’ ability (or a minor variant) for conventional planar travel as well as travelling to realms of fantasy?
4) Can you take the basic mystic artist ability several times to get more basic abilities?

Thoth, on July 3, 2019 at 12:23 am said:

Well lets see here:

1) Since portable mystic art usually has to be powered by the creator to have notable supernatural effects it really doesn’t have a pricing standard beyond “you’re buying an artistic masterpiece” – just like a real-world millionaire buying a piece by a famous artist. Static Mystic Art has continuous effects, and is also usually a major project for the creator – so it gets expensive. There isn’t an exact system since prices for anything will vary with the setting (which is why Eclipse generally does not address things like “starting cash”), but as a quick rough estimate it’s worth about (Base Skill Squared) x 10 GP for smaller works. You then multiply by up to x5 for scale, since building a mighty temple or castle may take years.

Now if the mystic artist is using a Lyre of Building or some such… it will take a lot less time, but you’re going to be paying extra for magical services, so it may balance out.

2) With composition you first need the composer – a Mystic Artist will fairly high skill and the Composition ability. They must then compose something: Perhaps they design and build a fabulous temple with mystic architecture that has several effects on the worshipers. Copies of that temple built by lesser architects will never capture the full power of the original, but they will still have some potency. Or a great mural-painting showing the murder of a famous reformer, that will inspire others to follow his or her teachings through respect for his or her martyrdom.

For static works with constant effects there are no further complications. This sort of thing can lead to great social changes.

For portable works the composition-user has to have the same style of Mystic Artist as the Composer to power the work. Thus if a great mystic artist (Singing) with skill 30+ has composed a beautiful song that brings Freedom (Skill 15) to the one who hears it, a lesser mystic artist singer could memorize that composition and sing that song – producing the Skill 15 effect. They can’t necessarily target it – that decision was made when the music was composed – but if they send everyone else away and sing the song of freedom to a petrified comrade, there won’t be much chance of mistargeting. Now Dissonance effects… presuming that someone wanted to compose such a work in the first place (not terribly likely as shown below) the user is the Performer, so that’s all right – they won’t be affected – but the effect will be targeting everyone else in the area, including any friends, allies, and students. That will make it hard to teach to someone else. If your first level bard wishes to learn a Dissonant Circle Of Death effect they need to find a mystic artist of level twenty, who has the Composition ability, and the complete path of dissonance, and who is willing to compose and then teach such a work – and then survive being taught. How often do you think the 20’th level master will have to play through the composition for a first level character to learn it? Because each time… the student will have to resist the effect themselves. In most cases it will be much easier to build up the ability yourself.

Composition generally isn’t a lot of use in combat, but it is a good way to influence societies on a large scale over time.

3) Worldgate relies on the realm having a plot – something that “draws you in”. If a realm has no plot, you might catch a glimpse of that realm – but there would be nothing to anchor you there, so you would immediately be returned home because you’d “completed the plot”.

4) Yes, but it does have to be applied to a different skill or set of skills each time. For a sample character with multiple Mystic Artist abilities, and some more discussion on the topic, here’s a link to Randolf Upton Pickman.

And I hope that covers what you want to know!

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- jirachi386, on July 3, 2019 at 8:03 am said:
  
  My model of the situation is more like “A powerful mystic artist makes comprehensive design schematics, and sells copies of the blueprints through an intermediary” than having to apprentice under them or anything like that.
  Could you use Worldgate to travel to real locations that have a ‘plot’, due to assorted fate and reality warping effects, or just protaganist power effects?
- Thoth, on July 4, 2019 at 3:07 am said:
  
  That’s possible – although making money that way depends on effective copyright enforcement. It will also very rapidly run into the second paragraph:
  
  “The power of a composition does fade eventually; once it becomes a commonly-known part of the culture (or everyone in the party is throughly familiar with it) it will lose its special power”
  
  So selling copies of compositions, or using them a lot, will soon render them powerless. Thus, for example, spreading your brilliant design for temples to a particular faith across the world will provide it with a good boost – but it will have to find a way to maintain its gains after the power of the composition fails.
  
  In actual play, it’s usually best to pick up Enthusiast (Specialized in Skills for double effect) if you should stumble across, and wish to use, some powerful composition – making them a Mystic Artists equivalent of turning out some scrolls or other limited-use enchantments for others to use.
  
  And when it comes to Worldgate… yes, so long as there’s a sufficient plot. You see that effect in movies quite often; a “traveling music” starts playing and at the end of the music the party has arrived wherever the next step in the plot is. After all, if it is good enough for Westerns and Indiana Jones, it is good enough for d20.
- jirachi386, on July 3, 2019 at 10:07 pm said:
  
  Also, doesn’t the ‘seeking’ modifier get rid of that problem? A high level mystic artist with the path of dissonance and the seeking feat could probably create a circle of death preformance that only effect evil, or only people who don’t worship a certain god, or something like that, which would make it much much less problematic in that regard, even if that has to be preset.
- Thoth, on July 4, 2019 at 3:09 am said:
  
  It could – and for a short time you’d have a major weapon. Of course then, like Monty Python’s “Killing Joke”, either lose effect or get buried somewhere to save for later.

alzrius, on July 8, 2019 at 12:01 pm said:

Is it possible to use any particular form of metamagic to imbue spells with (effective equivalents of) the Spellform (and, I suppose, Sendings) ability, or can those only be obtained by taking Power Words (Eclipse, p. 39) and buying them directly? If metamagic can replicate those, how much would they modify the base spell’s level?

Thoth, on July 16, 2019 at 9:12 pm said:

Sorry about the delay; things have been rather busy.
Like most things, you can do it; you want Metamagic / Triggering (Simple Conditions, +1) and Metamagic / Stabalize (Obliging, +3). That will give you the self-activating spell effect. To make them into Sendings is trickier because you now basically want them alive and embodied. At that point… it’s really easier to just buy a Familiar and give it Inherent Spell and Returning. Doing it with Metamagic alone would require enough Triggering (+6 levels maybe?) to give your spells actual intelligence – and, as living, things, Feats and Skills (I’d use their spell level as level for that).

A lot of Streamline could do it though, thus creating a spellcaster who’s spells were all sapient independent beings with powers and abilities of their own. Whether that would be a bigger nightmare than any other spellcaster with nine or ten levels worth of free metamagic on every spell is hard to say – but it would probably mess up almost any game. It would make for quite a boss battle though.

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alzrius, on July 13, 2019 at 10:29 am said:

The summon undead series of spells in the Spell Compendium seem to be rather anemic in what they can do, having only five spells that offer a combined total of just fourteen creatures that can be summoned. There’s also a Hit Die restriction on available choices of summoned undead as well.

Presumably these are due to a combination of some undead being seen as “too good” compared to other monsters (allips seem to be frequently noted in that regard), issues with selecting how strong the “base creature” is for undead that are made via templates, and problems with things like what happens to new undead made via a summoned undead’s “create spawn” ability and similar powers. But surely these can’t be insurmountable problems; how would you (re)design the summon undead series of spells?

jirachi386, on July 13, 2019 at 1:46 pm said:

I think you should be able to cover it with the summoning spell template in the practical enchanter, and just use ECL for keeping track of templates.

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- Thoth, on July 16, 2019 at 9:39 pm said:
  
  Quite true – although as I noted in Alzrius’s answer, that can lead to some problems.
Thoth, on July 16, 2019 at 9:38 pm said:

The problem with undead summons is that they have too many immunities. Monsters don’t generally have the versatility of a party of adventurers, and a lot of them basically rely on one particular ability. And if that ability happens to be something like poison, or energy drain, or a mental attack, you can pretty much just send in the undead and wait outside. if you happen to have summoned an Incorporeal creature… anything that relies on purely natural physical attacks – animals, dire animals, vermin, and so on – has no way to even affect it – and you don’t even have to open the door to send it in.

If the game master isn’t very careful, Undead Summoning can make an awful lot of encounters quite boring. Thus the limitations of the original undead summoning spells. Now if the game master does feel like dealing with the issues involved, then Jirachi386 is quite right; just use the Summoning Spell Template and disallow creating new undead for the same reasons that summoned creatures cannot summon more creatures.

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alzrius, on July 19, 2019 at 10:00 pm said:

Both Innate Enchantment and Siddhisyoga allow you to effectively incorporate magic items into yourself. For the most part, it’s straightforward what that grants and what it doesn’t; i.e. using Siddhisyoga to absorb an adamantine +2 keen greataxe will effectively let you strike “unarmed” as if wielding an adamantine +2 keen greataxe. But it won’t give you, say, the hit points or hardness of such a weapon.

Given that, what would the effects be if you used Innate Enchantment of Siddhisyoga with regards to a construct creature, since those are also a sort of magic item. Whether to incorporate a guardian poppet or something like a lesser golem (if that’s even possible), what sort of effects would you gain from doing so? Just special abilities? Natural attacks? Hit points, feats, or ability score modifiers?

Thoth, on July 22, 2019 at 9:43 pm said:

Well, I can think of at least two ways to handle that. It wouldn’t directly bestow abilities because that, in general, is not what constructs (except perhaps for Golem Armor) do. They act on their own when given directions. For those two options…

1) You now have an alternate form – albeit one with it’s own “mind” (or at least programming) and own abilities. A good way to hide, or perhaps an option if you’re about out of hit points. I don’t think your mind could control it directly, but you could probably use it’s senses and give directions. Since most constructs don’t need to breathe and such, it could give you a way to explore some pretty hazardous environments. Of course, if the construct is destroyed, you’re out the points or money you spent on it and will be forced back into existence.

2) It could run your body for you when you’re unconscious or distracted using its statistics and your hit points – perhaps even doing things like drinking an appropriate potion if you’re unconscious or poisoned or some such. That might be useful under some circumstances and would let you exercise in your sleep (if I had some Eclipse CP that might well be tempting. Exercise programs are kind of dull).

And the game master might have other ideas. That is a bit of an edge case, and under the general rule that “variants are permissible, talk to your game master” I’d think that the characters intent would have a big influence on the outcome.

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alzrius, on July 20, 2019 at 4:55 pm said:

Eclipse allows a character to gain a metaspell for 6 CP (pg. 30-31). But is that the only way to acquire them? Can they not be found and added to a spellbook in the normal course of play? After all, standard spells are typically found that way, but they can also be bought with CPs as well (Eclipse, p. 11).

Thoth, on July 22, 2019 at 9:54 pm said:

Yes, they can – they’re just very complicated. After all, even a basic Metaspell can be cast at levels 0-9, and possibly higher – or even with no upper limit beyond the “there is no POINT in going beyond level twenty-four”. So… one variant form for each level, levels 0-24. That gives us a spellbook page count of 300 pages, more if we allow for the possible variants. Copying a whole metaspell… will require 25 days of deciphering with increasingly difficult checks, 25 days of scribing, and a total cost of 30,000 GP plus the cost of three spell books.

We could give it a price break because all the effects are closely related – or increase it because each level offers multiple variant effects – but overall it will usually be easier to spend the Feat, especially since Metaspells are most useful (by far!) to spontaneous casters.

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- jirachi386, on July 24, 2019 at 3:40 pm said:
  
  I mean, if that is the case, you could pretty easily have say, a cabal of mages with Spell shorthand with the encryption ability, and be able to have a *ton* of variety and flexibility in your casting. (Or am I misinterpreting the ability?)
- Thoth, on July 24, 2019 at 10:25 pm said:
  
  You could – although it would still basically be 25 different spells, even if you give them some credit for being so closely related. It would still a pretty major project to acquire them in the first place

jirachi386, on July 22, 2019 at 4:30 pm said:

Do you have a standard guideline for what abilities a given character can imbue into a relic and how long it takes to do so?

Thoth, on July 22, 2019 at 10:00 pm said:

They’re a bit like Artifacts: there’s no hard guideline for “what you can put in” – but I certainly expect people making one to make it thematic, dramatic, and all-around interesting. For time… Relics created at the moment of death are obviously created almost instantly. Relics created through powers such as Houngan Conjurer generally only take a few hours after the character/player comes up with a sufficiently interesting design and ritual (which may take some time). General Relic Creation is usually a few days to infuse your own strength into the item, encouraging dramatic timing if at all possible.

Since Relics have no fixed value, there’s nothing like the “divide by 1000” rule for magic items. It’s all based on drama and story requirements.

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brett west, on July 22, 2019 at 10:33 pm said:

Any further Continuum II stuff coming, or any overacrching “how to make it fit into d20 more directly” maybe?

Thoth, on July 24, 2019 at 9:42 pm said:

Well, I have been trying to get some of the old files disentangled. The problem is, they were for Word Publisher (an early DOS program that didn’t even use file extensions and limited file names to eight characters), were manually formatted by using spacing and a monospaced font, and are often somewhat corrupted and have to be disentangled by being opened in Notepad to sort out bad codes… The attribute files are about sorted out though – so I should be able to do something with them as soon as I have time to do any posting again.

Converting to d20… tricky, since the assumptions about how characters work are quite different, but I shall give it some thought.

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jirachi386, on July 23, 2019 at 9:27 pm said:

Does the stabilization skill (eclipse pg 105) also cover destabilizing the area around you and making tinkering with space and time easier rather than harder?

Thoth, on July 24, 2019 at 9:42 pm said:

It would, albeit possibly at a small penalty for inverting the usual effect.

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Kenny Rea, on July 24, 2019 at 10:01 am said:

Hi! I’ve very recently discovered the Eclipse system and am quite enjoying it. I’ve read through Eclipse several times and the Practical Enchanter once; I’ve not yet made it to Eclipse II, so my apologies if my questions are answered there, and thank you for keeping this blog up and up to date – I’ve read many of the articles in the last week.

Q1: Do you know what happened to High Canon (Eclipse III, I believe)? I’ve seen references to it back in 2011 but nothing since…

Q2: Are unlimited-use use-activated spells via Innate Enchantment considered to be “always on”, or does the character need to activate that L1 round/level spell every round to get it’s affect? Is there an immunity or Reflex Action/Opportunist to keep them “maintained”?

Q3: I’m primarily a PF player, so it may be a difference between 3.5 and PF, but there seems to be a LOT of low level bonuses available to push skills, attacks, saves, etc into the stratosphere. How difficult is it to avoid situations where a party-equivalent threat can only hit one character on a natural 20 but can’t miss another character except on a one? Is it gentleman’s agreement between the players?

Finally, is the underlying assumption that any feat (such as from Practical Enchanter) can be taken for 6 CP if there is not a way to duplicate it’s effects within the standard Eclipse rules? It looks like Practical Enchanter was released first, so it makes sense there’s no mention of Character Points in it.

Thoth, on July 24, 2019 at 10:20 pm said:

Well, I’m glad that you’ve been enjoying it! And as for questions…

1) It’s been trapped in the project backlog for a long time now – mostly because putting a book together is a rather lengthy and somewhat expensive task and there are already too many things demanding my spare time already. A lot of the material that would go into it has made it onto the blog though.

2) The standard rule is that you must spend actions to activate spells from items as if you were casting them – so technically yes. Of course, that somewhat conflicts with the whole idea of something being “use activated” so there’s a bit of a grey area there. I generally take most small, personal, boosts as being effectively continuous – but then most of my campaigns are fairly freewheeling multiversal settings where the personal-power types have to keep up with the fusion-powered combat armor types and I usually limit characters to 12 CP worth of innate enchantments, which holds things down considerably. There are a few characters up for less freewheeling games using Opportunist (can reactivate an innate enchantment when it runs out without spending an action) or Immunity (the need to consciously reactivate innate enchantments) to accomplish the same general goals.

3) Well, there is an article series on the underlying assumptions of RPG’s in general – as well as a recent one on characters in general – but the primary tools there are the campaign design sheet, saying “no”, and insisting that the characters actually fit into the setting.

Of course, there’s one character up who uses…

Ward of Yama: Immunity to Over-Optimized Characters (Common, Severe, Major, Specialized for Increased Effect / double effect against the most over-optimized character in a given group, normal effect against the second-most over-optimized character, no effect against any further characters or against any characters at all if the party contains no over-optimized characters (12 CP).

This bestows DR 60, blocks 12 points of attribute damage or drain, and spells of up to level ten, and provides a +12 on saves against other effects generated by the most over-optimized character, and half those benefits against the second most over-optimized character. This won’t stop an Ubercharger, or Hulking Hurler, or similar – but it will seriously hinder rather a lot of builds for a mere 12 CP.

This is pretty silly, but quite allowable. So, for that matter, is using Action Hero / Stunts to buy an immunity to one particular character for one minute – but that’s allowable too.

Fundamentally though, if you have a player who thinks that making the game masters life difficult, attempting to spoil the game for the other players, and trying to make playing boring is a good idea… the problem is not in the game. Feel free to either throw exactly the same tactics back at them or otherwise apply page 163.

Finally, it’s a “Yes”. Any feat the game master is willing to put up with from other products can be purchased for 6 CP. That’s not always a good idea to allow – there are some very badly written feats out there – but it’s inherent in being back-compatible. The Practical Enchanter was set up to allow it’s use in standard games, so it uses the standard “a feat is a feat” system.

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jirachi386, on July 24, 2019 at 12:52 pm said:

1) “Finally… Eclipse III was originally delayed by computer failure – but the major trouble since then is simply that I finally had to shift Distant Horizons Games projects from “work time” to “hobby time” (Sadly, it never did make much of a profit; a lot of people simply found Eclipse rather overwhelming). Thus Eclipse III is now competing for time with actual gaming, support for existing products, and so on – and a book takes up quite a lot of time. A few people have inquired though, and it is a pity to just leave the files to molder, so I’m trying to give it a little time each day.”
2) Whatever makes the most sense for the spell. There’s plenty of examples that have it as constantly on.
3) I assume that as long as you keep the threats varied, apply the adventurer template, and have a fairly consistent level of optimization throughout your party, that shouldn’t be a problem.
4) Yes, though obviously it’s an ‘ask a DM’ thing, and pretty much everything can be duplicated through eclipse, if only through some akward method like inventing a spell that duplicates the effect.

Thoth, on July 24, 2019 at 10:22 pm said:

Pretty much! Although, as noted, a lot of the bits for Eclipse III have just turned into articles here.

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alzrius, on July 25, 2019 at 11:25 am said:

I have some questions with regards to witchcraft abilities (which I don’t believe have come up before):

Can witchcraft powers with a specific range or radius of effect have their distance expanded by spending extra power, as per the note on page 109? That is, if I have the Warding power (p. 121) and want to use it to protect people in a 30-foot radius instead of 10-foot, can I do that just by expanding extra Power? If so, how much? (Also, does Warding allow you to pick and choose who is protected in that area, or is it everyone by default?)

The Dismissal power (p. 118) allows you to deal damage to “a specified class of extradimensional being (i.e. all evil Outsiders). Can this class be chosen each time you use the power, or is it set when you take it? Does it have to apply to creatures of the Outsider type specifically, or are creatures with the extraplanar subtype (such as inevitables) also valid targets when not on their home plane? If the latter, could the witch send themselves back to their home plane for 7 Power if they leave it?

Thoth, on July 26, 2019 at 2:04 am said:

Range definitely, Radius might wind up with a small surcharge because you’re increasing the area affect with the square of the radius increase – but since that’s a normal feature of augmenting effects probably no more than 2-4 points, and that only if the game master wants to worry about it.

Dismissal does let you choose the class when you use the ability. “Evil Outsiders” are simply a (popular) possible target group; anything Extradimensional (I probably should have said “with the extraplanar subtype” to be pedantic, but it was clunky enough already) can be affected. And yes, a Witch trapped on another plane can indeed attempt to send themselves home – a neat trick when someone is counting on a Maze spell to delay them or some such.

And you’re quite right; those haven’t come up before!

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Kenny Rea, on July 26, 2019 at 2:30 pm said:

Thank you Jirachi, Thoth, for the answers! Another one I’ve gotten confused on – I’ve noticed in several places that skill level / ranks are noted to be base ranks + attribute modifier + permanent bonuses; thus allowing higher Martial Arts or Magical skills than character level, for example; however skill ranks are still listed on page 9 as being limited to character level + 3. For things like Consolidated Skills, Martial Arts, Mystic Arts, Dweomer, Rune Caster level, etc; what do the “rank” or “Skill” references refer to? Are Rank 24 abilities epic level (post level 20) only?

jirachi386, on July 26, 2019 at 5:19 pm said:

Basically, ones like the caster level ones are purchase limits for the maximum amount that you can buy directly with points. You can only spend (level+3) sp on a skill, but can buy permanent enhancements (the ‘rank’ usually referred to) that put you above that, just like you can get a boosting spell that boosts your BAB past level+3.

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- Thoth, on July 27, 2019 at 1:55 am said:
  
  And thank you for answering there! Sometimes I can’t get to it for quite a while!
Thoth, on July 27, 2019 at 1:54 am said:

In general, it’s your total permanent score – purchased ranks + attribute modifier + bonuses from permanent effects like Augmented Bonus or Skill Focus. Things like Luck or Morale bonuses may help you give a better performance when you go to use a skill, but they don’t really imply a deeper understanding of it. You can’t purchase more ranks then your (Level + 3) though. 24+ is fairly readily reached pre-epic.

It’s a bit like “level”. We have character level, effective character level, spell level, power level, and various other “levels” in the game, but that’s just the way that English works.

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jirachi386, on July 27, 2019 at 3:07 pm said:

A few other things: Do you have a general price scheme in mind for getting someone to use a witchcraft (or make magic items that cast withcraft powers) or skill stunt effect?
Do you have any advice for constructing places of power where Dweomer casting is easier? I suppose you could build something like that with mystic architecture, but I don’t think that’s how such things are supposed to work?
I’d appreciate a summary like this https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/eclipse-d20-using-dweomer-electrokinesis-nucleokinesis-and-molecular-reconstruction/ about the overlay, stabilization and transference skills of the warping field (pg 105).
I’m also a bit confused as to the value of something like the ‘permanency’ skill in the mysticism field. I wouldn’t think that you could really bypass the (some combination of) xp, gp and time requirements to enchant things with it, and it seems not particularily worthwhile if you can’t do that.

Thoth, on July 28, 2019 at 10:55 pm said:

Prices for Witchcraft services depend a lot on two things – how common Witchcraft is and how likely a given witch is to have a particular ability. I generally assume that Witchcraft is fairly common, and that Healing, The Hand Of Shadows, Witchfire, and Witchsight are by far the most common abilities (simply for sheer utility). Thus, for the most part… 3-5 GP per Power is reasonable (friends and neighbors, of course, get far lower charges). Higher order stuff is pretty much “as the market will bear” – but that’s still not going to be very high in adventurer terms. Most local witches will never have seen 100 GP in one place in their lives; that’s a years income.

Skill stunts, however, are pretty much “adventurers only” – and rare even then. There’s no regular price scheme there, since finding anyone capable of any particular trick is a long shot in itself.

Something I almost forgot; Witchcraft Items. As a rule, Witchcraft doesn’t make good items since it’s abilities are so versatile. A Fireball Wand is fairly simple; you need to give it direction (most often where you’re pointing the wand) and a distance. One, or at most two, variables. With something like The Hand Of Shadows… how many variables are there in “an hours worth of picking all the locks in this block of cells, including the doors, chains, and other restraints”? A witch projects their own energy aura, senses the feedback from all the things being manipulated, performs a complex series of manipulations – different ones for each lock since they take different keys – and senses when the project is completed. And that’s only one possible use for “an hours light work”. If you want an item with Witchcraft… build a sentient item with Feats and have it be a witch.

Permanency will allow the creation of magical devices and long-term spells – but, just like the basic “permanency” spell and item construction, it may well have long-term costs in any given application. Really, it’s comparable to the various item creation feats, but its being brought a few skill points at a time instead of in 6 CP chunks.

And an article is possible, although it may be a bit; I am quite behind now due to work and personal demands – although I may be able to catch up a bit soon.

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- jirachi386, on July 29, 2019 at 12:08 pm said:
  
  Yeah, it’s probably worth it for any adventurer who is having kids to get a witch to bless there children with the aegis ability, especially since it could very easily be a level 1 character you would be paying to do the job.
  I mean, somewhat? I do think that you could probably get away with just pretending that the hours worth of locking picking is just a flavor description for a *mass knock* spell, and the effect is much equivalent to simply using *the labourers word*, which is a second level hedge magic effect.
  (Plus, someone using a specialized version of witchcraft such as the pulp mad science version could reasonably make a lightning raygun that works for anyone, or a pulp hero might have a gadget that makes use of the ‘crossbow barrage’ effect without further intervention).
  Or I suppose you could build it as a feat bestowing item.
- Thoth, on August 2, 2019 at 8:36 pm said:
  
  Oh, I would definitely get MY kid blessed – and take the “Leadership / only to train up kids” package, and a few other things. Of course, you then want to get them married to serious adventurers, because there’s no convenient way to give your offspring that much power without placing them at considerable risk.
  
  The trouble with using “Mass Knock” is simply that “The Hand Of Shadows” is capable of doing hundreds of other things – and you’d want either a Greater Invocation or an effect to emulate each one of them. That’s why “The Laborer’s Word” has the note that “Unfortunately, it can’t be put into most items very effectively; it uses the caster’s skills – and wands, rings, and other objects generally don’t have any at all. It can, however, be put into staves, since they use the wielders modifiers rather than their own.”
  
  You can certainly make devices with specialized Witchcraft effects – but those are essentially just powers, and use the existing price structures for making magical or psionic devices.
  
  A feat-bestowing item will work just fine though. It gives the user the feat, and the user can then provide all the control inputs directly.
- jirachi386, on August 1, 2019 at 2:16 pm said:
  
  Also, I’m suprised that you are saying that skill stunts are especially rare. I mean, the package you outlined here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/skill-stunts-and-epic-skill-stunts/ is 26 CP, and it could easily be somewhat cheaper (for example, using the first level of the immunity approach and perhaps only four bonus uses for the luck could easily get it down to 12 CP), which is about as expensive as other packages you listed in the lesser path magics articles, and it seems as or more useful then other options at that level.
  I’d assume it’d be about as common as any other package in those articles.
- Thoth, on August 2, 2019 at 10:36 pm said:
  
  I think that would be 18 CP (6 CP for the Immunity, 6 CP for Luck/Specialized in Skills for Double Effect, and +6 CP for Bonus Uses on the Luck, since you still want those bonus uses to have the doubled effect). That is for one single skill though – and while it will offer access to a variety of useful abilities, few of them are particularly useful to the 99% of people in the world who aren’t adventurers – while spending some points on Hedge Wizardry pretty much covers everything a non-adventurer would want.
  
  The major thing though is that PC’s enjoy a very special advantage; they get free choices when advancing. After all, you can “pick any character class you qualify for” – yet an awful lot of NPC’s are Commoner types. Why would anyone pick that when, say, “Cleric or Witch with a choice of Hedge Wizardry or Stipend or use of Charms and Talismans or Longevity” is available? Aren’t those MUCH better choices?
  
  Yes they are – but NPC’s mostly rather low level and are stuck with what they’re taught. And massive specialization in a single skill is a bit like “Aviation Engineer Specializing in Hypersonic Nosecone Design”. They may make really good money when someone needs that specialty – but while the local phone book offers me quite a lot of listing for handymen, and contractors, and housepainters, and roofers, and such, engineering consulting groups are kind of scarce. Skill Stunt experts are a lot like that. There may be a few in a large city, but there may or may not be one for your desired skill even there and – if there is – they’re going to be competing with much more versatile high-level spellcasters who also appear in large cities. Sure, they can reach their specialized effects at much lower level than the spellcasters, but there isn’t going to be enough demand to really encourage it.
  
  Now all of that may change depending on your preferred demographics, but I can’t seem NPC stuntmasters being all that common in most of my settings. It’s not like there’s a wrong way to run a setting though as long as everyone is having fun!
- jirachi386, on August 3, 2019 at 11:50 am said:
  
  I would agree that a lot of skills aren’t necessarily super useful for an non-adventurer, but you could pretty easily say, create a skill-stunt based hedge ‘mage’ who has skill stunts for proffesion / villager or farmer or something like that, or someone with the package for craft / alchemy as an alternative to someone with a philosopher’s stone as your minor magic item provider, or otherwise serve similar functions to other lesser path magics, which could likely be fairly readily replicated.
- Thoth, on August 4, 2019 at 2:18 am said:
  
  Certainly! Although adding another skill would cost another 6 CP each time. I just think that – for most low-level types – it’s a little too expensive for what you get since, Like Wizardry, it’s real payoff is at higher levels. There’s no reason to expect all the NPC’s to be particularly optimized though, and if it works well in your setting, then go for it!

jirachi386, on July 27, 2019 at 4:46 pm said:

Also, could you give some examples of appropriate +3 skill specialities for dweomer skills? I’m not quite sure how broad that sort of thing should be…

Kenny Rea, on July 27, 2019 at 11:49 pm said:

Some questions on the Mystic Artist path now… I assume a mystic artist cannot use multiple abilities at the same time without buying an immunity, so no Distracting + Emotion with the same action, right? What is the action for reminding others of previous performances, as noted in Echoes? Finally, when the general description for Mystic Artist says that saves are permitted, is that only for abilities with a save specified or do all abilities (like Distracting or Disrupting) allow an initial save before their effects take place?

Thoth, on July 28, 2019 at 11:07 pm said:

Well, the direct way to use multiple powers is Synergy/Skill 12 (Harmonize).

Reminding people of previous performances is usually a free action, since all you usually need to do is say something about it – quite often a warcry to remind them of your previous speech, or invoking the name of a saint you were preaching about earlier (Orin’s system). He used to tell inspiring tales of his faith with the Echoes modifier every day – so he had a choice of several different echoes to invoke when needed.

And saves only apply where there isn’t already a way to resist. Distracting lets you make Concentration checks to avoid the effects, so there’s no save there. Disrupting does damage, but lists no way to mitigate the effect – so a save for half effect applies.

Of course, the primary rule is always “it works the way you think it should in your game”. Any game master using Eclipse REALLY needs to look at the campaign design sheet and think about what he or she will need to disallow or tweak to make the setting work.

And I hope that helps!

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jirachi386, on July 28, 2019 at 3:42 pm said:

You didn’ t mention how armor and dweomer / thaumaturgy abiliites work. Does armor just not interfere with it?

Thoth, on July 28, 2019 at 11:27 pm said:

That’s the “Restrained” modifier; it increases the level of the effect required by one step. (The “Smooth” modifier on any armor proficiency is advised).

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jirachi386, on July 28, 2019 at 6:07 pm said:

Does Adept’s discount on skill purchases apply retroactively (i.e. you buy Adept at a level other than 1, and have already put SP into the skill, do you ‘get back’ half the SP you put into the skills at full price due to the discount?)

Thoth, on July 28, 2019 at 11:32 pm said:

It is not retroactive. I would rather have preferred not to have abilities that “cared” when they were taken – but if they were retroactive there would come a point when you’d be spending 6 CP to get far more than 6 CP worth of skill points back – and everyone would take Adept instead of skills for a while.

Adept thus tends to work better as a slightly-delayed reward or an early choice – do I want to spend points on this early and reap rewards later, or buy something that’s really useful right away? Having to make serious choices and define your strengths early is a good thing – or at least I think it is.

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brett west, on July 29, 2019 at 3:46 pm said:

For the recent Eclipse and Skill Based Partial Caster 2
Any modifications for using the “Condensed Skill List”
How would you advise using Rite of Chi to replenish the pool?

jirachi386, on August 2, 2019 at 4:20 pm said:

You could just buy a mana pool and power it normally, using rite of chi. I’d probably let a character using it do the ‘prepared magic’ trick with that as well.

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- Thoth, on August 2, 2019 at 11:45 pm said:
  
  Well, there’s no “one right way” in Eclipse! The mana pool/unskilled magic approach works just fine too!
Thoth, on August 2, 2019 at 8:45 pm said:

Probably not – except I wouldn’t allow more than two or three skills per immunity with that, simply because those skills are so much broader and more flexible.

To use Rite Of Chi to replenish the pools does sort of go against the concept in the first place, so it would take another Immunity (the distinction between the skill-based “points” and actual mana – probably a fairly expensive purchase), probably restricted to only allow refilling the pools rather than being able to use the pools to power other things. Of course, once you go that far, you might as well just take Unskilled Magic and have it require skill checks. You’ll achieve pretty much the same results as you get with the additional without all the extra complications. It might even be cheaper.

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Kenny Rea, on August 2, 2019 at 9:45 am said:

Is there a general duration for Skill Stunts if none is listed? As some examples, for Survival a DC 20 check gets a “Muleback Cords” effect, which could be for the day, two hours/level as the spell, an hour, or something else entirely; DC 35 gets Traceless passage, which could reasonably be a few moments to an entire journey; and DC 40 allows for tracking through teleportation effects and the like, which could be similar to a day long or hour/level occult sense, or an instantaneous ability that has to be paid for every time the trail is lost and you want to check if someone teleported from that point.

Thoth, on August 2, 2019 at 11:39 pm said:

If there’s no duration, the usual default is “until you stop for the day” – unless an effect is blatantly instantaneous. Of course, Stunts tend to be unique to each character and – like any other form of freeform magic – normally involve checking with your game master to see what he or she thinks of your idea. The lists are just samples of possible stunts, and are neither complete nor guaranteed to be allowable for any given setting. They should work most places, but – like any other part of Eclipse – are subject to the campaign design sheet, which may allow, modify, restrict, or disallow any particular ability.

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- Kenny Rea, on August 3, 2019 at 12:32 am said:
  
  Of course. I actually really like that aspect of the system – tailoring expectations/ruleset to the campaign so that everyone is on the same page. I’m not trying to build any particular character design so much as exploring the system. Unfortunately, unless I can find a PbP I likely will not get to play much with these amazing rules; my local group is not big on anything more rules heavy than 5e. Without having an actual game master to work on a concept with, I’m admiring the flexibility of the system from many different angles.
  
  One more question as I read more of the archived articles – would a character with the relevant Witchcraft basic abilities be able to generally replicate the Pulp Hero abilities built off of them? Or would they need to specialize / corrupt the basic abilities to duplicate them? My thought on that was that The Secret Order could be taken, corrupted or specialized to only allow Pulp Hero / focused powers, even though that cannot normally be taken multiple times and could possibly lock a witch out of completing the basic abilities. A lot of the witch basic abilities are (deliberately, I believe) open ended, so having examples from the Pulp Hero powers helps bound what’s reasonable.
- Thoth, on August 4, 2019 at 2:10 am said:
  
  Well, I’m glad you’re finding it interesting!
  
  As for PBP games… https://www.rpol.net/ has a number of Eclipse-based games running, although I’m not sure how many have player slots open. drew0500 runs most of them. I ran one once there under Thoth-Amon since it was a request from drew0500, but it didn’t draw enough players who were interested in point buy d20 to last for more than a bit under a thousand posts. drew0500 has recently asked me to consider giving it another try though, so I might restart that one; it was an exploration/colonization/kingdom-building game set in Atheria (there are some articles here on that setting).
  
  The pulp hero abilities are mostly Specialized and/or Corrupted for Increased Effect (although sometimes it’s just to make them cost less to use), so the basic abilities won’t be able to duplicate most them – or at least not without using lots more power and concentration. On the other hand, that makes them arguably different powers – for example, some of the Bokor “Mysteries” have taken the same power in multiple slots, so as to have multiple specialized and corrupted variants – so there’s no reason not to take Witchcraft III multipe times to get a selection of specialized abilities. Too much of that may cause the game master to explode, but as long as you’re building to a concept other than “big grab bag of convenient powers” I’d allow it under the “variants are fine” rule from the “How Do I Use This Product” section.
  
  The Basic Witchcraft abilities are, quite intentionally, open-ended. That way the players can get creative and pull off a wide variety of tricks – even if most of them will be pretty minor – at low levels.
  
  And I hope that helps!
- jirachi386, on August 4, 2019 at 11:29 am said:
  
  Unfortunately, I hadn’t heard of rpol.net before just now, so the two week wait for adult verification is annoying.
  The “witchcraft doesn’t scale up well” problem is pretty nasty, since you it can be a bit annoying if you build a witchcraft based trickster at lower levels, but want to continue in that path later. I suppose you could ask your GM to let you totally rebuild your build to implement it another way, or do some awkward graft with spell enhancement or something, which probably doesn’t fit very well. Honestly, it makes me think the system is more designed for ‘one and done’ investments or buying it a high character levels, after developing other talents as an extra bag of tricks.
- Thoth, on August 8, 2019 at 1:56 pm said:
  
  I fear that I can’t do anything about rpol.net, but.
  
  Witchcraft has a number of design goals.
  
  *It offers extreme versatility, but low power.
  *It has no components, allowing characters to use Witchcraft even if tied and gagged.
  *There’s no mention of it requiring concentration checks. Witches function just fine right on the front lines.
  *If you combine Witchcraft with Body Fuel with the Kundalini upgrade, a Witch can work in an Antimagic/Antipsionic field with little hinderance.
  *The investment required is enough to discourage primary spellcasters, but has little impact on experts and martial characters – allowing such characters to bolster their abilities with various specialized boosts.
  *In low-level games it can readily function as the major magic system since many of its better effects are fixed, and so effectively peak as soon as you take them.
  *In high level games. where primary spellcasters and psions are drawing on huge external sources of power but witches are still relying on personal power, it remains relatively weak, but still far more flexible than the vast majority of spells and psionic powers.
  
  It – quite intentionally – has a power-versus-level curve that’s different from most of the “standard” magic systems. Other systems have other power curves. For an example, Rune Magic starts off very strong – a Rune Mage can quite readily start off with second level spells and an effective caster level of five – but increases quite slowly after that. At very high levels, and with continued investment, a rune mage can become quite powerful within a limited set of fields. In a similar vein, a Hexcrafter can start off with extremely powerful magic, but can’t use it very often.
  
  Witchcraft is very good for subtle manipulations, boosting other abilities, and clever tricks – but it’s intentionally designed to be restricted in raw power to make up for that versatility.
  
  And I hope that helps!

Kenny Rea, on August 4, 2019 at 12:35 pm said:

I had not heard of rpol.net either; I will be very interested to see if I can find a game there to join! One character I’ve always been curious to play (fitting the campaign, of course) would be a slightly more martial Vlad Taltos, maybe even a bit closer to Morrolan if the power level allows (Steven Brust); very difficult to do with standard rule systems, but very easy with Eclipse. I saw the Witchcraft set of abilities as something that doesn’t really “grow” in power with the character the way a spell progression does; I feel like most characters using witchcraft would be focused on using small/subtle amounts of power to guide events rather than forcing them overtly.

Thoth, on August 8, 2019 at 1:57 pm said:

Well, I hope that RPOL will work out for you! And you’re quite right; Witchcraft does indeed run towards “here is your power! Use it wisely!”.

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jirachi386, on August 15, 2019 at 12:16 am said:

How does the limitation on ‘sphere of influence’ interact with attempts to ‘cheat’ it using overlay magic, so you are ‘effectively’ on the astral plane while on the material plane?

Thoth, on August 16, 2019 at 7:07 pm said:

Sadly, simply being on the Astral Plane isn’t much help by itself. You need to be in a personal astral domain – a demiplane or personal divine realm carved out of the deep astral – or to be on an appropriate outer plane, which usually means joining up with an established pantheon. From there, where the entire environment supports your divine power, you can hand out higher level spells.

Thus a simple astral overlay isn’t enough, since the region of the Astral Plane that’s coexistent with the Material Plane isn’t personally yours; it’s just THERE. You could pull off the trick with a full-scale gate-overlay, effectively being in two planes at the same time – but that calls for a LOT of magic.

The easiest way is just to pick up Godfire and Creation (allowing you to carve out a personal astral domain / divine realm / afterlife) and spend however much Godfire the game master asks you too to make an Avatar. Alternatively, you could buy Immunity to only being able to be in one place at a time or use some really high level magic.

And I hope that helps!

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- jirachi386, on August 17, 2019 at 3:15 pm said:
  
  Do you have anything in mind for what a ‘standard’ Avatar looks like? My best guess is that if you want to make it a ‘only when really needed thing’ you could probably make it a slightly lower leveled version of the Eidolon spell, letting you summon a level 18 or so version of you for around a day, for a point of godfire and some xp. (base 10 + 3 levels of amplify + 2 persistent – 2 levels of compact (perhaps an elaborate focus, a large xp cost, taking extra time etc.) – 1 for three levels of metamagic = 12)
  I’d appreciate a more precise estimate of the effect level.
  For Master techniques, is any 6 CP eclipse combat enhancement suitable for the style usable, or is it intended to be more limited than that?
- Thoth, on August 18, 2019 at 1:49 pm said:
  
  Creating an Avatar is always within a deities Sphere of Influence, unless, perhaps, they’re a god of uniqueness or some such – so a Deity may spend a point of Godfire to get a level twelve “Create Avatar” effect.
  
  Unless the game master has something specific in mind, the quickest way is to start with Simulacrum: It has a notable GP cost (-2 levels), a lengthy but not exorbitant casting time (-1 level), and a notable XP cost (-2 levels) – but the effective total is only (-3) since that’s the limit. So our base level for a quick-and-easy version of Simulacrum is 10.
  
  Throw in +2 levels of Amplify (the simulacrum gets 75% of the originals hit dice / levels) and +1 level for a Secondary Effect (a permanent mental link with the original), subtract one level for three or more levels of built in metamagic, and you get a level twelve effect. Simulacri are unable to support the Path Of The Pharaoh – they don’t get divine powers of their “own” – but are otherwise quite capable. I gratuitously limit gods to one Avatar per point of Godfire they currently have, but that’s very rarely important unless someone is running an interdimensional or multiworld religion.
  
  If you really want your Avatar to have 100% of your abilities other than Path Of The Pharaoh and some extra resistance to being countered, spend a second point of Godfire on creating it (for the Spellpower effect) to upgrade Simulacrum to “Double Effect”. The rest can go to other protective tweaks since 100% of the original is the obvious limit for a duplicate.
  
  Now, I’m using Simulacrum rather than a flat level simply because it’s quite possible to have a low-level god in Eclipse – so a flat level might well be over the level of the actual god, which wouldn’t make a lot of sense.
  
  For Master Martial Arts Techniques, you can allow other things – but the general goal was to keep it to things that more-or-less made sense as trained abilities in non-magical settings. Anything that goes beyond that should be an Occult Technique. If you have a list of possibilities in mind, do let me know! Quality guest articles – and a look at what other people are doing with the system – are always welcome.
- jirachi386, on August 18, 2019 at 3:03 pm said:
  
  Yeah, that probably works better. It might be fun to use the Avatars to have an ‘aspects’ system, with substantially different powersets between each of them, possibly with a slightly different personality.
  A few examples of what I was thinking for master techniques… Anime Master, upgrades to the ‘block’ ability, bonus attack, Defender, Enhanced Strike, favored enemy, Legionary…
  I think it might also make sense to have an option for more permanent effects than the ‘spend con points to get an effect for a while’ like Imbuement, cloaking, Immunities vs being disarmed, and such.

jirachi386, on August 19, 2019 at 8:35 pm said:

Do you have any advice for how to build a ritual mage who has the ability to occasionally bodge together fast and dirty rituals? I’d think that you could probably do something with an immunity or reality editing, but I have no idea regarding the specifics.

Thoth, on August 22, 2019 at 1:03 pm said:

Well, the quickest and easiest is to buy Luck, Specialized and Corrupted for Triple Effect / only for skill checks, only for ritual magic checks, and (to keep the game master from vetoing this), only usable on rare occasions when the game master approves (6 CP). That should overcome all kinds of penalties for the lack of components or not taking your time with Eclipse-style rituals.

Alternatively, take Kitchen Ritualist: 1d6 (4) Mana with Reality Editing, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / only to allow some common or ordinary component to substitute for a more fantastic one in rituals (6 CP). In Eclipse-style rituals that shouldn’t be a problem, with Legends Of High Fantasy styled rituals you’ll want to inform the game master well in advance so that – if he really needs some proposed ritual to be impossible to manage – he can require two or more fantastical components for it.

A similar bit of editing can reduce the time required or compensate for poor conditions and such.

An Immunity to whatever the problem is would work as well.

The problem with all of those is mostly thematic; what makes rituals special, and worthy of producing those fantastical, once-in-a-lifetime, magical effects if you can just short-circuit the difficulties this way>

If that’s the red flag it might be easiest to just go with Inherent Spell, Specialized for Increased Effect / requires ritualistic casting and take it as a Greater Invocation (Any desired spell effect three or more levels below the level of the spell). That way Inherent Spell I will allow the ritualistic casting of any spell of up to level three, II will cover up to level five, III up to level seven, and IV up to level nine. That way you can trot out a few magical rituals with relatively limited effects several times a day without being so prone to breaking the game.

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alzrius, on August 20, 2019 at 8:35 pm said:

How would you use Siddhisyoga (Eclipse p. 44) with an item that ordinarily has no fixed gp cost? Something like a minor artifact, or an item created via Create Artifact (Eclipse p. 28), for example.

jirachi386, on August 21, 2019 at 10:11 am said:

Generally, such items can be converted into more conventional items fairly easily (if only by using feat granting spells). For example, the example of the wand of winters breath might not come out to a fixed value, but however it comes out can be built as a normal magic item, and just use that value.

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Thoth, on August 22, 2019 at 2:25 pm said:

Well, the most direct way for a lot of items is – as Jirachi386 notes – to go ahead and use the rules in The Practical Enchanter and Eclipse (including the Spell Storing section) to build them and get the price that way. That’s possible for quite a lot of items.

On the other hand, Siddhisyoga does bypass the need for item creation feats, which offers another (and, I think, more amusing) possibility; get the “formula” for creating your minor artifact sorted out, then work out a few more steps with your game master to put the power in yourself rather than in an external item. Go forth on your creation-quest, subject yourself to the various ordeals involved, and behold! That power shall be YOUR power.

And in a few millennia, adventurers will be attempting to locate and claim YOUR teeth, or bones, or hand, or teeth, or some such relic to claim the undying legendary power that dwells within them. Why should Vecna and Dahlver-Nar have all the post-mortem fun?

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alzrius, on August 20, 2019 at 8:37 pm said:

When specializing Empowerment (Eclipse p. 31) to use a particular type of device an unlimited number of times per day, is it allowable to make the “type of device” be “spell trigger magic items” or “spell completion magic items” rather than something like “wands” or “scrolls”?

alzrius, on August 24, 2019 at 9:46 pm said:

The Practical Enchanter’s section on curses (pg. 60-65) mentions, at the end, how stronger curses are more resilient against attempts to remove them. But it specifically discusses that in terms of what spells are brought to bear against them, with no discussion of alternative methods of resisting common removal methods, such as being impervious to magical removal by characters of less than a certain caster level, requiring that they be of a particular faith, or some combination of those or other requirements (such as the particular spells outlined on page 65). How would you calculate adding those restrictions in for curses of various levels of power?

Jirachi, on September 16, 2019 at 4:32 pm said:

If using the malediction template to make ‘blessings’, do you think it makes sense to have positive relationship bonuses that make them easier? If so, do you have mechanics in mind?

Thoth, on September 19, 2019 at 2:15 pm said:

Unfortunately, I don’t think that will work.

On the mechanical level, curses tend to be cheap, powerful, and semi-permanent problems for player characters to deal with – and converting that combination to Buffs without some major limitations tends to wreck the game. That makes some sense even with magic. After all, it’s generally easier to foul something up than it is to improve it.

Secondarily, the Malediction Template assumes that magic is powered by noxious supernatural entities and that curses are limited by calling for spite and malice to lay, by the fact that everyone is eager to get rid of any curses applied to them, by often backlashing against the user, and by the fact that any curse can be countered by locating and dealing with the entity that is empowering it.

Strong curses are thus relatively rare. High order unskilled curses are only possible under VERY rare circumstances.

But if we invert those modifiers for blessings… Parents routinely try to bless all their children. For every lasting curse, there would be hundreds of lasting blessings. It might still work – but it would strongly imply that whatever-it-is that empowers such blessings would be stretched very thin indeed. If that doesn’t matter… then blessings are going to be a normal part of the world background – perhaps explaining why even low-level d20 characters are so much tougher, quicker-healing, in better general health, and otherwise so superior to real people. If it does matter, than blessings are either going to be very short term (and probably take the form of the classical “buffing” spells), limited in number (perhaps using the “Generational Blessing” rules), or extremely weak.

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Noah Luxton Justin, on September 22, 2019 at 3:23 pm said:

Would you permit a variant of action hero/crafting for gifts and commissioned projects rather than personal efforts?

Thoth, on September 22, 2019 at 9:02 pm said:

It’s possible – but you’d be bypassing the major limitation on the ability (that it has to be something you could do). Ergo, you’d need something like “Specialized for Increased Effect (Items can be commissioned from others, and so need not be a project you were working on)/ (Some other limitation). The simplest one I can think of is having to pay for it normally, making this a variation on “Purchasing” or a version of the Foresight Occult Skill. A version that was Specialized / only for producing appropriate presents would certainly work though, and could really smooth the way for a courtier or diplomat.

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Noah Luxton Justin, on September 24, 2019 at 9:50 am said:

Is there any way to make action hero/crafting pay for relics CP post?

Thoth, on September 26, 2019 at 9:44 pm said:

Outside of just talking the game master into it somehow? I suppose you could take a major natural law immunity – but since you’d want to make a LOT of relics to make it worthwhile, you’d want something like Immunity to the distinction between Action Points and Character Points for the purposes of Create Relic (Very Common, Major, Legendary, 60 CP). Or possibly a Mythic Progression devoted to relic-making.

Those are all major natural-law immunities though, and I really wouldn’t recommend that a game master allow them – unless he or she wants a game of insane superheros or Amber or some such.

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Brett, on October 1, 2019 at 12:30 am said:

Any further Continuum II articles planned?

Thoth, on October 1, 2019 at 9:04 pm said:

Why not? Some of the files are corrupted, but there are a variety of others and most of the corrupted ones are fixable given time to correct them. Was there a particular subsystem you were interested in?

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- brett west, on October 9, 2019 at 3:03 pm said:
  
  Not exactly sure how to specify that accurately.
  I very much enjoyed the Chi articles.
  Doing the Empyrean Skills in the same way would be awesome.
  Also of interest, Psychomancy, Psionics, Gramarye, Mysticism, Personal Magic. (though I know some of those are so lengthy and broad as to be basically impossible).
  
  Described another way, it is just amazing the level of detail in the system for things like the Introspection, Martial Arts, Chi Powers that exist as a way to flesh out “how could you do this” without just making things fit into “make sorta ish 1-9 level effects and make them a psudo caster”. The ability of the above to break down in a very approachable way “does xyz” without resorting to being overly broad and general or so specific as to be niche is the impressive part.
- Thoth, on October 17, 2019 at 1:14 pm said:
  
  Well, I shall take a look. At least a chunk of the Psionics and Psychomancy rules should still be in decent shape.
- Jasper, on October 10, 2019 at 2:31 am said:
  
  I second any articles re Chi powers.
  
  (put them between two covers, and I’ll even Buy them!)
- Thoth, on October 17, 2019 at 1:17 pm said:
  
  Well, perhaps the dimensional constants segment… It basically covered how the local dimensional rules interacted with or limited various power sources – which comes up a lot when setting up a campaign.

Jirachi, on October 9, 2019 at 11:49 am said:

Any recommendations for making blocks grant a higher level of immunity?
The 60 CP cost means that it could work well as a +2 ECL template, perhaps called ‘Mythical Crafter’, at least as a NPC thing or as a ‘one giant cheat’ thing.
It might work in a lower powered game with a limitation that makes relic creation take way longer and/or expensive…

Thoth, on October 17, 2019 at 1:11 pm said:

A basic Block can be viewed as Immunity to (Whatever) Attacks (Very Common, Severe, Great), Double Specialized and Corrupted / Only usable once per round, requires a Reflex save, uses up an AoO, attackers may make the required check more difficult. for a net cost of (6 CP). Of course, double-specialization is usually a red flag, but that’s one reason (among several) that Block is broken out on its own. So following that pattern, upgrading to 90 points would cost (+3 CP), and to 100 points (and reduce any remaining damage by 75%) would cost (+6 CP) – or (12 CP) in total.

That is getting absurdly over the top of course, but it might work for some sort of “Juggernaut” boss. Of course, at that point… you’re just asking for someone to use “True Strike” or some such and give up the bonus to add +20 to the DC of the defenders check. Every defense can be penetrated somehow.

Presuming the “60 CP” refers to the previous question on using Action Hero/Crafting to pay for relics – and the reply that it would require “something like Immunity to the distinction between Action Points and Character Points for the purposes of Create Relic (Very Common, Major, Legendary, 60 CP)”… It certainly could work as a Template. It wouldn’t even be too absurd if the game master was limiting the number of character points worth of relics that any one character could use. Of course, it wouldn’t start showing a “profit” until the user had cranked out 60 CP worth of Relics, which is really quite a lot.

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- Jasper, on October 17, 2019 at 2:59 pm said:
  
  That “Block” mechanism is . . . actually, pretty darn Good.
  In fact, I would recommend a low level of it to Any fighter who uses a shield (or maybe even those who don’t – “Parry” is just word change).
- Thoth, on October 17, 2019 at 8:54 pm said:
  
  Well, you can block with pretty much anything. The martial arts I took as a kid put quite a lot of stress on unarmed blocks after all. As for it’s being good… that’s quite intentional. One of the design goals for Eclipse was to upgrade defenses and discourage baseline d20’s tendency towards “Rocket Tag”. Another was to provide some upgrades for non-spellcasters, who’d been somewhat left behind by 3’rd editions massive spellcaster upgrades (primarily Concentration rolls and a turn-based system with plenty of “standard action” casting times). Ergo, Action Hero (Stunts Option), Reflex Training (Extra Actions Option), Spell/Power Resistance, Block, Luck (often with Bonus Uses Specialized in Saving Throws), and more were added – all with their own limitations, but all capable of dealing with fairly major attacks.
  
  There’s a fairly extensive discussion of defenses in the D20 Failure Modes Series, starting with Part II and Part III.
  
  And I hope that you find all that useful!
- Jasper, on October 18, 2019 at 1:32 am said:
  
  > Rocket Tag
  
  : )
  
  > Hope useful
  
  Alas, probably not. I usually play GURPS (or Hero system, though not much of that one lately), two systems with robust block rules built right in.
  I keep a 3.5 campaign ready to go – but there is no one around to play it with.
  
  The local D&D culture has gotten like the ASL community – actually Want to play the stereotypes, demand them, even, so your entire points– build opus is casting pearls before swine here.
  
  Forgive them, father – they know not what they do.
- Thoth, on November 3, 2019 at 9:54 pm said:
  
  Alas! Well, at least you never know when something will suggest an interesting idea, so that’s something.

alzrius, on November 6, 2019 at 3:26 pm said:

By specializing and corrupting Damage Reduction (Eclipse p. 29) I can set up fairly standard d20 System DR. That is, I can spend 12 CP to buy Damage Reduction 5, specialized and corrupted for triple effect: only versus physical damage, overcome by magic weapons. So in other words, DR 15/magic.

My question is, what if I want to become more granular with the applicable exceptions regarding what bypasses the Damage Reduction. How would you price that? If, for example, I wanted it to be “DR 15/magic and silver” or “DR 15/magic and good,” or even go 3.0 with regards to the “plusses” needed and make it “DR 15/+2” or “DR 15/+3” is there any way to do that compared to just buying DR 15/magic? My concern is that such a fine level of granularity doesn’t allow for working out the CP price for buying up what gets around the DR.

To put it another way, if DR 15/magic (which is essentially the same as DR 15/+1) is already specialized and corrupted, then how would I calculate the CP cost to raise that to DR 15/+2 or higher?

alzrius, on December 10, 2019 at 4:22 pm said:

I think I’ve seen something like this in one of your character builds before, but I wanted to double-check.

If you have a built-in magic item, either from Innate Enchantment or Siddhisyoga, are you able to use metamagic (or other abilities that modify your magical output) to enhance its effects? For example, if you have the Amplify metamagic theorem with the Glory modifier, and have used Siddhisyoga with a stone of conjuring earth elementals, would you be able to increase the level of the stone’s effective spell level, summoning more and/or stronger earth elementals accordingly?

Thoth, on December 11, 2019 at 10:01 pm said:

That turned up most often with the Shadow Elves, although it also turns up to boost “produce flame” to simulate black-powder firearms in some of the “Pirate” builds.

In general, there are two ways to go about it: one is to Specialize and Corrupt the Metamagical ability (only to work with a particular Innate Enchantment / piece of Siddhisyoga). While baseline metamagic generally has trouble with items, focusing it on a particular personal power of the user’s is pretty obviously saying “I’m using a minor variant made just for this purpose” – which works just fine. The other is to use Empowerment, so that your personal abilities apply without any shenanigans. Either way, the cost to boost a particular item or ability should be relatively small.

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alzrius, on December 28, 2019 at 9:26 pm said:

The list of what inherent bonuses can add to, on page 30 of The Practical Enchanter, doesn’t have anything for Base Attack Bonus. Does adding to BAB count as receiving feats (limiting you to a maximum of +3, if you forgo other feats in favor of that), or is it treated as a different application of inherent bonuses? If it is different, how much BAB can it add (and does it count for iterative attacks)?

Thoth, on December 29, 2019 at 4:27 am said:

Sadly, it does count as receiving feats. I must admit that that limitation is purely arbitrary – but given that I was already drastically expanding the list of possible inherent bonuses, I had to stop somewhere – and somehow it just didn’t seem as appropriate as Saves, which are still a low-efficiency option.

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alzrius, on January 6, 2020 at 5:00 pm said:

It seems like when you use the Personal Immunity aspect of the Sculpting metamagic theorem as part of creating a magic item, you’d build that immunity in so that it affected the person who used the item, rather than the creator. That is, if you made a scroll of fireball with Personal Immunity metamagic, and someone else used it, the fireball would still damage you, but not the whoever utilized it.

Presuming that’s correct, how would you build a magic item so that it could be used by others, but couldn’t affect you?

Thoth, on January 10, 2020 at 2:10 am said:

Ah, that one is easy; unless you’ve specifically limited a metamagical theorem it can be used in a great many different ways – so you just build the variant you like into your item. That being said… you might make a sword who’s external magical enhancements did not affect you (flaming, shock, etc) but it’s enhancement bonus might depending on how it works. If it makes it sharper and easier to swing… that wouldn’t be affecting you and would still work. Still, that’s probably overthinking it. A Fireball wand that didn’t affect you / the user (or both) might be pretty practical in some situations.

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brett west, on February 6, 2020 at 4:26 pm said:

I wanted to ask if there was going to be a detailed expansion for the Continuum II – Psychic Ability Upgrades articles for each of the Minor/Major Abilities?

Thoth, on February 11, 2020 at 2:40 am said:

Perhaps in part. I may be able to salvage some examples, but I must admit that I never entirely finished the power lists: I had a tendency to either think of new items or of a way in which an old one fit under a more general power (leading to it’s removal).

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alzrius, on February 9, 2020 at 10:37 am said:

The Workhorse ability reduces your level of encumbrance by one, so a light load is basically unaffected, a medium load becomes a light load, and a heavy load becomes a medium load. In that case, how do you determine what now constitutes a heavy load for you? With this ability, what’s your new maximum carrying capacity?

Thoth, on February 11, 2020 at 2:37 am said:

Ah, an easy one! That’s in the SRD under “Lifting And Dragging” – “A character can lift as much as double his or her maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it”. Workhorse doesn’t increase your maximum load, but it would let you haul that much stuff around as if it was a heavy load.

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alzrius, on February 12, 2020 at 4:52 pm said:

I don’t think this has been covered in an article yet, so I wanted to ask what a familiar’s full suite of powers (as detailed on page 189 of Eclipse) would look like if they were measured in terms of CP costs?

alzrius, on February 18, 2020 at 4:35 pm said:

Page 106 of The Practical Enchanter lists “User Restrictions” cost modifiers for making magic items. While these are a pretty easy way to limit who can activate the item(s) they’re applied to, they don’t seem to be that hard to bypass. Leaving aside that someone with the relevant item creation abilities simply pays the difference to have those restrictions removed, many of these seem to be exactly the sort of restriction that Use Magic Device is there to bypass.

My question is, is there a way to make it more difficult to use either of these options to bypass those restrictions? How do I make a magic item require a higher DC on a Use Magic Device check in order to get around its restrictions? How can I build in an anti-tampering measure so that someone can’t simply buy off the difference and remove a restriction? Would it require making the magic item sentient or is there another way?

Thoth, on March 17, 2020 at 8:38 pm said:

Ah, I forgot to put the link… here’s the answer on this one: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2020/02/28/restricted-magic-in-the-practical-enchanter/

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alzrius, on March 18, 2020 at 9:49 pm said:

Enhanced Strike (Eclipse, p. 51) notes that a character who wants to use it more than once per minute can pay a cost to do so, that being 1 Mana or 2 spell levels or 3 power. Shouldn’t that last one be 4 power, rather than 3? That’s the usual rate of exchange, but there’s nothing in the expansion/errata file about this that I’ve found.

Thoth, on April 16, 2021 at 5:11 am said:

It got a very slight price break with Power on the theory that – as a personal and mostly physical ability – it was a bit easier to get it to work with personal power.

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alzrius, on August 5, 2020 at 3:23 pm said:

I think this might have been asked before, but I can’t seem to find it now. If you use an ability to incorporate the effects of gear into yourself (such as Innate Enchantment, Siddhisyoga, or Legendarium), and use this for armor (not necessarily magical armor), do you gain the drawbacks as well as the bonuses?

That is, if I used Siddhisyoga on a suit of adamantine plate mail, I’d gain the armor bonus and damage reduction, but would I also have to deal with things like the max Dex restriction, armor check penalty, speed reduction, arcane spell failure chance, non-proficiency penalty, etc.?

Hopefully you’re staying safe and healthy, and will be able to post new articles here soon!

spellweaver81, on August 7, 2020 at 2:32 am said:

I am of two minds regarding this one.

1.) You absorb the magical bonuses of the armor you absorbed, but not the mundane bonuses. If you still want the mundane bonuses, then you still need to wear armor or use something like mage armor to grant you the bonuses. Also, some bonuses/abilities may not work too well when it is applied to flesh as opposed to metal. Such bonuses and abilities are likely to be ruled as always on for better or worse as well.

2.) You are manifesting the absorbed armor when using the abilities. At which point you suffer from the bonuses and penalties associated with said armor while it is manifesting (or potentially always on). If the user can turn it off and on at will, this does leave the possibility of the armor de-manifesting when knocked unconscious. Another issue to consider is that all of your armor will then become meaningless in an anti-magic field.

As to which interpretation I’d go with, I’d probably give the player a choice of the two options and make sure they are aware of the benefits and drawbacks of the two.

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Thoth, on April 16, 2021 at 5:09 am said:

Hopefully this is about the oldest thing that I didn’t get to answer…

In general, you do gain the drawbacks as well as the advantages, although – since it is now a part of you – you generally don’t need proficiencies.

And a belated thank you for the well-wishes!

Reply

alzrius, on September 13, 2020 at 3:59 pm said:

Something I recently noticed is that the Amplify metamagic theorem (Eclipse, p. 56) has no examples for what can be done with a single level’s worth of application; even the most mild example starts with +2 spell level’s worth of augmentation.

I’ve initially proposed that adding one level of Amplify could add +1 point of damage per die of an attack spells (e.g. a 10d6 fireball would deal 10d6+10 damage), or could add +1 to the spell’s save DC (though I’m iffy on that one, since it’s essentially no different than treating the spell as if it used a slot one level higher for free).

What are your thoughts on these, and any other possible applications of one level’s worth of Amplify metamagic?

alzrius, on October 10, 2020 at 3:12 pm said:

Page 115 of The Practical Enchanter lists the following as one of the Standard Formula Modifiers for designing new spells:

“Permanence: Spells which may be made permanent with a Permanency spell may have the option built into the spell formula for +2 spell levels. This allows the caster to simply spend XP when casting the spell to make it Permanent.”

What I’m curious about, however, is determining how a new spell would be eligible for permanency (whether on yourself only, yourself or others, or an area) in the first place. The standard list of eligible spells seem restrictive and oddly inconsistent, with spells like detect magic and arcane sight being allowable whereas greater arcane sight and Pathfinder’s greater detect magic aren’t. Is there a particular factor besides GM fiat involved? Would that factor make a difference when determining the DC for making a new spell?

Thoth, on November 24, 2020 at 9:34 pm said:

Well, this one got kind of long for a comment, and so the answer can be found over HERE.

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alzrius, on November 15, 2020 at 5:13 pm said:

The Magician modifier for Rune Magic (Eclipse, p. 97) lets you add bonus spells from your relevant ability modifier to power rune magic. Looking at some of the example builds on here confirms that you only need to buy that modifier once, regardless of how many different rules of rune magic you have.

My question is, if you have multiple types of rune magic, can you apply these bonus slots in their entirety for each different type, or are the bonus slots applied against all of your rune magic?

That is, if you have three different types of rune magic, all of which are keyed to your 16 Intelligence (giving you a bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spell), can you then apply a free 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spell to each of your three different types of rune magic? Or do you have only a single 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spell bonus spell to divvy up between them?

My initial thought was that the latter would be the case, but then noticed how if you have multiple slot-based spellcasting traditions keyed to the same ability scores, the bonus slots are applied in full to each (e.g. if you have levels of sorcerer and bardic casting, all keyed to Charisma, then you’d get your bonus slots from Charisma applied to each).

spellweaver81, on November 23, 2020 at 2:11 pm said:

My interpretation is that the bonus spells would only add once to a single “pool” of power for use with all the Rune Magic. You could specialize it to only work for one of the Runes for half cost in my opinion and thus by the ability three times at half cost so each rune gets its own bonus spells then. That ends up being 9 points total, but prevents you from using the slots from one rune to power another rune.

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Thoth, on November 24, 2020 at 4:37 pm said:

I tend to go with the general rule that similar bonuses from the same source do not stack – so if your Charisma is providing three bonus spell slots, those can be applied to any Charisma-based spellcasting, but you still only get them once. It helps to moderate the “I key everything to one attribute and then push it into the stratosphere” tendency.

That doesn’t mean that anyone else has to do it that way of course; It seems like that would pretty firmly falls under world laws – A.K.A. “whatever works for your game”.

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- alzrius, on November 30, 2020 at 9:19 pm said:
  
  As a follow-up, in the event that you had the Magician modifier for Rune Magic, and got the relevant ability score up to 30 or above, would it grant you bonus spell slots of 10th level or higher? Presumably you’d need to get your Rune Casting up to +42 or above (for a caster level of 21st or more) and Rune Mastery up to +40 or above (in order to be able to cast 10th level spells or higher via Rune Magic). But if you met all those conditions, would you gain bonus spell slots of those levels?
  
  As I recall, this particular question came up before, albeit around Witchcraft’s Inner Fire ability. In that case, a relevant point was that the SRD table for bonus spells didn’t go beyond 9th level; however, the expanded table (presented alongside the Improved Spell Capacity feat) suggests that you do gain those bonus spell slots, so long as you have pre-existing slots there. That could explain why you don’t get those for the Inner Fire, but would it for the Rune Magic scenario outlined above?
- Thoth, on April 16, 2021 at 5:05 am said:
  
  Says Yoda Way Behind Am I…
  
  I’d say that it would probably call for an improved version – but if you’ve got your states up to the point of getting bonus tenth level spells, a 6 CP improvement on Magician should be pretty manageable.

jirachi386, on December 5, 2020 at 8:02 pm said:

I’m a little confused as to how the upgrades of block work for things that are greater then the level of immunity that you get from the block – if e.g. you make the save successfully on a single target spell of level 8 (where level 7 is the Great immunity cap), does that mean that you still ‘get’ to catch, Riposte, and use Deflections if you have those upgrades?
Also, how does Block work for single target magical attacks that don’t include an attack roll?

Thoth, on April 16, 2021 at 5:02 am said:

Oh boy is this one late… Sorry about that, I have been extremely busy. To get to answers…

If you block something that’s too powerful, it continues to work like Immunity – turning into a typeless bonus on the save or simply reducing the effect appropriately. Alternatively, since variants are explicitly allowed, you could get a partial effect like a partial spell reflection. The advanced effects would split the same way.

Unfortunately, Block only works for things with relevant manifestations. So something like a Charm spell – that isn’t a ray – can’t be blocked.

Thus it’s a useful and powerful set of defenses, but it isn’t universal.

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alzrius, on March 8, 2021 at 11:00 am said:

I’d like to request an Eclipse breakdown of the Pathfinder 1E assassin prestige class. It trades in spellcasting for several advanced features regarding its death attack, and I’m curious to see what a comparative CP breakdown would look like.

Thoth, on March 20, 2021 at 2:43 am said:

Well, I am once again trying to get started again – so here you are! https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2020/06/28/eclipse-and-the-pathfinder-assassin/

And thank you for your patience by the way.

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Kalkra, on July 11, 2021 at 1:40 am said:

Well gee, there’s a lot of stuff here and I’m not gonna read through it all, so I apologize if anything I ask was already answered somewhere.

Anyway, with regards to Action Hero:

1) “If you want to fuel other abilities with AP, they can normally be purchased as Specialized.” I’m guessing that means that you need to pay AP in addition to any other costs, but how many isn’t specified. Is it always 1? Also, could you replace a uses-per-day ability with a uses-per-AP ability, similar to Mana? And if so, would that be considered Corrupted?

2) “Finally, for +6 CP more, you may spend one AP per day without having to reduce your reserve. This last option is NOT usable with any of the other expenditure options.” Does that mean that you can only buy one or the other, or does it mean that even if you upgrade the d6 to a d8 or higher, your one free one will still be a d6? Also, as that is a uses/day ability, can you buy Bonus Uses for it? Could it be made to run on Mana?

Thoth, on July 11, 2021 at 2:30 am said:

Not to worry! I fairly often forget entire articles and I wrote most of them! Fourteen or fifteen years worth of material will do that…

1) In general, pretty much any other ability can be fueled by one action point instead. Unless there’s some other major cost the game master wishes to enforce, the action point will supersede any minor costs associated with the ability. And certainly; if you have an ability that’s normally “x uses per day”, corrupting it so that it costs an action point to activate for a day (or however long your game master lets you get away with) is certainly reasonable.

2) In general, the Heroism options work just fine together. The “other expenditure options” are Stunts, Crafting, Invention, and Influence – since, if you could just keep spending a point a day on anything but Heroism (and possibly Stunts), you could fairly readily turn the game upside down. After all, that would let you single-handedly install a new state religion, build a mighty fortress, or create an epic item every month. Establishing a new field of technology would take four months, but even so…

I, personally, would probably let you get away with running Heroism on either Mana or Bonus Uses – but not the other options for the reasons given above.

Reply

Kalkra, on July 11, 2021 at 10:31 am said:

Wow, that was a prompt response. So quick that it makes me feel bad for immediately asking another question. So let me just say now, I have a lot of questions. I’m trying to pare it down, but still, please don’t feel any obligation to be prompt about it if it’s an inconvenience for you.

Anywho, Augmented Magic.

1) +1 CL for 3 CP is already the going rate if it’s Specialized. Limiting it to one specific school or descriptor strikes me as grounds to at least Specialize it. Seeing as it’s not actually Specialized though, could it be Specialized the same way your actual caster levels are (i.e. only for one progression, usually)? Or does it exist only to circumvent the level + 3 limit, and pays a premium for doing so?

1a) What is the general approach for how much you have to limit things to make it Specialized or Corrupted? Specialized is double power, so I’d be inclined to say that it needs to be usable half as much, but the general approach seems to be that you need to restrict things more than the benefit you receive. Given that there are 8 schools, it seems a good barometer for such things. If I wanted a Specialized and/or Corrupted caster level that only applied to one or more schools, how many could I get?

2) Can you double-dip? If you buy Augmented Magic for Evocation and for [Fire] spells, could you get the same bonus from both?

3) I’ve been trying to think of a third thing to apply to a spell, and the only thing I’ve thought of is +1 to bonus and/or penalties supplied by a spell, or +1 per CL, or some other kind of scaling. +1 damage per die is usually about a 30% increase in damage, but I don’t see an easy way to get similar consistency out of increasing bonuses or penalties, because they don’t usually scale with caster level and the numbers vary a lot more. Anyway, would something like that be doable? Are there other generic things I’m missing that you could use the third +1 for, or is it all very specialized things?

Thoth, on July 13, 2021 at 2:22 am said:

It’s not a worry; it’s just “when I have time” – and I happened to have some. So ask all you please. At worst it will take longer or I might miss one.

Augmented Magic is there for back-compatibility and to allow people to easily build particular specialties. For example, if someone takes Augmented Magic (Fire Magic), and Specializes that in Damaging Evocations (reducing the cost to 1.5 CP, rounded down to 1), and Corrupts it for Increased Effect (+1.5 points per die), then – for a mere 1 CP – Venthic Master Of Fire has added up to +15 damage to all his Fireballs. If Venthic goes to 3 CP to pay for triple effect, then his fireballs will wind up doing 1d6+3 per caster level (to a maximum of 10d6+30). Pick up, say, Empowerment for Wands, and that relatively cheap 5d6 Fireball wand could become quite devastating.

So for 1) Yes, you could Specialize it; just as above, if you’re really good with Evocations, you could Specialize in spells with a particular descriptor. Specializing it for one progression generally will only work if you have three or four progressions though. After all, if a Specialization doesn’t limit you it doesn’t really mean anything.

For 1a… There isn’t really a hard answer there because how much impact any given limitation has can vary so much from campaign to campaign. For a quick example, “Only works underground” would be pretty meaningless in an Underdark campaign, In a naval campaign that (very rarely!) has a scene set in a cave where someone hid a treasure chest, it would be at least Specialized and probably Specialized AND Corrupted. Thus there’s always some level of “consult your GM”. After all, players will make every effort to play to their strengths, If a combat power only works at night it will work a bit less than 50% of the time – but the player will try to make sure that the character only fights at night. Ergo, that would usually only be “Corrupted”. As a rough rule of thumb, reducing a powers overall utility by roughly two-thirds or more is Specialized, reducing it by about 50% is Corrupted. So for eight schools, four is Corrupted, three you can probably get away with saying that it’s Specialized. Applying both would probably take you down to one school, two if the GM is feeling very generous or things that you’ve picked two weak schools or some such.

For 2)… Sadly, you cannot double-dip thanks to the standard rules for adding bonuses – that bonuses from the same basic source do not stack. Of course, since you can Specialize and Corrupt to increase the effect, you can achieve the same general result – but you can’t stack up bonuses indefinitely by constructing a Venn Diagram of overlapping bonuses.

For 3) the most common other element is Duration. Adding +1 round per level to the base duration of Summoning spells, or perhaps Illusions, can be very useful – particularly if you tack it onto an effect that normally requires concentration. Beyond that it’s mostly specialized stuff, since there are better ways to boost most of the stuff that normally doesn’t scale.

And I hope that helps!

Reply
- Kalkra, on July 13, 2021 at 11:24 am said:
  
  Okay, I told myself I wasn’t gonna do a lot of follow-up questions, but dang there’s a lot to unpack here.
  
  (Not using the same question numbers as above)
  
  1) You round fractional CP costs down? Like, if you have 1 CP left, you can buy something that costs 1.5 CP? Does that means that if you have 2 CP, you can buy two things which cost 1.5 CP each? Or are you considered to be 0.5 CP in “debt”?
  
  2) If Specialized only works when it matters, how can a straight Wizard buy Specialized caster levels?
  
  3) If Corrupted is 50% and Specialized is 1/3, it seems to me that a hyper-focused character could buy an ability 6 times, each Specialized and Corrupted for triple effect so as not to overlap with one another and cover every possible scenario. Admittedly, a lot of abilities could just be taken more than once anyway, and there are some abilities I assume no GM would allow increased effect for, but Mentor would pay for itself in 5 levels, assuming I did all the math right.
  
  4) While I’m asking stuff, is increasing the duration limited to rounds, or would it be longer for a spell with a longer base duration? I guess that would be kinda confusing with a spell that doesn’t scale its duration by level.
- Kalkra, on July 13, 2021 at 7:05 pm said:
  
  EDIT: Forget the Mentor thing, you can (presumably) only take that once.
- Thoth, on July 16, 2021 at 4:15 am said:
  
  1) The usual rule is – unless otherwise specified – anything under .5 rounds down, anything over .5 rounds up, and .5 rounds in favor of the character. This doesn’t actually mean a lot since it does by totals; if something is 3 CP per increment, and gets specialized for reduced cost, the costs for increments 1/2/3/4/5/6 are 1/3/4/6/7/9 – and the total advantage is never more than half a point on any given ability. If somebody contrives to save a point or two at any given level it doesn’t really carry over – and so never really matters that much. So yes, you could buy two specialized three point abilities for only two points. It just rarely lasts very long.
  
  2) Because it does matter. If you have – say – seventeen full caster levels to go with wizard spellcasting, then you could pick up Mana as Generic Spell Levels (Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / only for Clerical Spells, must be bound into specific spells in advance, only usable when so bound, 15 Spell Levels, 6 CP), or Specialist (Gaining access to the spells of two domains and a bonus slot for them of levels 1-9, 6 CP) – and you suddenly have access to the clerical spell list. Unspecialized caster levels are a quick gateway to all kinds of power.
  
  3) Well, Corrupted is +50% effect or two-thirds cost (for about a 50% cut in utility), Specialized is double effect or half cost for a two-thirds drop in applicability. And you could buy many abilities six times – at a net doubling of the cost – to cover a bunch of possibilities. It is kind of difficult to “cover everything” that way of course since coming up with a set of interlocking limitations that way is quite hard.
  
  4) Not necessarily – if only because buying minor variations on abilities is explicitly allowed IF you can work it out with your game master.
  
  And yes, it’s pretty hard to work more than once instance of Mentor into a character.
  
  And, once again, I hope that helps!

Kalkra, on July 16, 2021 at 12:08 pm said:

Okay, for a short one this time, when Berserker mentions Bonus Uses Corrupted to only extend the duration, I’m guessing that means that they can only be used immediately after an active Berserker ends, rather than actually increasing the duration. In other words, I a character has two base uses, and buys one Bonus Use for increasing the duration, that increased duration would only apply to one of his base uses. If you actually wanted to extend the duration, I’m assuming that Augmented Bonus and increasing your attributes would be the only way to do that.

Thoth, on July 16, 2021 at 11:40 pm said:

Quite right – although you could also use Hysteria, or an Immunity, or get really esoteric. Most of the really complicated methods are more trouble than they’re worth though.

Reply

Kalkra, on July 18, 2021 at 3:24 pm said:

Moving on to Body Fuel, specifically Kundalini, it says ” magical or psionic effects powered by or with the assistance of Body Fuel”. What’s the lower limit on that? One attribute point yields one power. One hit point yields 1/4 power. How little can you spend and still get the result?

Thoth, on July 20, 2021 at 12:31 am said:

You’d need enough to begin the effect – so one spell level or one power (It’s a bit easier to force a channel open when you’re using personal power anyway). Thus, if Antimagic is being too much of a bother, you can buy a counter relatively cheaply.

The same reason why “The Adamant Will” is cheap and easy; anything that pretty much takes a character out of play should have a reasonably cheap counter-measure that a character can take if it’s coming up too often. Otherwise the game gets boring.

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Kalkra, on July 20, 2021 at 11:12 am said:

Well, Companion opens up a whole can of worms.

1) How do you determine the ECL of a creature? The obvious thing to do would be to just build it and see how many CP it takes, but when I tried that with a tiny monstrous spider I ended up with an ECL of about 5, leading me to believe that I don’t understand how creating races works. Even if I did know how to do it though, I’m assuming that players aren’t expected to reverse-engineer every potential creature to see if it’s eligible. Are you just given an appropriate amount of CP with which to build a creature?

2) Can you change your Companion when you level up, or are you stuck advancing your original one?

3) What are the actual effects of Transform? I’m assuming it’s purely cosmetic because it doesn’t specify an y mechanical effects, but if your size changes, that may or may not change things.

4) Is there anything preventing your Companion from having a Companion other than the GM’s banhammer?

Thoth, on July 21, 2021 at 9:58 pm said:

1) The base rule is there for the occasional person who wants to design their own creature. Fortunately, since Eclipse is back-compatible, there generally is no need to design creatures – you can simply use various creatures from various sourcebooks as-is, using the Companion Bonuses section on page 189.

If you want to use a variant progression – such as Pathfinders various specialty Companions and Familiars – you can either simply use an existing path (falling under “any similar progression”), or – once again, if you want to construct your own – Simply Specialize or Corrupt a progression (“does not get these abilities”) for Increased Effect (add these abilities”).

2) Changing a Familiar can be costly and takes time due to the extremely tight link with it’s master – unless, of course, you use specialized magic, or do a bit of rebuilding, or some such – but replacing most other types of companions just takes time (or, once again, special measures). It does not, however, have anything to do with leveling up. After all, an elven Druid keeping a tiger animal companion might have to replace it dozens of times without gaining a single level during his centuries-long retirement.

3) Transform would include size adjustments – but they’re generally pretty much beside the point. Transform is usually important for giving familiars speech, hands, and being able to have an extension of yourself using your skills and filling your role (or impersonating you) while you’re busy elsewhere. Do you want to play with the kids, work in the alchemy lab, and make an appearance in the kings court all at once? A couple of companions with Transform will handle that. Do you think that there is an assassin after you? A Familiar with Transform and Returning can pretty much eliminate your risks by standing in for you.

4) There is not – although that tends to peter out quite quickly since your companion is a much lower level than you are and so it’s companion(s) will be even weaker. The infinite feedback loop of talking the GM into allowing you to have a Familiar that – for it’s 6 CP worth of bestowed abilities – grants another specialized familiar and (say) 3 CP worth of Enthusiast – appears under over-optimized characters as a way to build an Eclipse-version of Pun-Pun, but that’s really just as silly as the original Pun-Pun build.

Now if there wasn’t some way to build a Pun-Pun type character I couldn’t say that Eclipse pretty much lets you build any kind of character. So, there are ways. Of course that is also why the GM is encouraged to say “only characters who fit into my game” and “don’t be stupid”. Opening up character design requires GM oversight if the game is going to work.

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Kalkra, on July 21, 2021 at 10:31 pm said:

Less of a question and more of a quibble, Transmutation says that for something like opening a pit you should factor in labor costs. I believe that unskilled labor is 1 sp per day. That means that the amount of digging that one person could perform in a day would cost 0.05 xp, if I did my math right. I believe the technical term for that is “bubkes”. Now sure, labor costs could be significant in some cases, particularly cases where craftsmanship is necessary, but I see nothing that would deter a player from creating pits willy-nilly, and especially not from filling them in once his hapless enemies have fallen in, as in my experience filling in a pit is much less labor-intensive. I’d be curious to know if the “same general type of elemental material” clause covers turning dirt or stone into cement.

Admittedly, range isn’t specified, and if the GM rules that you need to be touching the material to be transmuted, that makes transmuting the ground a bit of a grey area and could somewhat hamper it’s usability in combat, but only somewhat. Any ability that open-ended is going to be powerful, and the xp cost is negligible so much of the time.

Thinking about it a bit more, if you’re making a pit, that means that you’re moving the dirt. That’s weird. That implies that you can transmute something into itself but in a different place. Unless you’re turning it into itself but smaller, or into air, which goes against the “same elemental type” thing. No matter how you slice it, that’s not something you would expect the ability to be able to do at all.

I can’t help but feel that the line about pits made things worse, rather than better, although they still would have been bad. Thinking about it a bit more, it’s an incredibly efficient way to destroy things, because the xp cost is based on the cost of the end result. Even if the initial object is something every expensive, if you’re turning it into a pile of cow dung, you’re not paying very much xp for it. I would assume that magic items either get a save or are immune, and that attended objects would probably also get a save and/or require a touch attack, but still.

Well, this was supposed to be a quibble and instead it turned into a full-on stream-of-consciousness ramble. Sorry.

Thoth, on July 24, 2021 at 10:02 pm said:

Fortunately, d20 (3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder, etc) has already provided various lists of construction costs. All you need to do is pick one. For example, the “Supply Pouch” article – which similarly allows instant construction – mostly drew on the Stronghold Builders Guide and various editions of the DMG to provide the following short list of examples:
Door and suitable framing, with bar, installed to fit 10 x 10 area: Wooden (Hardness 5, 10 HP) 10 GP, Reinforced Wooden (Hardness 5, 20 HP) 40 GP, Iron (Hardness 10, 60 HP) 500 GP.
10 x 10 Wall: Masonry (2′ thick, hardness 8, 180 HP, Break DC 25) 250 GP, Packed Earth (3′ Thick, Hardness 2, 30 HP, Break DC 19) 10 GP, Wood (1′ Thick, Hardness 5, 120 HP, Break DC 26) 100 GP.
Dig out 10 x 10 x 10 cube of: Earth 5 GP, Clay/Rocky Soil 15 GP, Stone 50 GP. Yes, you can put holes under creatures, but it’s only a DC 16 Reflex save to avoid falling in. Just as bad, going more than fifty or sixty feet down in earth tends to lead to the walls collapsing before anything can fall that far, leaving any possible victims landing on a pile of soft earth about sixty feet down for 3d6 damage.
Build a Well (5 x 5, 100 feet deep) 200 GP. It comes with rope, winch, and bucket. While fitted stones hold the well open, trying to open one under someone allows them a DC 11 reflex save to jump away in time – which is unlikely to catch anything of the least importance.
Build a Trail 1 GP/100 Feet. This means clearing out the trees and brush, and enough leveling to let a small wagon get dragged through.
Build a Road: 1 GP/30 feet, x5 for difficult terrain. x2 for Gravel, x3 for Cobblestones, x5 for a solid base and mortared stones.
Build a Bridge: 5′ x 5′ section: Rope-and-Board 2 GP, Wood 10 GP, Stone 25 GP, Iron 150 GP.

The article on the Lyre Of Building goes into man-hours and costs that – but that’s probably more complicated than required.

As for range, Transmutation is a part of the “Create Item” sequence, and so always involves handling the materials. Secondarily, to infuse something with XP (or anything else really) you need to directly add whatever-it-is to the material to be infused. Still, if you want a pit, touching the floor near where you want it will work fine.

Given that XP are relatively hard to come by, and that d20 makes construction sort of expensive, most characters tend to rely on spells – the various create pit, wall of (whatever), and so on – for battlefield control. Transmutation tends to get trotted our by the occasional artificer- or Mcgyver-type who wants to be able to pull out a fine meal for two, or a left handed pipe wrench, or a 6×6 timber to prop open a sliding wall, at a moments notice.

Now, destroying items or reducing their value is already technically outside the scope of Transmutation, “you infuse XP into material to transmute it into more useful mundane forms”. Given that the result is always an improvement in utility – in the same way that adding experience points to a character never results in them being downgraded – you can’t destroy things with Transmutation as written.

Now I’d probably let someone get away with it, on the theory that they could just be using Transmutation to sheathe the item in explosives or something and “more useful” is a bit subjective – but the tactic is unpopular for the same reason that “Sunder” is unpopular (and much cheaper); it’s destroying the loot – and most d20 characters are strongly against that tactic. A touch attack and a save would definitely be in order anyway.

Now movement is inherent in transmutation – if you turn a lump of rock into a set of crystal vials, you’ve at least got to reshape it, which is moving chunks around. If you transmute the floor to create a field of spikes, you’re also moving material. You don’t necessarily wind up with a loose pile however (although you could get one easily). If you make a hole, you’re likely going to have to compact much of the material once in your new hole to brace and support the sides (one reason why pits and tunnels are expensive!). If it helps any, think of making pits and passages as transmuting the environment, rather than the material in the pit.

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