Jump to content

One more attempt at Geneforge DND


Recommended Posts

Link to Google Sheets with rules and creations: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TjZNq3oshG2KqCYE_rW08r9yWbcZex0_DvDabCptUPo/edit?usp=sharing

 

The system is now in a usable and presentable fashion. Not a 'final' fashion but possibly close to that. I would appreciate it if some of y'all would give it a glance and inform me of any concerns or possible improvements you see.

 

Now for the stuff that has been previously posted, I'm maintaining this mostly so the thread makes some sense to people checking it out later.

 

Quote

 

Old campaign wrapping up, and one of my players who has played Geneforge brought it up for our next campaign and sold the rest of the table on the idea. The whole table understands that conversion won't be fully true, and I won't be playing one of Jeffs published stories, just his world. But then we meet the old issue of making Shaping work on a tabletop.

We are playing 5e DND, and I had a thought for how it might work and maintain some semblance of balance. Let me see what y'all think about this. It will gate Shaping behind a feat.

 

Feat: Shaping (lifecrafting)

When you cast a conjuration spell to summon a creature, you may also expend another spellslot of one or more levels higher and extend the casting time to 10 minutes to make this creature a Creation. This higher spellslot cannot be restored while the Creation is controlled by the Shaper. A Creation no longer requires concentration to maintain, and is permanent until it dies. Any time a creature would be forced to make a concentration save, or it perceives itself as being abused by it's creator, a Creation must make a Rogue saving throw. versus a DC equivalent to the concentration save DC. Creations receive a bonus to this roll equal to the spell level used to make them a Creation minus the spell level of the spell that created them. Otherwise, it is a Charisma saving throw. A 'natural 1' on a Rogue saving throw is not an automatic failure. If a Creation goes Rogue or dies, the Shaper may recover the spellslot reserved for it's control at the Shapers next long rest.

At any point, as an action, you may absorb a Creation you control through physical contact, thereby killing the Creation and regaining a spell slot of equal or lower level than the spell used to summon the Creation. As the Creation is now dead, the higher level spellslot can be recovered at the Shapers next long rest.

 

With this, I just need to write spells like "Conjure Fyora", and I can balance them against spell levels. This will also allow for the "I need this Creation now, but not for long" by making them work like every other "Conjure (woodland beings, celestial, elemental, etc.)" spell (flavored as creating and letting it go semi-rogue, then reabsorbing). It's not a perfect system, but I think it works well enough. None of my players are likely to go for "massive army" anyways (I know them well enough to make that assumption) so at most I think I'm looking at adding three creations to the party, and the semi-permanent loss of spell-slots balances this power. I think this meets the flavor of the Shaper, if not exactly the gameplay, and doesn't risk balance too much. What do y'all think?

 

Edit: I think I will also give Creations a bonus to all of their Abilities equal to the bonus it receives on Rogue saving throws. This will wind up double-dipping for that particular roll (not a big deal) and also giving a +1 to basically everything for every 2 spell levels, thus making low-level creations more powerful if crafted with higher level spells.

 

 

Edited by earanhart
added link to google sheets with Creation stat-blocks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, earanhart said:

When you cast a conjuration spell to summon a creature, you may also expend another spellslot of one or more levels higher...

 

At any point, as an action, you may absorb a Creation you control through physical contact, thereby killing the Creation and regaining a spell slot of equal or lower level than the spell used to summon the Creation, but not the spellslot used to make it a Creation.

 

The logic here is confusing.  If you create a creation, and later reabsorb it, you... PERMANENTLY lose a higher level spell slot, even after it's absorbed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Epoxy War said:

 

The logic here is confusing.  If you create a creation, and later reabsorb it, you... PERMANENTLY lose a higher level spell slot, even after it's absorbed?

 

No, at that point the Creation would be dead, and so at the next long rest the Shaper will recover the higher level spell slot. I may need to reword that to be clearer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK.  Your edit above definitely makes this clearer.  Let me run an example to make sure I understand.

 

I use a 2nd-level slot to cast summon cryoa and expend a 3rd-level slot to make it permanent with the shaping feat.  Then, I use a 1st-level slot to cast some other spell.

 

If the cryoa dies, nothing happens immediately, but both slots used to create it will recover after a long rest.

 

If I instead absorb the cryoa, I immediately regain the expended 1st-level slot, and the other two will recover after a long rest, just as if it had died.

 

If I take a long rest with the cryoa still around, the 3rd-level slot will not recover, but the 2nd-level slot will?  Not sure if I'm interpreting that correctly.  It seems like the mechanics in Geneforge would use up both slots for the duration of the creature's existence... a cheap price given the big difference between a summon and a permanent creation.

 

I think this is also necessary for balance -- otherwise, there's not much reason to ever use temporary creations, since permanent creations don't use up any more spell slots (once you've had a long rest).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/29/2019 at 6:34 PM, Epoxy War said:

I use a 2nd-level slot to cast summon cryoa and expend a 3rd-level slot to make it permanent with the shaping feat.  Then, I use a 1st-level slot to cast some other spell.

I'm not sure I'd put Cryoa at 2nd level, because that doesn't let me make it enough better than Fyora other than the reskin to cold from fire, but otherwise yes.

On 3/29/2019 at 6:34 PM, Epoxy War said:

If the cryoa dies, nothing happens immediately, but both slots used to create it will recover after a long rest.

Still correct.

On 3/29/2019 at 6:34 PM, Epoxy War said:

If I instead absorb the cryoa, I immediately regain the expended 1st-level slot, and the other two will recover after a long rest, just as if it had died.

Yes, but you could recover either the 1st or 2nd level slot (but not both), since you used a 2nd level slot to cast "Summon Cryoa." Realize that (according to Sage Advice and me as DM) you cannot recover a spellslot that you haven't expended, so you wouldn't want to absorb a Creation before you have cast a spell you could recover that day.

On 3/29/2019 at 6:34 PM, Epoxy War said:

If I take a long rest with the cryoa still around, the 3rd-level slot will not recover, but the 2nd-level slot will?  Not sure if I'm interpreting that correctly.  It seems like the mechanics in Geneforge would use up both slots for the duration of the creature's existence... a cheap price given the big difference between a summon and a permanent creation.

 

I think this is also necessary for balance -- otherwise, there's not much reason to ever use temporary creations, since permanent creations don't use up any more spell slots (once you've had a long rest).

You are reading this mostly correctly to how it is in my head, but realize the 'reserved' spell slot is one level higher than the one used to summon the creation normally. It may seem a small cost, but realize that is normally going to one of the highest two spell levels the character has, in order to get a creation that is more valuable than the spell slot itself.

As for consistency sake, Geneforge splits "spell slots" between spell energy and essence, both of which are used to cast spells and balances (I think mildly poorly) between the two, but Geneforge balance isn't the important part here, DND balance is. 

 

The four balance parts I am envisioning are:

1) the time to summon (which I may need to extend to a short rest from 10-minutes) which would make Creations very difficult to create once you know what you are up against,

2) that every time the creation takes damage (or sees itself being abused (no making the Vlish face-tank the trap)) it makes a Rogue save (which I obviously need to balance to their uses, giving tank-types a bit of a bonus above their Geneforge story in terms of tendency to go Rogue due to how often they will roll this, maybe give them immunity to this roll until they reach 1/2 max HP), 

3) it requires giving up an Ability Score Increase to use creations at all. Sure, above 16th level the cost of it being a feat may be minimal, but at those levels the players are basically demigods anyways. At low levels, the loss of 2 points to your primary stat can be significant. Even if you NEVER use a Creation, merely the ability to do so lowers your attack and either damage or save-DCs by 1 until at least 12th level. In 5e, that's actually a meaningful loss.

4) I'm not going to make the Creations as powerful as they are in Geneforge, versus the player character. I think a single Fyora should be somewhere around CR1/4, with a 1st level spell. Yes, if it gets lucky a lone Fyora could kill an adventurer, but even the 1st level rogue has a decent chance of taking it in 1v1, and should reliably win if he gets the drop on the lizard. I think this is actually the biggest balance issue, because how balanced shaping is depends on how useful the Creations are. I need them to be worthwhile, but at the same time of limited value so they do not overshadow the players, of similar value to a spell of the one-higher level after ten rounds, but less valuable than the same-level spell below 4 rounds. This means their damage output needs to be limited somewhat (I think the easiest way would be to limit their range, actually. If the Fyora and Artilla can only spit 20 feet, it puts them close enough to action to be vulnerable. If protecting or healing the Creations takes actions from the party, the effective cost of that Creation goes up, allowing their power to also increase somewhat.)

 

Also, I think the generally fewer spell slots of higher levels in this edition helps. With the exception of Warlocks (who only ever get 4 spell slots at all) no one ever has more than 3 spell slots of any level higher than 1st, and a maximum of 22 spell slots total at 20th level. The loss of even one of those is significant, but I'll think about doubling that cost.

 

Unrelated, but for fluff the difference between a Shaped Creation and a Summoned One would be that normally summoned ones are unstable, a thing that already exists in lore. I may gate these spells behind the feat as well, but that is a fluff restriction for spells I am intending on being behind their spell level in terms of base power anyways, so I'm not sure if it's needed. Certainly it would be illegal for non-Shapers to know how to make even unstable Creations, but since when have laws stopped murder-hobos?

 

And sorry for the somewhat rambling post, I'm still figuring this out and so having a mild case of "brain vomit".

 

Edit: Another thought for a very different balance. Controlled Creations cannot attack on their own, but at the use of the Shapers bonus action all Creations under their control make a single attack each. This still allows the Shaper to sling spells out, encourages them to have more than one Creation (which may cripple their high-level spell slots), and decreases the value of Shaping due to action economy. 

 

As for balancing against the army of Creations, I think I would say that if you ever control more Creations than your proficiency bonus, all Rogue saving throws made by your Creations are made at disadvantage. This can still get big at higher levels, but at those levels it should be a big army and I merely need to balance damage against the fighters 4 attacks a turn. If individual creations never do impressive damage (or the damage will be resisted too often) then the fact that the Shaper can make 6 a turn through their creations becomes less of an issue.

 

I need to start writing stat blocks for Creations, and then assign those to spell levels before we can truly decide what is and isn't balanced. I'll probably come back tomorrow or Monday with some basics for that.

 

Edit2: looking at when it would be possible to make one, I decided to add all G1 creations into the list. The ability to shape a SINGLE creation from an 8th level spell cannot come until level 17, and I can balance the Dryaks power against the Rogue Saving Throws. I Still need to stat all of these creatures out, but I'll work on that over the next couple days.

 

Edit3: added link with Creation stat blocks to top of first post.

Edited by earanhart
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Much as I hate double posting, I think I have enough new material to justify it this time. Please see my system at the link below or in the top post and let me know what y'all think. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TjZNq3oshG2KqCYE_rW08r9yWbcZex0_DvDabCptUPo/edit?usp=sharing

Edited by earanhart
typo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does it seem to be working? I initially thought about doing that, but didn't want to lock Shaping down just Wizards, and couldn't see any Wizard subclass being equivalent to a Cleric, Druid, or Sorcerer subclass. The classes as a whole are fairly balanced, but each one gets a different amount of power from their subclasses versus from the base class itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The latest version of D&D with which I'm familiar is 3.5, but I think prestige classes are still around even in 5e. Why not make it an arcane (arcane/divine distinction is still a thing, right?) prestige class with some prerequisites that would properly suit Shapers? Then wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, eldritch knights etc. could use Shaping and would be able to better fill out a variety of roles in the game.

 

And if you're running an actual Geneforge campaign, you could have a bonus feat or Lifecrafter prestige class that you can obtain from using a Geneforge that would let divine casters/noncasters use Shaping.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We don't have "prestige classes" in D&D next. It is more of a class specialization. 
The way I do it, is that there's a Shaper subclass for sorcerers and wizards, an Agent subclass for wizards and a Warrior Subclass for fighters. I also use a very different spell list than the traditional wizards. In fact I use a modified druid spell list. Shaping comes outside the spellcasting. Each shaper depending on whether he or she is Shaper \ Agent \ Warrior have a different potential for creating creations and adding modifications to them, similar to essence.

 

More than one Shaper in the party and it clugs down significantly during combat. Although, you can have players run one of the Creations of the Shaper each along with their character so they don't have to wait for long with nothing to do.

 

Is it balanced? Nah, not really. When one character has control over 3-4 serious beasties, there's no notion of balance anyway and the Shapers have their "default" class abilities and spells anyway. 
Is it fun? Yes. Which is the purpose of the game.  

Edited by alhoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/12/2019 at 4:37 PM, Overwhelping said:

Why not lock it down to just one class?  Most abilities in D&D are locked down that way.  Wizards can't use cleric spells, etc.

Locking it down to a single class won't work with my table. The players would see that as me forcing them to take this class, and then all but one of them would take it while complaining about it.  It might work for a different table though. 

 

As to "most abilities are locked down that way", they really aren't. Sure, specific spells may be locked to one class, but what the spell DOES isn't. Bards, clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, and even some sorcerers and warlocks get spells to heal others HP. Every full caster gets some form of combat summons, and every half-caster has access to a long-term summon (animal companion, paladin steed). In 5e, any character can get a familiar for the cost of one feat (and there are two feats that will work for that). How many characters get a way of inflicting paralysis on a target? Of increasing the damage of another character? How many classes get an ability that is Wisdom Save or lose next action? How many classes get a bonus action that adds 1d8 or 1d6 damage? Sure, the names change (Hex, hunters mark, divine smite, sacred weapon, planar warrior, etc.) but the actual ability is still "one more die of damage per turn." Wizards and Druids both do the self-transformation play-style differently, but the actual ability of "I become a monster" is shared between them. The "hidden attacker" play style might work best with rogues or rangers, but warlocks also fit the bill, and a crafty fighter or bard can also play that way. The 'tank' play style is so spread out that I can't even decide on which two classes are the stereotypical two, but I want to say fighter and barbarian, as opposed to paladin and cleric, but druids, monks, and even a rare sorcerer can all use that play style because they all have abilities that say "+AC," "-damage incoming," and "heal yourself a bit."

 

Sure, the specifics of how they do a given thing changes from class to class, and from subclass to subclass (the new version of PRCs are subclasses. Every gets one at a level determined by the main class, but each is tied to a specific class), but the actual abilities are fairly well spread out. No play-style has only one class that can do it. Even at the single ability scale, once you pull fluff out and look only at effects almost everything is shared by four or five classes.. Because Shaping opens up a new play-style, I didn't want it locked down into just one class. Sure, it is done best by a full caster, so bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, or wizard, but the half-casters and even the third-casters CAN use it. I don't expect any third caster to take the feat because it won't add much to them, but I also don't expect a third-caster to try for the healer role.

 

Alhoons method with having drafted up a few different subclasses is a different answer to this problem than my system, and it comes from a different theory of gamecrafting than I do. At a glance it sounds functional. but also sounds like more effort to implement than mine, since he allows for adding modifications to individual Creations, while I only allow them to be advanced along two lines (spell level and shaper knowledge) which both typically amount to adding +1s to stats or +1dice to damage. (a few rare other things, but they are all listed on the creations stat blocks)

 

On 4/13/2019 at 3:19 PM, alhoon said:

Is it balanced? Nah, not really. When one character has control over 3-4 serious beasties, there's no notion of balance anyway and the Shapers have their "default" class abilities and spells anyway. 

This was why I want my system to reserve the spell slots used to make the Creations. "Do you want a Battle Beta, or do you want to be able to cast Meteor Storm?" There is no way that a single Battle Beta will outperform Meteor Swarm in terms of simple damage (at least in my system), but a dedicated Shaper can deal comparable damage every round through their army. That was my intent.

 

On 4/13/2019 at 3:19 PM, alhoon said:

Is it fun? Yes. Which is the purpose of the game

This should be our Holy Mantra. Nothing else really matters at the end of the day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Battle Beta would be a 9th lvl spell? Isn't that insanely advanced? Your world, your rules, but IMO that's in the very end of the spectrum. I have seen very few campaigns that reached beyond 10-11th lvl. My usual campaigns go for 40-50 sessions and reach 10-12th lvl or something.

 

Regardless, even with blocking slots, in my opinion Creations will still not be balanced. Even if you manage to find the razor's edge of making Battle Beta powerful enough to compete with Meteor Swarm (which is tougher than it sounds) for a party of 4 people, it will be an uphill battle for the rest of the creations. And you have to take into account the reduced versatility from losing the slots. However, all these calculations would grow out of sync when the party grows from 4 to 10 PCs and creations as a single extra won't be balanced for a party of that size.
I am not saying you shouldn't do it; your table your rules. I just don't think there'll ever be a way to make this balanced.  

 

Spoiler

Meteor swarm does on average 70 damage in a huge area. So let's assume it does 280 damage. The suggestion by the DMG is to balance monsters as if it's 3-4 rounds. So a battle beta, to be balanced with meteor swarm should be able to reliable do 250-300 damage in 3-4 rounds against foes a level 18 party would face. But you can have your BBeta in more fights and it soaks attacks that would be directed to you. So let's get it down to 150-200 damage in 3-4 rounds against dragons or gangs of giants...

Something like that will be able to wipe out 50-100 soldiers by itself. Do you want a battle Beta to be that powerful? 

 

Edited by alhoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/17/2019 at 7:43 PM, earanhart said:

Alhoons method with having drafted up a few different subclasses is a different answer to this problem than my system, and it comes from a different theory of gamecrafting than I do. At a glance it sounds functional. but also sounds like more effort to implement than mine, 

 

Yeap. :) One of the main reasons I did what I did, was to have a complex, dynamic system. 
Another reason is... Guardians are better in Shaping than Agents but they suck at magic. Agents are better spellcasters than Shapers but they suck at Shaping. Locking it down by spell level means that a "fighter Shaper" would have to be a good spellcaster. With your system, for the Guardian to be able to have access to battle Beta, the Fighter would have to be able to cast 9th lvl spells... and he could decide to not have a battle beta. 
Of course, you could limit his "spellcasting" to Shaping spells from a list etc. I am not saying there are no work arounds. 

 

In the end as we both agreed, what works best for the group to have fun, works best.
Frankly, on my table bringing 12 more NPCs (which means a balanced battle would have a lot more enemies on the other side) requires special rules to deal with this stuff quickly. You may want to look at something like that too because from my experience once Shaping enters the party, the numbers of combatants start to raise very quickly. 

 

 

Edited by alhoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, alhoon said:

Battle Beta would be a 9th lvl spell? Isn't that insanely advanced? Your world, your rules, but IMO that's in the very end of the spectrum. I have seen very few campaigns that reached beyond 10-11th lvl. My usual campaigns go for 40-50 sessions and reach 10-12th lvl or something.

 I'm operating off the idea that no one leaves the Shaper school until they are already level 7, scale another 8-12 levels for the standard campaign length (at least with my table) and it's on the table. Table differences make this a world of difference.

 

As to the Battle Betas damage, it's not the individual creations I am balancing for, but rather the available army of Creations. Because I've limited party-controlled creations to needing to use both their reaction and the Shapers bonus action to attack, resulting in the entire army attacks at once, I need that nova of damage to be similar to the highest level slot available. Meteor Swarm has a max of 240 damage, and my (rough build, I'm sure a player invested in it could do somewhat better) of the largest army a Shaper can make caps at 246 (assuming no criticals). Granted, Meteor Swarm is an AoE, but it is the max damage for single target as well (oddly, WotC didn't follow their own advice in building it). Meteor Swarm also has one save for half, where this would be between between 6 and 10 individual attacks (some Creations have multi-attack), with the possibility of crits but also likely that some will miss (that's actually my current largest concern: their to-hit rolls may be off). Any individual Creation is worth far less than the spell slot, but the ability to do that damage every round becomes the value.

 

As for Shaper/Agent/Guardian differences, yeah, I broke the Geneforge system there. Agents would be those who didn't take the Lifecrafter feat, or else don't want to learn the spells for the Creations (classes with Spells Known, for instance). Shapers are almost exclusively Wizards, Clerics, and Druids, as they don't need to worry about spell selection. Guardians are the rest. It's not as true to the original lore as yours sounds, but only one member of my table has played the games and he is mature enough to accept that my take on the world isn't identical to Jeff's. Having the three sects at current is mostly my way of justifying having Fighters and Monks in the Shaper school at all. For plot I'm going with an kind of merger of GF2 and GF3 stories, ehh... kind of. Pre-game story will be almost identical to GF2, right up to the Agent taking them for their field work.

 

Tomorrow is the final showdown of the current campaign, then we'll take a short break from DND and probably start this up in a months time, so I've got time to fix any issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

240 damage for a single target in a spell with 4 40-ft radius spheres is a lot more than single-target. Working with averages because I am more comfortable with them, it's 140 damage to a lot of people with 70 damage to few people. Usually, you will deal 300-400 damage with this spell to enemies you actually care about (sure, you would cook a lot of 25 hp minimums that are around, but they wouldn't really be a problem anyway)
As mentioned, a good rule of a thumb is to assume the battle will go on for 3-4 rounds. Since we're talking several people involved, let's assume 4-5 rounds. So the army should reliably do ~80 damage per round on average to be equal to a meteor swarm spell. That ~80 damage should include miss chances. Assuming 1/3 attacks would miss, we're at ~120 damage on average.

However that doesn't take into the equation the "support" these things give. I.e. enemies that attack them instead of the PCs or simply the ability to hide behind them etc.

So I would say ... different functionality. An army worth as much as that 9th level spell would probably need ~300 hp between them and deak 70-80 damage on average (so that they would actually deal about 50 damage). So 4 battle betas with ~75 hp each that have two attacks with each attack dealing 1d8+5 damage, would be IMO comparable to meteor swarm.

 

And again: That takes into the equation an army of creations compared to the single most powerful damage spell.  Simply put, I don't think Meteor Swarm is a good comparison as it's huge area makes it unyieldy and they offset this with a large damage. Meteor swarm is an army killer. I believe there are more fair spells to compare your army of creations with.  

 

But if mid-tier creations like battle Betas are 9th lvl spell, what about Kyshaaks, War tralls, Rotdhizons etc? 

Edited by alhoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, alhoon said:

 

*snip*

 

But if mid-tier creations like battle Betas are 9th lvl spell, what about Kyshaaks, War tralls, Rotdhizons etc? 

I believe he is currently including only the G1 creations. Also, keep in mind that betas are arguably not mid tier when compared against the default tier 4/5 creatures, because they are the upgraded form of alphas (although most of the time neither are very good in the game itself).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BBetas if memory serves were like bumped up alphas with nothing extra. I tried to use them in GF4 and they were very disappointing. Same for GF5. Perhaps they have more quick action to make a 2nd attack more often or something but in general they seemed like Alphas with more levels: Melee meat-shields that were not very good or memorable, themselves like very powered up thands but I expected something from a 3rd tier creation. Battle Gamas, that we couldn't make, had that scythe attack that hit everyone around them. 

Edited by alhoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/21/2019 at 5:08 PM, TheKian said:

I believe he is currently including only the G1 creations. Also, keep in mind that betas are arguably not mid tier when compared against the default tier 4/5 creatures, because they are the upgraded form of alphas (although most of the time neither are very good in the game itself).

Yes, I am currently limiting to just the G1-era creations (mostly because I feel the document is already oversized for a player supplement). And I'll admit, the way I currently have them the top-tier creations are . . . not that interesting. Gave Betas and Alphas a 10 ft reach, with Betas having the Sentinel feat, thereby creating a large meat-wall for my party to hide behind.Their damage becomes less important because they can lock down an area. My Drayks are the most damaging creation with four options for attacks (one cone, one line, a ranged attack and a melee attack) (I didn't make Cryo-drayks for lore reasons, but maybe should and de-power the Drayk a bit), with Ur-Glaahks not far behind them. Betas would only be used for their battlefield control, which I think matches with the lore as well. I cannot think of any examples of Battle alphas/betas being shaped for use in anything except large-scale battle and guarding areas. I think I will also allow for humanoid creations to wield weapons, if given any. That may push them up in terms of utility, but also might not. That's a playtest thing and will need to be evaluated as we play.

 

I am also trying very hard with this to prevent having Shaping become so powerful that it completely overshadow other party members. I may have a barbarian or fighter in the party and need to keep them relevant to the game. Rogues and Monks should be able to stay relevant through their mobility and ability to get to the enemy mage/Shaper, Paladins bring defensive options (and Smite) to the table, and Rangers (and I suppose ranged Fighters/Rogues) deal damage from much farther away than I have allowed Creations to function at (only Artilla have an attack with a 60 ft range in my system.)

 

On 4/20/2019 at 11:36 PM, alhoon said:

An army worth as much as that 9th level spell would probably need ~300 hp between them and deak 70-80 damage on average (so that they would actually deal about 50 damage). So 4 battle betas with ~75 hp each that have two attacks with each attack dealing 1d8+5 damage, would be IMO comparable to meteor swarm.

 

Hmm. I need to cogitate on this a while. Thank you for that perspective, it's a different direction than I was looking from.

 

On 4/22/2019 at 12:25 AM, alhoon said:

BBetas if memory serves were like bumped up alphas with nothing extra . . . Melee meat-shields that were not very good or memorable,

 

Yeah, in the GF games Alphabet Brutes were underwhelming. Honestly, for the first 3 games everything except the Vlish was underwhelming, in my opinion. Drayks had a coolness to them, but cost too much, Glaahks were too fragile, and melee damage required SO MANY AP OF WALKING that they often lost turns of damage output, Eyebeasts were Drayks turned to 11, in both coolness and cost, and Drakons were merely balanced between their cost and effectiveness. Again, merely my opinion. 

 

Edit: I think I have answered the Guardian/Agent issue here with another overpowered feat. It's in the Google sheet linked at the top, but I'm going to post it here for ease of discourse:

 

Shaping (Essence Manipulation)                                
 

Spoiler

   You have learned to store Essence inside yourself for later use, and learned how to channel that Essence through your body and mind.                            
    You gain an internal pool of Essence you may fill from Essence Pools or Pods.                            
        Doing so requires an action and you must either be touching an Essence Pool or holding an Essence Pod to absorb the Essence.                        
            Essence Pods contain 1 Essence Point each.                    
        At any single time, you may have no more Essence points stored than twice your proficiency modifier.                        
    When you cast a spell or make an attack, you may expend one or more Essence Points.                            
        Each Essence point spent in this way increases the DC or attack roll by 2.                        
        Every two Essence points spent this way also adds one die to any damage or healing from the attack or spell.                        
    You may also use a Bonus Action to consume one or more Essence Points as though you had consumed a number of Healing Pods equal to the number of Essence Points expended (2d4+2 hit points per Essence Point).                            
    When you succeed a Death Saving Throw, if you have three or more Essence Points and a hit die you will automatically spend them to roll one of your hit dice and recover health equal to the result plus your Constitution Modifier (minimum of 1).                            
    Special: if you also have the Shaping (Lifecrafting) Feat, you may cast Shape Creation and any Shaping spell you know by spending a number of Essence Points equal to the spell level of the Shape Creation spell.                            
        Doing so will reserve these Essence Points instead of the Spell Slot of Shape Creation.                        
        Reserved Essence Points are considered 'empty' and may not be filled so long as the Shaped Creation lives.                        
        When you use this feat to cast a Shaping Spell, you are considered to have the spell slots of a wizard, cleric, druid, bard, or sorcerer equal to your character level.                        
    Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you do your Essence Pool increases by an amount equal to your proficiency modifier.     

 

Since I am adding the Creation spells as canister/special training rewards, they are available even to non-spellcasters. This feat allows for non-spellcasters to gain significant benefits, and by taking the Shaping (Lifecrafting) feat as well allows for the Guardian theme of a few Creations alongside the Guardian himself (I imagine only fighters will have enough disposable ASIs to take both feats, but could be surprised). If taken without the other feat, this allows for potent self-healing and a noticeable but uncommon damage boost. I think it also fits with the lore of Shapers filling themselves with Essence and using that to sustain themselves, seen mostly in G4.

 

I do expect everyone at my table will take one of the two feats, and probably one will take both. 

Edited by earanhart
additional to system, avoid double-post
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best of luck to you and glad to be of service. 

 

As for our different perspective, it is what it is. I am leaning more towards the "A Shaper is an army" to be sincere and a more complicated and tweeky system. I want smart players that micromanage upgrades and stuff to make good and imba creations like flying snakes that shoot poison darts. 

 

Still, I have to say this: from my (somewhat limited experience) having a lot of creations doesn't overshadow the other players.
When I tried to do something similar, the Shaper herself was underwhelming. Yes, she had a group of creations but by herself she was worse than the rest of characters. And when I did this, I wasn't taking the Shaper's actions for control the creations. 
If your fighter hires 2-3 CR3 veterans to come with him, does the fighter himself overshadow the other players? Because that was what it felt like in my experience. My answer to that would be "nope". Consider that instead of money (which for the levels you're mentioning is not a problem) would take spell slots and actions.

Edited by alhoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would also like to point out that giving up a ninth level spell slot (that would otherwise contain, say, meteor swarm) for a creation cannot be compared properly in terms of damage, simply because the creations are permanent, and are attacking each round. Meanwhile, the spell is only cast once for not just the entire battle, but until the end of your next long rest. Just saying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, TheKian said:

I would also like to point out that giving up a ninth level spell slot (that would otherwise contain, say, meteor swarm) for a creation cannot be compared properly in terms of damage, simply because the creations are permanent, and are attacking each round. Meanwhile, the spell is only cast once for not just the entire battle, but until the end of your next long rest. Just saying.

Yes, but there are ways to balance that out. The suggestion is to balance out a creature for 3-4 rounds of battle. Sure, your creation would be attacking in the previous battles too, but then it would get wounded in the big fight, so it comes down to the same thing... theoretically. 
But yes, it is not the same thing. But it is not a bad way to balance it out... as long as the creation doesn't have large area attacks!!!! If you create a drayk and give it a breath weapon that is a cone of 30 ft or something, and the Drayk's breath does some serious damage, then you're off the chart. As simple as that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, alhoon said:

If you create a drayk and give it a breath weapon that is a cone of 30 ft or something, and the Drayk's breath does some serious damage,

I actually did a 20 ft cone with 8d6 fire damage, DC 19 Dex for half. Drayks are kings, but they also have a chance of going Rogue every time they roll initiative, so players have to decide if it's worth the risk.

 

Edit because I thought I said this in the original post. Blargh.

Quote

The suggestion is to balance out a creature for 3-4 rounds of battle.

 That's been in the system since the beginning, using the DMG targets for spell damage and reducing for 3 rounds of duration (with exception for Drayk who is overpowered but chancy, and Mindstealer Vlish (in lieu of Terror Vlish) who do less damage but come with a Charm effect on their attack).  I wanted a single creation to feel less useful than a same-level spell across a 2 round combat, but feel noticeably more useful by the start of the 5th round of combat that day. It also enables the party to go longer without needing a long rest or other form of spell recovery, and my table is used to my dungeons being long enough that they run out of spells if they don't ration (two of my players especially enjoy the tactics of rationing their long/short rest features, one of whom loves the theme of the exhausted hero emerging from the fight/dungeon only to pass out as soon as he finds safety, so I play it up for them when I can and it makes sense).

 

My Meteor Swarm equivalents are for a Shaper who does devotes everything they have to this ability, so they no longer have any spell slots above 5th level because they are walking around with 6 high-level Creations. At this point, across 4 rounds of combat, the total army needed to feel similar to or better than using at least the following: a 9th level spell, an 8th level spell, a 7th level spell, and a 6th level spell, even though it costs two more spell slots beyond that. That's why I felt using Meteor Swarm was a decent yardstick, because doing that amount of damage every round is worth the cost if battle goes beyond the third round. If anyone prepared Meteor Swarm they would probably find a way to use it by the third round of a combat, if they don't open with it. Since I have the total damage from a 6 Creation army at similar to damage to what Meteor Swarm does to an individual target, I think I have it in the right spot. They can do that damage every round (assuming they can position all 6 Creations correctly) but only the Drayk has any AoE capabilities.

Edited by earanhart
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

I have read through earanhart's rules for geneforge in D&D and I am planning on running a one shot with it to test how it plays. I am fairly familiar with DnD but most of my GM experience is either from Pathfinder or forum based roleplays. Does anyone have any advice on how to build a dungeon/Scenario that will work well with this system? I was planning on having either 3 or 4 players plus creations. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

For anyone looking at this in the future, now that this campaign is complete I will give some of my experiences with it.

 

Overall it worked very well. Not quite how I hoped, but really well.

 

5 players, a Wizard who went full Shaper, a monk who took the Guardian line of custom feats, a ranger who dabbled with Creations, and a rogue and druid who ignored most of the new mechanics.

 

The first canister I dropped gave the Eldritch Blast cantrip with Constitution as the casting stat to the monk. This was on session 2 and gave them the idea of what was going on fairly well. Would suggest similar approach to any Geneforge DnD.

 

The Wizard/Shaper kept two tank creations and a swarm of missile creations on hand, they added barely more than the Druids summons to combat, but were far more versatile, so I will call that system a success. Overall party damage was raised slightly when placed against one or two targets, but against groups it stayed about the same. 5e alpha strike problems were exacerbated, but that simply meant I needed to give Big Bads some minions. The bonus action command worked well, but I can see it being limiting for Sorcerer or Bard Shapers.

 

The Guardian style Essence Manipulation strike and "potions" were a lot more useful than I expected them to be. They allowed the monk to become very dangerous, but his internal essence pool was a natural limit and once he dropped four feats into it it SHOULD have been gamechanging. I call this another success.

 

The largest problem I came across was walking space. Several times the wizard had to reabsorb his Creations or leave them behind because of small tunnels. Tactical decisions, I call this another success.

 

Biggest thing I would change to this system if running it again would be to make canisters have multiple uses, so three or four players can use the same one if desired.

 

I ran the canister madness with no rules, simply told the players what was happening, let them RP it, and occasionally told them something was making them angry. It worked well, and the monk stopped using canisters cold-turkey once he realized it because hos character wouldn't abide by loss of control of himself. The Druid never touched a canister, some something "unnatural." Fair enough. Made for a good table dynamic.

 

Edit: should note that the druid was a summoner druid, using the core abilities there. His summons were not as useful as the Creations in most respects, but were better at battlefield control due to their expendability. Eight bodies wherever you want is a potent wall, even if each one dies in a single attack.

Edited by earanhart
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not willing to say this is the best way to play Dungeons and Dryaks, but is a functional one. We had fun with it. If someone is looking for a minimalist take that fulfills the flavor, this may be what they want.

 

Spawners struck fear into my players. Walking into one area with 5 of them had them cussing me out. Heh.

Edited by earanhart
typo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It didn't get overly cumbersome.

I took to keeping a distinct d20 on the side for this and just rolled it in the same fist as any damage they took. Tried to put this on the player side initially, but that took too much time. Easier to ask for the Con bonus when it was a question.

 

Wizard wound up swearing off Cryoas because they rolled poorly on that check. Purely random, but sometimes random doesn't look random.

 

AoEs were the bane of our Shaper. Had at least three times were a well placed fireball made multiple creations go rogue at once. This would probably have caused a TPK or two if I hadn't decided that Rogue Creations are NOT allied with whatever other enemies are present. Which makes sense. 

 

The Ranger who used only Unstable Creations (by my system, not GF Unstables) wound up taking the Warcaster feat to keep his one-at-a-time under control, but that is more because he played a low-Con Ranger than this system. 

 

The party did use the rogue system to their advantage as well. Casting Bane on big Creations then focusing that target until it failed to cause chaos in the enemy party was a common strategy for them.

 

Edit: in the earlier parts of the game, they did sometimes aggressively let their Thahds go Rogue. Put an Unstable or two in the middle of a group and then simply drop concentration. Worked nicely, not sure why they stopped doing that.

Edited by earanhart
Additional stuff
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...